subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
simon silverdollar said:i know nothing about it. what should i listen to? how should i listen to it?
I wrote the following a couple of years ago...
I think it all depends on where you're coming from. I arrived from punk and new wave and the post punk electronic experimentation of groups like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, and was therefore attracted most to noisy and rhythmic stuff. I had no interest (at the time) in 'proper' classical music (i.e. Beethoven, Mozart, etc.) which my parents listened to. Instead I got into modern music and very old music...
Bartok - String Quartets
#2 is the one to start with; the second movement is very rhythmic
#4 is a more high-powered version of #2 and moves through different formats, including a long cello solo, a entirely pizzicato movement, and a wild hungarian gypsy tearout (the final movement)
the other quartets are a more acquired taste
Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring
a rhythmic tour de force - an orchestral ballet of a pagan ritual
follow this with...
Bartok - Music For Strings. Percussion & Celeste
Messiaen - Turangalila Symphony (maybe — it's rather long)
Berio - Points On The Curve To Find
this is based on a fast moving continuous single line piano part consisting mostly of trills and shakes and little riffs. It's very complicated but also very simple as there's a definite hook (the piano)
John Cage - Constructions for percussion
John Cage - Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano
the constructions are pioneering percussion ensemble pieces
the prepared piano arises from these; it was such a pain carting all the percussion gear around that Cage found a way to do something similar on a single instrument: by sticking screws and nails and things in between the strings of the piano
Ligeti - Volumina
a great big mass of tone clusters leading to a powerful dark swirling sound; there's plenty of orchestral stuff along the same lines, but it works to best effect I think on the solo organ. If you can find it, get Gerd Zacher's recording, since this also includes his unique version of the organ study "Harmonies". Zacher replaces the electronic organ blower with a vacuum cleaner, so as the clusters increase the wind force gets progressively less, producing a weird muddy sound that gradually fades away.
from the other end...
David Munrow & the Early Music Consort of London
all these recordings are worth checking, but in the context of the stuff above try and find...
The Late Fourteenth Century Avant-Garde
This was self-conciously arty stuff (from the 1300s!) and pioneers a lot of techniques that weren't revisited until the 20th Century.
Music from the Time of the Crusades
mostly 13th century, very stark and forthright music
more later