Classical Listening

[stlukesguild]

My computer was down for about 5 days (fried modem) and so I found myself motivated to just sit back and listen to some opera recordings. The first I listened to was Josef Krips recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4501093801_4014c3b1c2_o.jpg

I cannot recommend this recording highly enough. It was recorded in 1955 and sells for around $9 US... and yet it is an absolutely marvelous recording. The sound quality is exceptional, considering the age, and there is not a single weak link in the entire cast. The climax in which Don Giovanni is hauled of to hell cannot be beat. Seriously... I took a chance figuring I couldn't go wrong at the price... and instead I find that with the possible exception of the recent Rene Jacobs recording (which is exquisitely packaged) this may be my favorite Don. The only drawback: no libretto... but having several other recordings I merely followed along on one of those (and the entire text is available online).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2751/4501239889_0aed292544_o.jpg

The second opera I listened to was Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice... Yes! Haydn wrote operas... almost as many as Mozart... and if this one is any measure, they're pretty damn good. Orfeo was a favored operatic theme going back to the first extent opera: Monteverdi's Orfeo. In this telling of the story Euridice has been promised by her father, the king to another king... but being in love with Orfeo she runs away to escape her fate. She is come upon by roving bands of shepherds who plan to sacrifice her until Orfeo arrives and placates them with a tune on his lyre (music soothes the savage beast?). Returning home, Euridice's father relents to allow the two to wed. Following the wedding ceremony the rival king's henchmen arrive and attempt to abduct Euridice, but she is bitten by a snake and dies. The rest of the narrative follows the traditional Orpheus narrative with Orfeo entering Hades, being given the chance to take Euridice home... on the condition he not look back. Unable to do so she is lost to him forever. Orfeo returns home to lament. He is come upon by a band of Bacchants who entreat him to "eat, drink, and be merry". He declares that he has sworn off love forever. They respond by poisoning him. He dies. The furies arrive and begin to torture the Bacchants and the curtain drops.

The plot is about as ridiculous as The Magic Flute... and perhaps even weaker when one considers that the work was never staged, thus Haydn was never afforded the chance to edit and hone things in. Nevertheless, the work is quite strong. It dates from his period in London and Haydn was able to compose the work for a far larger orchestra than ever was at his disposal at the Esterhazy court. He was especially influenced by the works of Handel and made a great use of the large choruses for which the English were/are renowned.

There are any number of lovely arias and choruses. I am especially fond of Chi spira e non spera and aria/lament sung by Orfeo following the death of Euridice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5caZsa1DyEg

A few of the other better moments from the opera that can be found on YouTube... including this dramatic use of chorus, Ferma, ferma il piede, o principessa!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4fpHNpEy5w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT8CKsb8oUY

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well I’ve managed to find an old favourite while hunting around on the top of my wardrobe: Mozart's piano concerto no.23 (and no.26). :smile5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vttZzUPg3A

The whole thing is quite lovely. I think I am going to be playing it quite a bit today while doing a bit of uni work, I might as well while I’m in the mood for writing, though not too much of course.

Edit: Just got through the post next season's classical concert listings for the City Hall, not only is there a performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto (No. 3) Concerto for Two Violins and Vivaldi's Four Seasons - what a concerto that will be - but there is also another performance of, yes you guessed it, Mozart's 23rd!!! :willy_nilly:

[Emil Miller]

England used to be referred to as 'The land without music' which wasn't completely true even though it could seldom match the greatness of Germany or Russia, not to mention Italy or France, but occasionally it produced a masterpiece. It might sound fanciful to speak of a country having a soul but if it's at all possible then this is the soul of England.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D6sI5zx4ro

[stlukesguild]

Vaughan-Williams work may be perfectly suited to represent the "soul" of England in musical form. He was a master of the pastoral in music... that music so suggestive of the English landscape... which was so central to English painting and poetry. Structuring this work upon the example of the work of the early master, Thomas Tallis, didn't hurt any. I have been recently listening to early English music (Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Henry Purcell... and of course the Italianate German master of English opera and oratorio: Handel). These composers should in no way be underrated. The more I explore Handel's extensive oeuvre... his cantatas, operas, and oratorios that were long ignored... the closer he comes in my esteem to J.S. Bach. Right now I'm listening to this disc of Purcell's music for Queen Mary...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2682/4542203954_0cd7d7dc0e_o.jpg

... and I must admit he is far better than I had previously thought... or remembered. I will certainly be exploring more of his music soon.

[Bastable]

I've been inspired to "get into" classical music, with an emphasis on opera. Since this is where all the classical music fans congregate - where would you recommend I start?

[Gladys]

Mozart's Don Giovanni: brilliant words, brilliant music, brilliant drama!

[anzki4]

I have also "got into" classical a while ago. However I can`t stand classical with vocals! My favorites so far are Beethoven: Moonlight sonata, and Tchaikovsky`s Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

[kasie]

Bastable - I don't know how practical a piece of advice this will be for you, but if you possibly can, try to go to see a live performance of an opera, preferably one with surtitles if you don't speak the language in which it is being sung. It doesn't really matter which one, though maybe one of the 'pops' would be more accessible for a first experience. (Salome, for example, which has had such 'rave revues' on this thread might be a bit daunting as a first experience of opera - on the other hand it could blow your mind and convert you on the spot.) My 'first time' was La Boheme, on the recommendation of my music master. My niece has just seen La Traviata and is hooked for life - she chose that over Madama Butterfly as she didn't want a sad ending, she said....guess she will always go to the opera with a wad of tissues from now on! :nod:

I've just seen Carmen for the I-don't-know-how-manyth time - choosing a 'pop' like that could be the way in for you, seeing or just listening, as you will probably recognise lots of it.

[Emil Miller]

I have also "got into" classical a while ago. However I can`t stand classical with vocals! My favorites so far are Beethoven: Moonlight sonata, and Tchaikovsky`s Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.


It isn't necesary to like vocal accompaniment to orchestral music, it depends what you like to hear. The pieces you have mentioned are all very popular and rightly so. Swan Lake, for all that it has been performed so many times, is still the greatest ballet of all. The Moonlight sonata is still one of the most beautiful piano works in the repertoire despite the fact that anyone with the slightest interest in music knows of it. If you are a recent convert to great music you have a long and fabulous journey ahead of you which will almost certainly take you to regions that you may currently find unlikeable. We all make the journey in our own way but along the road we learn more about music and its many facets. I don't know if you have listened to any symphonic works but I note that you are from Finland and so you are most likely to have heard some of the works of Sibelius.
I think anyone who wants to know just how great the human spirit can be should listen to his work and in particular his 2nd symphnony. It has become
a venerable warhorse among symphonies but the finale is still one of the most heroic endings to any work ever composed.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gdM3n9hNdE

[LitNetIsGreat]

I've been inspired to "get into" classical music, with an emphasis on opera. Since this is where all the classical music fans congregate - where would you recommend I start?

Oh good move indefinitely. I don't know how I existed without opera before. Following on from Kasie's wise advice I would say the same, stick to the popular ones - Mozart, Puccini, Verdi - you can't really go wrong with those. Any of the one's Kasie mentioned plus Figaro, must be Figaro - Figaro and La Traviata in particular have hooked me totally, but that's just a personal preference.

I would definitely try to see a live performance, but start by searching for DVD performances and perhaps even before that listening to select arias or preludes (Mortal posted a load of choice ones a few pages back).

Enjoy!

StLuke's: I'll certainly look towards the Handel next, though I've still several "major" ones left to explore... :willy_nilly:

[ktm5124]

I'm so glad I found this thread!

I highly recommend Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 3 and his Piano Sonata no. 8. They are entirely addicting!

[stlukesguild]

COLOR="DarkRed"]I've been inspired to "get into" classical music, with an emphasis on opera. Since this is where all the classical music fans congregate - where would you recommend I start?[/COLOR]

I believe I've made suggestions along this line earlier in this thread. I would avoid Wagner and opera post-Wagner at the outset as Wagner brings something very different to opera... something that may be best served by first having a good appreciation of the earlier traditional approaches to opera. The traditional format of opera was set by the time of Gluck... or even Handel: the recitative (or half-sung/half-recited dialog) alternates with arias, duets, trios, and choruses. You might essentially think of a Hollywood musical where the dialog (in this case the recitative) is broken up as suddenly the characters break into a song. Wagner shatters this tradition by developing a musical theater in which there is no break in the music which unfolds more in a symphonic manner.

There have been several good recommendations. Nothing surpasses the experiences of witnessing an opera live. I was immediately seduced. The next ideal would be to look into some good performances of opera on DVD where you can still experience the work as theater as well as music. A current favorite of mine is the French Baroque composer, Rameau's Les Indes Galantes. This production by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants is particularly fine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zegtH-acXE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_nUt66IvIY

Of course French Baroque opera placed a great emphasis upon dance as opposed to the more traditional drama.

Among the best choices for an introduction to opera you might look into Bizet's Carmen, Mozart's Magic Flute, Cosi fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, and Don Giovanni, Rossini's Barber of Seville or Cinderella, Verdi's La Traviata or Aida, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore or Lucia di Lammermoor, Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula, Handel's Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano, Alcina, or Serse.

I would also make a few further recommendations. The first is that you might wish to explore opera initially through the various recordings of recitals... performances of exemplary arias, duets, etc... by some of the best singers. Among discs I would highly recommend I would include:

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You might also simply look into "greatest hits" collections of famous arias by the big composers. Another possibility is that you look into Chandos records' series on "Opera in English". Finally I would suggest you look into some good guide books (Penguin or Grammophone) and brief histories of opera which can help put things in perspective. Opera is an incredibly broad field and there are works dating from the late Renaissance to the middle of last week. Opera fans can be absolutely fanatical (far more so the book lovers) so don't allow yourself to be put off by attacks upon this great soprano by the fan of a different soprano... or by those cognoscenti who claim that this French soprano from 1911 or that Milanese star of La Scala from 1892 is the greatest singer ever... in spite of the lack of any credible recordings of the same. Look through the rest of this thread, feel free to ask questions, and enjoy!

[Gladys]

As a teenager I stumbled upon Handel's Acis and Galetea and the opera remains a favourite. Acis and Galetea has an English libretto, there is enough repetition to make meaning transparent and, above all, the music is joyful and alive beyond belief.

Incidentally, I recorded Semele from TV in November and have watched it a dozen time since - humour and wit aplenty.

[Bastable]

Okay, so I just checked out what was going on in my area, and I discovered that The Barber of Seville is going to be playing in about a month or so, with La Traviata playing not long after. I'll be going about purchasing tickets in the coming week.

Thanks for the recommendations guys, much appreciated :)

[Emil Miller]

Without going into the soviet authorities requirement for Shostakovitch to produce work less esoteric and more accessible to people, here is part of his response, the finale to his 5th symphony in an outstanding performance by Bernstein and the Berlin Philharmonic. If this doesn't blow your socks off you aren't wearing any.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogJFXqYEYd8

[Drkshadow03]

Without going into the soviet authorities requirement for Shostakovitch to produce work less esoteric and more accessible to people, here is part of his response, the finale to his 5th symphony in an outstanding performance by Bernstein and the Berlin Philharmonic. If this doesn't blow your socks off you aren't wearing any.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogJFXqYEYd8

Socks are bourgeoisie anyway!

[Emil Miller]

Socks are bourgeoisie anyway!

