Proper blog post..

I haven't been posting new music that I have discovered for a long long time. Partly because of my busy schedule, and partly because I don't feel the urge to write about them.

I joined a choir a while ago, and it changed my way of listening to choral music. After I learned to sing Mozart's requiem, now I can fully enjoy the part where I don't really like before, e.g. Domine Jesu and Hostias. Other movements became more attractive and interesting, e.g. Kyrie, Rex Tremendae, Confutatis and I found more pleasure listening to them compare to my previous experiences before joining the choir.

In the past few months or so, I've been listening to Faure's Requiem. What a great piece this is. Sure, it doesn't have the Dies Irae sequence, but the music simplicity (compare to say Verdi's or Brahms' Requiem) is simply heavenly. Most people would no doubt associate the Pie Jesu and In Paradisum when they heard about Faure's requiem. They're both fantastic movements, but the movement that I love the most is Sanctus. I can always imagine heavenly images when I heard harp arpeggios in the beginning of Sanctus. Also, being a tenor myself, I always enjoy the Tenor entry after the horn passages in the middle ('Hosanna in excelsis'). Other movements have their own charm, such as the baritone solo in Libera Me and the little 'Dies Irae' episode which sounded a bit underwhelming. As a whole, I still very much love this requiem.

The new choral music that I listened to recently is Haydn's Nelson Mass. Whoa, what a piece! I fell in love with the dramatic Kyrie the first time I listened to it. Gloria is an upbeat movement in the beginning, with memorable bass solo in the middle, and back to the same melody as the opening melody. I'm less keen on Credo, but still enjoy the 'descendit descaelis'. I guess I would be less keen on Credo in every mass if I always compare how composers set the 'Et vitam venturi' text with Beethoven's setting of the text as a massive fugue in his Missa Solemnis. Sanctus starts off solemnly before the 'Pleni Sunt Caeli' section changes the mood completely. The Benedictus is wonderful to sing at, especially during the most dramatic (IMO) in the whole piece where the trumpets and drums play fortissimo passages against the choir singing the word 'Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini' just before the 'Hosanna in excelsis' section in the end. Agnus Dei rounded up the whole work with upbeat 'dona nobis pacem'.

In piano concerto world, I'm still discovering Prokofiev's piano concertos. After the fantastic third piano concerto, I'm quite surprised with the different mood in his second piano concerto. The cadenza in the first movement is quite obvious fiendishly difficult to play, and of course the tricky running scales of the piano in the Scherzo. Heavy brass opens up the third movement and will catch a lot of people off guard. But what impressed me the most is the last movement. There's this passage around the 6 minutes mark in my recording where the piano enters after a fermata from the orchestra. The piano played a very eerie, satirical melody of the main theme. I always feel unsettled here. I don't know what to feel with the finale where it feels like the piano is arguing with the orchestra and finally had enough and ended it (and also the piece) with a big chord with the timpani in the end. A true masterpiece which made plenty of impacts to the listener!

I have also been exploring Chopin's Nocturnes - opp. 9 and 15 - . I very much prefer op. 9 nocturnes to op. 15 due to their more memorable melody and elegance. Op. 9 No. 2 and No. 3 are my favourites among these six nocturnes (3 each from both sets). For me, Ballade No. 3 is rediscovered when I listened to Cortot playing it in the EMI set. Whoa, what difference he brought to the piece! Just a couple of seconds in the beginning and I know that his playing is going to change how I think about this piece. His playing of other ballades is wonderful as well, do yourself a favour and get the recording of Cortot playing the ballades! They're so different (yet feel so right) than the other ballades that I've listened so far (Rubinstein, Zimmerman, and Richter).

Finally, I'll round up by just mentioning the 5th symphony of Dvorak. A very much underrated work with plenty of beautiful melodies. I loved it when Dvorak brought back the main theme of the first movement in the very end of the piece where it was played by one of the brass (trumpet?). That moment always made me very happy. The 2nd and 3rd movements are good fun as well. You might recall Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto in the opening 4 notes of the 2nd movement of this symphony (I noticed this courtesy of Wikipedia).

Until next time when I have listened to more interesting music and have the mood to write more about them.