Sometimes when people find out I'm into classical music they wanna know if I have a favorite composer. Because I'm a fickle-easy-shallow thing the answer changes constantly.
Right now I'm so into Janacek (YAWN-uh-check).
First of all, check out these titles:
Intimate Letters (quartet)
The Cunning Little Vixen (opera + orchestral suite)
From the House of the Dead (opera on Dostoevsky)
Glagolitic Mass (it means slavic, basically, but "glagolitic"- ahh!)
He did that classical artist thing where he was inspired for years by a woman he couldn't have. (Here she is in Wiki.) Sad that he had a wife, but still, it's romantic through the veil of elapsed time.
Plus, I get to play Cunning Little Vixen with the oregon symphony this week, and I am inhaling it. The musicians, the conductor, the repertoire, I am enjoying all of it.
There are parts that sound like Cage or Adams- I don't know the critical writing on Janacek, but to my ear he is a very melodic minimalist. The way he composes in little repetitive patches, tied up with fantastic (both in the sense of the good and the fantasia) motives gets in the ear, rattles around and improves with each addictive listening. There is such a subtle, modern aroma to his works.
And I can't even name my little posts without hemming and hawing- this man had the knack is all I'm saying.
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