Not necessarily.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVhto-jt438

[Musicology]

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Serenade to Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPteIR4Qaog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btxc1giNl9A&feature=related

[stlukesguild]

I haven't yet come around to Shostakovitch's symphonies. Too much obvious bombast... like Bruckner without the Germanic mastery of structure. Yet I love his audacious opera, The Nose, his cello concerto, and as a Bach fanatic... definitely his Preludes and Fugues modeled on Bach's Well Tempered Clavier:

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuj5uzgmB5A&feature=related

[stlukesguild]

Here's a great little video with Magdalena Kozena performing an aria from Bach's Cantata BWV 30:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJcL-dSn5zo

[stlukesguild]

I've been reading a good deal on opera lately and I'm quite fascinated with the French Baroque operas... an era I had largely ignored until recently. This production of Lully's Cadmus et Hermione is absolutely visual magic... making it quite clear that I truly need to explore DVD options of my favorite operas. Anyway... take a look at the visuals of this opera... staged in a manner that recreates the historical staging of the Baroque era... down to limiting the lighting to candle-light:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLPcKBGSDno&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDuHF3rMKS0&feature=related

I ordered (and have already received) this spectacular production of another French Baroque opera: Rameau's Le indes galantes. Again, it is a feast for the eyes as much as the ears:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP0uqPLjUzQ&feature=related

The dance/ballet was from the start an essential element of French opera (where it was for a time banned from Viennese opera). The Francophile leanings of the Russians undoubtedly led to the similar obsessions with the ballet among Russian composers... who would return the favor with the French productions of Diaghilev and Nijinsky with Stravinsky, etc...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFeZt0iADZ8&feature=PlayList&p=3DE47D42559C0B2D&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

[_JadeRain_]

I love anything my Chopin and Mozart. They are my two favorite composers, though, I am not sure how I would rank them! ;)

[stlukesguild]

Both are marvelous composers... and unrivaled at composing unforgettable melodies. Chopin owed much to Mozart's classical sensibility. At a time when pianistic virtuosity (such as that of Liszt) was King, Chopin (like Schumann) embraced a simpler style ( in spite of the fact that Chopin was no slouch as a pianist). I've only recently begun to explore Chopin's music once again... especially in the unmatched performances of Arthur Rubinstein:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/4556021169_b18893365f_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3331/4556021063_68fa4387f9_o.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/4556021029_cac8ae7350_o.jpg

The shimmering opening of the Polonaise-Fantasie is surely worthy of Debussy... although Chopin quickly returns the classical structure of the dance form (Polonaise).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_AqTY0jkCM

[Musicology]

J.S. Bach
Aria and Chorale
From Cantata 105

'Kann ich nur Jesum mir zum Freunde machen so gilt der Mammon nichts bei mir'
(If I can only make a friend of Jesus, mammon is worth nothing to me').

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD01nAZv_UE&feature=related

[Petrarch's Love]

Wow, St. Luke's thanks for those clips of that amazing production of Rameau's Indes Galantes. The visuals in general are amazing, and the choreography is spot on. Updated enough that it's fresh for a modern audience, but beautifully suited to the music. I think some of those dance clips would be really helpful to explaining music like this to people who have trouble getting into it, since I think a lot of people for some reason hear Baroque music and assume that its designed to be very, very staid and formal, when much of it was intended to be dance music to get people moving. This production really highlights the movement and the passion inherent in such music.

[Emil Miller]

Another great piece from Vaughan Williams.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9x9RwMt0l0

[Musicology]

Thanks Brian Bean,

This is a wonderful overture. A special favourite of my mother who believed it to be a virtual musical definition of all that is good of England.


Another great piece from Vaughan Williams.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9x9RwMt0l0

[Emil Miller]

Thanks Brian Bean,

This is a wonderful overture. A special favourite of my mother who believed it to be a virtual musical definition of all that is good of England.

Yes it certainly epitomises an England that, unfortunately, is no more.
Not politically correct I know but all the better for it.

Here is another piece of quintessentially English music even though the opera that it comes from is set in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6-UGlNyjn0


Delius died at Grez in 1934 and was buried in a nearby cemetery on the Marlotte road that leads out of Grez. The interment ceremony was unusual: there was no priest present, and there were no prayers or music. In 1935, in completion of his own declared wish to be buried in 'a quiet country churchyard in a south of England village', his remains were exhumed and taken from France to the United Kingdom. Jelka contracted pneumonia during the Channel crossing, and could not attend the funeral. On 24 May an Anglican interment took place at the Church of Saint Peter in Limpsfield, Surrey. Vast crowds converged, and a section of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, together with the cellist Beatrice Harrison (of Oxted, nearby), who had given early performances of his works, performed after the funeral ceremony, and Sir Thomas Beecham gave the address. After Jelka died, four days later, she was interred in the same grave as her husband. Beecham's grave is situated approximately ten metres from theirs.


The church mentioned in this extract from Wickipedia was on a country walk that I used to do and I visited the grave of Delius, but it is only now that I have discovered that Thomas Beecham was also buried there. Beecham was a great champion of Delius's music so I suppose he wanted also to be interred in the same village churchyard.

[Musicology]

From Finland's most famous composer Jean Sibelius -

'Karelia Suite'
Op.11
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Charles Mackerass

Intermezzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtIw5AkUEsE

and -

Same piece

Alla marcia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIois3Gaegk&feature=related

[Musicology]

Jean Sibelius
Violin Concerto
Second Movement

Soloist - David Oistrakh

(1966, Moscow)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj6q-x5yOI&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

In response to StLukes dislike of Shostakovitchian bombast here is the beautiful elegiac slow movement to his 2nd piano concerto.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1iXHFzl8wY

[Musicology]

Edward Greig
Concerto in A Minor
End of Second Movement
Soloist - Dinu Lipatti (1950)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKDRdEretC0

[Musicology]

Robert Schumann
Concerto in A Minor
End of Final Movement
Soloist - Dinu Lipatti (1947)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4ebJTDz4Jk&feature=PlayList&p=F58CFFA9DE8CE6D5&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=49

A rare chance to hear part of a little known masterpiece by one of England’s finest composers - Ralph Vaughan Williams.

An opera on John Bunyan's, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ (1942). Here under rehearsal by Sir Adrian Boult.

(A musical journalist of the time described this opera as "summarising in three hours virtually the whole creative output of this wonderful composer").

//

From Acts 3 and 4 -

a. http://www.mediafire.com/?idjzhd2myxj

b. http://www.mediafire.com/?kmllvyimej1

[LitNetIsGreat]

Joyfully at the start of a chamber music festival over here entitled "Classical Revolutionaries" featuring for the most Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert - gets me out of the house and great deal on prices for students!

Last night was Mozart's Oboe Quartet, Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and Wind and Schubert's great (but long) Piano Trio. Tonight's line up features Mozart's Divertimento which the programme notes says is "considered to be the greatest work ever written for this combination" sounds pretty good! :bigear:

[Emil Miller]

Another 20th century giant was Maurice Ravel. This is an outstanding performance of the 2nd movement of his first Piano Concerto, which surely matches the legendary recording made by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qOhg58PwXg

[Musicology]

Peter Tchaikowsky
Waltz
Opera
'Eugene Onegin'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTlhKpgHsQ0&feature=related

Ludwig van Beethoven
Concerto No 4
End of First Movement
Soloist - Murray Perahia


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdfpaMpRvpo&feature=related

Peter Tchaikowsky
Polonaise
Opera
Eugene Onegin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhW_o1D4P3o&feature=related

Sergi Prokofiev
Symphony No. 1
1st/2nd Movement
Claudio Abbado

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjzbEfjQ6V8&feature=related

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Mozart--the 'Prussian' String Quartets with the Amadeus Quartet.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Having a wonderful time with my chamber music festival, great seat the other day and great performances! Off again tomorrow, a little Bach and Mozart - great to come down with after the evils of work.

Currently listening to various bits of Mozart - Violin concerto No.5 amongst others. Ordered more operas. I'm listening to more music than I am reading at present.

[Emil Miller]

Having a wonderful time with my chamber music festival, great seat the other day and great performances! Off again tomorrow, a little Bach and Mozart - great to come down with after the evils of work.

Currently listening to various bits of Mozart - Violin concerto No.5 amongst others. Ordered more operas. I'm listening to more music than I am reading at present.

Neely, remember that you are speaking primarily to Americans about "the evils of work," of which they have little concept, although my sentiments are entirely with yours. "Work", as an afficionado of Oscar Wilde, you must surely know, "is the curse of the drinking classes."

[LitNetIsGreat]

Neely, remember that you are speaking primarily to Americans about "the evils of work," of which they have little concept, although my sentiments are entirely with yours. "Work", as an afficionado of Oscar Wilde, you must surely know, "is the curse of the drinking classes."

Ha, ha yes indeed!

I wouldn't want people to think that I am not hard working though. I am constantly seeking new ways to do little - so much so that it is becoming quite tiring of late. I even cut the damn privet this Sunday (well half of it, I'll do the rest next Sunday weather permitting) it really aches the arms as I have old fashioned shears - a full 33 minutes of pain and hardship! Of course the week is the worst bit - that's the proper job. As well as suffering the pain of teenagers I have to make my own coffee at break because the tea lady uses insufficient quality material, I can't drink that stuff - imagine that hard labour and then having to make your own coffee - awful! But enough about work; I don't want to think of such horrors...I would much rather finish my Wooster and Belgian beer!

Anyway, I had the joy of the Divertimento the other day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jua7gqezWVY
(I have to grab all the classical I get up here you know, this place (Sheffield) is full of ruffians - (though as I dig more and more I am uncovering a thriving classical scene, but not much in terms of opera I'm afraid).

Bottoms up!

[stlukesguild]

Brian... I haven't the least idea of what you are talking about. The American Protestant work ethic is highly overrated.:nod: I am good at my job... but if I won the lottery I'd be in the parking lot doing donuts with the car with my a** hanging out of the window. I am living for 20+ days from now when school lets out for the summer and I have all day to work upon my paintings... now that is where I have no problem with applying myself heart and soul.

I'm a bit like Neely right now in that I too am spending far more time on music than reading... although I have been reading up a good deal on the history of opera and on Baroque music. My music collection is quite deep when it comes to Romanticism and Post-Romanticism... but for the most part Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi have been extent (or nearly so) of my collection of Baroque music. I have now begun to make amends... especially considering the fact that the Baroque... limited as my view of it has been... has long been one of my favorite musical eras.

I recently purchased William Christie's and Les Arts Florissants production of Rameau's Les indes galantes on DVD... and it is absolutely stunning. I have watched it repeatedly and even garnered ideas for my own art work. I am absolutely in love with Danielle de Niese, the Australian-born soprano of Sri Lankan heritage. She's gorgeous... she can sing... and ahe can act like few other opera singers can. What more can you want? And then there's Patricia Pettibon... one of the truly brilliant personalities in contemporary opera. This is an absolute must-see!

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1113/4597106263_6728d63013_o.jpg

Among the music I have been listening to, some of the best has included any number of French Baroque composers who I have ignored for far too long:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/4590267941_0df3a58320_o.jpg

Delalande's Te Deum is absolutely magnificent... especially as performed by Christie's Les Arts Florrissants including such soloists as Véronique Gens and Sandrine Piau... both of whom I have reviewed here earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix2GAITLdGo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx_34ik87q8&feature=related

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4590267975_3d938a7051_o.jpg

Charpentier's Te Deum... performed by the blazing hot HIP conductor, Marc Minkowski:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQQzihD-7cQ

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/4590268013_3dcfd082b1_o.jpg

Campra and Couperin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zcAFZH4yoA&feature=related

Perhaps the most stunning recent purchase, however, has been that of a two-disc set of music by Vivaldi:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/4590888972_f812f93f81_o.jpg

This "Vespers" is reconstructed according to the suggestions of musicologists from the Istituto per i Beni Musicalli in Piemonte based upon studies of Vivaldi's original scores. Vivaldi was commissioned to write several Vespers over the course of his career; unfortunately only disparate elements and fragments remain of any whole. The reconstruction of this particular Vespers is constructed of these various "fragments"... an isolated psalm from one source, a motet from another source. Great attention was paid toward maintaining stylistic coherence and following the proper liturgical order resulting in a complete Vespers cycle (wholly of music written by Vivaldi... this is not a reconstruction involving music written by others... such as Mahler's 10th or even Mozart's Requiem) suggestive of what Vivaldi might have performed in Venice.

