Records

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
PERFORMED BY MATS LIDSTRÖM AND BENGT FORSBERG

JONAS KAUFMANN AND CLAUDIO ABBADO
PERFORMED WITH THE MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS PERFORMED BY MATS LIDSTRÖM AND BENGT FORSBERG

Cello Sonatas

Hyperion Reissuep

Saint-Saëns is back with a bang in every sense of the word. In this erotic expedition through three decades of composing, taboos shatter and personal boundaries get slathered in KY and splooge. Halfway into Sonata No. 2 in F Major, piano and cello basically hold an all-orifice orgy in a public parking lot. At one point husky Swedish pianist Bengt Forsberg even makes an appearance as a pizza delivery boy with a big surprise. Back in the day, Saint-Saëns’s contemporaries called his work dull. Now his contemporaries are all like, “Uh…” and Saint-Saëns is all like, “What’s up, bitch?”

FRED SCONE

GUSTAV MAHLER PERFORMED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”

London Philharmonic Orchestra

The late Klaus Tennstedt conducts the equally late Gustav Mahler, making this the

Life After Death

of 19th-century Austro-Germanic late Romantics. Or at least the

Tupac: Resurrection

of early-20th-century modernists. Lotsa high-low tam-tams, sassy woodwinds, and sinister use of C Minor. Not terrible, but not really my thing. Which I guess is bad news for Klaus and Gus, because now they both get that little puking-guy graphic.

EVA BLATTERHOSEN

RICHARD STRAUSS

Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life)

ANTON WEBERN

Im Sommerwind

PERFORMED BY THE CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Don’t be turned off by first impressions. It’d be easy to take one look at these eight tracks, with their “hero” leitmotif, and think, “What is all this bratwurst Wagner-

Beowulf

bullshit?” But give it a serious spin. There’s a whole little world of intensities—pauses as well as crescendos—just waiting for the patient listener. I’m going to be totally honest here. Back when Richard Strauss thumbed his nose at tradition and set out with a bindle and a nickel in search of tone poems, I was one of those who predicted his career had flown the coop. Well, the egg is running down my face now. Our little man’s all grown up.

SHEPPARD SHANKS

TIMOTHY ANDRES

Shy and Mighty

Nonesuch

Timothy Andres can tickle the fuck out of the ivories, but here he feels a little too love-struck by a certain virtuoso 19th-century French-Polish composer. Check out track 2, “The Night Jaunt.” Chopin nocturne much? Then there’s “The Tunnel,” intended as “an interstitial movement which leads nowhere.” Hmm. “Nowhere.” Is that some new slang for “so far up Chopin’s dickhole that you might as well be a UTI”?

SHEPPARD SHANKS

VIVALDI PERFORMED BY SERGIO AZZOLINI AND L’AURA SOAVE CREMONA

Concerti per fagotto I

Naivë

Vivaldi’s love of bassoons is a little weird. Sure, the instrument has a tremendous range of expression, especially for the kind of contrapuntal rhythms performed here. But there are times on this recording (especially in the C Major concertos) where it feels like something else is going on. Like if one day you visited Vivaldi’s apartment and discovered some bassoon-shaped nipple hasps or jelly dongs, would you honestly be that surprised?

PETUNIA PROT

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Music of America: Charles Ives

Sony Masterworks

What is this sellout bullshit? Charles Ives on

Sony

? Isn’t this the same guy who composed that “Fuck Sony” sonata a few years ago? What’s next? Prokofiev doing Pepsi commercials? Pablo Casals hawking Cool Ranch Doritos? It’s like something out of a Bill Hicks bit. Ives just couldn’t

wait

to suck that corporate cock. Unbelievable.

BALLS LARSON

J.S. BACH CONDUCTED BY JOHN ELIOT GARDINER

Sacred Masterpieces— Cantatas

Deutsche Grammophon

Jesus, this thing is a fucking brick. Twenty-two CDs? Four hundred sixty-three songs? There’s an entire year’s worth of religious holidays and feasts in this collection, including every major Bach choral piece known to man. It’s like buying a pallet of Lemon Pledge at Costco. Do you really need so much?

SHEPPARD SHANKS

JONAS KAUFMANN AND CLAUDIO ABBADO PERFORMED WITH THE MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Wagner

Decca

This is really Kaufmann’s show. He’s got great vocal scope, being a

lirico spinto

, a rare lyrical tenor who can cut through all the bullshit of most orchestras with one yelp. It’s a strong, sinewy, lumberjacky voice, but with all the flex of a yoga instructor. Imagine what kind of freaky stuff a guy like that could do in the sack.

