Classical Listening

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Here's Rachmaninov's take on Arnold Böcklin's painting Isle of the Dead.
Böcklin painted several versions of this subject and Rachmaninov was inspired to write a musical version after seeing one of them. I saw a version of it in Berlin many years ago and another in Basle more recently. I was shown the house where the artist lived in Zurich by a friend who had lived close by.

http://youtu.be/N10YZ2Sk3Kg

I love that piece.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Mozart violin concerto no.5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpzvu...eature=related

I like the second movement the best I think; just been listening to that with a beer and no one (awake) in the house, fantastic.

[cl154576]

Mozart violin concerto no.5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpzvu...eature=related

I like the second movement the best I think; just been listening to that with a beer and no one (awake) in the house, fantastic.

I'm listening to this right now ...

i'm not sure if anyone has already mentioned this, but – one of my longtime favorites: Elgar Cello Concerto (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVTe8Zm1Xrk)

[stlukesguild]

Listening to Wagner again. For all his reputation for bombast, he is able to write music as exquisite as this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPn3J...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zkKx...eature=related

I was just looking at how Wagner "frames" the Ring des Nibelungens. The droning sound of the beginning of Das Rheingold is like nothing before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1zsS...eature=related

And then the close of the Gotterdammerung... absolutely the most chilling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0PpTPvbr-4

[cl154576]

Bach Chaccone (violin) – Henryk Szeryng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgE2Z...eature=related

Has anyone else listened to this? If so, which interpretations do you like (for piano as well as violin)? So far, my favorite piano version is Michelangeli's.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I've been working my way through Beethoven's symphonies. I've listened to one, two, three, and four. So far three is my favorite.

[Lokasenna]

I've been working my way through Beethoven's symphonies. I've listened to one, two, three, and four. So far three is my favorite.

They're all wonderful, but seven and nine are my favourites. I can never decide which one I like best - I always swear it is the one I'm listening to, but then change my mind when I hear the other.

Wagner termed the seventh the 'apotheosis of dance' - and he isn't wrong. It's nearly impossible to stop your body moving of its own accord, so infectiously joyful is the music. The last movement comprises of eight of the most riotous minutes in all music - divine.

The ninth is the one people always remember, and with good reason. It is an absolute statement of joy. To be honest, Beethoven doesn't really do voices well, but somehow you forget that as you are caught up in that fantastic choral finale. There is a purity of expression that permeates the whole thing.

I'm glad you like the third as well - though it isn't as toe-tapping as the others, the intensity of its feeling is remarkable, and that wonderful, melancholic second movement is most affecting.

Just out of interest, whose recordings are you listening to? I can recommend Günter Wand and the NDR Symphony Orchestra. I think they are the most consistently wonderful recordings I've found.

[Emil Miller]

Bach Chaccone (violin) – Henryk Szeryng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgE2Z...eature=related

Has anyone else listened to this? If so, which interpretations do you like (for piano as well as violin)? So far, my favorite piano version is Michelangeli's.

It doesn't surprise me that Michelangeli's performance is your favourite piano version; he was an exceptional virtuoso. Szerying was also a brilliant performer and the version you have posted is about as good as it gets.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

They're all wonderful, but seven and nine are my favourites. I can never decide which one I like best - I always swear it is the one I'm listening to, but then change my mind when I hear the other.

Wagner termed the seventh the 'apotheosis of dance' - and he isn't wrong. It's nearly impossible to stop your body moving of its own accord, so infectiously joyful is the music. The last movement comprises of eight of the most riotous minutes in all music - divine.

The ninth is the one people always remember, and with good reason. It is an absolute statement of joy. To be honest, Beethoven doesn't really do voices well, but somehow you forget that as you are caught up in that fantastic choral finale. There is a purity of expression that permeates the whole thing.

I'm glad you like the third as well - though it isn't as toe-tapping as the others, the intensity of its feeling is remarkable, and that wonderful, melancholic second movement is most affecting.

Just out of interest, whose recordings are you listening to? I can recommend Günter Wand and the NDR Symphony Orchestra. I think they are the most consistently wonderful recordings I've found.

I'm listening to this, because it was so cheep. I think it's recording from the 60s remastered, and they sound pretty dang good considering. I'll probably get better recordings of what I like best.

It's odd, because I always thought Beethoven's symphonies were really dark, just based on some of his sonatas and the 5th symphony.

[Vonny]

I'm listening to this, because it was so cheep. I think it's recording from the 60s remastered, and they sound pretty dang good considering. I'll probably get better recordings of what I like best.

It's odd, because I always thought Beethoven's symphonies were really dark, just based on some of his sonatas and the 5th symphony.

Mutatis, classical is more fun than metal, that is if you preserve some of your hearing!

