Sergei Rachmaninoff/ The Philadephia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy - Piano Concertos 2 & 3

Ooh let's have a music to x to thread, x being a variable. Those are always fun, right? Music to take buses to, Belle & Sebastian... Music to look at trees to, Nick Drake... Music to kill yourself to, Joy Division... ummm Music to have sex to?

One of the bad things about having been on livejournal for so long is that you start to make meta-lists in your head. Whenever there's another stupid meme, the whole of livejournal becomes flooded. And making a list of music to have sex to was one of the popular memes yonks back when. My Bloody Valentine Loveless, ooh yes wailmeout251, I did my ex to that once and it was soooo goood, too bad he's gay now. So the meta-list becomes populated by things drippingly romantic or oozingly sleazy. Also I never really liked Marvin Gaye all that much, you guys. How you MEN can listen to man called GAYE sing "Let's Get it ON" makes me question your heterosexuality.

I mean, what if you don't like your sex romantic or sleazy? What if you like it... strange? My ex used to try and wrest control of the stereo from me everytime we wanted to get it on because I would always insist on putting on June of '44 because I wanted to pretend we were making out on ship in a storm and she would think, this is not romantic, this is your sailor fantasy! Let's put on some Bjork instead. Boooring. Which was the cue for me to blow my load, roll over and fall asleep, of course.

Later on in life, though, I was fortunate enough to meet someone who didn't mind my insistence on playing strange music during 'It' and, as a consequence, the music just went all over the place, from Spiritualized to Glenn Branca to John Coltrane. But the best music to xxx to, from that period of time, was something weird even to me. It was SERGEI RACHMANINOFF'S THIRD PIANO CONCERTO! Or the RACH3 as idiots who hear it through that stupid movie Shine would say it. Oh yes! THE RUSSIAN MOTHERLAND! The best place to do it.

I don't really know why, but the rhythm is perfect if you skip the 2nd movement. It starts off slow but insistent and builds up into a crescendo of RUSSIAN EMOTION, which is really the best kind of emotion and the 3rd movement is just really fast, which, if you're like me, is exactly what you want.

But seriously, why have lame British/American pussy emotion about loveing yohu long tiem babbyyy when you can have TRUE RUSSIAN EMOTION ABOUT DOING IT FOR THE MOTHERLAND?!!

Aaarhgjknsfh. Anyway, I am providing you the version played by Sergei Rachmaninoff (conductor Eugene Ormandy) himself even though I prefer the one played by Vladimir Horowitz (with Fritz Reiner) by far, because people love authenticity and I appear to be missing all my second movements for the other pianists hurr hurr. Also, Rachmaninoff kind of looks like Vladimir Putin, who is totally hawt, and Horowitz looks like a Ferengi from Star Trek, which is totally nawt. I might post up the Horowitz/Reiner and Volodos/Levine versions sans second movements in the days to come though. So, there you have it, the best music to have sex to. Also great music to shoot bears to. Oh and last night I dreamt I was in a Halloween costume in Norway and they said wow, please be a composer for us and I said ALRIGHT LET'S KILL SOME HORNETS. True story.

Oh shit I also included Piano Concerto 2. Which merits a whole other entry altogether. I did not, however, include the rest of the things you see on the CD cover, so har har.


Piano Concertos 2 & 3 (drop.io)

Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert (1975)

Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert

1. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part I
2. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part IIA
3. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part IIB
4. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part IIC

So, I went to a party last night and ended up in a park arguing with this guy from California about music. Despite being pretty drunk, I managed to make what seemed like sound arguments to me but not to the guy, apparently.

Anyway, he was gushing about how emotional gothic rock like Evanesence and Nightwish was and I told him I had the exact opposite opinion of gothic rock because I felt that the subculture and structures in place have corrupted, to some extent, the 'natural-ness' of the music. No matter how hard you scream at the top of your lungs, choosing a mode of expression that has been so standardized feels a little stilted to me and I can't connect to it emotionally at all.

But maybe, that's just my personal bias against gothic rock. I've always been a structure over style person when it comes to music, really. AND FUCKING JOY DIVISION WAS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT SHIT. Wow, I wish I was fucking Joy Division. Last night, I dreamt I was taking pictures with Liam Gallagher, of all people.

So anyway, long and rambling intro over? No, not yet.

So, I told him about my ideas of the 'natural-ness' of music, a kind of authenticity and sincerity that has not so much to do with sincerity of emotion as the sincerity of the mode of expression. I firmly believe that it is something you can hear in the music and it's something that is very, very valuable. Maybe because I didn't explain myself properly, he went off on a tangent on how I contextualized music too much but that's really besides the point.

Anyway, I tried to break into his tangent with my tangent on how I HEARD IT, I REALLY DID, THERE WAS THIS GUY WHO PLAYED POP MUSIC, POPPY IMPROVISED TUNES, BUT FUCKING HELL IT HAS SO MUCH DEPTH AND SOUL AND EMOTION AND EVERYTHING YOU COULD WANT IN MUSIC AND ITS FUCKING POP TUNES AND DO YOU KNOW WHY ITS SO FUCKING GOOD ITS BECAUSE ITS SINCERE EXPRESSION ITS REAL ITS SOMETHING REAL SO THE OUTER FORMS REALLY MATTER LESS THAN THE SOMETHING SOMETHING BLAR BALR BLARR. Sadly, he didn't hear me (how? right?) and the rest of my friends ignored me because they all knew I was in one of my Keith Jarrett frenzies again.

