Kaija Saariaho - Total Immersion day at The Barbican/Royal Opera House, London, 7 May 2023

In memoriam: Kaija Saariaho, 14 October 1952 - 2 June 2023, RIP

 

A wonderful deep dive into the soundworlds of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which in the days since these three broadcasts has turned into a career-summing memorial.  After a lifetime investigating the confluence of spectralist music and electronics, Saariaho leaves behind a stunning catalogue of innovative music in lots of different forms.  So here's the three broadcasts of music from the Total Immersion day that took place in London last month, plus a little bonus at the end from an earlier concert in Glasgow.

In the first broadcast, Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Du Cristal, Notes On Light, Saarikoski Songs and Circle Map.  Also included here are excerpts from the day's chamber music concert, performed by students of the Guildhall School, with Changing Light, Spins And Spells and Calices zooming in on the engrossing granularity of these smaller-scale works.

Kaija Saariaho's most recent opera Innocence is a multi-lingual narrative tying together a wedding and a school shooting, and this UK premiere took place over in Covent Garden and was tied in with the Total Immersion concert broadcasts.  Lasting nearly two hours, I'm afraid this one is all in one track as I had no recording timings to refer to for even attempting to break it up into sections.  But even without being able to follow the libretto, it's a weighty, moving work that's well worth a listen.

Lastly, we return to The Barbican to hear the BBC Singers perform another UK premiere, the ecological song cycle Reconnaissance (Rusty Mirror Madrigal).  This is paired with two of Saariaho's most famous vocal works, Nuits Adieux and Tag Des Jahrs, and the broadcast is completed with more chamber music.  The bonus I've added on at the end comes from a recent concert in Glasgow that was broadcast around the same time, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Saariaho's Laterna Magica.

Enjoy these recordings of a composer who leaves behind some truly spellbinding music.

Broadcast 1 link

Broadcast 2 link

Broadcast 3 link

pw for all: sgtg

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

Vista

London Sinfonietta/Sound Intermedia - Reich/Richter (Royal Festival Hall, London, 6 April 2023)

Concert from earlier in the month, broadcast last week.  The mouthwatering programme is themed around New York composers, or those with connections to the area, its second half given over to 40 minutes of Steve Reich.

First, we get the transformed Insect sounds of Mira Calix's Nunu; the world premiere of Anna Clyne's Fractured Time, and the joyous cacophony of Julia Wolfe's Tell Me Everything, inspired by a tape of Mexican brass music.  Bookending these in the concert's first half are two arrangements of an uncharacteristically brief Julius Eastman piece, Joy Boy from 1974.  Opening the programme in a wind-centred iteration, then leading into the interval in a strings-based version, it's a great pocket-sized example of the subtle constant transformation in Eastman's music.  

Reich/Richter, composed in 2019 and given album release last year, was composed by Steve Reich to accompany an abstract film by Gerhard Richter.  The patterned, textured film was shown to the audience for this performance, but with this obviously unavailable to broadcast listeners the music has to stand by itself.  And it most certainly does, in instantly recognisable Reich form across its four sections, but still managing to sound fresh in this late period of the New York legend's career.

link

pw: sgtg

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Plays Scriabin, Glière & Korsun (at the Lighthouse, Poole, 17th Jan 2023)

Incredible concert recording from January, given a recent broadcast.  Chief conductor Kirill Karabits, as part of a 'Voices From The East' series, put together this programme of Ukrainian and Russian music and started it off with the stunning sonic power of Anna Korsun's Terricone, receiving its world premiere.  Karabits and Korsun, who both have roots in the Donbas region, introduce the work as having its title inspired by large mining heaps there, and it sounds phenomenal - very much appealed to the Xenakis fan in me.

The BSO's artist in residence is featured next, letting the rest of the concert's first half showcase the talent of horn player Felix Klieser (whose adapted-by-necessity technique is quite amazing).  Reinhold Glière's Horn Concerto, composed in 1951 and with strong influence from the Romantic era, contrasts well with the rest of the programme.  As an encore, Klieser offers a Rossini fanfare.  The concert's second half is given over to Alexander Scriabin's 2nd Symphony in all its grandeur and subtlety, with the gorgeous Andante being a highlight for me.  The announcer signing off with a typically bonkers quote from Scriabin is just the cherry on top.

