Best of 2006
I won't be organizing anything into a top ten of any kind, I'm too disorganized for that. But music played a big role in many parts of my life this year, and I wanted to comment on some of what I've been listening to. Some of it isn't even from 2006. Some of it was released late 2005, but featured heavily in 2006 for me. Some of it may even be older than that, but it's what I listen to, and it gets included because I said so.
The first piece I want to comment on is actually an entire album. It's a choral/chant piece called Path of Miracles, composed by Joby Talbot and performed by Nigel Short and Tenebrae. I first heard one part -- the third movement, Leon -- one night on a local classical station. I missed the composer and title, but thankfully the station posts a playlist on their website. After hunting down the piece I wanted, I found it on iTunes and bought the whole album. I would have just bought the one piece, but thankfully the individual tracks were not for sale. The album blew me away.
Talbot was inspired to write the four movement piece while travelling the Way of St. James pilgrimage trail through Spain. Each of the four movements is named for one of the major sites along the trail -- Roncesvalles, Burgos, Leon and Santiago (the destination).
The piece is sung in a multitude of languages, including English, Latin, and Basque, and includes passages from meadival texts about the pilgrimage. The first movement, Roncesvalles, starts with and heavily features a Taiwanese singing technique called pasiputput, that uses an eerie rising glissando starting with the bass voices slowly rising in tone and volume. The remaining movements occupy more traditional musical space, but many exotic influences can be heard in the composition, which occasionally includes simple chimes and bells accompanying the voices.
Gorgeously recorded at the church of St. Bartholomew in London, it was originally scheduled to be performed and recorded on July 7th last year, but was postponed a day due to the bombings that rocked the city. The sumptuous acoustics of the church make for a profound listening experience, all the way through the end, which fades out not due to any engineering trick, but because the singers, repeating the phrase "Holy St James, great St James/God help us now and evermore" repeated over and over, walk out of the church while singing.
I've been listening to it nonstop while writing recently, as it is a highly stimulating piece that plays nicely in my headphones. Highly recommended.