The Rambler

Garry Fung makes an excellent suggestion in a comment on my Stravinsky/Rite of Spring/YouTube post – why doesn’t someone collect together all the classical music stuff on YouTube. Well, most of that falls outside the boundaries of this blog; there is also a lot of it, and not all of it terribly worth watching. But I am going to start listing here those video gems of contemporary classical music that I come across. Similarly to my classical music mp3 blog post this should be regarded as a post in constant process, and hardly definitive. I’m also not going to just start posting all the results of searches that I find, but only links to those videos that are most interesting or unusual. Things that won’t get posted: incomplete works (on the whole); stuff that’s poor quality in some way; videos in which the music accompanies another film (except in exceptional circumstances).

So, here you go: the Rambler’s ongoing guide to the best of contemporary classical music on YouTube.

(Updated, 8 Feb 2007, to put things in alphabetical order by composer)

Barrett – knospend-gespaltener. Played by Richard Haynes.

Berberian – 1972 Italian documentary on Cathy Berberian, also featuring plenty of Berio. In five parts, the first of which includes Cathy singing Berio’s arrangement of ‘Ticket to Ride’. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Berio – Sequenzas. Several of these on YouTube: III (unknown singer, but awesome); IV (Luciane Cardassi); V (Dave Day); VIIb (Yang Tong); XI – part 1, part 2 (Paul Bowman)

Birtwistle – Gawain. No music here, but the footage of people arguing in the street about the values of modernism vs romanticism is priceless.

Boulez – Le marteau sans maître – movements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8, 9, played by Ensemble X1234 (?)

Boulez – Le soleil des eaux. PB conducts Elizabeth Atherton, the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC SO.

Boulez – Piano Sonata no.1. Played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Cage – 4′33″. This is the performance for full orchestra by the BBC SO that caused a stir at the John Cage: Uncaged festival in 2004. Also, here’s an extract from the video I have nothing to say and I am saying it of preparations for a 1982 performance of Speech for 5 radios. And if that’s not enough, how about David Tudor playing 4′33″? But the winner is this performance of Water Walk given on the 1960s gameshow ‘I have a secret’. Internet, I love you.

More Cage – Luciane Cardassi plays In a Landscape; James Tenney plays Sonata I and Sonata VII for prepared piano.

Cassidy – Being itself a catastrophe the diagram must not create a catastrophe (or, Third Study for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion). Played by Richard Haynes and Peter Veale. Part I, II.

Curran – Schtyx. Courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In four parts: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Dusapin – Etudes. Number 1, played by Ian Pace: part 1, part 2. Number 4, Pace again. Number 6, played by Angela Tosheva.

Eötvös - Triangel, Peter Prommel, soloist.: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.

Ferneyhough – Bone Alphabet. Played by Ross Karre: part 1, part 2.

Ferneyhough - Carceri d’Invenzione IIb, played by Julian Elvira.

Glass – Rubric. The Philip Glass Ensemble. Get this one quick as copies are being pulled off YouTube at Universal’s behest.

Glass – Train/Spaceship (Einstein on the Beach). Part 1; part 2.

Globokar – Touché, played by Laurent Clement.

Grisey – Vortex Temporum I, part 1, part 2, played by the Quasars Ensemble (performance preceded by what I take to be an arrangement of Bach’s Prelude in E minor from Book I of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier).

Harada – Bone #. Courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In two parts: 1, 2.

Hespos - Casoleia, played by Elena Casoli.

Hespos – Santur, played by Eniko Ginzery.

IRCAM – not a composer, of course, but a great video from the 1984 ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) at IRCAM in Paris, showing MIT’s Barry Vercoe and flautist Larry Beauregard of Boulez’ Ensemble Intercomtemporain demonstrating the use of the computer as a synthetic performer.

Kagel – Acustica. Played by Apartment House at The Wire’s Cut and Splice event in 2005.

Kagel – Der Eid des Hippokrates. Played by András Hamary, Markus Bellheim and Armin Fuchs.

Kagel – Dressur. Played by Oberlin Percussion. Part 1, 2, 3, 4.

Kagel – Les idées fixes I. RSO Saarbrucken conducted by the composer. No video, just the music.

Kagel – siegfriedp. Played by its dedicatee. No video, just the music.

Kilar – Orawa.

Kurtág – ‘Perpetuum Mobile’, from the Játékok piano pieces. Played by the composer, this is pretty essential.

Kurtág – Hommage à Mihály András No visuals, just the Keller Quartet’s recording.

Lachenmann – Intérieur I, played by Pitzu Yang, part 1, part 2.

Ligeti – Poème symphonique. The first televised ‘performance’ of Ligeti’s infamous prank for 100 metronomes that has since taken on a credible life of its own. (RIP Ligeti)

Ligeti – Artikulation. Rainer Wehinger’s pioneering visual score to Ligeti’s electronic piece, synchronised together.

Ligeti – Piano Etude no.13 ‘L’Escalier du Diable’. Played in concert by Francesco Libetta.

More Ligeti Etudes – Volker Banfield plays pieces from Books 1 and 2: no.1 ‘Désordre’, no.2 ‘Cordes vides’ and no.3 ‘Touches bloquées’; no.4 ‘Fanfares’ and no.5 ‘Arc-en-ciel’; no. 7 ‘Galamb Borong’ and no.8 ‘Fém’. Number 6, the famous ‘Automne à Varsovie’ appears to have been skipped over, disappointingly, but the captions on YouTube suggest that there’s a fourth part to this recital yet to be posted, so fingers crossed. Here it is: no.6 ‘Autumne à Varsovie’.