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Scriabin at SGTG: Universe

Satie - Orchestral Works (Toulouse Capitole Orchestra, 1988)

Couple of recent charity shop finds this week.  First up, here's a really enjoyable hour of the orchestral side of Erik Satie, which I could certainly do with exploring further.  Plasson and the Toulouse Capitole give this music all the subtlety, wit and charm it requires in a beautifully detailed recording from 1988.

A definite highlight of this collection is Satie's music for Parade, a surreal one-act ballet devised by Jean Cocteau, choreographed by Leonide Massine and with bizarre cubist costumes by Picasso.  Lasting only 15 minutes, the score includes the sounds of typewriters and foghorns - allegedly at Cocteau's insistence over Satie's distaste, but in hindsight sounding like an influence on Varèse, who was acquainted with Satie around this time.  Moving from surrealism to Dada, Francis Picabia's ballet Relâche ("Cancelled") sparkles with Satie's lush, expressive and witty score.

Elsewhere, Satie's sense of playfulness and influences from Fin De Siècle cabaret make the dance suite La Belle Excentrique an uproarious joy, and the Varèse-commissioned Cinq Grimaces occupies a similar space.  There's also opportunity on this album to just luxuriate in the sublime compositional genius of Satie in arrangements of works originally for piano (or written in both piano and orchestral forms).  Gymnnopodies No. 1 & 3 are here in orchestrations by Debussy, Gnossienne No. 3 by Poulenc, and Satie's own settings of La Piccadilly and En Habit De Cheval.  A hugely recommended collection.

 

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pw: sgtg 

Erik Satie at SGTG:

Piano Works

Gnossiennes/Ogives

Messe Des Pauvres

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Plays Xenakis, Debussy, Ligeti & Bartók (15 December 2022)

Concert broadcast from Glasgow last month, with the announcer opening on a Xenakis quote: "savageness is part of everyday life".  With such a weighty introduction, you'd be expecting some fireworks, and the musicians of the BBC SSO certainly deliver in the opening blast of Xenakis' computer-composed Atrées.  But there's subtlety too, in the sumptuous rendering of Debussy's Jeux that fills out the concert's first half.

Ilan Volkov, a conductor I always like for his relish for the avant-garde, talks us through the tuning used for Ligeti's Ramifications before taking the two groups of strings into the piece's still-remarkable miasma of sound.  The grand finale is another landmark in 20th century music, Bartók's Music For Strings, Percussion & Celesta, sounding riveting all the way from the grand sweep at its outset through the eerie third movement and beyond.

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pw: sgtg

Iannis Xenakis at SGTG:

Akea, Ittidra, À. R,, piano fragment  

Palimpsest, Épéi, Dikhtas, Akanthos

Pour La Paix/Voyage Absolu   

Nuits  

Rebonds B  

Akrata  

Atrées, Morsima-Amorsima etc  

Evryali/Herma   

Phlegra, Jalons etc
Oresteïa
Synaphaï
Persephassa
Ata, Jonchaies etc
Pléiades/Psappha
Bohor etc
Kraanerg
Terretektorh/Nomos Gamma
La Légende D'Eer
Persepolis

 

György Ligeti at SGTG:

Clear Or Cloudy: Complete Recordings On Deutsche Grammophon

Requiem, Aventures, Nouvelles Aventures 

Artikulation

Arvo Pärt - Miserere (1991)

It's definitely Pärt weather now, so dropping in on the great Estonian composer today at the turn of the 90s.  Settled in by this time to a fruitful relationship with ECM New Series, the three works featured here were recorded in late 1990 with the Hilliard Ensemble, Western Wind Chamber Choir, Beethovenhalle Orchestra and others.

