Unpopular Music - Contemplation Compilation

One of my New Year's resolutions is to post to Mixcloud more regularly. There are a few half-finished playlists lying around waiting to be molded into their final form. I've been working at home for the past two years, and too often doing the work to put up a mix also seems enough like working at home make me want to do something else. 

This one has been sitting around since Thanksgiving waiting for its finishing touches. My idle listening is on shuffle a lot of the time these days and I will sometime put songs aside for early morning listening on days when I don't need to get up or can't sleep or what have you, and thus the Contemplation Compilation was born. 

 

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Just because I find something “contemplative” doesn't necessarily mean its “quiet”, or “consonant”, or “doesn't have a drum solo”, but merely that it leaves space to get lost in for a while. Your results may vary. There is quite a bit of sacred choral in the program for non-evangelical reasons. Do with it what you wish. The playlist and a few bits of commentary on the music (but not full program notes this time), appear after the break...

 

If you think there is a lot of coughing during the Sibelius performance (especially in these times when a cough can feel like a gunshot), there is a truly gross amount of coughing that the BBC microphones captured between movements. Sibelius is present, but only via the radio.

There was time when I would listen to the first two movements of Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3 before I went to sleep. (one can't sleep through the third.)

It took a while to find a proper ending for the program. Of the various versions of The Unanswered Question I had on hand, I went with this one mostly because I got a chuckle imaging that “revised version” referred not to the composition, but to the question itself.

 

artist	title	album	comments	label / date
Luciano Berio; London Symphony Orchestra	Nones	Nones / Allelujah II / Concerto for Two Pianos	music by Luciano Berio	RCA 1976
Thomas Beecham, Royal Philharmonic	Swanwhite, Op. 54 - II: The Harp	Sibelius' 90th Birthday Concert	composition by Jean Sibelius	BBC Legends 1955
Géza Anda; Radio Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Ferenc Fricsay	Piano Concerto No. 3 - II: Adagio religioso	Béla Bartók - Klavierkonzerte 1-3	composition by Béla Bartók	Deutsche Grammophon 1959
The Tallis Scholars	Graduale "Requiem aeternam"	Requiem	music by Manuel Cardoso	Gimmel 1990
Vox Luminis	Christ lag in Todesbanden - Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt	Kantaten der Bach Familie	composition by Johann Sebastian Bach	Ricercar 2018
Sequentia	Veni, dilectissime	Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper - X & XI Centuries	music by anonymous (Rhineland, early 11th century)	Deutsche Harmonia Mundi
Henry Threadgill Zooid	Happenstance	Poof	Henry Threadgill (flt) Liberty Ellman (g) Jose Davila (tba, tbn) Christopher Hoffman (vc) Elliot Humberto Kavee (d)	Pi Recordings 2021
Kris Davis Infrasound	Save Your Breath	Save Your Breath	Kris Davis (p) Ben Goldberg (b clt, contra alto clt, clt) Oscar Noriega (b clt, clt) Joachim Badenhorst (b clt, clt) Andrew Bishop (contrabass clt, clt) Nate Radley (g) Gary Versace (org) Jim Black (d)	Clean Feed Records 2015
Hilliard Ensemble	Sabbato Sancto - In II Nocturno, Responsorium 4	Gesualdo – Tenebrae	music by Carlo Gesualdo	ECM 1990
Paul van Nevel; Huelgas-Ensemble	Balsamus et munda cera	O Gemma lux	music by Guillaume Dufay	Harmonia Mundi 1999
Eve Beglarian	Wonder counselor	Tell the Birds		New World Records 2006
Sound Prints	Other Worlds Suite: - 1. Space Exploration	Other Worlds	Joe Lovano (ts, comp) Dave Douglas (trp) Lawrence Fields (p) Linda May Han Oh (b) Joey Baron d)	Greeleaf Music 2021
Continuum	Elegie	A Continuum Portrait 2	Cheryl Seltzer (p) composition by Henry Cowell	Naxos 1984
Ensemble Micrologus - Patrizia Bovi	Moresca di Feragù	Carnivalesque	Patrizia Bovi (voice superius musical conductor) Goffredo Degli Esposti (pipe and tabor, pipe and psaltery, renaissance italian bagpipe) Gabriele Russo (viola da brazzo, rebec) Enea Sorini (voice bassus, prc) Simone Sorini (voice tenor cantore, lute) Olivier Marcaud (voice contratenor altus) Leah Stuttard (harp) Crawford Young (lute, vihuela da mano) Gabriele Miracle (dulcimer, prc) Gianni La Marca (tenor viol)	Edizioni Discografiche Baryton 2014
Jim Hall	Monet	Dedications & Inspirations		Telarc 1993
Michael Tilson Thomas; Chicago Symphony Orchestra	The Unanswered Question (Revised Version)	Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Ives	music by Charles Ives Adolph Herseth (trp)	Sony Classical 1986