PETUNIA PROT

J.S. BACH PERFORMED BY TIMO KORHONEN

Partitas for Solo Violin

Ondine

OK, sure. It’s nice to see someone administering CPR on the poor partita. And Bach is always good in small doses, like a little wedge of brie on a wheat cracker. But Korhonen? Dude’s an entire

bag

of cheese. In Partita No. 3, he zips off a rapid-fire preludio with a blast of fancy-finger semiquavers. Sorry, bro—this isn’t the kitchenette at a college dorm party, and we’re not a bunch of teenage girls acting impressed so you’ll sneak us a wine cooler from your roommate’s minifridge. What a cheesebag.

FRED SCONE

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Music of America: John Williams

Sony Masterworks

The sick freak known as John Williams strikes another blow against human decency. This time around, he’s got a taste for irony: Naming a J.W. album

Music of America

is like calling Al-Qaeda an “international youth organization.” Then again, that’s not really a good analogy—Osama & Co. have really only been in the game for the past 18 years. John Williams has been assaulting America for

60 fucking years

. He’s like one of those Japanese anime porno monsters with 90 dicks that goes around raping skyscrapers and smearing diarrhea all over freeways. How do you stop him?

SNID DADKOK

FELIX MENDELSSOHN PERFORMED BY VARIOUS ARTISTS

Songs and Duets, Vol. 5

Hyperion

What did I do to deserve this? I pay my taxes, I use deodorant, I tip well in restaurants. And for that I get this? OK, Mendelssohn was a child prodigy. Big frig. So was Danny Bonaduce. Between Katherine Broderick’s ice-woman soprano and Felix’s wink to Joseph von Eichendorff’s

Frische Fahrt

(you read that right), this all feels like some terrible cosmic punishment. I’d rather listen to reggaeton in a hot Porta John while glue-gunned to Wolf Blitzer’s taint. And Danny Bonaduce’s taint. One on each forearm.

JANITT KLAMSTON

CHOPIN PERFORMED BY STEPHEN HOUGH

Late Masterpieces

Hyperion

This is a delightful cracker barrel of late-inning Chopin. Essential stuff. There’s Polish folk dance in triple meter, fugue and counterpoint, solid little mazurkas, and two sweet, wet sonatas rounding out the whole collection like a smooth purple-drank nightcap. Chopin was such a crusty, lovable, huggable little coot. Kind of like Santa without the morbid obesity or dander.

EVA BLATTERHOSEN

HILDEGARD VON BINGEN PERFORMED BY THE COLOGNE SEQUENTIA ENSEMBLE FOR MEDIEVAL MUSIC

Canticles of Ecstasy

RCA

This is a smart little recording from the lady who brought you the Rupertsberg convent. If you’re not familiar with monophony or Marian antiphons, this might be a little disorienting, but stick with it. Hildy’s worth the effort. Back in the 12th century, music was the IM service between humans and God, and all these pieces are belted out in God’s own language, Latin (all except “Instramentalstuck,” the LP’s lone, unwelcome “TV Party” moment). Hopefully the Sequentia Ensemble did their homework. It’d be a real bummer if a mistranslation summoned up some

Evil Dead

-type scenario.

SHEPPARD SHANKS

AARON COPLAND PERFORMED BY THE CINCINNATI POPS ORCHESTRA

Copland: The Music of America

Telarc

Why do people keep calling their albums

Music of America

?!? Stacked up next to John Williams, Copland is a lightweight. But that’s kind of like saying Ed Gein was a lightweight when stacked up next to Josef Mengele. At first glance, Copland’s sunny-time-express shtick seems benign enough on this selection, like a big brown droopy mole you don’t have the time or money to get removed. But the next thing you know you’ve got a Thomas Kinkade painting bouncing around in your brain. Run!