Lucier – Music for Solo Performer. Alvin Lucier’s famous work for human brainwaves. Andrew Brouse is the man with the electrodes taped to his head in this 1999 performance.

Lutosławski – Chain I. The composer himself conducts the London Sinfonietta, for whom the work was written, at the Albert Hall (is this première? I’ll check). A Lutosławski curio – a performance of the Pagannini Variations he wrote for his wartime piano duet with Andrzej Panufnik; not the best quality recording, but an all-out performance.

Maierhof: Sugar 1. Courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In two parts: 1, 2.

Messiaen. No music in this clip, but it’s interesting nonetheless – a clip of Messiaen at the organ of La Trinité, Paris, preparing his registration before beginning an improvisation. Taken from the DVD Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time/Improvisations.

Messiaen – Eclairs sur l’Au delà. Simon Rattle conducts the Berlin Phil in Messiaen’s last major work. Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 [removed by the copyright police], 8.

More Messiaen: from the same DVD, JanPB has uploaded two movements from Le quatour pour la fin du temps – ‘Liturgie de cristal‘, and ‘Louange à l’éternité de Jésus‘. He’s also uploaded a performance of Marie-Claire Alain playing ‘Les bergers‘, from one of my all-time favourite works, La nativité. Oh, and here’s Roger Muraro performing ‘Par lui tout a été fait‘, number six of the Vingt Régards.

Still more Messiaen – very tasty footage of Boulez, Aimard and the Ensemble Intercontemporain playing Oiseaux éxotiques. Thanks to Deceptively Simple for spotting this gem. Part 1, part 2. (User jre58591 has posted a bunch more piano-based Messiaen for the interested.)

Murail – Tellur. Performed by Rafael Andia.

Nono – … sofferte onde serene … Performed by Markus Hinterhäuser. Part 2 here.

Nono – Hölderlin, from Prometeo No visuals as such, just sound (as it should be in this case).

Oliveros: jamming with the Timeless Pulse Trio: part 1, part 2, part 3.

Penderecki – Capriccio per oboe e orchestra. Performance of this classic showpiece – looks like it was recorded for TV, rather than a concert performance.

Penderecki – Threnody No visuals, just the recording.

More Penderecki: Second Violin Concerto, played by Anne-Sophie Mutter, part 1, 2, 3, 4

Portsmouth Sinfonia: Short video featuring Gavin Bryars‘ legendary experimental ensemble ‘doing’ Also Sprach Zarathustra. Removed from Youtube.

Radulescu – Das Andere, courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In three parts: 1, 2, 3, played by Vincent Royer.

Reich – Eight Lines. Unfortunately not the whole piece, but a good chunk; recording of the Dutch premiere, from 2005, by the London Steve Reich Ensemble.

Reynolds – The Behaviour of Mirrors. Performed by guitarist P. Bowman.

Rzewski – Winsboro Cotton Mill Blues. Performed by Roger Wright as part of the Cliburn piano competition.

More Rzewski - Bobby Mitchell performs The People United Will Never Be Defeated. In 8 parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Satie/Cale – John Cale – on that show ‘I’ve Got a Secret’ again – playing and talking about Erik Satie’s Vexations.

Satoh – Incarnation II. Performed by the composer Michail Goleminov.

Schnittke – Piano Sonatas. No.1: 1st movt, 2nd movt, 3rd movt, 4th movt; No.2: 1st movt, 2nd movt, 3rd movt; No.3: 1st movt, 2nd movt, 3rd movt, 4th movt.

Stockhausen – Setz die Segel zur Sonne. The care and concentration before a note is played in the Messiaen clip reminds me in passing of Stockhausen’s instructions for his Aus den Seiben Tagen, of which this is the most well-known piece.

Stockhausen – Klavierstücke IX, played by Michail Goleminov.

Stockhausen – Zyklus, played by Nick Tolle: part 1, part 2.

Subotnick - Sidewinder.

Tenney – Wake for Charles Ives. Performed by the William Winant Percussion Group.

Varèse, Le Corbusier, Xenakis – Poème electronique. It’s not immediately clear, but these may be the original visuals for the famous Philips Pavilion performance of the work at Expo 58.

Varèse – Offrandes. More Varèse, with a performance by Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Varèse – Ionisation. Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain again.

Xenakis – Eonta, courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In three parts: 1, 2, 3.

Xenakis – Metastaesis, with accompanying structural breakdown. Awesome.

Xenakis – Mycenae Alpha. Another scrolling score video, this time with Xenakis’s original drawings from which the piece is generated.

Five part documentary (in Japanese) on Xenakis: part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Includes some great concert footage, and Xenakis gives his interviews in French, which might be of use.

Xenakis – Psappha, played by the incomparable Steven Schick. Removed by the user.

Xenakis – Rebonds, courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts and that man Schick again. In two parts: 1, 2.

Xenakis – Synaphaï, performed in Kyoto, piano solo played by Hiroaki Ooi. Part 2 here.

Zimmerman, Bernd Alois – Requiem für einen jungen Dichter No visuals, just the recording.

Zimmermann, Bernd Alois – Stille und Umkehr Again, few visuals to this one, just the recording.