The resulting work succeeds magnificently at suggesting a unified whole... rather than a collection of unrelated fragments. While there is a stylistic coherence, there is also a marvelous variety... as we move from rhythmically muscular passages laden with unabashed joy, to expressions of profound sadness, and even unearthly spiritual longing... Exquisite choral passages countered by lovely instrumental breaks and gorgeous music for solo voice. The performances by the Concerto Italiano is magnificent... as I have come to expect from earlier discs within the Opus 111 Vivaldi Edition series. In this particular instance the cover art... about which I have some ambiguous feelings... makes perfect sense.

There is unfortunately nothing of Vivaldi's recently reconstructed Vespers online... there is however a good deal of his choral music available... enough to make it clear to anyone that Vivaldi did far more of merit than The Four Seasons. Personally I find his choral music and opera to be his finest work. This excerpt, Cum dederit dilectis suis, from the Nisi dominus... which is almost unearthly:

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

[Musicology]

'Not forgetting, dear friends, the talents of a certain Kapellmeister. Though (I am reliably informed) news of his music will eventually arrive in Vienna' -

J.N. Forkel (1749-1818) - 'Public Lecture 306' - Gottingen University - Germany 1798 -

Aria
BWV 213/7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BysoQhB2cuI&feature=related

[yanni]

As earlier assumed, JS "Koch" was unknown in Vienna till then!

Good point (confirming my theory), Robert:

"Forkel" avoids mentioning his "other" name in Gottingen, 1798.




'Not forgetting, dear friends, the talents of a certain Kapellmeister. Though (I am reliably informed) news of his music will eventually arrive in Vienna' -

J.N. Forkel (1749-1818) - 'Public Lecture 306' - Gottingen University - Germany 1798 -

Aria
BWV 213/7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BysoQhB2cuI&feature=related

[LitNetIsGreat]

Stlukes, I feel that I am being pulled towards those French operas which you keep plugging. I was particularly interested in exploring the Cadmus et Hermione one – I’ll have to look into that, but unfortunately these things are quite costly, nevertheless they come across as quite enchanting. I’ll have to check those further links out later because I am currently at that place where no civilized individual speaks of...in fact I might have to go for another coffee – dash it all! :leaving:

[Emil Miller]

Brian... I haven't the least idea of what you are talking about. The American Protestant work ethic is highly overrated.:nod: I am good at my job... but if I won the lottery I'd be in the parking lot doing donuts with the car with my a** hanging out of the window. I am living for 20+ days from now when school lets out for the summer and I have all day to work upon my paintings... now that is where I have no problem with applying myself heart and soul.

Stlukes...Anyone who has been in this forum for any length of time will know you possess an artistic temperement which is probably the province of relatively few of your compatriots, as is the case elsewhere. If so, then perhaps you belong to the those who are the exception that underlines the rule. I have often thought that playing the lottery is the triumph of hope over experience.

One thing leads to another on Youtube and I found this clip while looking for something completely different.
This man's failure to reach his full potential is one of opera's tragedies, but I don't think anybody would deny that his was a truly great voice. The film looks very well directed also, I will check it out to see if it's on DVD.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJZ2XA84MPI

[Musicology]

Hi there Yanni,

Your J.S. Koch was quite a composer, it seems ! :angel:

Bach was not too bad also.

Regards




As earlier assumed, JS "Koch" was unknown in Vienna till then!

Good point (confirming my theory), Robert:

"Forkel" avoids mentioning his "other" name in Gottingen, 1798.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Stlukes...Anyone who has been in this forum for any length of time will know you possess an artistic temperement which is probably the province of relatively few of your compatriots, as is the case elsewhere. If so, then perhaps you belong to the those who are the exception that underlines the rule. I have often thought that playing the lottery is the triumph of hope over experience.

Yes obviously our friend Slukes is above loving work for the sake of work, that should go without question - naturally I for one understood that you were referring to lesser mortals with your previous wise comments. With that said though, even though I like the fellow, I'm not sure that I would want to be standing behind him in the car park in the event of his winning the lottery!!!

Wonderful night tonight. I am beginning to adore the chamber music sort of set up, I mean I am sat within touching the musicians with my foot as they string the likes of Mozart and Beethoven purely for my enjoyment - what could be better? Obviously before that I am fully loaded up with sirloin steak (well done) and red wine as you would expect, magnificent. Very varied night too, excellent. I would post more details of the set-up but I don't want to be a bore - and besides that would mean me getting up to double check the programme and I can't be having that!

Happy listening all. ;)

[stlukesguild]

Stlukes, I feel that I am being pulled towards those French operas which you keep plugging.

Don't get me wrong... the Germans sill rule: Bach, Handel, Buxtehude, Schutz, Telemann... no need to wait for the Mozart/Haydn/Viennese triumvirate for the dominance of the Germans in the field of music. But pushed by a Baroque fan on a musical site that I frequent to give the French a serious listen, I find that I have long been wrong in underestimating them. Considering the dominance of the French court of the period, this probably shouldn't be surprising. What I am coming to recognize is that the Baroque era was far more rich than I had once thought... it goes far beyond Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi... and there is even far more to these three than I had once supposed.

I was particularly interested in exploring the Cadmus et Hermione one – I’ll have to look into that, but unfortunately these things are quite costly...

Yes... but I agree that this production in particular looked to be quite stunning.

I have often thought that playing the lottery is the triumph of hope over experience.

I up only playing on those rare occasions when the lottery reaches some ungodly amount. Just last week it reached some $250 Million US+. I end up going in for maybe $5 with a couple of my studio mates. It merely becomes an excuse for fantasizing about what we would do if we were to suddenly find ourselves in the possession of a great deal of money. It always seems that the thing is won by some 85-year old or somebody without the least notion of how to spend the money. They usually announce that they'll pay off the 85 Buick... perhaps take a holiday excursion to Vegas... etc...:shocked:

...even though I like the fellow, I'm not sure that I would want to be standing behind him in the car park in the event of his winning the lottery!!!

Just meet me at the bar. The Belgian ale's on me!:party::cheers2:

[yanni]

With all this contagion flying around, you should insist on bailing out your Mozart!

:seeya:


Hi there Yanni,

Your J.S. Koch was quite a composer, it seems ! :angel:

Bach was not too bad also.

Regards

[Musicology]

Yes Yanni,

We have to start somewhere. Why not the music industry itself ? You know how a glazed look comes into their eye when they are asked to name other composers active during Mozart's Vienna career ? But these, of course, are the norms of 'Mozart research'. And if you ask whether they can name these musical contemporaries of Mozart or provide any details of their own careers they look at their watch and have an urgent meeting ! Knowing nothing of them and their music. Why, how many operas staged in Vienna during Mozart's decade in Vienna (1781-1791) have they actually heard ?

'Ah ! but Mozart was a genius', of course ! (Which is the credit card answer to every appeal). And on my last visit to the corporate pantheon of 'great composers' (there on Easter Island) the caretakers were painting their statues before another crusade arrived. (Sponsored by the usual corporations and overseen by the usual priests who have overseen the writing of our 'western musical education'). This reminded me of the music lover in Homer's 'Odyssey' - the one who had to be tied to the mast of the ship to avoid the dulcit sounds of those Sirens ! So his corpse did not join others on the island where they, the Sirens, were singing.

'It was not to charm them that the Sirens sang, but to destroy them. And therefore the Siren has not a good reputation'

(Aeschines 3.228).

LOL !! :eek6:

But, beyond that -

Cantata 42
Sinfonia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP-V4Pafu_E





With all this contagion flying around, you should insist on bailing out your Mozart!

:seeya:

[Babbalanja]

Roger Sessions won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his last major work, the Concerto for Orchestra. Considering he had already composed nine symphonies, perhaps the title was a concession to symphonic superstition.

Sessions: Concerto for Orchestra pt. I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0tMil6kpNA)
Sessions: Concerto for Orchestra pt. II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Wk-ckWXIg&feature=related)

Regards,

Istvan

[Emil Miller]

I have often thought that playing the lottery is the triumph of hope over experience.

I up only playing on those rare occasions when the lottery reaches some ungodly amount. Just last week it reached some $250 Million US+. I end up going in for maybe $5 with a couple of my studio mates. It merely becomes an excuse for fantasizing about what we would do if we were to suddenly find ourselves in the possession of a great deal of money. It always seems that the thing is won by some 85-year old or somebody without the least notion of how to spend the money. They usually announce that they'll pay off the 85 Buick... perhaps take a holiday excursion to Vegas... etc...:shocked:

As you may have gathered, I don't play the lottery. A few years ago a friend told me that if he won the lottery he would buy me the apartment in Paris that I have always wanted: I'm still waiting.
You are right about the kind of people who tend to win. A woman in the UK well into her eighties won it and refused to claim it because: "I am frightened of having so much money at my age. What would I do with it anyway?"
On the other hand, a 56-year-old security guard who won it made the sage remark: "My days of slavery are over." If ever a man deserved to win it, he did.

[yanni]

If you had started off with the right foot, you would have concluded by now, your "eek" (funny face) placed at the end of you post, "covering" Forkel's 1802 "german national hero"* JSBach-Koch as well!

We have to start somewhere. Why not the music industry itself ?

:seeya:


*Forkel was JSBach's first biographer in 1802. The same year H.C.Koch published his music lexicon. As "Beethoven's Kochs puzzle" concluded, Forkel and H.C.Koch were the same person and JS"Bach" was a Koch himself.

[Musicology]

No, Yanni, Forkel was NOT the first biographer of J.S. Bach. (I've already said this twice).

As for your certain statement that ''J.S. Bach was a Koch himself'', we still wait for some evidence of this. The marriage and birth records of the very large musical Bach family in Germany (over many decades) strongly suggest otherwise. For a start. Take a decade or so. But DO tell us - please !

As far as the ubiquitous 'music industry' is concerned they seem to have been amazingly ignorant and disinterested in J.S. Bach until the 19th century. And even then it never features prominently. Care to give us an example of a single Bach concert in Vienna ('city of music') before the 19th century ? Or one in Vienna prior to, say, 1830 ? Or even a concert in which one (even one) of his works was on the concert programme !! Ah, yes, of course, 'Vienna, city of music', yes ?

And when did the music industry arrive ? Let's say around 1800 (with the arrival of the symphony orchestra, music copyright, the arrival of touring conductors, new techniques that would allow rapid commercial publishing of music, the founding of various music journals, the first 'history of music' and various other, increasingly international musical developments). The end of handwritten copies etc. So, by this reckoning, Bach should surely have been firmly on the musical menu by the early 19th century. In places such as Vienna.

And, suprise, surprise ! He is still not there ! Decades pass. And so it goes on. J.N. Forkel 'pulls his hair out'. And is ignored. And meanwhile arrives for the adoration of millions the ghouly trinity (Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven). Now presiding over the 'history of music' as gods of the musical pantheon and a music industry determined to ignore the history of music in Vienna itself (!) during the late 18th century. You really have to laugh at this.

The world loves its own, for sure !!

In the meantime -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyev_N6HFtg&feature=related


If you had started off with the right foot, you would have concluded by now, your "eek" (funny face) placed at the end of you post, "covering" Forkel's 1802 "german national hero"* JSBach-Koch as well!

