Classical Music Notes from All Over

I did not set out to write an entire blog about the current classical music scene at all, but one thing led to another:

I’m listening to a CD of Gloria Cheng performing world premieres of late 20th century solo piano works by Steven Stucky (born 1949), Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994), and Esa-Pekka Salonen (born 1958). So right away, for one thing, I am hearing, for possibly the first time, “classical” music written by someone who is younger than me.



Such horror aside, the CD, Piano Music Of Salonen, Stucky, And Lutoslawski, won the 2008 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (without Orchestra)." Stucky and Salonen both studied under the Polish composer Lutoslawski. (Salonen, probably, better known to most as the Music Director of the L.A. Philharmonic & principal conductor of the London Philharmonia). From what I’ve heard of them, modern Polish composers favor the lyrical more than most others, especially more than a lot of 20th century Americans. I think that rubbed off on Stucky and Salonen a little, although some by the latter are more atonal. This piano music is more something I would happily sit down and listen to than some other modern works. Stucky compares it to Debussy, which I can see, and Stravinsky, which, not so much....


Speaking of piano music, the Van Cliburn Foundation has graciously posted on YouTube quite a few (maybe all) performances from the 2009 Van Cliburn competition and, in fact, streamed the whole competition live at http://www.cliburn.tv/, a fact which, sadly, I didn’t learn until just now.

BTW, the winners were announced today: Gold Medalists (tie for first): Nobuyuki Tsujii, 20 (Japan) and Haochen Zhang, 19 (China) and Silver Medalist: Ms. Yeol Eum Son, 23 (South Korea).

The YouTube URL is http://www.youtube.com/user/VanCliburnFoundation

Finally, I think I may have mentioned this performance when I first heard it several months ago on a California radio station. Recently on Performance Today they’ve replayed it: Argentinean composer Osvaldo Golijov's delightful work, Azul, performed by Yo-Yo Ma with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Kahane.

This was one of the best Performance Today shows I’ve heard and it included another finalist in the Van Cliburn Competition, Bulgarian Evgeni Bozhanov, who plays the Third movement from Piano Quintet in F Minor by Cesar Franck. You can hear all of this week’s episode of Performance Today at:

http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/

(I like to show the actual URLs so people know where they’re going.)

Getting back to Golijov’s Azul, if there is one thing I’ve mentioned here that you should listen to, that is it. It is very beautiful, creative, and entertaining! It has a lot of cool percussion that reminded me of one of my all-time favorite jazz pieces, Pharoah Sander’s
"Astral-Travelling," which was on his album, Thembi. Fortunately, this song is on YouTube!