Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you're it.Changed your life is too big, but sucked in for months, days, whatever, so that you remember where and when you heard them....okay.
1. Mozart, "Madamina," Ezio Pinza
2. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, Karajan
3. Stravinsky, Petrouchka, Dorati?
4. Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers
5. Holly Near, Fire in the Rain
6. Beethoven, Missa Solemnis
7. Enya, Watermark
8. Verdi, "Ritorna vincitor!", Eva Turner
9. Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Boehm
10. Beethoven, "Harp" Quartet, op. 74
11. Rachmaninov, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Horenstein/Wild
12. Villancicos y Danzas Criollas, Hesperion XXI
Hmm, only 12. Maybe I'll think of more. Some of my obsessive listening is too far in the past for me to remember!
14 comments:
Good ones! I knew that would be entertaining...that Missa Solemnis period must have been intense. Tx for playing!
Have you seen my Robert Shaw posting, about the Missa?
http://irontongue.blogspot.com/2005/02/as-promised.html
Argh, let's make that a clickable link: My Robert Shaw posting.
Fifteen is too many. I came up with nine:
1. Jacqueline duPre and Daniel Barenboim, Franck A major Sonata
2. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
3. Mozart C minor Mass (an old LP version with Christa Ludwig)
4. Rachmaninov 2nd Symphony (version unknown, heard on a car radio when I was 14 and realizing that Romantic music really meant something)
5. Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (Reiner, Chicago Symphony)
6. Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations--wait, you can do that?
7. Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come--wait, you can do that?
8. Berlioz "Nuits d'Été," Eleanor Steber
9. Brahms Clarinet Quintet--I think Reginald Kell/Fine Arts Quartet
Very nice!
I met LaMonte Young once or twice in Berkeley around 1959, where I knew him as a jazz alto player who also had some connection with the UCB Music Department. The hippest thing anyone ever said to me was his answer when I asked what he thought of Ornette, who had all us beboppers scared we were going to have to learn a new way to play. "Man," said LaMonte, "why does he play all that old-fashioned shit?"
OH MAN.
yes...great stuff! Big seconds to the Brahms...that changed my feelings about wind instruments forever.
Oh, why not...
1. Stern's Brahms Violin Concerto
2. Samson Francois' Ravel Piano Concertos
3. Bernstein's Rite of Spring
4. Samson Francois' Prokofiev Concertos 3 and 5
5. Stravinsky Piano Concerto with Lipkin and Bernstein (and the companion Pulcinella Suite was life-changing in its own way, too)
6. Mothers of Invention "Freak Out!"
7. Varese's Arcana and Martin's Concerto for 7 Winds etc. by Martinon and the Chicago band
8. Miles Davis Bitches Brew
9. Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano played by Ogden
10. Stern, Ormandy in the Prokofiev violin concertos
11. Jon Hassel - city: works of fiction
12. Szymanowski's 3rd piano sonata played by Daniel Graham
13. Vincent and Dorothea Persichetti playing his Concerto for Piano 4-hands
14. Patti Smith - Horses
15. Gould's first Goldbergs
My god, with the exception of the Hassel, those were all LPs!!
True of many of mine as well.
Love this topic.
1. The Monkees: More of the Monkees
Hey! I was 7, they were my "gateway drug" to pop music, as it were
2. Cream: Wheels of Fire
God, a bass player and drummer who didn't play the same repetitive stuff for the whole song! 15 minute songs!
3. Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced?
Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful
4. Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Brain Salad Surgery
My intro to prog rock, what an incredible album; I still can't believe the sheer *balls* it took to do Toccata.
5. Mahavishnu Orchestra: Birds of Fire
Wow, how could five guys play that fast and together in 18/8?
6. Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra (Boulez, NY Phil)
I was hooked in the first 2 minutes, my intro to 20th century music
7. Miles Davis: In A Silent Way
Still my favorite late night listen and great fun to play along with (modes, baby!)
8. Birtwistle: Earth Dances
A headphone favorite, it took me forever to untangle it, but it sounds like pop music to me now
9. Britten: A Midsummer's Night Dream
The first opera I went to, on a whim because I'd read Britten was gay. Opera queendom, here I come!
10. Reimann: Lear
One of my most treasured tapes is a recording of the SFO production in 1985, with Thomas Stewart; one of the few truly great Shakespeare > opera pieces, the total antithesis of the Gockley aesthetic
11. Schreker: Der Ferne Klang
My introduction to this incredible composer, one of my very favorite operas
12. Boulez: Repons
45 minutes of sheer gorgeousness, would love to hear it live someday
13. Birtwistle: The Second Mrs. Kong
An incredible libretto by the novelist Russell Hoban in which King Kong and Pearl, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, fall in love; wonderful music, would love to hear it live someday
14. Saariaho: L'amour de Loin
2 hours of sheer gorgeousness, I'd love etc. etc.
15. Pintscher: 5 Orchestral Pieces
It was apparently greeted with total silence in Cleveland, but I love this piece by this extremely talented young German composer, at turns violent and serene
Um, wow.
So are you going to London for the Saariaho? Believe me, I've been thinking about it.
I realized after I hit enter that sandwiched between #4 & 5 would be King Crimson: In The Court of the Crimson King, which made me realize that rock music could be almost entirely stripped of blues and r&b influences and still kick ass.
I'd love to go to London for L'amour de Loin but I'm saving up for Phish's west coast tour in August. I'm gonna do the tour rat thing and I'm gonna need every penny.
I wonder if we have a copy of In The Court around the house.
Ah, well, I am saving MY pennies for London.
Post a Comment