EVA BLATTERHOSEN

JOHANNES BRAHMS PERFORMED BY ANGELIKA KIRCHSCHLAGER AND GRAHAM JOHNSON

The Complete Songs, Vol. 1

Hyperion

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK PERFORMED BY THE EMERSON STRING QUARTET

Old World-New World

Deutsche Grammophon

Is your idea of a good time listening to adapted Ukrainian folk ballads slowed to an andante-tempo tortoise fart? Then have I got a record for you. Violist Paul Neubauer runs DvorŠák’s 10th and 11th Quartets through the Snooze Machine, sprinkling in several hundred pounds of allegro scherzando sleepy-dust along the way. You can actually hear one of the Emerson brothers snoring during the third allegro. DvorŠák apparently wrote this quintet after a long, hot summer of vacationing in 1893 Iowa. And here I was thinking that state was only good for producing cow methane and Tom Arnold. Yawn.

SHEPPARD SHANKS

HAVERGAL BRIAN PERFORMED BY TONY ROWE, ADRIAN LEAPER

Symphonies 11 and 15

Ireland RTE´ National Symphony

Ever see a fat kid jiggling down the sidewalk in a WHY BE NORMAL shirt and feel an overwhelming urge to pity-hug? Same deal here. Composer Havergal Brian cuts loose with a very-late-career “Comedy Overture.” There are pippy flute motifs, and a silly salute to Strauss’s

Don Quixote

. Symphony No. 11 undercuts its own adagio with some zany sleigh bells. Ease up, Patch Adams—my funny bone can only take so much.

JANITT KLAMSTON

SONDRA RADVANOVSKY PERFORMED WITH CONSTANTINE ORBELIAN CONDUCTING THE PHILHARMONIA OF RUSSIA

Verdi Arias

Delos

Maybe you’re a little burned out on Italian opera composers of the 19th century. Hey, who isn’t? Well, put on your dancing shoes my friend, because Sondra Radvanovsky just came to town. This lady doesn’t merely breath new life into the stale arias of yesteryear—she can act figure eights around any A-list Hollywood starlet in the biz. Just listen to her heartbreak, as Aida the Ethiopian Slave, in

O patria mia

(from act 3 of

Aida

). If you ever need to whip up some tears for a job interview or jury duty, just pop this bad boy into your iPod.

JANITT KLAMSTON

STING

Symphonicities

Deutsche Grammophon

“Sir! Where do you want the prisoners?”

“Those Al-Qaeda shitstains? Guantánamo’s too good for ’em!”

“Sir?

“We gotta show these maggotqueefs we mean business!”

“Sir?”

“Are you aware that Sting has rehashed his hits with a 45-piece orchestra? That he rerecorded ‘Englishman in New York’? That he added

a fucking harp

to ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’? Can you imagine how destructive this recording would be on the human psyche?!?”

“But… Geneva… sir…”

“Don’t cry to me about the Geneva Conventions! We’re fighting a war! Get iTunes on the horn! That is a direct order!”

“Sir! Yes sir!”

FRED SCONE

MAX RICHTER

Infra

FatCat Records

I get what Richter is trying to do here. I respect the symbiosis of electronic innovation and traditional classicism. There are some moving cinematic moments in this, his fifth LP, and some very intriguing combinations of strings (sharp violins, belligerent cello) and mechanical ambience (electronic, sampled, commissioned bits from London’s Royal Ballet). Although

Infra

breaks no major new ground, there are many memorable little interludes and artificially induced soundscapes. What I’m not so into are the parts that make me feel like I’ve just smoked a pack of PCP blunts and stepped into City Hall wearing nothing but tube socks and a ski mask.

JANITT KLAMSTON

PHILIP GLASS PERFORMED BY THE CARDUCCI QUARTET

String Quartets 1-4

Naxos

I’m still not totally sold on the idea that the best way to fight the scourge of Schoenberg-style 12-tone serialism is to write 600 insufferable minimalist art compositions. It’s like trying to fight World War II by painting everyone’s doorknob blue.

PAL PETERSON

BENJAMIN BRITTEN PERFORMED BY GERALD FINLEY AND JULIUS DRAKE

Songs and Proverbs of William Blake

Hyperion

What do you get when you cross Gerald Finley’s baritone with William Blake’s mind? A really spooky record is what. You can play this at your next Halloween party for some nervous yuks. But keep in mind that a whackadoo serial killer is probably listening to the exact same song in a basement dungeon somewhere while jerking off and crying.

FRED SCONE

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH PERFORMED BY ALEXANDER MELNIKOV

Preludes and Fugues

Harmonia Mundi

Shostakovich seems like a nice guy, and he got dicked around plenty by the Commies. So I’d like to cut him a break. And I understand there is such a thing as Romantic quietude, and I get that he wants to throw in some Russian folk songs and klezmer for the home audience. Great. But godDAMN these are some listless preludes and fugues. Makes me feel like a big bean bag plopped down in an even bigger bag eating a big bowl of Jello. Harmonia Mundi should include some smelling salts in the jewel case.

