By Zoë Lang

This post addresses a topic that I’ve hoped to write about for a while: resources for listening to classical music online. I’m planning to stick to resources that are free (no iTunes) and accessible to anyone (no Naxos/Classical Music Library) as well as not potentially infringing on copyright (YouTube). For this post, I will discuss three of my favorites and welcome you to submit others. I’d like to investigate other possibilities for listening online, so please feel free to comment and leave more suggestions.

It is truly humbling to think about the sheer quantity of music that is at our fingertips today. Think about what was available a mere hundred years ago, when one had to rely on either what was playing at their local concert hall (and/or discussed in newspapers), what was in piano arrangements, or what could be studied in scores. Today, we can simply pull up whatever we want from some digital resource and investigate it, making copies onto our hard drives for future hearings. This freedom is unprecedented and astounding.

And yet, how many of us truly take advantage of this potential? It can be equally easy to fall into ruts, simply listening to the same pieces (or composers) as always. Even though I want to expand my knowledge of pieces, it becomes difficult to know where to begin. The same freedom of choice is also constricting in this respect. Attending concerts of an adventuresome orchestra can help redress this problem as well, but many groups are canon perpetuators as well. Also, unless one subscribes to a season, it is easy to fall into the trap of only attending concerts with favorite works, rather than seeking the new.

What I like about the following three resources — apart from the fact that they cost nothing — is the fact that they all encourage the listener to go beyond his/her knowledge of repertoire and explore new works. They do so by making access easy and providing a wide variety of choice. Also, from my experience, all are reliable (they don’t crash often) and have good quality performances. Here are my top three:

1) Klassik auf Klick from SWR 2. I subscribe to this weekly podcast and am alerted to a new recording every Monday from the SWR 2 archives. These recordings are available for free download for that week and can be heard at any time from the SWR 2 website. While these performances can feature canonic composers and works, they also explore lesser known pieces and composers. Either way, it’s a very convenient way of learning new repertoire when it simply appears in my Google Reader once a week. I do my best to keep up with the recordings, even listening to pieces that I (think I) know. For instance, recently Mendelssohn’s Trio in d minor was featured, which has never been one of my favorite works. The first movement is featured in the textbook that I use for teaching my music history survey and it never clicked with me. But the second movement — now that one I liked! Had I not listened to the recording, I wouldn’t have known about it at all, barring accidental attendance at a concert at which it was featured. I will admit that I often find myself loading Beethoven’s Opus 18, no. 5 for the umpteeth time, but I am pleased that this service makes it so easy to also hear works I don’t know.

2) The Schoenberg Center website. Apart from providing digital archives of the Schoenberg Center holdings and creating fun YouTube videos, the Schoenberg Center has also managed to make recordings easily accessible for all of Schoenberg’s works on their website as a ‘Jukebox.’ This is great! I find that it’s one of the easiest ways to get to know new works and explore pieces you might not know otherwise. If you are not familiar with the Schoenberg Center website, and especially the Jukebox, then I highly recommend that you investigate (and if you haven’t already seen that YouTube video, seriously, you really should).

3) Carnegie Hall Commissions. I stumbled upon this website accidentally once when I wanted to learn more about David Lang’s Match Girl Passion. Much to my surprise, not only did I learn more about this piece, but I could also hear the entire work online, for free. The same goes for most of the pieces that have been commissioned for Carnegie Hall since 2006. That is a whole lot of new music by many of the most influential composers working today. For free. There are also biographies of the composers and a wealth of interesting works. I especially liked Evan Ziporyn’s Sulvasutra, but I would encourage you to explore and find your own favorite.

György Ligeti

You all know that I am a big fan of lists. Today I am sharing with you five of my most favorite orchestra pieces. Let me know how your list would look like!

1. Luciano Berio: Sinfonia
   Wikipedia | Amazon | iTunes
2. Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen
   Wikipedia | Amazon
3. Iannis Xenakis: Metastasis
   Wikipedia | Amazon | iTunes
4. Georg Friedrich Haas: In Vain
   Wikipedia | Amazon
5. György Ligeti: Atmospheres
   Wikipedia | Amazon | iTunes

Here is a short “prelisten” for you:

As I was doing this favor, I thought about the fact that I spend a significant amount of time hearing music but very little actually listening.  This reminded me of a comment made by musicologist Reinhold Brinkmann when I was a teaching assistant for a class he taught that examined Vienna (including, and especially, the Second Viennese School) for non-majors.  He noted that students today were so accustomed to hearing music everywhere that it was almost impossible to convince them to listen.  They would experience great difficulty staying focused in lectures when musical examples were played, almost as thought they thought it was a chance to break their concentration rather than remaining engaged.  At the time, I thought that this phenomenon was limited to non-majors.  But now I am teaching students who want to spend their lives as musicians and music educators, and I’ve seen much of the same behavior.  I am constantly amazed by how often I need to remind them to be quiet when I play an example in class.