We have to start somewhere. Why not the music industry itself ?

:seeya:


*Forkel was JSBach's first biographer in 1802. The same year H.C.Koch published his music lexicon. As "Beethoven's Kochs puzzle" concluded, Forkel and H.C.Koch were the same person and JS"Bach" was a Koch himself.

[Virgil]

While I am away for a whole month, I'm going to embark on listening and learning Beethoven's string quartets, performed by the Alexander String Quartet.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3452/3273722794_10a369302a.jpg

This is not the Alexander String Quartet. They weren't on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awOFHfun3BQ

[stlukesguild]

While I am currently engaged in a deeper exploration of Baroque music, I still have the "schizophrenic" need every now and then to explore something really different. Currently I am listening to two very unique composers: Tristan Murail and Harry Partsch.

Tristan Murail is a contemporary French composer (b. 1947). He studied economics and Arabic at the Ecole d'Hautes Etudes before entering the Paris Conservatoire to attend Messiaen's composition class (1967–72). Stimulated by Messiaen's research into resonance and his refinement of instrumental timbre, Murail and his contemporary, the composer, Grisey both used acoustics and the study of the perception of sound as the starting point for a new musical aesthetic which has since become known as "Spectral" music... which involved the use of the fundamental properties of sound as a basis for harmony, as well as the use of spectral analysis, FM, RM, and AM synthesis as a method of deriving polyphony. All of this is highly theoretical... and surely impossible for someone who cannot even read music to understand. Essentially, Murail's music is based upon sound and not upon any extraneous/non-musical considerations such as narrative, representation or suggestion of nature, emotional expression, etc... In spite of this theory... the resulting music is very evocative of nature... to a degree that places it firmly in the tradition of Impressionism and such Post-Impressionist composers as Messiaen. Like Impressionist composers such as Debussy... and especially Ravel, Murail is a master of orchestration. His choice of instruments are all highly evocative of color and mood.

This beautiful, sumptuous and gloriously colourful piece has finally made it onto YouTube:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1300/4604932759_faa3fb9e66_o.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utQAXK15ZGM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdROh0T2jCk&feature=related

Gondwana is a short orchestral work and one of Murail's finest pieces. Gondwana is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent...

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/4605548000_95b7a50a81_o.jpg

The music abounds in wave-like patterns of rise and fall, such as crescendo-decrescendo, acceleration-deceleration and tension-relaxation. If these waves of sound recall the legendary, sunken Gondwana, the geological Gondwana's turbulent history is vividly evoked in the music's more dramatic moments, especially in the volcanic "eruption" near the end of the work.

Harry Partsch is an even more unique character. Partsch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales. Microtonal music uses intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave... music which contains intervals smaller than the conventional contemporary Western semitone. The term implies music containing very small intervals but can include any tuning that differs from the western 12-tone equal temperament. Microtonal music can be found especially in Asian and Middle-Eastern music... but may also be found in jazz, blues, and rock music where musicians may "bend" notes... between one not and the next on the traditional Western scale.

As a child, Partsch learned to play the clarinet, harmonium, viola, piano, and guitar. He began to compose at an early age, using the equal-tempered chromatic scale, the tuning system most common in Western music. However, Partch grew frustrated with what he felt were imperfections of the standard system of musical tuning, believing that this system was unsuitable for his ends. Partsch... who was largely self-taught... composed much of his music for custom-made instruments...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1219/4604994177_ebdd360321_o.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4605609652_6d1c754053_o.jpg

... often using found materials such as metal bowls, artillery shell casings, bamboo, liquor bottles, and hubcaps... that he built himself and tuned in unorthodox ways... to as many as 43 tones in a scale. He invented and constructed instruments that could underscore the intoning voice.

Partch secured a grant that allowed him to go to London to study the history of tuning systems and text-setting. While there, he met the poet, William Butler Yeats, with the intention of gaining Yeats' permission to write an opera based on the poet's translation of Sophocles' Oedipus the King. However, after his grant money ran out, he was forced to return to the U.S., at the height of the Depression. There, he lived as a hobo, traveling around on trains and taking casual work where he could find it. He continued in this way for ten years, chronicling his experiences in a journal named Bitter Music, parts of which he later set to music. In 1943, after receiving a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, Partch was able to dedicate more time to music. Partch created and maintained his own record label, "Gate 5", to release recordings of his works and generate income. Towards the end of his life, Columbia Records made recordings of some of his works, including Delusion of the Fury, which helped increase public attention to his work. He remains a somewhat obscure figure, but is well known to experimental musicians (especially those interested in microtonality) and instrument-builders.

One might explore some of Partsch' work here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6buNHKzS-Nc

I'm especially interested in his settings of the poems of Li Po:eek6: which I have on order. Further examination of Harry Partch can be found in this BBC documentary (6 parts):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cKnTj2cyNQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFtOKSl3zZs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OH0WgLgaAM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCjWIQtm-M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZV3zF-JpEc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNqHH0N5vpw&feature=related

[yanni]

Twice already?

Quoting from the New York Times:

First Chapter
‘Johann Sebastian Bach’
By MARTIN GECK
Published: December 3, 2006
Johann Nikolaus Forkel publishes the first book on Johann Sebastian Bach in 1802, an eighty-two-page work entitled On Johann Sebastian Bach's Life, Art, and Work: For Patriotic Admirers of True Musical Art. The author was born in 1749, while Bach was still alive, in a village near Coburg, and in 1779 became Göttingen University's director of music. For years he maintained lively contact with Bach's sons and benefited from their direct, though far from complete, knowledge of their father. On one occasion, Forkel sends Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, presumably his most generous informant, several mettwursts to show his gratitude for notes the younger Bach turned over to him. Yet his sketch of Bach's life is supplemented with all sorts of anecdotal material. Although Forkel made a name for himself with a General History of Music, he seems less interested in determining Bach's place in music history than in paying tribute to him as a national hero.

Concerning the rest of your questions I suggest you either start with "Two Works by Poe decoded" OR try to explain Forkel's and HCKoch's parallel lifes and similarities in -their-early (1802 perhaps?) music "establishment" that seems to trouble you so!

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/goingson/2010/04/goldman-sachs-the-musical.html

:seeya:


No, Yanni, Forkel was NOT the first biographer of J.S. Bach. (I've already said this twice).

As for your certain statement that ''J.S. Bach was a Koch himself'', we still wait for some evidence of this. The marriage and birth records of the very large musical Bach family in Germany (over many decades) strongly suggest otherwise. For a start. Take a decade or so. But DO tell us - please !

As far as the ubiquitous 'music industry' is concerned they seem to have been amazingly ignorant and disinterested in J.S. Bach until the 19th century. And even then it never features prominently. Care to give us an example of a single Bach concert in Vienna ('city of music') before the 19th century ? Or one in Vienna prior to, say, 1830 ? Or even a concert in which one (even one) of his works was on the concert programme !! Ah, yes, of course, 'Vienna, city of music', yes ?

And when did the music industry arrive ? Let's say around 1800 (with the arrival of the symphony orchestra, music copyright, the arrival of touring conductors, new techniques that would allow rapid commercial publishing of music, the founding of various music journals, the first 'history of music' and various other, increasingly international musical developments). The end of handwritten copies etc. So, by this reckoning, Bach should surely have been firmly on the musical menu by the early 19th century. In places such as Vienna.

And, suprise, surprise ! He is still not there ! Decades pass. And so it goes on. J.N. Forkel 'pulls his hair out'. And is ignored. And meanwhile arrives for the adoration of millions the ghouly trinity (Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven). Now presiding over the 'history of music' as gods of the musical pantheon and a music industry determined to ignore the history of music in Vienna itself (!) during the late 18th century. You really have to laugh at this.

The world loves its own, for sure !!

In the meantime -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyev_N6HFtg&feature=related

[Musicology]

Yanni,

Since this thread is on 'Classical Listening' you may wish to present some evidence to support your view on Bach. It has often been asked for. But so far you have produced none. Do so on another thread please. I promise to reply.

Here is the majesty of something far greater - far above the clouds, in fact. This is music from God. Not of this world but of a better one. I am sure of it.

Cantata 54
1st Movement


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SDpIyVhZKA&feature=related

[Scheherazade]

Since this thread is on 'Classical Listening' you may wish to present some evidence to support your view on Bach. It has often been asked for already. Because so far you have produced none. Do so on another thread please. I promise to reply. I think it is a good opportunity at this point to remind everyone the OP of this thread:
So anyway... what are you listening to... what do you think of it... and why?:smash:
If you would like to discuss other elements of classic music, please do so in a separate thread.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

There is a new film about Glenn Gould:

http://glenngouldmovie.com/

To be aired in America on PBS' American Masters programme later this year.

[yanni]

Well, Schecherazade, Musicology has repeatedly declared himself a fan of Bach's music and I thought it appropriate to introduce him to Forkel, Bach's first biographer, so that he may then reply to questions like stlukes: .. what do you think of it... and why?, that's all!

:angel:

[stlukesguild]

A Glenn Gould movie... Now there's something I need to see. There was a marvelous film some years back entitled 32 Short Films on Glenn Gould which was absolutely splendid. The focus was predominantly upon the music and visuals. The film is constructed of a series of 32 brief vignettes that paint a portrait of the brilliant yet troubled musician. Among my favorites I would include:

45 Seconds and a Chair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5f25kL9Gio

The L.A. Concert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omqUjAcE6P4

CD318:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFAEJsBym5E&feature=fvw

Pills:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJoIvk-xeyU

This film unfortunately deals with Gould's use and abuse of prescribed medications.

The entire 32 films can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJbPHNhbgA&feature=PlayList&p=47520799C87C8D11&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

[Musicology]

Thanks StLukesGuild,

Glenn Gould ! There's a great subject, for sure ! Individualism in harmony with others.

Concerto
BWV 1053

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOf_L4cNHc&feature=related

Partita
Gigue
BWV 825

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv_K0AlIz4I&feature=related

Very interesting ! Thanks for this Sebas. Melmouth


There is a new film about Glenn Gould:

http://glenngouldmovie.com/

To be aired in America on PBS' American Masters programme later this year.

Johann Sebastian Bach
From
Cantata 131

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80-OC8AevJY&feature=related

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Auditing Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer (Op. 52) for vocal quartet and piano four-hands.

This is a real Victorian type of home entertainment.

This recording is with the 'dream team' of Edith Mathis, Brigitte Fassbaender, Peter Schreier, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

http://www.amazon.com/Brahms-Liebeslieder-Walzer-Fassbaender-Fischer-Dieskau-Sawallisch/dp/B000001G8S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1274025751&sr=1-2

[Musicology]

Aria
Sanfte soll mein Todeskummer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO2tuSSisRA

Sanctus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0NhW3xf4KY&feature=related

French Suite 4
BWV 815/1
Allemande

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

French Suite 5
BWV 816/1
Allemande

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdLDLRSbmdc&feature=related

Prelude in D Minor
BWV 875

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZRB-x5LNgw&feature=PlayList&p=EDFC3730F0EDF0D7&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=3

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Glenn Gould's Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier

http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Preludes-Fugues-Well-Tempered-Clavier/dp/B000VFGSF0/ref=cm_cr-mr-title/190-4278446-5847144

Krystian Zimerman's Chopin: the Ballades.

http://www.amazon.com/Chopin-Ballades-Barcarolle-Op-60-Fantasie/dp/B000001G8Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1274302097&sr=1-1

[Musicology]

Felix Mendelssohn
Piano Concerto No. 2
Adagio: molto sostenuto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj7CCDaRgTM&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

Krystian Zimerman's Chopin: the Ballades.

http://www.amazon.com/Chopin-Ballades-Barcarolle-Op-60-Fantasie/dp/B000001G8Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1274302097&sr=1-1

Zimmerman must be rated one of the greatest interpreters of Chopin's music post WW11. His performance of the Chopin Concerto's with Giulini conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra is legendary and held its place in the catalogue for over twenty years.