The 34-minute title piece comes first, with its stark choral liturgy interspersed with orchestral swells and the organ playing of Christopher Bowers-Broadbent.  Miserere remains one of Pärt's most immersive works in its controlled power, and it sounds sublime in this first recording.  A short respite is programmed next in Festina Lente, very much cut from the same cloth as the Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten.  We return to Old Testament liturgy for the final track, Sarah Was Ninety Years Old, but wordlessly.  An intermittent drumbeat forms the backbone of the piece as the Hilliards in turn add plaintive melodies, the culiminative effect (once Broadbent's organ enters for the finale) being another masterpiece of steady pacing to thoroughly entrance the patient listener.  This might not be Pärt's easiest album to get in to, but it pays some of the greatest rewards.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Tabula Rasa

Kanon Pokajanen

Spiegel Im Spiegel

Other posts featuring music by Pärt:

Trivium

Re: ECM

Christmas in Budapest, 2016

James MacMillan 60th Birthday Concert, 2019

The Fruit Of Silence at Truro Cathedral, 2019

BBC Concert Orchestra, Proms 2021

Annie Gosfield - Flying Sparks And Heavy Machinery (2001)

Appropriately-titled release from New York-based composer Annie Gosfield (b. 1960, Philadelphia).  This album, her second of four for John Zorn's Tzadik label, presents two works "developed in 1999 during a six-week residency in the factories of Nuremberg" designed to "combine art and industry".  The three-part, 42-minute EWA7 that takes up the bulk of the album is based on the mechanical sounds and rhythms of its titular factory where the premiere performance was held, with the 'Cylinders' portion taken from this original recording.

 

Engines whir into life in the opening section, gradually joined by metallic clangs developing into interlocking rhythmic patterns.  The passages of eerie subtlety in this first movement, with electronics by Ikue Mori, are particularly effective in contrast to the industrial-racket expectations that the next two parts deliver on.  By this point, with drving rhythms underpinning the other noises, comparisons with Einstürzende Neubauten are inescapable, but honestly, who cares - if you like this sort of thing, Gosfield puts it together really, really well, and it's such riotous fun to crank up loud.  

 

The shorter work that closes the album and provides its title takes similar inspiration from industrial sounds, but writes them in to a (slightly) more conventional context for string quartet and percussion quartet.  It's a nice conclusion to a very satisfying album which makes me want to listen to more of Gosfield's music (believe it or not, this one was a charity shop find, earlier this year).

link

pw: sgtg

Alexei Lubimov - Der Bote: Elegies For Piano (2002)

A sublime programme, and one spanning the centuries from baroque to modern, performed by Alexei Lubimov (b. 1944, Moscow).  This recording was made by DRS Radio in Zurich at the end of 2000, and released as an ECM New Series album a year and a half later.

 

Kicking off with a 20-minute stretch that pairs CPE Bach and John Cage, it's clear that this is no ordinary classical solo piano recital.  But you know what, the Fantasie Für Klavier and a nice pacey In A Landscape complement each other just fine, and things just get more interesting from there.  With an overall theme of 'elegies', and an album title of 'the messenger' (taken from the haunting final piece), as a concept piece it plays out well, and just sounds heavenly.  Balancing stock repertoire choices like Liszt, Chopin and Debussy with the kind of more recent composers that have long been Lubimov's interest (Tigran Mansurian, Valentin Silvestrov), he turns in a great set that feels satisfying from beginning to end on every listen.

link

pw: sgtg

Giya Kancheli - Symphonies No. 1 & 7, Mourned By The Wind (1992)

Some more recordings of the Georgian master of steely storminess and melancholy calm, all taped in Moscow in September 1992.  The 'world premiere recording' banner up there I assume only refers to Kancheli's 7th Symphony (composed in 1986), as the other works on the disc both had prior releases - see links below for an earlier Mourned By The Wind.

This album, then, functions as a kind of bookending of Kancheli's symphonic era, that began in 1967 with his 1st and ended 19 years later with the aforementioned 7th.  Symphony No. 1's two movements show early signs of the Kancheli trademarks - fluctuating dynamics, especially in the choppy first movement, then a more languid solemnity in the second (love that twinkling percussion though).  The dramatic fireworks and passages of elegaic respite of Symphony No. 7 are contained in a single, flowing movement lasting 21 minutes.  Some later recordings are noted as proper blow-your-speakers-out monstrosities, but this premiere doesn't sound too extreme.

In between the symphonic bookends sits a lovely rendering of Mourned By The Wind, Liturgy for Viola and Orchestra.  It's not drastically different in approach to the 1988 Georgian recording, more a matter of taste - occasional little subtleties are more apparent in one version than in another.  Nice to have a contrast.

