Robert Hurwitz
President, Nonesuch Records

I buy records for at least five reasons: professionally (I want to hear people I haven't heard before, or I want to hear recordings that people I trust are talking about); I buy them for my children (records they want and records I think they might like); I buy them to hear musician friends when they forget to send me a copy of their latest album;  I buy records that I simply want to hear because I still love listening to music; and I buy CDs of LPs I haven't replaced (because I don't listen to my old LPs, so unless I replace them, those discs are lost forever).
May 20, 1999


Laura Kuhn
Director, John Cage Trust

Photo by Betty Freeman

NewMusicBox is terrific, but I confess that what I'm listening to right now doesn't really qualify as new American music: both CDs available of Dulce Pontes, entitled Caminhos and Lagrimas, and both extraordinarily beautiful.  American audiences may only be familiar with her work from the film "Primal Fear" (Ed Norton, Richard Gere, et al.), where one cut was featured.  She recently is also featured on one cut on a CD with Andrea Bocelli, one of the many current darlings of the opera world, but it's too much Bocelli and not enough Pontes.  She's a long-standing and very much revered artist in Lisbon, and for good reason.  Both CDs are available but not easy to find: Eur/Portugal #850101 for "Caminhos" and Eur/Portugal #3003 for "Lagrimas."

I'm also listening to Mikel Rouse's yet unreleased American Dream, the materials for which (eight or so "retro-songs") form the basis of his in-progress opera (the third in the trilogy) The End of Cinematics (which, coincidentally, is up in a workshop version at St. Anne's this weekend). Really, really, really wonderful work.
May 20, 1999


Aaron Jay Kernis
Composer
New Music Advisor, Minnesota Orchestra

Hear an excerpt from his Pulitzer-Prize winning String Quartet No. 2

Photo by Daniel Vogel, courtesy G. Schirmer, Inc.

Between visiting Tower, Music Boulevard on the Web and BMG Music Service (this is not paid advertising) I've recently seen about 6 recordings pass into my consciousness, but only briefly so far , since as I'm busily composing at the moment and can't listen to anything right now, these will have to wait for my summer listening. So I can't tell you anything about them yet, but here they are:

J.S. Bach: Cantatas Vol. 7 dir. by Ton Koopman
Pierre Boulez: Repons etc.
Arvo Pärt: Kanon Pokajanen
Michael Gordon: Weather
Ernst Krenek: Symphony # 2
Stephen Hartke: Orchestral Works

I'm very curious about what my colleagues and older composers have written and are putting on disc, jointly out of my own desire to know and my mandate as new music advisor at the Minnesota Orchestra. I've always felt it important to hear as much new music in concert and have it at home for future reference.
May 27, 1999


Elliott Schwartz

Photo by Joel Chadabe, courtesy Electronic Music Foundation

As I'm living in England (on resident fellowship at Robinson College, Cambridge University) for the months of May and June, I've had a chance to hear some 20th century English music -- ranging from the earliest part of the century (Vaughan Williams' wonderful song cycle Songs of Travel) to more recent pieces such as Andrew Toovey's surreal opera The Juniper Tree, the 2nd Concerto for Orchestra by the wonderfully eclectic Robin Holloway, and a new recording of Libra and Gemini by Roberto Gerhard. I've also bought CDs that would have been virtually impossible to find in the states: discs on Scandinavian labels, with pieces such as Sinking Through a Dream Mirror by the Danish collage-quotation artist Karl Aage Rasmussen -- and even (on the BIS label) a saxophone quartet by Charles Wuorinen!

In addition, just before I left the USA on May 1st, I had a chance to hear three excellent American recordings: a terrific CD of music by Chen-Yi (recorded for CRI) that I reviewed for the journal "20th Century Music," a symphony and concerto by Lou Harrison (the concerto for violin, piano and gamelan-like percussion orchestra is a knockout), and a very striking collection of chamber works by Lucky Mosko.
May 20, 1999


Derek Bermel

Photo courtesy Derek Bermel

Last month I found some CD gems, among them Pittsburgh band Don Caballero's new album What Burns Never Returns (Touch and Go TG185CD) a minimalist rock album which takes King Crimson's early 80's stuff to the next level; the drummer Damon Che weaves some incredible polyrhythmic lines. Listening to the album reminded me of the whole band sleeping on my floor a few years ago during their midwest tour. I bought the young hip-hop group Blackstar's first album (Rawkus RWK 1158-2) and especially enjoyed one stellar track, "Thieves in the Night" based on a quote from Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye; It's worth buying the CD just for this lyric. I bought Bun-Ching Lam's The Child God opera on Tzadik (TZ 7031), and I've already listened to the piece five or six times. She has an uncanny sense of dramatic action in music; her earlier album on CRI also makes good listening. I found Morton Feldman's Coptic Light recorded by Michael Morgan and the Deutsched Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (CPO 999 189-2). I studied this score in detail several years ago, but hadn't heard a recording until last year when I heard Michael Tilson Thomas' recent version with the New World Symphony; I'm still not sure which one I like better, but I think that every American composer writing for orchestra should at least know the score.

I also picked up a copy of Bill Evans' Eloquence (Fantasy OJCCD-814-2) in a used record shop. I've been trying to find this one for years ever since I heard it on LP when I was 12; I love the first track "Gone With the Wind". While I was in Prague I bought the latest album by the Czech violin / vocals / percussion duo of Iva Bittova & Pavel Fajt (Panton 81 0795-2). Pretty wacky stuff, very personal and theatrical. For some reason I bought a second copy of Claude Vivier's opera Kopernikus, which I had gotten in Toronto a few years ago at the Canadian Music Centre (Les Disques SRC, MVCD 1047). I can't even count the number of times I've listened to this disc, as well as the newer disc of Vivier's orchestral music, featuring the Schoenberg and Asko Ensembles conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw and soprano Susan Narucki (Philips 454-231-2). I've been enjoying a CD of Gerald Barry's orchestral works that I obtained from the Irish Music Centre in Dublin (Marco Polo 8.225006). Worth the work it takes to get it!

I must say that most of the best music comes to my house by mail, sent by friends and fellow composers. Among the CDs which I dug were Jonathan Hart Makwaia's unbelievable disc (WOW! Get it!), Susan Botti's new release on CRI, Steve Burke's juicy disc "Clockwise", Alejandro Iglesias Rossi's CD of his newest electronic works, and Laura Caviani's jazz compositions on As One on the Innova label. Most of these are available from smaller labels or directly from the composers themselves.
May 26, 1999

  

What makes you buy a recording?  Tell us what recordings you've been listening to recently.

Need help with using the forum? Click here.