[stlukesguild]

I've been exploring the French Baroque for a while lately... and made a number of marvelous discoveries. I am especially struck by the grand orchestration of the operatic and choral works... including dramatic drums and brass. Of course, this was the era of Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil... and the composers working in Paris were working for the most grandiose court in the whole of Europe. Bach, by comparison, was forced to compose and orchestrate with the limited resources of the largely amateur orchestra players and soloists in mind. Repeatedly, he drew criticism for composing music beyond the abilities of his players and choir. Rameau, Lully, Charpentier, etc... on the other hand... had far greater resources at hand resulting in grandiose orchestrations only found in Bach in the B-minor Mass, composed following the death of Augustus II, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony and the assumption of Augustus III.

In spite all this marvelous grandiose and monumental work for orchestra and chorus and soloists, there is another... more intimate side to the French music of the period. A few days ago I picked up a marvelous disc of works for solo keyboard by François Couperin. Interestingly enough, even Couperin's choral and vocal music is composed in a strip-down, intimate manner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SX0bL6Bik

His works for keyboard, however, are something quite special. Anyone familiar and admiring of the keyboard works of Bach, Scarlatti, and Handel should love these. While I tend to lean toward HIP (Historically Informed Performances) recordings which employ historically accurate instrumentation and performance practices in the presentation and recording of Baroque music, I have long preferred the piano to the harpsichord for the performance of solo keyboard works. Perhaps its just that the best performances of this music... such as the recordings of Bach by Glenn Gould, Rosalyn Tureck, Angela Hewitt, and most recently, Murray Perahia, have all been played upon piano. Or perhaps its just that an extended period spent with the tinkly and jangly sounds of the harpsichord becomes somewhat irritating... or as the great conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham suggested, it begins to sound like "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm".:nod:

Whatever the case may be, I greatly enjoy this latest recording of Couperin played upon piano by Alexandre Tharaud:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3341/4613851464_d9bb3e28a7_o.jpg

There are some lovely little video presentations of some of the highlights of this recording... including the title piece, Tic Toc Choc... which is presented as something of Tic Toc Hip Hop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMD6xBIXSWo

Most of Couperin's keyboard works are based upon dance forms and are given poetic titles so that many (including Richard Strauss, who later orchestrated some) thought of them as miniature tone poems. Tic Tic Choc is an especially challenging work... as difficult to play well as some of the most virtuosic piano works of the Romantic era. The promary difficulty lies in the continual demand upon the performer for "crossing over" of hands. A video of the great Russian pianist, Grigory Sokolov, performing the same piece gives a clear idea of the difficulty of the work as his hands continually cross... fingers closely jammed together... in a blur of blinding speed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glg99Zc0JjU

Other performances on this disc include the famous Les barricades mysterieuses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDavx0eyjUY

Still another work entitled Bruit de guerre clearly conveys a martial air:

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

This disc closes with a performances of four brief keyboard pieces entitled La Pothouïn, by the rarely recorded peer of Couperin, Jacques Duphly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq8MfVQByW4

As absolutely enchanted as I am by this recording, I will certainly be looking into Angela Hewitt's three volume set of Couperin's keyboard works:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1135/4623336960_8af1a07754_o.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4622732445_7bd286a7d7_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3323/4622732425_2d3cd7dc99_o.jpg

[Zach J.]

What would you suggest to a new listener of classical music? I'd like to get into it, but I'm not sure where to start. Who are some standard favorites? Is there a certain mindset that needs to be cultivated?

[Petrarch's Love]

Hi Zach J.--"Classical" music is a term that covers a pretty wide array of styles and types of music, so you should try listening to an array of things to see what speaks most to your personal taste. If you go through this thread, you'll find lots of links to different kinds of classical music that people have shared here, so this may be a good place to start.

I don't know that there's any special mindset you need, though it helps to listen with some attention to music you're experiencing for the first time in a quite space where you can really hear what's going on and both feel and think about what effect it has on you.

A few well known favorites of mine that come to mind to get you started:

Beethoven's 9th symphony, which is amazing from start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE-sS_1JQZI to finish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBAqBkoT5-4&feature=related and everywhere in between

Brahms' Ein Deutches Requiem--heart wrenchingly beautiful throughout, but I'll post the second movement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOJuagiynBQ&feature=related

and the 5th: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtC2Lws7syA&feature=related

Bach's cello suites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwHpDOWhkGk

Vivaldi's "Four Seasons": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSw7CcAXPWk

Mozart...how does one chose?..perhaps an adagio from the "dissonance" quartet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc1v2uDDLFQ&feature=related

and an aria from the "Marriage of Figaro": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gw9KgQmlR0&feature=related

Which brings us to opera. Puccini's famous "nessun dorma": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdTBml4oOZ8&feature=related

or an excerpt from Verdi's Traviata: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcKdnkGBSgA

Or there's always Wagner, who is best known for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V92OBNsQgxU

but wrote some other great stuff as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGbmjX7AYyU

I could post many more pieces, but as I say, this thread is full of good stuff to explore. Feel free to post any thoughts or questions you have, and any good music you discover!

St. Luke's--Thanks again for sharing the Couperin. It's made me realize that French baroque music has been almost entirely off my radar. I really don't know much of it at all. I also like the "Tic Toc Hip Hop" video. Baroque music needs more cool music videos.

My latest musical find has been Offenbach's suites for two cellos, after my cello teacher loaned me the recording by Roland Pidoux and Etienne Peclard (which appears to be almost the only one). The quality of the youtube version is vastly inferior to that of the cd, but appears to be the only online version of these little gems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ZRYvGwZUw&feature=related

Which seems like an appropriate note on which to go seek some rest. :sleep:

[Musicology]

My advice is to start with a Bach chorale or a chorus. To find yourself impatient with it. Then to listen to everything else. And finally to return to it as one returns to a good parent. Then to marvel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC35GS88OqA&feature=related





What would you suggest to a new listener of classical music? I'd like to get into it, but I'm not sure where to start. Who are some standard favorites? Is there a certain mindset that needs to be cultivated?

[Emil Miller]

What would you suggest to a new listener of classical music? I'd like to get into it, but I'm not sure where to start. Who are some standard favorites? Is there a certain mindset that needs to be cultivated?

If you are a newcomer to classical music. I would suggest avoiding the classical composers. i.e. those before Beethoven and go for the romantics who are more melodious. I would not start on large scale works such as symphonies and concerto's until later but concentrate on smaller pieces such as overtures and ballet music: in this regard Tchaikovsky is the first I would go for as he is probably the most melodious composer of all time although there are plenty of others. Many people are put off classical music because they hear a symphony and it is too long and complex for an untrained ear.
For example, I like Gustav Mahler's symphonies but if you had asked me to listen when I was just beginning with classical music, I would have said it was an excessively long and formless noise.
There is no particular mindset to be cultivated, anyone with a heart can enjoy great music. You will find plenty of modern music around today that is written solely for the brain but you can forget it, if it doesn't go to the heart it aint music.

These are the kind of things I think someone starting out with classical music
would find enjoyable;


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sU4mgkGtrs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QROR4LioU-8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E10K73GvCKU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrbIUDOEvp0

[Zach J.]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

[Gladys]

I would suggest avoiding the classical composers.

To the contrary, my interest in classical sprung from Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" and a Reader's Digest set of classical symphonies, of which Hadyn's "Surprise", Mozart's No. 40 and, the not so classical, Mendelssohn's "Italian" impressed most.

A love for baroque soon followed but, for a decade, I found Bach impenetrable and still find almost anything after Schumann so.

[Zach J.]

I made a couple of new genre stations on Pandora for both Symphonic Classical and Symphonic Romantic music. I've found that I've enjoyed the Romantic stuff a bit more right now. I like Beethoven a lot. I've only been listening to his symphonies, but as I do I feel there's something to them that's very intriguing. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it definitely draws me in.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Brahms, Second Serenade, Bernstein/NYPO

http://www.kdb.com/

[Emil Miller]

To the contrary, my interest in classical sprung from Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" and a Reader's Digest set of classical symphonies, of which Hadyn's "Surprise", Mozart's No. 40 and, the not so classical, Mendelssohn's "Italian" impressed most.

A love for baroque soon followed but, for a decade, I found Bach impenetrable and still find almost anything after Schumann so.

Well I suppose we make recommendations according to our experience. My interest in great music began when I was about eight or nine years old. The BBC had a programme for children at 5 o'clock each day and there was usually a serialised story which would use orchestral music for the signature tune of each story. I still remember being thrilled by Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor overture and Tchaikovsky's overture to Romeo and Juliette. Then I attended a concert of similar pieces by the London Symphony Orchestra about the age of eleven and never looked back. I didn't listen to a symphony until I was 14 it was by Beethoven and I started to listen to all his symphonies and concertos. After which it was Brahms, Sibelius, Schumann etc. I did listen to a good deal of Mozart and some Haydn but I still prefer later composers. I am a very poor piano player but I prefer playing Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze to any other piece in my limited repertoire.

[Gladys]

I didn't listen to a symphony until I was 14 it was by Beethoven and I started to listen to all his symphonies and concertos. After which it was Brahms, Sibelius, Schumann etc.

Likewise, I was 17. :nod:

An early favourite was Brahms' monumental Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 - a work of heroic proportions and vision, like Schubert's Great symphony and Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata.


Brahms - Piano concerto n°2. Mov 1 (part1) (www.youtube.com/watch?v=D18AujwrQb4)

[stlukesguild]

To the contrary, my interest in classical sprung from Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" and a Reader's Digest set of classical symphonies, of which Hadyn's "Surprise", Mozart's No. 40 and, the not so classical, Mendelssohn's "Italian" impressed most.

A love for baroque soon followed but, for a decade, I found Bach impenetrable and still find almost anything after Schumann so.

And my own introduction to the world of classical music... beyond the exposure to Bach's choral music as sung in the Lutheran churches of my upbringing... would be the music of the Baroque era: Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Violin and Keyboard concertos, Handel's Water Music, Royal Fireworks Music, Concerti Grossi Op. 3 and 6, and Organ Concertos, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Mandolin Concertos. The steady rhythm and usual 4/4 beat of these works were easy to latch onto coming to the classical realm from a mostly pop music background. I usually suggest the beginer explore classical music through a good anthology... where he or she can get a taste of different composers, different eras, and different genre. He or she can then expand outward from that body of music which first interests.

[Wilde woman]

I remember my father blasting Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Copland from before I could speak. Then I was enrolled in piano lessons at five years old and violin lessons by age eleven. I was lucky that my piano teacher was also a theory buff. She sold her own line of music theory books so I got a solid foundation in music theory. My family couldn't afford to attend concerts all the time, so I've only been to a few my whole life. But I remember for my AP theory class, we got to go to the opera and symphony for free. The performances I saw there are still my favorites....Turandot by Puccini and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2.


I am a very poor piano player but I prefer playing Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze to any other piece in my limited repertoire.

Ditto! It's got such beautiful four-part harmony.

[Gladys]

And my own introduction to the world of classical music... beyond the exposure to Bach's choral music as sung in the Lutheran churches of my upbringing... would be the music of the Baroque era

My father and grandfather were choirmasters and pipe organists in the Lutheran church and, predictably, Handel and Bach were favourites. While Handel is consummately accessible, Bach demands more appreciation of polyphony to decode his melodic jumble, an appreciation I happily stumbled upon after a decade and a half of enjoying other classical music.

