Matt Haimovitz / Christopher O'Riley -- Shuffle-Play-Listen
Matt Haimovitz / Christopher O'Riley
Shuffle-Play-Listen
(Oxingale)
Music Ramble by David Royko
(April 2018)
I bought "Shuffle-Play-Listen" by cellist Matt Haimovitz and pianist Christopher O'Riley 5 years ago, maybe more, but I'm a bonerfide collector, so... As a fellow collector has said: Once it's on the shelf, that's enough. Or as a knitting addict once summed up, quoting an oft-used quip from her knitting group (knitters tend to be yarn hoarders, I mean collectors): She who dies with the most yarn wins. My goal is to have heard <75% of my collection before going to the great used record store in the sky. I'm an optimistic.
Anyway, so I've been listening to this 2-cd set lately and it is simply a great disc plus an OK disc. I already loved Haimovitz's playing when I bought it and had a bunch of his discs already -- various DGs, and two later favorites, After Reading Shakespeare and Mozart the Mason. O'Riley's From the Top has been an npr go-to for years, and I like the repertoire and playing he does with the young'uns (his cds focus on some rock people I like, like Elliot Smith and John McLaughlin, but less in solo piano arrangements, and Radiohead remains a blind spot and most Liszt makes me puke while Beethoven on forte piano only makes me gag because it's still Ludwig Van).
The "classical" disc is stuffed with favorite composers of mine (why I got it -- Martinu, Janacek, etc), but it is the new-to-me Bernard Hermann Vertigo Suite -- wow. He was among the greatest of all soundtrack composers, and wrote some fine "straight" classical stuff too, but this really shocked me. It's an absolute masterpiece. Dark, sensual, foreboding, profound, thematically engaging, up there with the finest 20th Century chamber music. A real discovery for me.
Thanks fellas!