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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0-9

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Top CDs

Carly Simon - The Best of Carly Simon

Best of Shocking Blue

Prog rock (classics)

Sun Ra - Mayan Temples

Alan Sorrenti - Radici

Shocking Blue - Scorpio's Dance

Funky psychedelia fron the Dutch band Shocking Blue. Scorpio's Dance is one of the great, unsung hard rock albums of the 70's.

Today's rock

The Sebadoh - Sebadoh

Stone Temple Pilots - No. 4

Classical

Arnold Schoenberg

During the opening decade of the century, Schoenberg (1874-1951) evolved a freely atonal style that overturned the tonal system which had dominated Western music since the time of Bach. But the final victory over tonality only occurred after World War I, with his discovery, or invention, of serialism. The first completely serial work was the Suite for Piano (1921-3), where unity of the work and equality between all 12 tones is achieved by ordering them in a "series". This determines their appearance throughout the work -- E always followed by B flat for instance, and so on. Although this appears mechanical, Schoenberg rightly insisted that he wrote "12-note compositions, not 12-note compositions".

A. Schoenberg- Pierrot Lunaire, etc. (Boulez, Schäfer, et al.)

It is a song cycle, in that it sets 21 poems in the proto-expressionist style; it is a theatrical work from the cabaret tradition intended for some sort of staged presentation by a soprano singing in Sprechstimme, a method of declamation somewhere between song and speech; it is rooted in the comedy cult of the time; it is a chamber work for vocalist and five instrumentalists; and it is a mature exploration of the possibilities of the atonal style that often looks forward to serialism. Pierrot Lunaire, featuring a grotesque harlequin figure, introduced the world to a hitherto unthought -- of musical landscape; to call it innovative would be an absurd understatement.

A. Schoenberg- Piano Concertos, Symphonies (Brendel, Gielen)

In Schoenberg's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1942) a 12-tone row is established early on--but so is a precise logic of form and evolution of theme... Schoenberg's rejection of tonality does not mean the rejection of structure or the possibility of other ways music can be pleasing. He practically invented 20th century music, or at least freed it from the spell of Romanticism, and his famous Chamber Symphony 1 fairly started the revolution. Almost all subsequent Western classical music was influenced by Schoenberg, especially in the immediate vicinity of Vienna, where his two pupils Weber and Berg hastily mastered his innovations and passed them on to the post-war generation.

A. Schoenberg- The Piano Music (Maurizio Pollini)

The first great pianist to record all of Schoenberg's piano music was Glenn Gould, and if you grew up with Gould's interpretations, then you're in for a shock. In the first place, Pollini actually plays what Schoenberg wrote -- Gould freely altered the text in ways that would have driven the composer insane. And then there's the humming -- yes, believe it or not, Gould did manage to sing along as he played. Pollini's quieter, less vocal approach conveys much more of what Schoenberg actually wrote...

A. Schoenberg- Transfigured Night, etc. (Salonen, Stockholm CO)

Transfigured Night was originally composed for string sextet, but it has since become popular in the composer's arrangement for full string orchestra. Since the Second String Quartet (1908) was also arranged by the composer in a similar fashion, it's amazing that no one has had the idea to couple the two works together before now. The first three movements of the Second Quartet are, in theory at least, still tonal, but in the concluding fourth movement Schoenberg definitively slips the time-honoured moorings of musical history, breathing freely what his soprano soloist (another innovation) refers to as "the air of another planet". Salonen is, along with Pierre Boulez, the most persuasive advocate of contemporary music on the podium today.

Science books: Scientific American How Things Work Today

In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life by Henry Gee

The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things by Hannah Holmes

Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space by Timothy Ferris

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry by Bryan Sykes

On the Shoulders of Giants by Stephen Hawking (Editor)

Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics by George Johnson

franc'O'brain & Transputer Qasar. 2005.
Email: francobrain@angelfire.com.
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