In particular, I discovered the peerless Bach Cantatas. A decade later, our church in the city began performing them monthly. Indeed, tomorrow morning we have:


Erwunschtes Freudenlicht (BWV 184) for 4 soloists, choir, 2 flutes, strings and continuo
Early Music Studio Baroque Ensemble and Early Voices (dir. Vivien Hamilton)

[Musicology]

Hi Gladys,

BWV 11
Lobet Gott in seinen Reiche
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn6wFnU9s1I&feature=related

BWV 9
Es Ist Das Heil Uns Kommen Her
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OktSQiXakTs&feature=related

''To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform our ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things accessibly human and human things conscious of the divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time''. - PABLO CASALS (1876-1973)

Regards



My father and grandfather were choirmasters and pipe organists in the Lutheran church and, predictably, Handel and Bach were favourites. While Handel is consummately accessible, Bach demands more appreciation of polyphony to decode his melodic jumble, an appreciation I happily stumbled upon after a decade and a half of enjoying other classical music.

In particular, I discovered the peerless Bach Cantatas. A decade later, our church in the city began performing them monthly. Indeed, tomorrow morning we have:


Erwunschtes Freudenlicht (BWV 184) for 4 soloists, choir, 2 flutes, strings and continuo
Early Music Studio Baroque Ensemble and Early Voices (dir. Vivien Hamilton)

[Emil Miller]

Likewise, I was 17. :nod:

An early favourite was Brahms' monumental Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 - a work of heroic proportions and vision, like Schubert's Great symphony and Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata.


Brahms - Piano concerto n°2. Mov 1 (part1) (www.youtube.com/watch?v=D18AujwrQb4)


I agree that Brahm's 2nd Piano Concerto is a monumental work, it had a profound influence on me from the time I first heard it. In fact it is the profundity in Brahms's music that has always attracted me. As a Germanophile I think his music epitomises the greatness of Germany and none more so than his first piano concerto; the last part of which is played here with great insight by Vladimir Ashkenazy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF5IyHls560

[stlukesguild]

My father and grandfather were choirmasters and pipe organists in the Lutheran church and, predictably, Handel and Bach were favourites. While Handel is consummately accessible, Bach demands more appreciation of polyphony to decode his melodic jumble...

I agree that getting a grasp of the complexity of Bach's use of counterpoint demands repeated hearings... and some study of the actual forms involved. But this is true of a lot of music. I did not fully grasp the structure of the classical sonata form until taking a music appreciation course. Beethoven's quartets certainly are every bit as demanding as Bach (to say nothing of Mozart's closing movement to the Symphony no. 41 which was inspired by Bach's use of counterpoint.) The broad and sprawling breadth of the structures of the music of Mahler and Wagner demanded a great deal from me coming off Bach and Handel and Mozart whose structures are crystal clear.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Enjoying the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets as realized by the great French clarinettest Gervase de Peyer with the Melos Ensemble of London, nicely paired on this Seraphim Classics reissue:

http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Brahms-Clarinet-Gervase-Peyer/dp/B00005NEZW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1274633152&sr=1-3


It scarcely gets better than this...

[Emil Miller]

My father and grandfather were choirmasters and pipe organists in the Lutheran church and, predictably, Handel and Bach were favourites. While Handel is consummately accessible, Bach demands more appreciation of polyphony to decode his melodic jumble...

I agree that getting a grasp of the complexity of Bach's use of counterpoint demands repeated hearings... and some study of the actual forms involved. But this is true of a lot of music. I did not fully grasp the structure of the classical sonata form until taking a music appreciation course. Beethoven's quartets certainly are every bit as demanding as Bach (to say nothing of Mozart's closing movement to the Symphony no. 41 which was inspired by Bach's use of counterpoint.) The broad and sprawling breadth of the structures of the music of Mahler and Wagner demanded a great deal from me coming off Bach and Handel and Mozart whose structures are crystal clear.

Bach's music illustrates perfectly, Blake's words: "To see a world in a grain of sand." While Wagner and Mahler's works are posited fom the opposite viewpoint.

[spooky]

Hey, I've never been an opera listener(or watcher, or whatever), but I have a recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni which I am eager to listen.
Now dumb question: I have the translated libretto, should I read it as I listen to the recording? What would a normal opera listener do? :nod:

[stlukesguild]

Most librettos come with a synopsis that breaks the narrative down and gives you an overall concept of what to expect. Personally, I don't follow any set method. Sometimes I just listen to the opera all the way through taking in the piece as a work of music. Other times I follow along with the libretto. Perhaps the best method is to see the opera in real life or on DVD. This version is highly regarded:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/4640763196_1922cb0902_o.jpg

Don Giovanni is certainly one of Mozart's greatest achievements... one of the greatest operas ever. The music and the masterful manner in which Mozart weaves the drama... the great librettos of Lorenzo Da Ponte... with the music was unprecedented. From the very overture, Mozart sets up the drama... and a theme he will return to at the climax. This concept of repeating a theme... a motif... is something Beethoven... and later Wagner... will make brilliant use of.

This version includes a bit of the opening scene... unfortunately without translation... but I feel it offers the best sounding overture available on YouTube.

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

Here is the inimitable Fritz Wunderlich... (one of the greatest singers ever... who died tragically young as the result of a freak accident) singing Il mio Tesoro... one of the more lovely arias from the opera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GbTmkn1Y28&feature=related

And here is another exquisite aria... Non mi dir bell' idol mio... sung by the marvelous Gundula Janowitz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXG6zFwVmh8&feature=related

To my mind, the greatest moment in the entire opera is the climactic scene with the Commendatore. Don Giovanni in the opening scene has broken into the home of Donna Anna in an attempt to seduce her. She yells for help and her father, the great military figure... the Commendatore challenges him to a duel. Don Giovanni kills him and flees. Donna Anna and her fiance, Don Octavio are horrified and swear vengeance. Much of the opera follows their attempt to discover the Commendatore's murderer.

Later in the opera Don Giovanni and his servant, Leoporello are in a graveyard when they imagine they hear the voice of a statue... one of the tomb markers. The voice of the statue warns Giovanni that his laughter will not last beyond sunrise. At the command of his master, Leporello reads the inscription upon the statue's base: "I'm waiting for revenge against my murderer." The servant trembles, but the unabashed Giovanni orders him to invite the statue to dinner, threatening to kill him if he does not. (Duet: "Oh, statua gentilissima – Oh most noble statue"). Leporello makes several attempts to invite the statue to dinner but for fear cannot complete the task. It falls upon Don Giovanni himself to complete the invitation thereby sealing his own doom. Much to his surprise, the statue nods its head and responds affirmatively.

Later, Don Giovanni revels in the luxury of a great meal and musical entertainment (during which the orchestra plays then-contemporary late 18th century music. During this meal he taunts Donna Elvira... the woman who loves him... until she leaves hurt and angered. Suddenly we hear her scream. Leoporello goes to see what the commotion is and runs back terrified that the statue of the dead Commendatore has made good on his promise to join Don Giovanni for what will be his final meal:

I've yet to see a better Commendatore than the great Kurt Moll as he offers the unrepentant Giovanni a final chance to avoid his fate in Hell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK1_vm0FMAU&feature=related

[spooky]

Yes, watching the DVD after reading the synopsis seems to be the best idea for starting. I also think that reading the libretto simultaneously might disract from music too(for the first time listener at least). Now I have the Carlo Maria Giulini recording -many people say it's among the best- but I think I'll go with the DVD and listen to that later..Thanks :nod:

edit: oh and thanks for the details too, I'm gonna read them after my initial viewing =)

[Emil Miller]

This is the famous ending to Giordano's opera Andrea Chenier with a truly amazing finish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I4QYgRpAtQ

[Musicology]

Dimitri Shostakovitch
Symphony 15
Finale

Perhaps the most defiant, overwhelmingly victorious symphonic finale of them all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DJY8KhNZfA&feature=PlayList&p=0572F402AD8AB4BC&playnext_from=PL&index=5&playnext=1

[Emil Miller]

Dimitri Shostakovitch
Symphony 15
Finale

Perhaps the most defiant, overwhelmingly victorious symphonic finale of them all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DJY8KhNZfA&feature=PlayList&p=0572F402AD8AB4BC&playnext_from=PL&index=5&playnext=1

In musical terms, Shostakovitch is the historian of the Soviet Union, which is why he came close to being killed by the soviet system. His ability to parody the Soviet Union and ostensibly praise it at the same time is shown with his 5th symphony. He went on to compose a number of symphonies post Stalin, unlike Prokofiev, who died the same day as the Soviet dictator.

[stlukesguild]

Now I have the Carlo Maria Giulini recording -many people say it's among the best- but I think I'll go with the DVD and listen to that later..Thanks

Yes... the Giulini may just be the single best non-HIP* version of Don Giovanni.


* HIP= Historically Informed Performance and refers to current practices in performing older works upon instruments appropriate to the era, orchestras appropriate to those used by the composer, and performance techniques appropriate to the time based upon the latest musicological studies.

In musical terms, Shostakovitch is the historian of the Soviet Union, which is why he came close to being killed by the soviet system. His ability to parody the Soviet Union and ostensibly praise it at the same time is shown with his 5th symphony. He went on to compose a number of symphonies post Stalin, unlike Prokofiev, who died the same day as the Soviet dictator.

I've always had mixed feelings about Shostakovitch... but then again, I must admit to not being overly enthralled with Russian music in general. It can be overly "sappy" without the elegance and sophistication of French music or bombastic without the rigorous structure of the Germans. Still I do love Shosty's Cello Concerto, Preludes and Fugues, and most recently... his opera The Nose. Its sad that unlike Prokofiev and Stravinsky he never left the Soviet Union... to the detriment of his music. The audacity of his opera's The Nose and Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk stand along side the boldest works of Stravinsky... but were frowned upon by the state that wanted rousing patriotic music... the Soviet version of most Hollywood composers.:frown2:

[Musicology]

‘What is most lovely speaks for itself’ - J.S. Bach

Cantata 42 (Bass Aria)

http://www.mediafire.com/?zuezj2tumzn

[Musicology]

Luigi Boccherini
String Quartet
Fandango Espagnol
c.1770

Formality and informality combined

G448/4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y1QtLRSiMM&feature=fvw

[stlukesguild]

Anouar Brahem

Anouar Brahem (أنور ابراهم) was born on October 20, 1957 in the town of Halfouine in the Medina of Tunis, Tunisia. He is an oud (a pear-shaped stringed instrument similar to the lute commonly used in Middle Eastern music) player and composer... one of the most innovative in Middle Eastern music. Anouar Brahem is an artist who, while profoundly imbued with his Arab heritage, is unequivocably modern, well anchored in his times and headed towards the future. He is furthermore, an artist unperturbed by the clash of cultures. His music in many ways echoes his home of Tunis, a multi-faceted city, rooted in its Arab-Moslem culture and nourished on its African and Mediterranean, Spanish and French influences. His music is founded upon Arabic classical music, but also reveals elements of folk music (French and Middle-Eastern), jazz, and French classical music (especially Eric Satie).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGbINkei3Ww

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkIpezYsPbk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_q5JuleA4E&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzhy3CqbRLM&feature=related

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Sorry to interrupt your Brahem posting St Lukes, but this thought just crossed my mind:

I had posted a piece by Van Cliburn in the Sonata thread and realized two things; Van Cliburn would be appropriate here and secondly, to mention the anniversary celebrating “The Texan who conquered Russia”, albeit I’m a couple of months late.
I’m referring to Van Cliburn’s triumph at the first International Tchaikovsky Competition held in Moscow, April 14th, 1958.
Cliburn performed the finale of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3.

