Top 10 Movies & Albums of the Week (2012)

If "genre-based" means that they begin as a single genre in pretense, then yes, but that's before exploding into an overflow of multiple genres and offshoots all at once, the likes of which no filmmaker has ever come close to touching. Welles' art is virtually the whole art of cinema in one, propped up to a thousand mirrors reflecting upon himself to reveal the infinite facets of his soul.

The only way for me to really respond to your post is to now go into endless descriptions on the specifics of what I mean but your best bet is to watch Welles' films dozens more times (especially the 5 above) and even then you might not fully uncover the unparalleled depth of his works. I've rarely come across anyone who has -- his filmic language was just too advanced and utterly singular. Along with that, I am nearing completion of my Citizen Kane review/analysis and should have it posted within the week. Once one comes face to face with the nuances and depths of Kane, it opens the door wider to the rest of his works, starting a "domino effect" of realizations.

At the moment, I’d rank Beethoven's 9th & Carter’s ‘A Symphony of Three Orchestras’ as the two most incredible works of music I’ve listen to so far - just barely out-ranking Mahler’s 9th and Shostakovich’s 15th. But my rankings are always adjusting and now Stockhausen’s ‘Gesang der Jünglinge’, after revisiting it today, is giving those top 2 works a run for their money!

I’m also considering bumping Bartók’s ‘Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta’ up to a 9.3/10 [9.5/10 by my scale]. It’s the most sinister work of genius I’ve ever encountered in the arts. The work opens with an ingenious fugue - the architectural rigor of this fugue can rival any those by Bach. It is the most despairing and bleakest piece ever composed. One feels themselves suspended over a desolate landscape and witnessing firsthand the horrors and atrocities that were to come of Europe. And when the celesta makes its glittering appearance it has the most ghostly effect. The second movement is a very sardonic one in which one might imagine Bartók mocking the tyrannical authority that reigned over much of Europe at that time. Where the first movement was unrelentingly bleak, the third movement is absolutely horrifying. And it is unbelievably eerie at times. It seems Bartók found a way to tap into the human psyche in ways never thought possible - finding our greatest fears and turning them into a reality - a form of musical reality. This is most notable with the middle segment where the celesta (an instrument that seems to have a special significance for this composition), yet again, makes an eerie appearance. Yet this time it assumes a new character - one in which cuts through the conscious like a knife. The effect is almost debilitating. Then a whirlwind of strings takes off possibly depicting some sort of psychic turbulence or some other paranormal phenomenon. Then the music sort of tip-toes away into the darkness and there is something utterly demonic about it. It’s as if one were led down the rabbit hole in pursuit of something and the devil or some sort of evil deceiver - perhaps life itself - were playing cruel tricks on the unsuspecting person. Then the music proceeds to a variation of the middle section melody, played by string instruments. This time, the effect is one of affirmation. Where if this movement were some sort of portrayal of one’s journey or life’s pursuit of truth and meaning, then this would be the conclusion. And it is here that one can imagine the individual’s eyes widen with shock as his fate is finally revealed before him and is more horrible than one can bear. One must ask themselves after hearing this movement: how was it that anyone could possibly capture the fears and anxieties of the human condition as vividly as this? The fourth and final movement starts off as a fierce dance-like work that harks back to Hungarian tradition, and then, about a half way through, it reprises the opening movement, ending with a powerful conclusion.

I originally had it rated at 9.2/10, but now after considering the intense psychological force behind it, I can’t help but raise it to 9.3/10. Similar with what happened with Verdi’s Requiem - a work I bumped up an extra 0.1/10 after a careful consideration of its almost unfathomable emotional power.

A review of Bartók’s ‘Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta’ by Jan Swafford

“Almost inaudibly, a melody begins in violins, a haunting and lonely sound like the sighing of distant wind. The melody floats, turning on itself, drifting free as the wind and at the same time certain and purposeful. As it sinks back to its opening note, another group of strings picks up the melody, and now two voices move together in a strange, wandering counterpoint.
That is the beginning of Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, an unbridled masterpiece by a a repressed and tragic man, Béla Bartók. The innocuous title hardly suggests the expressive breadth of this work for two antiphonal groups of strings. It is a core of strange beauties, wild joy, mystery, awe, and final affirmation. Throughout, one hears an unmistakable voice, passionately humanistic, at once Hungarian and universal…

…The crown of his work is the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. I have described the drifting melodies and dark colors of the first movement; it is actually a fugue as systematic as one by Bach, though its flowing lines are more like a dissonant version of Renaissance polyphony. The second movement is rythically explosive and at times demonic; the third features one of his intervals of “night music,” with chirping percussion and soulful soliloquies; and the finale is an ebullient movement that culminates in a metamorphosis of the work’s opening theme. During its course, this work seems to touch on feelings from bleak despair through joy to triumphant affirmation.”

Recordings:

The most affective recording of this work, IMO, would be the 1970 performance by Yevgeny Mravinsky with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. From Third Ear Guide: “No other conductor has thought as hard about this music or felt it as deeply as he did. The 1965 performance is more polished, but the 1970 reading is electrifying. I is very imposing and II is correctly very sardonic and tightly controlled. Only in Mravinsky’s hands is III not merely terrifying but tragic. IV is fast enough, with ferocious energy. Tragedy clearly becomes triumph when the fugal subject of I reappears with augmented intervals in the major mode. Both performances are more than thrilling; they are inspiring.”

[‘The Mravinsky Collection - Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 2 • Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta • Debussy: Nuages; Fetes’ / 1970 performance / Yevgeny Mravinsky / Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra / Russian Disc / 11167]

Of other recordings: Fricsay’s classic account is definitely worthwhile [though there are times when the celesta sounds buried.]. Karajan gives a slow, but powerful reading. But it is too smoothed out and, as a result, lacks the ferociousness and edginess that is required in a performance of this work. Of the two recordings recommended by Scaruffi, I’ve listened to Bernstein’s. Though it is a respectable reading, IMO it’s still not as powerful and compelling as Mravinsky’s. And I have yet to listen to Ormandy’s.

As for my top ratings [in alphabetical order within each group]:

[To save on all the needless frustration, from this point on, I will post my ratings on here in accordance to your system.]

9.6/10

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor "Choral" (1824)
Elliott Carter: A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1977)

9.5/10

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D Major (1910)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 in A Major (1971)
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)

9.4/10

Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B Minor (1749)
Witold Lutosławski: Symphony No. 3 (1983)
Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C Major "The Great" (1828)

9.3/10

Béla Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936)
Pierre Boulez: Répons (1980)
Roberto Gerhard: Concerto for Orchestra (1965)
Arvo Pärt: Tabula Rasa (1977)
Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem (1874)