Naxos Japanese Classics Series on Spotify

"Since the latter half of the 19th century, Japanese classical composers have taken inspiration from western classical music culture to create a variety of original compositions. However, with the exception of works by a few famous figures such as Toru Takemitsu, such compositions have had a limited audience even within Japan. The Naxos Japanese Classics series rediscovers composers such as Akio Yashiro, Saburo Moroi, Hisato Ohzawa, and introduces what is a rich musical repertoire to a much wider audience than before. Many of the works in the collection receive their première recordings. Each album provides detailed and authoritative liner notes, and is supported by fine performances from distinguished ensembles and conductors." - Official site

Get this collection in one Spotify playlist: Naxos: Japanese Classics (227 tracks, total time: 23 hours) Ctrl (CMD) + G to browse in album view (this series features some of the best cover art from Naxos). All titles in this series are available on Spotify, except for one Japan-only release. Albums are sorted alphabetically by composer name. See the Naxos page for more info, including complete liner notes. Also check out the discussion about this series on Unsung Composers. 

Norwegian Composers On Spotify

"The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the discovery of human ignorance" — Lewis Thomas

The tragedy in Norway this week once again reminds us that ignorance is still the greatest enemy of humanity. All I can hope is, we may reach a better understanding of each other through the power of music.

This playlist features 20 Norwegian composers: Ole Bull (1810-1880), Johan Svendsen (1840-1911), Edvard Grieg (1843-1907), Hjalmar Borgstrøm (1864-1925), Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935), Fartein Valen (1887-1952), Harald Sæverud (1897-1992), Eivind Groven (1901-1977), Geirr Tveitt (1908-1981), Edvard Hagerup Bull (1922-), Finn Mortensen (1922-1983), Edvard Fliflet Bræin (1924-1976), Arne Nordheim (1931-2010), Alfred Janson (1937-), Ketil Hvoslef (1939-), Lasse Thoresen (1949-), Rolf Wallin (1957-), Ståle Kleiberg (1958-), Dagfinn Koch (1964-), Asbjørn Blokkum Flø (1973-).

Here's the Spotify playlist:  Norwegian Composers (20 tracks, total time: 2 hours) Tracks are arranged by composers chronologically, as listed above. This playlist is inspired by Alex Ross's tweet. Further listening: Fartein Valen: The Four Symphonies.

Hello America

To celebrate Spotify's entrance into the biggest music market in the world, today let's listen to EMI's American Classics.

Here's the Spotify playlist: EMI: American Classics (612 tracks, total time 1 day) It may work better in Album view. Check out this Presto page for discography and introduction to this series,  and my previous post for the even more comprehensive Naxos American Classics.

EMI British Composers Series on Spotify

From Presto Classical: "A series celebrating the numerous recordings of British composers which EMI have made over the years. From the very early recordings of Elgar conducting his own works, through a whole host of other composer-conductors to the more recent recordings of Nicholas Maw and Peter Maxwell Davies, this series celebrates all that is good about EMI's commitment to British music."

From EMI's official page: "Celebrating the past, shaping the future: British Composers looks back to Parry and Stanford, majors on Elgar and Vaughan Williams, and embraces Birtwistle, Davies, Goehr, Maw, Roxanna Panufnik and Turnage."

Here's the Spotify playlist: EMI: British Composers (67 albums, 1299 tracks, total time: 4 days) I put three compilations, English Anthems, Miniatures and String Music at the beginning, and arranged other discs alphabetically. Press Ctrl (CMD on Macs) + G to browse in album view. Also check out this UK Amazon page for more details and customer reviews.

Made In America: Naxos American Classics On Spotify

Before I go for the annual company trip tomorrow, I want to post the longest playlist I created so far. It consists of all recordings from Naxos' American Classics series available on Spotify, 271 of them in total.

"Our highly-acclaimed American Classics series boasts a unique catalogue of both well-known and rarely recorded masterpieces. This landmark series features the greatest American composers both familiar and unfamiliar: Romantics like Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Edward MacDowell; visionary modernists such as Charles Ives and John Cage; buoyant spirits like Sousa, Joplin, Ferde Grofé; figures at today's cutting edge such as John Adams, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Paul Moravec, William Bolcom and Michael Torke."

The recordings are arranged by composers alphabetically, the same as Naxos' official page, which also provides back covers, composer biographies, album details, and even librettos of the operas. I put the American Classics Sampler at the beginning and the 2-CD set The Story Of American Classical Music at the end.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Naxos: American Classics (3665 tracks, 1.7 weeks) And here's an interesting discussion on this series: Third Rate Music? Personally I like many American composers' works, and feel that they are vastly underrated and underappreciated. On Youtube there's no Rorem symphony, no Zwilich violin concerto, even no decent performance of Barber's wonderful piano concerto. Thanks to Naxos and Spotify we can explore so many new music at ease.

