Classical Listening

[stlukesguild]

Dawn Upshaw is certainly one of the best and most intelligent singers active today. On this last account she is perhaps only rivaled by Anne Sofie von Otter, Cecilia Bartoli, and a few others. Her silvery voice has caressed everything from Renaissance arias to the latest vocal works of Osvaldo Golijov.
I've recently finished playing her disc, White Moon.



This is a fascinating collection of songs beautifully sung. Dawn Upshaw sings a selection of songs and arias based upon the theme of the moon including works by Peter Warlock, Handel, Monteverdi, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Joseph Swantner, John Dowland, Heitor Victor-Lobos, George Crumb, and Henry Purcell. A lovely disc.

[Fen]

I am listening to Purcell. I love how it is so crisp and clear yet it can be soft and moving too. Also the way his music moves about like in his Trumpet voluntary.

[Virgil]

I just love this rendition of a shaker hymn arranged for classical music and played by Yo Yo Ma and sung by Alison Krauss. Aaron Copeland made it famous by using the melody in Appalachian Spring. But Ma's and and Krauss' rendition is so exquisite!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBOYYlanm1k

[Maryd.]

Hey all, just thought I would share something odd about classical listening. When my daughter (heathcliff) was born, she had a severe case of, what we believed was colic. This went on for roughly 10 months. We tried every thing doctors... Prescribed medications... Old remedies everything. Then one day around the fourth month we got so sick of all the noise. (Did I also mention she had a great pair of lungs.) We decided to put a Pavrotti Cd on - in loud stereo. She screamed even louder until she got to this one song. Actually I think it was an Italian opera lullaby. I wasn't really sure, but we put the song on repeat for one hour and were just stunned at her silence.

Needless to say from that day onwards we would put the song on repeat at least one to two hours a day. It worked and she remained calm after that. Now she is quite the scholar, sometimes we say Pavrotti did that and sometimes we say two negatives made a possitive.

[Virgil]

Hey all, just thought I would share something odd about classical listening. When my daughter (heathcliff) was born, she had a severe case of, what we believed was colic. This went on for roughly 10 months. We tried every thing doctors... Prescribed medications... Old remedies everything. Then one day around the fourth month we got so sick of all the noise. (Did I also mention she had a great pair of lungs.) We decided to put a Pavrotti Cd on - in loud stereo. She screamed even louder until she got to this one song. Actually I think it was an Italian opera lullaby. I wasn't really sure, but we put the song on repeat for one hour and were just stunned at her silence.

Needless to say from that day onwards we would put the song on repeat at least one to two hours a day. It worked and she remained calm after that. Now she is quite the scholar, sometimes we say Pavrotti did that and sometimes we say two negatives made a possitive.

Great story Mary. I'll have to send Heathcliff my favorite Pavorotti youtube.

[Maryd.]

Great story Mary. I'll have to send Heathcliff my favorite Pavorotti youtube.

You do that Virg, I'm sure she will appreciate it...

[Virgil]

You do that Virg, I'm sure she will appreciate it...

I did and she liked it.

[atiguhya padma]

I am currently listening to David Lang, a composer I am unfamiliar with. I like his minimal-like sound. The piece I am listening to is Child. Does anyone here know his music?

[Neely]

Working to Rachmaninov's piano concerto 2 and 3, good music to type to, not too distracting. I have also been listening to Handel's water music and Mozart's piano concerto no. 23 this morning.

It was a blow to lose a lot of music when my old computer went a few weeks ago, I'll have to build it up again and this time make back-ups if I don't get them as CDs, lost a few good Bach recordings...

[stlukesguild]

Sorry to hear, Neely. Mine is currently in the last throws... albeit it'll have to wait. I must buy a car next pay check. I won't lose anything much, however, when I change over. I learned my lesson over a year ago when a power surge virtually fried my hard drive. I now have two exterior hard drives with a terra-bit (1000 Gigs) of memory).
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I'm currently listening to Carl Stamitz' clarinet concertos:



I must admit that our resident "musicologist" with his goofy conspiracy theories on Mozart and Haydn does some good by drawing attention to the fact that Mozart and Haydn were not the sole composers of merit during their lifetime. The average classical music fan could easily name some dozen composers of genius of the late Romantic age (Brahms, Bruckner, Wagner, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Puccini, Mussorgsky, etc...). While Bach may be the towering figure of the Baroque it is also easy to name a half dozen or more composers of real merit that were his contemporaries (Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel, Scarlatti, Corelli, etc...). But one almost gets the notion that Mozart and Haydn had the whole of the "Classical" era to themselves. The reality is that there are any number of other talented composers of the age that have been far to long ignored: C.P.E. Bach, Joseph Haydn's brother, Michael Haydn, Carl Stamitz, Paul Wranitzky, Christian Cannabich, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Franz Krommer, Josef Myslivecek, Louis Spohr, Joseph Martin Kraus, and more. This collection of clarinet concertos by Stamitz is quite lovely... even if it never quite attains the sublime level of Mozart's finest work.