Currently listening to this collection of Norwegian folk songs from the Middle-Ages onward. The singers are a trio of young women perform these songs a capella in a manner not far removed from the Anonymous Four. A lovely collection.

I got this Luke. It's really nice.

[Gladys]

To be honest, Beethoven doesn't really do voices well...

Why is it then, from the moment I stumbled upon classical music, that Beethoven songs and the voices in Fidelio rise high above the classical crowd?

My first and long-standing choral favourite was his Mass in C, Op. 86? That and Handel's Acis and Galatea.

[stlukesguild]

Has anyone else listened to this? If so, which interpretations do you like (for piano as well as violin)? So far, my favorite piano version is Michelangeli's.

I don't think I have any piano transcriptions of the sonatas and partitas for solo violin... unless there are one or two selections on one of the recital discs I have. At present I own the recordings of this oeuvre by both Henryk Szeryng and Emil Gilels... I've heard good things about Gidon Kremer's recordings as well, and have placed them upon my "wish list".

[stlukesguild]

Just out of interest, whose recordings are you listening to? I can recommend Günter Wand and the NDR Symphony Orchestra. I think they are the most consistently wonderful recordings I've found.

I'm listening to this, because it was so cheep. I think it's recording from the 60s remastered, and they sound pretty dang good considering. I'll probably get better recordings of what I like best.

No need to rush out and get a better recording. The Joseph Krips set is one of the best. If I were to recommend alternatives, I would suggest that Karajan's set from the 1960s is absolutely iconic among older recordings, and Carlos Kleiber's recording of the 5th has never been equaled. Among newer recordings, I'd recommend John Eliot Gardiner for Historicaly Informed Performances. His 3rd is especially powerful.

To be honest, Beethoven doesn't really do voices well...

Why is it then, from the moment I stumbled upon classical music, that Beethoven songs and the voices in Fidelio rise high above the classical crowd?

Personal opinion? Seriously, I must agree with Lokasenna. The central core of Beethoven's oeuvre is found among the symphonies, the piano sonatas, the string quartets... and maybe the piano concertos (although Mozart really owns this genre). His vocal works are of secondary interest. Fidelio would be even less popular and less performed than it already is were it not by Beethoven. Mozart has at least 6 operas that far surpass this, Handel probably a dozen, Wagner virtually his entire oeuvre, and any number of composers who are less illustrious than Beethoven have at least one opera that far outstrip Fidelio: Rossini (The Barber of Seville, Cerentolla), Bellini ( I Capuleti ed i Montecchi, La sonnambula, Norma, and I puritani), Puccini (Manon Lascaut, La Boheme, Tosca, Mme Butterfly...), Verdi (Les Traviata, Il Trovatore, MacBeth, Aida, Rigoletto, Don Carlos...), Richard Strauss (Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau ohne Schatten...) Tchaikovsky (Eugene Onegin), Mussorgsky (Boris Godunov), Wilibald Gluck (Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste, Iphigénie en Aulide, Iphigénie en Tauride...) and might argue operas by Monteverdi, Rameau, Lully, Hasse, Vivaldi, etc...

Beethoven's lieder are good... but as with Mozart's and Haydn's they pale before Schubert who raised to form to the same extent that Beethoven raised the piano sonata. Schumann, Wolf, Brahms, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Debussy, Ned Rorem and many more achieved far more than Beethoven within the realm of the "art song"

This leaves us with the choral works. Here, Beethoven has one undisputed masterpiece, the Missa Solemnis... but there are few (outside of Beethoven fanatics) who would suggest that the Missa Solemnis rises high above Mozart's Great Mass or Requiem, Haydn's Creation or other masses, Handel's Messiah, Solomon, Esther, the Coronation Anthems, as well as the 100+ cantatas and 20+ other oratorios, Brahms' German Requiem, Faure's Requiem. This doesn't even begin to look at the Bach... or much of the "golden age" of choral music: the middle ages through the Baroque period.

I love Beethoven... and absolutely thrill to the choral passages of the 9th... but I would never begin to think of Beethoven as a major composer of vocal music... and I am an unquestionably fanatic of classical vocal music.

[stlukesguild]

I got this Luke. It's really nice.

Glad you enjoy it. You may wish to check out other music in a similar genre:

The all-girl group, the Anonymous 4 are particularly spectacular:









Sequentia, the Gothic Voices, and the Hilliard Ensemble are equally masterful in performing early vocal music:

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Mutatis, classical is more fun than metal, that is if you preserve some of your hearing!

Classical is more sophisticated, classier, intricate, and many-other-adjectives-I-can-think-of than metal. But fun? Sorry, can't agree with that one. As someone who's been to the symphony and metal concerts, metal is waaaayyyyyyyyyy more fun.