Update and Some Music

Well, first the update: my django-site_search module is not dead. In fact it's finished...almost. I've even written the final blog post discussing it, but have withheld publishing it until I have the source code ready to go along with it. Right now, the only supported backends are mysql and postgres. I plan to add Oracle and SQL Server to the mix eventually, but in the mean time, I'll really try to get this up within the week. A bit more testing and better documentation is required first.

In the mean time, I've been listening to volume 4 of Teldec's The Ligeti Project. This series offers recordings of the composer György Ligei's complete works (taken up by Teledec after Sony started and then abandoned the project...jerks). Given that this came out in 2003, I'm pretty late to the party. I've acquired about 50% of the series—sporadically and out of order—but they've all been great recordings with really skilled performers. This disk is definitely on of my favorites. It's got:

• Hamburg Concerto, for horn & chamber orchestra with 4 obbligato natural horns
• Double Concerto, for flute, oboe & orchestra
• Ramifications, for 12 strings (or string orchestra)
• Requiem, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, 2 choruses & orchestra

Of all these, I'd only heard the Requiem before. It's always had a special place in my memory because it was one of those seminal works of 20th century music which inspired me to start composing. I used to spend hours browsing the stacks at the VCU library as a high-schooler, looking at scores and listening along. Ligeti was published by C.F. Peters at the time and they had a full score of the work and it kind of blew me away. For one thing it was massive. This was my first look at micropolyphony and seeing the strings so heavily divided (12 first violin desks, 12 second, 10 viola, 8 cello and 6 bass!) and each pursuing such complex pathways was quite daunting. Sadly, it was years latter until I came across a recording. The Teldec one compares pretty favorably with the Wergo one. I'd have to do a bit more listening before I could make a recommendation either way.

The Hamburg Concerto is really cool. There's a video up on YouTube if you want to give it a listen. It's written for orchestra and horn, but also includes a section of natural horns (that is, valveless horns). Ligeti uses the peculiar nature of these instruments (chromatic playing necessitates the use of the hand in the bell to bend pitches or the use of crooks that provide overtones particular to a key) to allow for some interesting microtonal effects derived by contrasting the equal-tempered chromatic space of the orchestra and soloist with the "dis-tempered" space of the natural horns. If you want to read more info, there's an excellent paper on it (warning: contains music theory). Ligeti knows his way around the horn and the writing is, if not at all easy, very idiomatic. If you like this, I'd also recommend Volume 7 of the Sony series because it has Ligeti's Trio for Violin, Horn & Piano, another excellent work for horn (that Ligeti would like this sublime but rather temperamental instrument does not surprise me).

I'm also taking a recommendation from Alex Ross on a new Messiaen box set. It's got many of the usual suspects (Boulez + Ensemble Intercontemporain, Reinbert De Leeuw) performing some less well-known works plus one well-known work I don't have: Des Canyons aux étoiles. Since I'm planning on going to Bryce Canyon in the fall, I though it would be nice to take along this piece inspired by it on my iPod. In the mean time, I'm sorely tempted by the DG complete works of Messiaen box set which looks wonderful (and clocks in at 32 CDs)!