[Gladys]

C.P.E. Bach, Joseph Haydn's brother, Michael Haydn, Carl Stamitz, Paul Wranitzky, Christian Cannabich, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Franz Krommer, Josef Myslivecek, Louis Spohr, Joseph Martin Kraus, and more

Early Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn certainly dwarf the rest. I also enjoy Stamitz, and can add only J.C. Bach, Luigi Boccherini, Muzio Clementi, Domenico Cimarosa and Luigi Cherubini.

Purcell, Pergolesi and Heinrich Schütz are my current fascination.

[stlukesguild]

Currently I'm listening to Vladimír Godár's disc, Mater. Godár is a Slovak composer born in Bratislava. His music combines elements of Minimalism... especially those of the so-called "Holy Minimalists" such as Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki, John Rutter and John Tavener with elements of folk music, echoes of medieval modal music and chant, and even aspects of Middle Eastern music. There is a brooding, eastern European melancholy to the music... and yet it never slips into mere sentimentality. The music on this disc is all composed for solo female vocal, chorus, and string orchestra. The lead singer, Iva Bittová is neither a traditional classical/operatic singer or a pop singer, but rather something closer to a highly sophisticated folk singer. Godár has a deep connection with Slovak folk music, having transcribed a collection of Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs by Leoš Janáček. This music is touching, deeply moving, and at its best resonant with a real spirituality. A composer worth watching.

[stlukesguild]

I've been padding out much of my classical music collection recently. I've been seeking to fill in certain gaps such as that of Russian composers and especially Russian opera, Modern and Contemporary composers, and less-well-known composers... the peers of the giant figures such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, and Stravinsky. At the same time I've been fleshing out my collection of works on the greatest composers by seeking out a second or third version of favorite piece and definitive recordings of other works. This has led me to the purchase of a good number of box sets. I've recently purchased box sets on Haydn's piano sonatas (and symphonies), Beethoven's piano sonatas, Schubert's piano sonatas, and Schumann's works for solo piano. It just so happens that all of these piano box sets were recordings of the magnificent Wilhelm Kempff. Kempff was one of the most elegant and sensitive of pianists... and clearly one of the greatest of the 20th century. His approach was seen by some as highly reserved. Unlike pianists like Rubinstein and Glenn Gould (brilliant in their own way) he never imposed his own romantic or quirky visions upon the music he was interpreted. An artist like Gould is always present (for better or worse) in his interpretations. When Kempff plays Beethoven it is Beethoven we get. Kempff is virtually transparent... invisible. After having played Beethoven's great Hammerklavier sonata for Sibelius, the aged composer remarked, "You did not play like a pianist; you played like a human being."

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Currently I am listening to Wilhelm Kempff's recordings of Schumann's works for solo piano. Robert Schumann in many ways was the father of Romanticism and his own life was a Romantic tragedy. Schumann was enamored of literature to nearly the same extent as he was of music. As a student he devoured the works of Goethe, Schiller, Byron, the Greeks, Heinrich Heine, etc...

Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) studied piano under the guidance of Friederich Wieck and soon developed a passion for the music of Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn and aspirations for a musical career. He rapidly developed as a talented pianist and was virtually assured a lucrative career as a concert pianist until he permanently injured his right hand. At this time he shifted his focus to composition.

Schumann developed the notion of merging the musical with the poetic or literary (as opposed to the purely abstract "absolute music"). With his work Papillons (Butterflies) Schumann sought to consciously set ideas and moods from a beloved novel in musical form. He also began writing critical essays in defense of his poetic music.

