Review: Darmstadt Piano Bon-Bons Plus a Very Special Klaviertrümmergeschenk!

Neos has done it again: seven discs of Darmstadt School piano music, ranging from the fascinating to the unlistenable, guaranteed to reduce the keyboard to kindling. The performances are outstanding, and feature many of the best-known avant-garde keyboard music specialists. The sonics, dating back as far as 1948, range from barely tolerable to excellent, just like the music itself.

[@ThreadBomb]

plink plonk BANG grrrrrrr CRUNCH (waits for applause)

[@benhavey4107]

FYI: Peter Stadlen was coached by Webern, and this recording of the Variations is "authentic" Webern. Very telling that this performance is Romantic and dramatic, unlike the dry and dull readings by Gould. Many of these recordings (Boucourechilev, Xenakis, Mochizuki, Ferneyhough, Poppe) absolutely rock and are an excellent gateway to post-war rep.

[@samuelheddle]

It's really too bad the Bruckner people are busy trying to finish the 9th again when the Boulez 3rd is right there! Surely they can spare a Hofrat or two....

[@swimmad456]

Brian Ferneyhough rings a bell. In the late 70s I attended a performance of at the Royal Festival Hall in London. The performance by Abbado and the LSO was roundly booed by the audience and quite right too.

[@Delius1958]

🤪🥳🤣🙃🤓 Stop it, can‘t breathe! - I‘m German, believe me, I know what Darmstadt stands for. And our critics are so proud of this „anal tradition“. And then they go and despise Sibelius (Adorno, Leibowitz).

[@nihilistlemon1995]

I was disappointed the album didn't came in by cdtrummergeschenk

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I see your point!

[@petterw5318]

I was feeling a bit sad that all these composers will be soon forgotten, and their life's work wasted, but then I remembered all the money and acclaim they got when they were alive.

[@freespeech100]

Two comments on this fabulous collection: (1)If a composition is REALLY avant-garde, you shouldn't be able to tell that it is un-finished. (2) I would like to be the first to publish an un-started sonata. I've been not working on it for a while. (I started not working on it in utero, as I was a precocious avant-garde prodigy, especially in the area of un-started sonatas.

[@poturbg8698]

The Guinness Book of World Records used to have a category for fastest destruction of a piano with an ax into pieces that could fit through a 9" hole.

[@murraylow4523]

It does sound like a better purchase than the orchestral set you reviewed the other, if only for the pianists and the composer-pianists. You are never lost for words in whatever language obvs, but I hadn’t realised the word « Eurotrash » had made it to Brooklyn! I do hope you managed to catch some of the TV series of that in the ‘90s :)

[@dmntuba]

LMAO 🤣

[@johnwright7557]

!🤣