EVA BLATTERHOSEN

BROOKLYN RIDER

Dominant Curve

In a Circle Records

If you can get over the name Brooklyn Rider (and you shouldn’t, because it’s wretched), this is totally kick-ass Debussy worship. The String Quartet in G showcases some wild Javanese gamelan, and later in the recording a brazen string arrangement of John Cage’s “In a Landscape”—meant for harp but given balls for the occasion—totally pays off. These guys are like motocross daredevils who never screw up a stunt. Eventually someone’s going to get carried away on a stretcher with a clavicle popping out of their chest, but until then we can all enjoy the show.

HAM BLAPP

ALBERTO GINASTERA

Popol Vuh: The Mayan Creation

Naxos

Really? You actually think we’re such yokels that we’re not going to spot all those classic Argentine folk songs you “quoted”? “Danza del Trigo”? Yeah,

that’s

original. “Malambo”? That would be a real kick if this were the early 1600s. Oh, and almost all this material has been released someplace else first. R-I-P-O-F-F.

PAL PETERSON

MOZART PERFORMED BY THE ACADEMY OF ST. MARTIN IN THE FIELDS

Flute Concertos; Concerto for Flute and Harp

RCA

Sometimes you have to decide that you just don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks. I figured that shit out when I was four. Mozart figured it out when he was two. This collection of concertos were all written for flute, an instrument Mozart thought was a pile of shit. And guess what? Each piece is a brutal Salzburg curb-stomp. That’s what a badass he was. Concerto No. 2 in D Major was originally oboe-bound, but after Mozart kicked the living shit out of local amateur musician Ferdinand de Jean, he thought he’d further humiliate the fat bastard by making him do one of his pieces on the flute. The only instrument he hated more than flute was harp. So guess what pops up in Concerto No. 3? Harp! Fucking Mozart. Man, I’d love to fight that guy.

FISTOPHER CLOBBORTSON

ROBERT SCHUMANN PERFORMED BY VARIOUS ARTISTS

Chamber Music

EMI Classics

Some major monster party boner jams on this sophomore effort by Big Boy Schumann. Serious brank-ass jimmy-hat jim-jams. Here’s how it works. Holding a bat mitzvah for your niece? Don’t play this. Doing a surprise bachelorette party for the chick in apartment 8G? Turn that shit up! Back that shit up! Schuuuuuuuuuumaaaaaann!!!!!

CLYDESDALE OYNKE

ANGELA HEWITT

Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3

Hyperion

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt knows how to Beethoven. First, there’s the juxtaposition. Lesser-known works ride shotgun with “Moonlight.” That’s class. Then there’s movement 3, “Marcia funebra sulla morte d’un eroe,” which further resonates with “Moonlight” and is preceded by a breathtakingly implemented presto agitato. Then there’s the dazzling, virtuoso variations in the Sonata in A Major. Then there’s the glossy insert photo featuring glorious full-frontal nudes of both Ludwig and Angela. Very brave, and very classy.

PAULA SPOOP

JACOBUS VAET PERFORMED BY THE DUFAY ENSEMBLE AND ECKEHARD KIEM

Vol. 1

Ars Musici

The Renaissance was a neglected period in musical history, and a lot of screwballs ruled the roost. Vaet was one of the screwiest of all screwballs. But you’d have to be a little chow mein in the membrane to write competent polyphonic compositions in the 16th century. And even though these are all religious pieces, they’re from some kooky FUBAR religion that worships a one-eyed lizard god who demands pitch-to-pitch chromatic alteration in a variety of human voices. Man, Renaissance times were messed up.

LEE SPRIZZLE

This is a winding hike through the cloudy canyons of Brahms’s early life, with each piece—culled from nine different opuses—presented in the order in which it appeared to the public. The whole thing is downcast and brooding and classical-period Germanic, meaning none of the awesome swooping-into-battle Wagner-style German, and lots of guys-getting- ready-to-die-in-

Das-Boot

-style German. So I guess that old proverb really is true: “No matter how much Michelle Pfeiffer you slap on your album cover, it’s still going to be a fucking downer if there’s a bunch of Brahms on the inside.”

PAL PETERSON