Link to the Van Cliburn Foundation:
http://www.cliburn.org/index.php?page=van_50th

News report by Dan Rather:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRNx9GaplY&feature=related

Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MAriotZyE&feature=related

Gilliatt

[Musicology]

Pablo Sarasate
'Zigunerweisen' (Gypsy Airs)
Jascha Heifetz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMOT-ns2HM8

[David Lurie]

Enjoying the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets as realized by the great French clarinettest Gervase de Peyer with the Melos Ensemble of London, nicely paired on this Seraphim Classics reissue:

http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Brahms-Clarinet-Gervase-Peyer/dp/B00005NEZW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1274633152&sr=1-3


It scarcely gets better than this...

Interesting suggestion, in the last few weeks I have listened many times a SACD of these quintets featuring the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin with Karl-Heinz Steffens at the clarinet, nice performances but now I'll try to hear them played by the ensemble you have mentioned.

[Emil Miller]

This piece by Ravel, that most idiomatic of French composers, has been a favourite mine for years. It is easily the best of the available performances on Youtube and, perhaps not surprisingly, the oldest.
There is also a two piano version scored by the composer which is very well played and makes a fascinating comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaEfBWLbte4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4mXMkSlg-o

[stlukesguild]

Gilliat... Van Cliburn is never an "interruption". And his performances... especially of the Tchaikovsky first (recorded immediately after his triumph in Moscow... and with the same Russian conductor: Kiril Kandrashin) are more than of mere historical worth. They are quite wonderful. I need to give that disc a spin again today.

Brian... Ravel is certainly a favorite of mine as well... being as enamored of French music as I am. Just recently I jumped on the grossly inexpensive box sets of Ravel and Debussy conducted by Pierre Boulez. Incredibly, the orchestral works of Ravel performed by the inimitable Jean Martinon are available from EMI for even less (around $12 US for the three disc set)! I have virtually everything by Ravel (he, unfortunately, not being more prolific) so now its a question of seeking out different interpretations.

Today... beside the Tchaikovsky... I'll be listening to Chopin in the never-matched recording of his Nocturnes by Arthur Rubinstein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRO05WcNDk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnFs85pLmj4

[Emil Miller]

Gilliat... Van Cliburn is never an "interruption". And his performances... especially of the Tchaikovsky first (recorded immediately after his triumph in Moscow... and with the same Russian conductor: Kiril Kandrashin) are more than of mere historical worth. They are quite wonderful. I need to give that disc a spin again today.

Brian... Ravel is certainly a favorite of mine as well... being as enamored of French music as I am. Just recently I jumped on the grossly inexpensive box sets of Ravel and Debussy conducted by Pierre Boulez. Incredibly, the orchestral works of Ravel performed by the inimitable Jean Martinon are available from EMI for even less (around $12 US for the three disc set)! I have virtually everything by Ravel (he, unfortunately, not being more prolific) so now its a question of seeking out different interpretations.

Today... beside the Tchaikovsky... I'll be listening to Chopin in the never-matched recording of his Nocturnes by Arthur Rubinstein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRO05WcNDk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnFs85pLmj4

I recently posted part of Ravel's 1st piano concerto by Zimmerman and the Cleaveland Orchestra under Boulez. I think that it matches Michelangeli's recording but doesn't surpass it. Both concertos are 20th century masterworks which I think should be performed in concert more often. I have the Chopin Nocturnes by Rubinstein and also the definitive Van Cliburn performance of the Tchaikovsky. I say definitive because despite it having been played by virtually every concert pianist since it was written, I don't believe that Van Cliburn's performance could ever be bettered where there is a perfect blending of orchestra and piano. One of the truly great recordings in musical reproduction.

[Wilde woman]

Glad to see some love for Van Cliburn. He was the pianist who really lured me into classical music when I was younger. His Tchaikovsky #1 and Rachmaninoff #3 are historical landmarks, but I prefer his recording of Rachmaninoff #2.

[Emil Miller]

Glad to see some love for Van Cliburn. He was the pianist who really lured me into classical music when I was younger. His Tchaikovsky #1 and Rachmaninoff #3 are historical landmarks, but I prefer his recording of Rachmaninoff #2.

I too first heard the Van Cliburn when I was young and, although I was already familiair with the concerto, it was the most electrifying performance I'd heard to date and also since, despite havng heard many different performances in the interim. The ending is simply spectacular and it's no wonder that the Russians went wild at the concert performance. Unfortunately, he couldn't take the stress of travelling on the world concert circuit and gave up playing for teaching. I have his Brahms 2nd with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra which is another brilliant performance.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Anouar Brahem (أنور ابراهم) was born on October 20, 1957 in the town of Halfouine in the Medina of Tunis, Tunisia.
...His music in many ways echoes his home of Tunis, a multi-faceted city, rooted in its Arab-Moslem culture and nourished on its African and Mediterranean, Spanish and French influences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGbINkei3Ww

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_q5JuleA4E&feature=related




Pablo Sarasate
'Zigunerweisen' (Gypsy Airs)
Jascha Heifetz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMOT-ns2HM8

I'm having trouble trying to keep up with (and learn more about) all of this wonderful music.
I had in fact listened to the Brahem selections and the pablo Sarasate very early (5:30 am) yesterday. The quiet solitude of the morning was a perfect setting for these selections.
I particularly enjoyed the two Brahem selections I kept in the quote above.
You can clearly discern the mixed influences in "le pas du chat noir"

Now I need to cue up Ravel, Chopin,.......

[stlukesguild]

Glad to see some love for Van Cliburn. He was the pianist who really lured me into classical music when I was younger. His Tchaikovsky #1 and Rachmaninoff #3 are historical landmarks, but I prefer his recording of Rachmaninoff #2.

You should be in luck, then. The Tchaikovsky First and Rachmaninoff Second are coupled on the great RCA Living Stereo reissue:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4661912192_cdc7eec7b7.jpg

[Musicology]

Ludwig van Beethoven
Festive Overture
'The Consecration of the House'
Op. 124

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtwaD_lKcbk&feature=related

[Dostoevskian]

I've been celebrating the Schumann bicentennial.

Just finished the Requiem for Mignon (Abbado) and will be moving on to the great Cello Concerto (du Pre). :)

[Wilde woman]

The ending is simply spectacular and it's no wonder that the Russians went wild at the concert performance. Unfortunately, he couldn't take the stress of travelling on the world concert circuit and gave up playing for teaching.

Yes, agreed. It always amazes me that this tall Texan went into Russia during the Cold War and convinced all the judges that he was the best pianist. Quite a feat. And when was the last time you heard that a concert pianist got his own ticker tape parade?

It's such a shame that he gave up concert playing. I would've liked to have heard more piano concertos from him. I do love his Beethoven Sonatas and he did a lovely rendition of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu.

I still follow the Cliburn International Competition every summer because it's just a few minutes away from my hometown in Dallas. The competition is always fierce.


You should be in luck, then. The Tchaikovsky First and Rachmaninoff Second are coupled on the great RCA Living Stereo reissue

Yes, that's one of my favorite disks...and the one of my most oft-listened to.

[Gladys]

...moving on to the great Cello Concerto (du Pre)

Thank you. Even as a Schumann lover, I was unaware of a Cello concerto. :drool5:


schumann-concerto-pour-violoncelle-en-a-mineur-op-129 (embedr.com/playlist/schumann-concerto-pour-violoncelle-en-a-mineur-op-129)

[Dostoevskian]

Thank you. Even as a Schumann lover, I was unaware of a Cello concerto. :drool5:

It's a gem for sure. Much like the piano concerto, it's pure, rhapsodic, unadulterated (for some, adulterated) romanticism.

Have you checked out his Violin Concerto yet? It's some what of an enigma - banned for many years by Schumann's friend Joachim (who was convinced that it was the work of a madman) and not rediscovered until Joachim's grand-nieces began to hear "spirit voices" telling them to recover it.

Eerie stuff, but the concerto itself is very unique and quite dark... :)

[Musicology]

Oh, the Schumann Cello Concerto. A wonderful work. A human being against the music industry, no less.

Mstislav Rostropovich, Cello
Orchestre National de France,
Leonard Bernstein

October 1976

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwOisqjXUEo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiqRndIxF4w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Suz0YUCN4Hw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmn2AGc5u-M&feature=related

JS Bach
Brandenburg Concerto No. 6
BWV 1051

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAHID-5NqWI&feature=related

[Aragorn Elessar]

I love nearly all forms of classical music, new age, ambient and post-rock (e.g. Sigur Ros) music - all very peaceful types of music. And I've listened to the AOL music radio station for New Age Music and I don't believe I've ever heard a song that I don't like on it, whereas with other genres of music like rock and pop, there are so many awful artists, and occasional decent ones, like Pink Floyd or Sting. New age music seems, also, not to be very well-known. Enya is probably the most well-known new age artist, and most listeners still don't know quite how to classify such music.

As I would like to say, "New age is the new classical."

Anyhow - here's a song by a sort of classical / sort of new age/ambient band:

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

Nara, by E.S. Posthumus

[Dostoevskian]

I love nearly all forms of classical music... all very peaceful types of music.

Current Listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDUAfKuGTcY

[stlukesguild]

I would avoid the mistake of assuming that classical music as a whole... or even the majority of what we define as "classical music" is in any way nothing more than relaxing, peaceful, ambient background music ala New Age:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aKAH_t0aXA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goeOUTRy2es

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X9LvC9WkkQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCEDfZgDPS8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9bIoYvdMtE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uMfXh4OOx8

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

These examples only skim the surface... for the very reason that "classical music" is a veritable universe. The very term, "classical music" is meaningless... in that much of what we define as "classical music" was not of the "classical" era (Mozart, Haydn, early Beethoven) but also includes Baroque, Renaissance, Romantic, Post-Romantic, Modernist, Minimalist-era works etc... Essentially, "classical" music might be best defined as the musical equivalent of "fine art" (and as such is sometimes defined as "Art Music"). It is the product of composers with the ability to read music, a knowledge of the history of music, and a mastery of complex musical forms and theory. Yet even this definition is incomplete or flawed for the very reason that what we define as "classical music" is a body of work with often quite different purposes or intentions: Some of the music is intended for entertainment, some has spiritual aspirations, some was pedagogical, some has political aspirations or strives to challenge.

As we entered the 20th century and developed the technology which allowed music to be recorded, composers and performers that would have once been forgotten as mere popular or folk music now had the ability to record their efforts for posterity. As result, the line between folk/popular music and "serious" music or "classical" music has become blurred. Classical composers have been influenced by jazz, and various folk music forms... and even pop and rock... and jazz, folk, and pop/rock have been influenced by classical music in return. It is quite likely that Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk, and Miles Davis will rank among the greatest composers/musicians of the 20th century... well above many of the more esoteric "classical" composers. One might even suspect that a Beatles song such as Norwegian Wood or In My Life may stand along side the lieder and melodies of Schubert, Schumann, Faure, Debussy, etc...

In other words, in no way would I think to suggest that ambient music is the "classical music" of our day... rather, the "classical music" of our time will probably be found in a broad array of forms and genre... and certainly not all having the intention of providing peaceful, relaxing background listening.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

After hearing Conlon/LA Opera's new Siegfried yesterday, listening to Solti/VPO's Walküre today.

Was veering back to Karajan/BPO's Ring cycle, but Conlon/LA is so new and fresh...

This fall Levine/MET is supposed to give us a new Ring at NYC.

[Emil Miller]

This fall Levine/MET is supposed to give us a new Ring at NYC.

Always a massive undertaking, let's hope they concentrate on the singing and orchestral performance rather than trying to outsmart other productions with scenic razzmatazz e.g. space suits or whatever.

