NEW MUSIC

Flex: I am very grateful for your kind recommendations and specificity. I feel very much that -certainly as regards contemporary classical- our musical tastes significantly overlap (but you are much further along). Thank you for the benefit of your knowledge. Rautavaara- wow!

(For anyone interested, some quicklinks to bkgrnd, etc after some of the above rec'ns & contribs to be posted later.)

Incidentally, among my favorites are also the Str Q of Shostakovich - + Kurtág's
Music for Strings... for choral work Ligeti... I lament that more chamber works like Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie N 2 Op.38 are not easy to find. I also like the compactness of Berg & Webern's shorter works (e.g. Berg's 3 Pieces for Orchestra). Reaching further back, even the understatement of some of Bach's Orgel-Büchlein seem an interesting precursor of minimalism.

Agon, thank you for your kind words. I have been learning from this thread too...out hunting for more Schnittke and Segerstam. Exchange of music is one of the best aspects of Audiogon.

Indeed, and I hope others will continue to post comments, etc. re new music on the board - but I have to go shopping now too...

Schubert's Sym N 8 - also known as "Die Unvollendete"/"Unfinished".
Neue Musik - an incomplete blog based on music mentions in this thread.

Agonanon: Ah! Schubert's No.8.......For something a little
off the beaten path, try a recreated No.7 and No.10. Both
are from part scores that were orchestrated by Berbould.
The No.10's second movement(only 3), was almost Mahlerian
in sublimity, shows where the composer was headed.

New/Art Music: Berio's Voci II, Kim Kashashian, viola.
ECM New Series. Hard to understand, and at times extremely
dissonant, but worth pursuing if you like Kim's viola
playing (which I do, she plays Brahms' Opus 120, clarinet/
viola sonatas, with a rich, warm tone)

Schubertmaniac, thanks for the Voci II recommendation, I didn't know there was a 2nd volume out!

Kim Kashkashian has also done most of the Giya Kancheli series on ECM, along with a Schnittke concerto, all of which I enjoy very much. Manfred Eicher seems to keep pulling in extraordinary players, like Rostropovitch, Kashkashian, and Gidon Kremer (not to mention his whole contemporary jazz roster, which belongs in another thread).