Following the death of his brother, Schumann made a first attempt at suicide. Recovering from this he established Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik ("New Journal in Music") in which he lambasted the popular taste for flashy technical displays from figures such as Paganini, Liszt, and Wagner whom Schumann perceived as inferior composers. Instead he campaigned to revive interest in major composers of the past, including Mozart, Beethoven and Weber. As a music critic one must even credit Schumann with having discovered Schubert's then unknown Symphony no. 9 while in Vienna

Schumann became engaged in 1934 to the wealthy 16 year-old Ernestine von Fricken but broke this engagement off due to growing attractions for Clara Wieck, the talented pianist and daughter of his former teacher. Clara's father forbid their relationship and rejected Schumann's entreaties to marriage leading to a long legal dispute that was only ended when Clara came of age and was able to marry without consent.

Schumann continued to compose music with literary poetic underpinnings. In his work, Carnaval, Schumann named sections for both Ernestine ("Estrella") and Clara ("Chiarina"). Eusebius and Florestan, the imaginary figures appearing so often in his critical writings, also appear, alongside brilliant imitations of Chopin and Paganini. In Carnaval, Schumann went further than in Papillons, by conceiving the story as well as the musical illustration.

Other important compositions include The Kinderszenen, a favorite of Schumann's piano works, is playful and childlike, and nicely captures the innocence of childhood. Träumerei is one of the most famous piano pieces ever written, and exists in myriad forms and transcriptions. The piece, like much of Schumann's work, appears simple, but has been defended as "complex" in its harmonic structure.

The Kreisleriana, considered one of Schumann's greatest works, also carried his fantasy and emotional range further. Johannes Kreisler, the fictional poet created by poet E. T. A. Hoffman who is limned as a "romantic brought into contact with reality", was appropriated by Schumann who utilized him as an imaginary mouthpiece for the sonic expression of emotional states, in music that is "fantastic and mad."

In 1940 Robert and Clara were married, consummating the great love story of the lovers kept apart by her parents. He continued write important music criticism and major works of music, including his 4 symphonies and his settings of the Liederkreis of Joseph von Eichendorff, the Frauenliebe und -leben of Chamisso (Op. 42), the Dichterliebe of Heine (Op. 48) and Myrthen, a collection of songs, including poems by Goethe, Rückert, Heine, Byron, Burns and Moore. He was afforded little recognition, however. On one occasion, accompanying his wife on a concert tour in Russia, Schumann was asked whether 'he too was a musician'.

By the mid-1850s Schumann began to exhibit signs of mental illness: He had returned to Düsseldorf and set himself to editing his complete works and making an anthology on the subject of music. He imagined that voices sounded in his ear and he heard angelic music. One night he suddenly left his bed, having dreamt or imagined that a ghost (purportedly the spirit of either Schubert or Mendelssohn) had dictated a "spirit theme" to him. Schumann's symptoms increased, the angelic visions sometimes being replaced by demonic visions. He warned Clara that he feared he might do her harm. On 27 February 1854, he attempted suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the Rhine River. Rescued by boatmen and taken home, he asked to be taken to an asylum for the insane. He entered Dr. Franz Richarz' sanitarium in Endenich, a quarter of Bonn, and remained there until his death on 29 July 1856. Given his reported symptoms, one modern view is that his death was a result of syphilis, which he may have contracted during his student days, and which would have remained latent during most of his marriage. According to studies by the musicologist and literary scholar Eric Sams, Schumann's symptoms during his terminal illness and death appear consistent with those of mercury poisoning, mercury being a common treatment for syphilis and other conditions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsiTArRcmFE

[estelwen]

Unlike pianists like Rubinstein and Glenn Gould (brilliant in their own way) he never imposed his own romantic or quirky visions upon the music he was interpreted. An artist like Gould is always present (for better or worse) in his interpretations.

Agreed! However, the force of Gould's personality is undeniable. I am currently listening to his recordings of the Goldberg Variations, both the early recording from 1955 and the later one from 1981. The contrast between the two is riveting. The first, bombastic and arrogant, the last humble and meditative but still fiery. Both are among my favorites.

[stlukesguild]

Don't get me wrong. I love Gould's recordings. I have almost everything he did by Bach. I agree about his Goldberg's. The first version was a revelation... but compared to the latter version recorded in the 1980s it is far more florid... almost decorative. The same might be said about Richter's recordings of the Well Tempered Clavier vs that of Angela Hewitt...for example. But this is why classical music fans/fanatics often end up with multiple recordings of the same favorite pieces of music. I think I currently have 4 or 5 versions of the Goldberg Variations and 4 of the Art of the Fugue including a recent favorite performed upon recorders.