WEEK OF 080818: ASHTRAY NAVIGATIONS // HAYDN SONATAS
Ashtray Navigations: A Mayflower Garland
This music is like a curtain; klanging, billowing. It's one of those teleportational incantations that whirrs as you float around the globe. What's-his-name is getting better and better at combining aloof noise with incomparable beauty. This creates a splendid environment, if one can hear past the high pitched plinks and fuzzy glaze. There's one track that's incredibly annoying, however.
Haydn: Piano Sonata 60 (Hob50)
Haydn: Piano Sonata 62 (Hob52)
My friend Ore reccommended these along with last week's symphonies. The numbering of Haydn's piano sonatas are very confusing, but I double-checked with Ore and these are masterpieces which he finds to be amongst the best music he knows. He said he also likes #61, but said it was weird (up my alley!); however I have not found it yet. #60 starts out adorably cute and bouncy. I wasn't affected so much by it, but the playing is superb; I love the dynamics. It's quite fast and has some exuberances that people tend to attribute to Beethoven. I like the slow languor of the second movement. The third movement seems to resume the exuberances of the first movement.
Haydn: String Quartet Op.20 No.5 (F-minor)
When I learned of Haydn's "Sturm und drang" period ("storm and stress") while reading about last week's "Farewell Symphony", I sought out more of this music that signals the end of the enlightenment and birth of romanticism. These cusps of grandeur meeting tragedy elate me. I think this is life; beautiful and beyond words, but damnable and frightening for its finality. Some pieces of this quartet are a bit too lighthearted for me, but around every corner there is a bent tone of seriousness and reality.