 

link

pw: sgtg

 

Giya Kancheli at SGTG: 

Symphonies No. 3 & 6

Bright Sorrow/Mourned By The Wind (80s recordings)

Stravinsky - Apollo, The Rite Of Spring (City Of Birmingham Symphony Orch/Rattle, 1989)

Picked up this cracking little 80s recording recently for a couple of reasons: I like Rattle's Stravinsky in general, and also here was a work of Igor's that I hadn't heard before.  Apollo, or Apollon Musagète in its full original title, is a two-tableaux ballet dating to the late 1920s and centred around the Muses of Greek mythology.  The recording here by the Birmingham Symphony under Rattle is Stravinsky's 1947 revision of Apollo.  In contrast to the strident, outrageous in its time Rite, Apollo is gentle, lyrical and almost Romantically lush, making it a great fit for Rattle, with a great sounding orchestra.  The Rite Of Spring that accompanies Apollo on this disc is also the 1947 version, and doesn't go for over-the-top fireworks but brings out lots of nice subtleties.  A really enjoyable collection overall.

link

pw: sgtg

Igor Stravinsky at SGTG:

Agon (plus bonus post: Firebird, Petroushka & Rite, Rattle 2017)

Aldous Huxley In Memoriam/Pribaoutki (live 2022)

Philharmonia Orchestra (featuring Víkingur Ólafsson) Plays Mahler, Adams & Clyne (22nd Sept 2022)

Heady stuff from the Philharmonia, as they kick off their new season with a Mahler symphony.  Some lightness first though in a piece composed by London-born, New York based Anna Clyne for the 2013 Proms, twisting and twirling through evocations of masquerade balls gone by for a nicely frothy five minutes.

 

The Philharmonia Orchestra are then joined by pianist Víkingur Ólafsson to play Must The Devil Have All The Tunes?, John Adams' funk-infused piano concerto from 2018.  To sign off before the interval, Ólafsson encores with a gorgeous Rameau piece.  The second half of the concert is then given over to Mahler's hour-plus 5th Symphony in all its sombre-to-life-affirming glory, to complete a slightly odd on paper but very enjoyable programme, brilliantly played.

link

pw: sgtg

John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Naive And Sentinmental Music (live 2019)

Harmonielehre (live 2022)

John Adams - Harmonielehre (BBC SSO & RSNO, 9th February 2022)

A live concert broadcast from back in February, and a joining of forces to mark the Association of British Concert Orchestras' 2022 conference in Glasgow.  The hundred-plus combined might of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra renders John Adams' mid-80s work in fine detail, but first up is a UK premiere.  Samy Moussa's Elysium is inspired by views of the afterlife in classical Greece, and shimmers into view before building in grandeur.

The solo spotlight for the programme falls on 19-year old Spanish violinist María Dueñas, who lives up to her "rising superstar" billing in a great rendering of Shostakovich's 1st Violin Concerto.  After the interval, the double-orchestra gives its full energy to John Adams' wondrous Harmoniehlehre.  Taking fresh inspiration from imagery in his dreams, Romantic music and harmonic exploration, Adam's three-section work from 1985 barrels along in unforgettable style.

link

pw: sgtg

 

Samy Moussa at SGTG:

A Globe Itself Infolding 

 

Dmitri Shostakovich at SGTG:

Symphony No. 15 (live 2017, scroll past main post)

Symphony No. 15 (live 2022) 

John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Naive And Sentinmental Music (live 2019)

Miles Davis - Aura (rec. 1985, rel. 1989)

A suite of music composed for Miles by Palle Mikkelborg in 1984, and recorded in early 1985.  Contractual hurdles delayed its release until 1989, but it was worth the wait - Aura is nothing less than Miles Ahead for the 80s, lushly orchestrated but with the sound right up to date for its era.  Elements of rock, reggae and electronic music are all woven into the multi-colour suite, which is musically germinated from a ten-note theme based on the letters in "MILES DAVIS", a la B-A-C-H.  Sometimes eerily ambient, such as the opening minute with the calm broken by John McLaughlin introducing the theme, sometimes hard-edged and frenetic, Aura is a great album that finds Miles with plenty of spark left in him.