The Polish Composers On Spotify

R.I.P. Mr. Lech Aleksander Kaczyńsk. Terrible news. I don't know his politics but Poland is a country I always admire. Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue is probably my favourite film, and aside from being the homeland of Chopin, Poland has also offered many other great composers from Szymanowski, Górecki to Penderecki.

Here's the Spotify playlist: The Polish Composers (508 tracks, 2.2 days) It consists of Polish composers works and sorted by composers alphabetically. I didn't want to put Chopin here as I have done a Chopin playlist before, but Chopin is still everywhere in this playlist, Godowsky's Chopin arrangements, Josef Hofmann, and some other Polish composer-pianist plays Chopin, including Polański's Pianist Władysław Szpilman playing the A minor Mazurka. At the end there's two compilations: Polish Chamber Music and The Polish Heart.

May the Polish people find the strength in faith and all the great art that they created to get through this tragedy.

Borrowed Playlist: The Swedish Romantic Composers

Spotify is a great service started from Sweden, so I always wanted to make a playlist of Swedish composers. This morning I found a wonderful playlist on Gehrmans' Twitter, and I've been listening to it all day, really love these lush orchestral pieces with soaring Nordic melodies! Here's the links to the biographies of the composers in this playlist:

Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson (1908-1986)
Hilding Rosenberg (1892-1985)
Hugo Emil Alfvén  (1872-1960)
Franz Adolf Berwald (1796-1868)
Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1916-1968)
Daniel Börtz (1943- )
Thomas Jennefelt (1954- )
Fredrik Högberg (1971- )
Eduard Tubin (1905-1982)
Nils Lindberg (1933- )

You can find the sheet music from the publisher Gehrmans Musikförla

Here's the Spotify playlist: Published by Gehrmans Musikförlag (172 tracks, 13.8 hours) Happy listening and have a nice weekend.

Chinese Contemporary Classical Music

I just made a Spotify playlist of Chinese and Chinese-born contemporary composers' works. These are not traditional Chinese music, just like Takemitsu's music are not Gagaku, though many of these composers did draw inspirations from the tradition.

Just for fun, I also included Der Abschied from the new BIS recording of Mahler's Song of the Earth, in which the vocalists sang the original Chinese text of the Tang poetry, in Cantonese. Der Abschied was based on Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei's 送別 (Farewell), you can find more about him on this page, it also includes a translation of his poem Hut Among The Bamboo, upon which Zhou Long set the first movement of his orchestral suite: Poems From Tang. About other titles of the works: Tu for Orchestra is from Zhou Long's wife, China's leading female compose Chen Yi, Tu means the picture or the map. Meng Dong means haze or ignorant, Wu Xing means five elements.

Biographies of these composers:

Bright Sheng, Chen Qigang,Chen Yi, Ge Gan-ru, Lei Liang, Qu Xiaosong, Tan Dun, Zhou Long, Zhu Jianer, and the Butterfly Lovers(traditional).

Zhou Long – Out Of Tang Court
Orchestre National De France – Wu Xing: L`eau (Water)
Orchestre National De France – Wu Xing: Le bois (Wood)
Orchestre National De France – Wu Xing: Le feu (Fire)
Orchestre National De France – Wu Xing: La terre (Earth)
Orchestre National De France – Wu Xing: Le métal (Metal)
The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto
Bright Sheng – H'un (Lacerations): In Memoriam 1966-1976
Shanghai Quartet – Poems From Tang: I. Hut Among The Bamboo
Chen Yi – Tu For Orchestra
Qu Xiaosong – Mong Dong
Tan Dun – Orchestral Theatre II, "Re"
Arditti Quartet – Lei Liang: Serashi Fragments
Chen Qigang – Three Laughs
Zhu Jianer – Symphony No. 4: Symphony No. 4 "6.4.2 - 1"
Ge Gan-ru - Chinese Rhapsody
Gustav Mahler – VI. Sung Bit - Der Abschied Ending Of Cantonese Version

Click here for the Spotify playlist. Check out their full works if you like the sampler, most of these composers have more than one album on Spotify, just search for them yourself. I hope Spotify will add some Wen Deqing and Wang Xilin's works soon.

Click here to read Alex Ross' article "Symphony Of Millions" on the Chinese classical music scene.