So, this is it! The kind of music that changes your life, if you let it. The kind of music I have slapped people for insulting. The kind of music you cry to. The kind of music you listen to for the rest of your life and it just gets better and better and better each time. This is real music.


Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert (drop.io)

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John Cage - Works For Piano 4 / Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle

John Cage - Works For Piano 4


1-3. Triple-Paced (1943) (1:07, 1:01, 0:45)

first version, piano


4. Triple-Paced (1944) (2:04)

second version, prepared piano


5. Totem Ancestor (1942) (1:55)

prepared piano


6. Ad Lib (1943) (3:14)

piano


7. Jazz Study (1942) (3:03)

piano


8. Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947) (5:45)

prepared piano



Works of Calder (1949-50) prepared piano

9. I. Prepared Piano (5:05)

10. II. Film soundtrack with narration* (3:09)

11. III. Film soundtrack with percussion* (2:19)

12. IV. Prepared Piano (10:37)

* with Burgess Meredith, narrator, and John Cage,
percussion & tape collage


First recording


13. One² (1989) (18:51)
for 1-4 pianos, 1 performer

Version for 3 pianos
Written for Ms. Tan




John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle

1. Bacchanale (1940) (6:46)
2. In A Landscape (1948) (7:49)
3. Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle (1945) (8:54)

The Seasons, Ballet In One Act (1947)
4. Prelude I (1:28)
5. Winter (1:20)
6. Prelude II (0:47)
7. Spring (2:15)
8. Prelude III (1:35)
9. Summer (3:15)
10. Prelude IV (0:53)
11. Fall (2:24)
12. Finale (Prelude I) (0:56)

Suite For Toy Piano (1948)
13. 1 (1:35)
14. 2 (1:41)
15. 3 (1:34)
16. 4 (1:24)
17. 5 (1:04)

18. Ophelia (6:43)

In the Name Of The Holocaust
19. A (3:37)
20. B (2:22)




Most people remember John Cage as the fellow who wrote that kooky song with nothing in it. Most people who know the name of that kooky song love to RAAAGE about how it's not music, or how it is music (cue 'What is Art?' discussions).

Few people remember John Cage as the loveable old codger who enjoyed picking mushrooms. Fewer still remember him as the guy who wrote a fuckload of incredible piano pieces. For someone who once said that he would bang his head against the wall of melody forever since he didn't have a feel for it (this is paraphrased), he actually wrote quite a few catchy songs! Only you can't call them 'songs', they're 'pieces' because it's classical music. But, whatever, most of them are three to five minutes long... just like songs!

Anyway, I am posting up two of my most beloved John Cage collections, Works For Piano 4 and Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle so the raging people can settle down because 1. it's modern 2. it's music. And it's good music too! The melodies are pretty interesting, the rhythmic structures are very, very engaging and the sounds are... out of this world. Most of the stuff is on prepared piano and Suite For Toy Piano is there too so, rest assured, the sounds won't be boring. One of my absolute favourite tracks off these collections, however, is a straight up non-prepared piano piece titled Jazz Study and is just that, a jazz study. I feel that it's simplicity and deliciousness really shows just how underrated John Cage's actual music is. It's fucking brilliant! It really sounds like jazz that's all chopped up thin like parsley and sprinkled on large portobellos which are then drizzled with olive oil and oven-baked. I can listen to it on repeat for hours. In fact, I used to. Please download Works For Piano 4 at least for this one amazing track.

Actually Works For Piano 4 has so many amazing tracks! The use of dynamics in Triple-Paced is mycologenioutastic, with a singular aesthetic that smells like an expansive backyard. Totem Ancestor is a modern classical classic, but deserves to be a jazz standard instead since 'modern classical classic' sounds so goofy. Even stuff like Works of Calder is great if you have the time to sit and digest it.

Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle takes even more digestion than Works Of Calder. It's much less immediate and insistent. I'm not such a big fan of The Seasons but In the Name Of The Holocaust is creepy and scary and... just perfect for Halloween! No, not really but it is damn good. Suite For Toy Piano executes the child-like feel to perfection. The way the notes play around, as if searching for some kind of order to fall into yet still trying to retain their playfulness and their freedom is just wow. It sounds really cute too.

So there you go, the hidden side of John Cage that is actually more akin to Hello Kitty than Genius Artist or Twisted Bastard.

By the way, if you enjoy the music I post, please take the time to link to this site, tell your friends about it or click on one of the sponsors banners/links. Or just comment so I know people are actually reading this. Also, you can check the link at the side entitled 'Music Albums You Can Request' to see if there are any albums there that you want me to post up and comment if you want anything. For now, it only tracks my recent acquisitions but I'll be posting up my entire album list in time.


John Cage - Works For Piano 4 (mediafire)
John Cage - Works For Piano 4 (drop.io)

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John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle (mediafire)
John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle (drop.io)

Buy It Now!