Amid the firecracker-sized pops of an ancient LP, a fatherly voice
corrects the iconic beginning of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. “Sometimes
it’s played pum, pum, pum, pum,” says (long-dead) legendary conductor
Bruno Walter. “But zet’s absolutely wrong! It’s
pah-pah-pah-pah!” So begins my favorite specimen of the most obscure
genre in classical music: the conductor’s bonus disc.
Once or twice a decade, record companies burnish a new release with
an extra disc of a star conductor rehearsing, answering interview
questions, or otherwise holding forth. Yet unless you want the proper
pronunciation of “Beethovenian” from John Eliot Gardiner (say
“bay-toe-VEE-nee-in”) or yearn to eavesdrop on Sergiu
Celibidache grunting his way through Bruckner, most bonus discs
remain curios, of interest only to aspiring conductors and
composers.
By contrast, the bonus CD accompanying Benjamin Zander‘s
splendid recording Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 (Telarc) is a
winner. Charming and earnest, Zander calls the massive piece of music
“a vast and serious journey” and explains how to hear it as “a
cathedral in sound.” The album’s additional mini-poster helps you
follow Zander’s hypothesis and defangs terms such as “recapitulation”
and “scherzo.” Renowned for his sumptuous Mahler recordings,
Zander is an engaging guide who fulfills the mission of the bonus disc:
to help you listen in a new way.
Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen wants you to hear anew
as well; equipped with submersible
microphones—hydrophones—Winderen reveals the sonic
beauty of the ocean. Her innocuously named EP Heated: Live in
Japan (Touch) documents her improvising with a trove of
recordings made in the icy waters of Greenland, Iceland, and
Norway. I’m not surprised to learn that Winderen contributed
hydrophone recordings to the Sigur Ròs film Heima; she
shares the band’s penchant for conjuring brooding, majestic
desolation.
I’m also captivated by Crosstalk (Bridge), a
compilation of what Harry Partch called “speech-music”—a
nexus of ordinary speech, recitation, and songlike inflection heard
everywhere from Schoenberg’s 1912 masterpiece Pierrot
Lunaire to verbally dazzling hiphop tracks. Here,
processed electronics, raps, rants, and granular synthesis collide with
voice-based works by Pamela Z, Shelley Hirsch, DJ Spooky, Vijay
Iyer, and others. I’m particularly taken with tracks by George
Lewis, DBR‘s mournful “Blimp/Sky,” and Pamela Z’s
“Declaratives in the First Person.”
Finally, don’t miss MEV 40 (New World), a four-disc
retrospective of the blazing, radical, and visionary live-electronics
ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva. Italian for “live electronic
music,” MEV were founded in Rome during the damn-it-all efflorescence
of the 1960s; since then, the group’s core of Richard Teitelbaum, Alvin
Curran, and Frederic Rzewski continue to transform the notion of live
electronic music into a rowdy, passionate Happening. This is essential
listening for anyone who loves electronic music. 