Of course, I assumed that I wasn’t like that: I listen.  But as I took the time to focus on the Rostropovich, I realized that much of the time, I didn’t.  Music is often around: I have it on in the car, I play it in my classes, I even run through entire operas in the background while I am working on time-consuming tasks.  But the music in the car is to distract me while driving, music in class is a form of work, and the operas are to try and absorb them on almost a subconscious level (if I listen to Siegfried enough times, maybe I will finally remember it).  Actual listening, for me, happens very infrequently.  Perhaps this is a function of music’s ubiquity or the fact that it is simply too easy to listen to music with all of the devices we can use to do so today (when I am at a concert, I have far less difficulty paying attention).  My experience with the Rostropovich, though, reminded me of how listening to a wonderful interpretation of an intricate piece has no parallel.

Listen to Rostropovich play the Sarabande from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1

Istanbul. Image by Kara Sabahat. Published under a creative common license

İstanbulu dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı
I am listening to Istanbul intently, my eyes closed
Önce hafiften bir rüzgar esiyor
At first breeze gently rises
Yavaş yavaş sallanıyor
Slowly, slowly swing
Yapraklar, ağaçlarda;
The leaves on the trees
Uzaklarda, çok uzaklarda,
Water-carriers ceaselessly ringing their bells
Sucuların hiç durmayan çıngırakları
I am listening to Istanbul intently, my eyes closed
İstanbul’u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı

– Orhan Veli

With closed eyes we too will listen to Istanbul. Not so much to the water carriers, the birds, and the bazars as Orhan Veli did in his timeless poem on the sounds of Istanbul. But rather our ears will follow the plentitude of musics that are flowing out of this wonder-ful metropolis that connects the European and Asian continents in one big sonic jungle.

Istanbul is going to be European Capital of Culture in 2010 and in preparation of the big festivities zeitschichten.com is going to explore with you the New Music scene of Europe’s largest city. Over the next year or so we will introduce you to some of the most exiting new music that is being composed, improvised, and performed in Istanbul today.

In a series of short articles my colleague Yaprak Melike Uyar and I will introduce new recordings of contemporary works, interview composers and performers, uncover the best venues for avantgarde music, and thus hopefully open up the musical treasure trove of Turkey’s most exiting city for you.

As always, please let us know what you think! We are looking forward to any comments you may have.

İstanbulu dinliyoruz, gözlerimiz kapalı

Guillaume Dufay and Binchois

One of my American friends asked me for a list of listening recommendations. She would like to get involved more with music and was wondering what the most essential pieces in the canon are. The idea was to come up with a list of approximately thirty titles which she could listen to and get to know a bit better over the period of a year or so.

Here is the first part of my list. It contains music that was composed up to ca. 1500. Whenever available I linked to the itunes store. This way you can buy the tracks directly if you are interested.

Please let me know what you think about my choice and how this list can be improved. (Use the commentary function below to do so). I am looking forward to hearing from you!

1. Chant Wars by Dialogos and Sequentia. A compilation of chant that reflects the confrontation between newly emerging Carolingian repertoires and older local traditions in the 9th century.
   
2. Viderunt omnes by Perotin. This is an example of early polyphony. A four-voice setting of the Christmas gradual by one of the great masters of the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Excellent performance by the Hilliard Ensemble.
   
3. Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300 – 1377). A 14th-century setting of the Ordinary of the Mass (i. e. the unvarying chants that were used every day, unlike the Proper of the Mass which contained chants that were specific for a particular day).
   
4. Chansons by Dufay. These wonderful “songs” are gems of Renaissance court culture. I especially like this recording by Bernhard Landauer, Michael Posch, and the Unicorn Ensemble, even though their performance would not satisfy the purists amongst the Early Music crowd. My favorite chansons are Helas mon dueil and Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys but you should really listen to the whole album!
   
5. Binchois: Chansons. I know it would probably make much more sense to choose some motets by Binchois instead of yet another set of chansons. However I love this album so much, that I cannot hold myself back and urge you to take a close “look” as well. My favorite song is En regardent vostre tres doulx maintiens.
   
6. Josquin: Missa L’homme armé Sexti toni. An entire mass composed on the basis of a secular song.