link

pw: sgtg

Miles Davis at SGTG:
Conception
Walkin'
Blue Moods
Bags' Groove
Miles Ahead (with Gil Evans)
Sketches Of Spain (with Gil Evans)
Quiet Nights (with Gil Evans) 

A Tribute To Jack Johnson

Live-Evil
On The Corner

In Concert

Big Fun
Agharta

Dark Magus

We Want Miles

Frank Zappa (BBC Symphony Orchestra / uBu Ensemble) - Total Immersion at The Barbican, London (19th March 2022)

With the Proms posts over, here's a 'Total Immersion Day' broadcast from earlier in the year.  Taking a fresh look at the Zappa music of the London Symphony Orchestra, Perfect Stranger and Yellow Shark eras, and more besides, the day's events also threaded in Zappa's formative influences as a composer.  This gives us a great take on Varèse's Intégrals as well as some lesser-known Stravinsky, in his late work written in memoriam of Aldous Huxley and the miniature song-cycle Pribaoutki from 1914.

For Zappa's music, the 'Total Immersion' concerts were divided between the full force of the BBC Symphony Orchestra to play the LSO-era works, and the contemporary ensemble uBu for the rest.  From the former, we get the lushly-orchestrated version of Pedro's Dowry, the complementary ballet pieces Bob In Dacron and Sad Jane, and the full-length Mo 'N Herb's Vacation.  The ensemble play The Perfect Stranger, Outrage At Valdez, Dog/Meat and Be-Bop Tango, giving full vivid life to Zappa's musical colourings.  Taken together, this broadcast is a great presentation of unique music, made even more informative by a couple of chats with Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play author Ben Watson.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Wazoo (Live 1972) 

Road Tapes Venue #2 (Live 1973)

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Orchestral Favourites

Sleep Dirt

Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar

Boulez Conducts Zappa - The Perfect Stranger  

Jazz From Hell

You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 2: The Helsinki Concert

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

BBC Proms 2022 - NYOGB plays Elfman, Gershwin & Ravel (6 Aug 2022)

A stunning Proms concert full of colour, texture, rhythm and everything else from Britain's premier teenage ensemble, the National Youth Orchestra Of Great Britain.  First up was a new work written specially for them by film & TV heavyweight Danny Elfman.  The 23 minutes of Wunderkammer are by turns boisterous and fun, then eerie and dramatic, picking up the pace again to finish off the piece in dramatic style.

After some stage re-arranging (over 100 players in that opening), the programme stays in the US but winds back a century.  Well, not quite a century, as this is Ferde Grofé's orchestration from the 40s, but any kind of Rhapsody In Blue is good with me, and this one has Simone Dinnerstein as guest pianist.  The first half closes with a little bit more Gershwin, an arrangement of My Man's Gone Now, then the second half is given over to Ravel's complete ballet Daphnis & Chloé.  All of it sounds magnificent, beautifully rendered by the hugely talented young players.

link

pw: sgtg

BBC Proms 2022: BBC Philharmonic plays Aho, Saariaho & Shostakovich (4 Aug 2022)

Another Proms highlight, this time pairing a couple of Finnish composers with Shostakovich's final symphony.  For the opening work, the BBC Philharmonic were joined on theremin by Carolina Eyck, for whom the theremin concerto Eight Seasons was originally written.  Kalevi Aho (b. 1949 in Forssa) was inspired by some of the shamanistic aspects of Sami culture, tying this in to the 'conjuring music from thin air' aspect of the theremin.  The instrument blends in beautifully with the orchestra, making full use of its dynamic and tonal range; as an 'encore' of sorts, Eyck gives the audience a demonstration of the theremin's capabilities.

Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952, Helsinki) has featured on SGTG a few times before (see below), so I always love hearing more from her.  The two-part Vista was inspired by a drive along the Californian coast, and saw Saariaho consciously varying her usual techniques with great sweeping atmospherics in the first section and driving energy in the second.  To close the programme, the orchestra give a cracking rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15, its sombre melancholy balanced by frequent flashes of wit.

link

pw: sgtg

Kalevi Aho at SGTG:

Solo XV

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

Jacob Druckman - String Quartets Nos. 2 & 3, Dark Wind, Reflections On The Nature Of Water (1998)

A sample of the chamber music composed by Philadelphia-born Jacob Druckman (1928-1996).  The most avant-garde piece here, from Druckman's experimental 1960s, is the String Quartet No. 2.  Placed last on this collection, the single-movement work calls for the wildest playing techniques, and contrasts nicely with the album opener, the lengthy light-and-shade of 1981's String Quartet No. 3.  In between are Reflections On The Nature Of Water (1986), a solo marimba suite performed by the composer's son Daniel Druckman, and another pensive, dramatic string piece Dark Wind (1994).

link

pw: sgtg

The Group For Contemporary Music at SGTG:

Morton Feldman: String Quartet

BBC Proms 2022: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - From 8-Bit To Infinity (31 July 2022)

The first of its kind for the BBC Proms - a concert given over to video game music, from the 80s (the opening piece) to the present day.  The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra brought this music off the monitor screen and on to the stage in fine style, in a roughly chronological journey showing the maturation of gaming soundtracks through the 90s to the early 21st century.  Having not really been a gamer since the early 90s, pretty much all of this music was new to me, and really brought home the wide scope and ingenuity of these (mostly Japanese) composers.  

 

A couple of composers featured here were familiar to me: soundscaper CHAINES has been previously featured on SGTG, and here pays tribute to Pokémon, Ecco The Dolphin, and Secret Of Mana in a premiere setting.  Hildur Guðnadóttir I also knew from her Chernobyl soundtrack, and her Battlefield 2042 music is one of the definite highlights of this thoroughly engrossing programme.

 

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pw:sgtg

BBC Proms 2022 - Hebrides Ensemble Play Xenakis, Messiaen & Ravel (Proms in Belfast, 18 July 2022)

This year's first post from the Proms actually comes from the Waterfront Hall Studio in Belfast, and is an hour-long chamber concert marking Iannis Xenakis' centenary.  To offer up something special for the occasion, the programme starts with an unpublished early piece by Xenakis: a piano fragment from 1949.  Lasting under a minute, it's nice to hear something so rare by Xenakis.  Straight afterwards, the Hebrides Ensemble dive in to the composer's late period with Akea (1986) for piano and string quartet, with the dramatic sonorities making his signature unmistakeble.  Ittidra, one of Xenakis' final works from a decade later, features ghostly, queasy strings, and the Ravel homage À R. (1987) for piano highlights his formative influences, as do the Ravel and Messiaen pieces that fill out a well-chosen programme.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa - Orchestral Favourites (1979)

First LP dedicated to Zappa's orchestral music, taken from concerts held at UCLA's Royce Hall in September 1975.  An early attempt was made at pitching an album from the concerts to Columbia Masterworks in 1976, but when this fell through the music was lost in the shuffle of Zappa's contractual woes and finally emerged as one of the "ugly covers" trio (I mean, I like the cover of Sleep Dirt, but definitely not this one) in 1979.

Orchestral Favorites combines then-new material with reworkings of previous pieces, and starts with the melodic grandeur of Strictly Genteel, which in its original form closed the 200 Motels film.  Some tricksier music is next in Pedro's Dowry, one of Zappa's typically lurid seduction stories, and the brief Naval Aviation In Art? (which would later be re-done under Boulez on The Perfect Stranger) closes out the LP's first side.  Rather than being arrangements solely for classical orchestra, the Royce Hall recordings combined orchestral players with Zappa band regulars, and the Duke Of Prunes revival here is the most 'rocked-up orchestra'-style piece, complete with a later overdubbed guitar solo.  The rest of the album is then given over to Bogus Pomp, a suite of reworked themes from 200 Motels and even farther back.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Sleep Dirt

Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar

Boulez Conducts Zappa - The Perfect Stranger  

Jazz From Hell

You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 2: The Helsinki Concert

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

 

Bonus post: Macca at Glasto

Got hold of Paul McCartney's Glastonbury set from a week ago (the radio broadcast), primarily just for myself after reading reviews.  Then thought I may as well share it here for anyone who wants to pick it up.  I mean, the guy's just turned 80, and zips through almost three hours of a headline festival show drawing on one of the most legendary back catalogues around.  Blasts out Helter Skelter, turns in a gorgeous Blackbird, takes the audience through a living history lesson that spans six decades, is reasonably judicious with the most recent material, and brings out Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen as guests.  Lovely stuff.

link

pw: sgtg