[stlukesguild]

Of course opera is a visual spectacle as much as it is musical... but I do agree that efforts to present the classics in the term of MTV or science fiction fantasies tend to fail as miserably as the Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCapprio some years back. Wagner, unfortunately, seems to be the target for the most outlandish costume and stage set designs.

[Musicology]

On Tuesday 2nd May 1865, the University of Dublin Choral Society in Ireland were finally persuaded to hold a concert that was to include some music by J.S. Bach (1685-1750) - to which the public were invited. This was to be the first performance of Bach’s music ever given in the country. (This coming at the safe distance of 115 years after the composer’s death in Leipzig and with concert fashion completely dominated by Viennese composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven). The programme manager in Dublin decided to limit performance of this risky composer to less than 10 minutes. Performing only two movements, in fact, from the B Minor Mass. (‘Crucifixus’ and ‘Et Resurrexit) -

‘Crucifixus’

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=lkjQnoYj95w&feature=related

‘Et Resurrexit’

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=TiQqA7zwpBM&feature=related

Greatly irritated by what he heard a journalist sitting in the audience who was working for the ‘Dublin Daily Express’ published his opinon of it the next day (3rd May 1865). Saying that he had just heard -

‘The most stifled/crabbed of all earthly music’

(Since which time music and musicians have learned better) !

[stlukesguild]

With summer having arrived I am on break from teaching and have a goodly amount of time to spend in my studio working on my own artistic endeavors (painting). Perhaps it is that feeling of freedom linked with a bit of remembered youthful rebellion that we all felt when the school year wound to a close... but for whatever reason, I have been spending a lot of time recently listening more to rock, jazz, gospel, blues and even bluegrass. Among my recent purchases are the following:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4064/4710132015_1b705b58ae.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4694068955_9c928abb9c.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4694701758_f410b4bc21.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4010/4694068859_e44b009856.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/4694068835_6af51ff002.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1275/4694068789_3898ed763a.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4694068713_740d798bf5.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4694701614_0197e770b3.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4694068895_94d8939ae8.jpg

Having said that much, in no way have I put away my passion for classical music... and my current obsession with the Baroque. One composer I have only recently come to explore is the ever fascinating

Jan Dismas Zelenka

Jan Dismas Zelenka (16 October 1679 – 23 December 1745), also known as Johann Dismas Zelenka, was a Czech Baroque composer. Zelenka played the violone, a large (the largest) stringed instrument analogous to the double bass. For quite some time Zelenka was completely ignored. As a result of the Historically Informed Movement (HIP) in classical music, and the revival of interest in earlier music, there have been any number of Zelenka revivals. There is even a web-site devoted to him:

http://www.jdzelenka.net/

Whereas Felix Mendelssohn... among others... helped to spur a revival and a recognition of the genius of the music of J.S. Bach, Zelenka, on the other hand, did not enjoy any significant revival until the mid-20th century. In part this may have been due to the fact that Dresden and the Czech Republic (Bohemia)... where Zelenka had been employed and where most of his manuscripts were housed... fell behind the Iron Curtain. The East German and Czechoslovakian Communist government did not approve of any music that supported the religion... especially the Catholic Church. Only recently has Zelenka's music become accessible to the public, and begun to enter the musical canon... especially among Baroque music aficionados. Zelenka has begun to be recognized as one of the most interesting of the endless array of talented Baroque composers long neglected.

Where Wagner, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler may stand as towering figures within the music of the Romantic era, composers such as Bruckner, Wolf, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc... were in no way ignored. The Baroque era, however, has long been limited in the minds of many to Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi... with perhaps a cursory nod to Scarlatti. The Baroque revival has brought renewed interests to composrs such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Adolf Hasse, Jean-Baptiste de Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Michel Richard Delalande, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Dietrich Buxtehude, and Arcangelo Corelli. Zelenka is a unique addition to these composers.

Zelenka was born in a small town southeast of Prague in Bohemia. His father was a schoolmaster and organist there; almost nothing more is known with certainty about Zelenka's early years or his musical training. He possibly studied music in Prague at a Jesuit college named the Clementinum.

It is known that Zelenka served Baron Hartig, the imperial governor resident in Prague, before becoming a violone player in the royal orchestra at Dresden. He studied counterpoint in Vienna under the composer, Johann Fux

In Dresden, Zelenka initially assisted the Kapellmeister, Johann David Heinichen, and gradually assumed Heinichen's duties as the latter's health declined. After Heinichen died in 1729, Zelenka applied for the prestigious post of Kapellmeister; the post went instead to Johann Adolf Hasse. In 1735, Zelenka was given the title of church music composer. He was in good company, as J.S. Bach had also applied for this title and shared it with Zelenka. Zelenka died in Dresden in 1745, having written works in his final years that were never performed during his lifetime.

There is no known portrait of Zelenka.

culled from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Dismas_Zelenka

Zelenka composed a small body of instrumental and orchestral works, but the majority of his compositions are sacred choral works: oratorios, masses, cantatas, etc... These compositions display a wealth of virtuosic technics and are quite challenging to perform. As a result of his own mastery of the violone, Zelenka's writing for the bass string instruments is far more complex and demanding than that of any other composer of the era. His stress upon the bass lends his music a certain driving rhythm or even muscularity that some have attributed to the folk music and dances of his native Bohemia.

J.S. Bach reportedly held Zelenka in high esteem.

There is currently a good number of Zelenka recordings on the market. I first came upon him through the efforts of the marvelous recording company, Zig Zag Territories (A label that has done much to explore early music performed to HIP standards... all beautifully performed and packaged). Zig Zag has released two marvelous Zelenka recordings that immediately enthralled me:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4712146936_3d1aa8c536.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4712146964_48e5ab1149.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6pnDcHVNok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzXvf4DqrE4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk717tZzKkk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWA7lHJLeTA&feature=related

[LitNetIsGreat]

Beautiful stuff, thanks.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Yesterday heard the LA Opera's final installment of the Ring Cycle, Götterdämmerung--it was fanstastic!

Day before reviewed Levine/MET's Rheingold--one of the best.
http://www.amazon.com/Das-Rheingold-Wagner/dp/B000025F73/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1277041982&sr=1-6

Today, Böhm/Bayreuth's famous 1968 Wälkure.
http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Die-Walküre-Richard/dp/B00005IB5M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1277042024&sr=1-1

[LitNetIsGreat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC84wEqMqAM
Ah, next Saturday, The Royal Opera House london, Figaro!!!:crazy:

[stlukesguild]

Lucky you! So I talked you into making the London trip. Seriously, I'm not kidding... if I lived as close to New York... or Washington D.C. as you live top London I'd be there every other week. But then we Americans live in our cars. It's not unusual for many Americans to drive 40 or 50 miles or more to work each day.

Returning to Le Nozze... I have the Karl Böhm recording sitting in front of me... still in the shrinkwrap... and I must get around to playing it. But right now I'm four beers under the weather (3 Sam Smith Imperials, and a banana bread beer:banana: and I've got Miles' Kind of Blue blaring with a Three Philosopher's Belgian ale and the Stones waiting in the wings. No Mozart tonight.:nopity:

[LitNetIsGreat]

Lucky you! So I talked you into making the London trip. Seriously, I'm not kidding... if I lived as close to New York... or Washington D.C. as you live top London I'd be there every other week. But then we Americans live in our cars. It's not unusual for many Americans to drive 40 or 50 miles or more to work each day.

Returning to Le Nozze... I have the Karl Böhm recording sitting in front of me... still in the shrinkwrap... and I must get around to playing it. But right now I'm four beers under the weather (3 Sam Smith Imperials, and a banana bread beer:banana: and I've got Miles' Kind of Blue blaring with a Three Philosopher's Belgian ale and the Stones waiting in the wings. No Mozart tonight.:nopity:

No that sounds pretty cool actually, sounds like you are enjoying better quality beer than me at the moment for one - as I can't disagree with 54 bottles of Stella for £20; goes down well with the football anyway. :cool:

Yes, you talked me into London, that and the fact that I am a definite Figaro addict. Not sure how good the seat is going to be (and I'm not sure that I am going to be paying £8.60 for one glass of house wine) but I'm sure to enjoy the whole thing anyway. Got myself a good deal on first class train tickets as well, plus my uncle can get me super cheap train tickets in future, as he is a driver, so hopefully more trips to London on the way. As long as I don't get lost on the tube that is...:confused:

[kasie]

Enjoy the weekend, Neely - never mind if the seat is way up in the Gods, the experience will be the stuff life-long memories are made of.

I'm off to Cardiff on Monday to see (or is it hear? I'm never sure) Welsh National Opera: Rigoletto on Monday, Meistersingers von Nurenberg on Tuesday - Bryn Terfil is singing Hans Sachs, his debut in the role. It will be my first 'live' Wagner - I'm looking forward to it.

[stlukesguild]

Well, today I spent fully getting back into my current obsession with classical music. Two new discs arrived in the mail:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1200/4731160237_5f2c7977dd.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1387/4731802862_c454b64384.jpg

Zelenka I have already discussed above... but I must say this latest disc is quite marvelous... and I am still impressed with the muscular, driving rhythm of Zelenka's music. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber was another marvelous German composer from the time of J.S. Bach. Like Bach and Zelenka he composed a share of marvelous choral works for the church...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hTsxhWzVeA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oFjxHCh2Kk&feature=related

Biber was born in Wartenberg, Bohemia (now Stráž pod Ralskem, Czech Republic).

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1205/4731923419_bb98195d17_b.jpg

Little is known about his early education, other than that he may have studied at a Jesuit Gymnasium in Bohemia. Before 1668 Biber worked at the court of Prince Johann Seyfried von Eggenberg in Graz, and then was employed by the Bishop of Olomouc, Karl II von Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn, in Kroměříž. Biber enjoyed a good reputation, and his violin playing skills were very highly regarded.

In summer 1670 Karl II sent Biber to Absam, near Innsbruck, to negotiate with the celebrated instrument maker Jacob Stainer for the purchase of new instruments for the Kapelle. Biber never reached Stainer, however, and instead entered the employ of the Archbishop of Salzburg, Maximilian Gandolph von Kuenburg. Because Karl and Maximilian were friends, Biber's former employer refrained from taking any action; he was, however, very hurt by the composer's decision, and waited until 1676 to officially release him. Biber remained in Salzburg for the rest of his life. His musical and social careers flourished: he started publishing his music in 1676, performed before the Emperor (and was rewarded by him) in 1677, became deputy Kapellmeister at Salzburg in 1679 and Kapellmeister in 1684. In 1690 Biber was raised to nobility by the Emperor, with the title of Biber von Bibern. Finally, the new Archbishop of Salzburg, Johann Ernst, Count Thun, appointed Biber lord high steward, the highest social rank Biber would attain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Ignaz_Biber

Like Bach, the masterful organist and harpsichordist, and Zelenka and the bass, Biber's mastery of the violin certainly influenced his compositions. For all the pomp and spectacle of the great choral works Biber composed, he is even more known for his works for violin, including the masterful Mystery or Rosary Sonatas, which tell the narrative of Christ's birth and the Passion. A unique element in this music is the technique called scordatura, deliberate mis-tuning of the violin strings for unusual effects including dissonance or near-dissonance. These sonatas are quite intense in nature, avoiding beautiful melodies and typically baroque ornamentation most of the time. Biber, rather, has a dramatic story to tell, which he does with remarkably imaginative effects:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMC8mP66BXI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrpCEiug8Ks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPj5fyQjCC0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCSEEvEm3uc

The second composer I have listening to a great deal today has been Antonio Vivaldi:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1212/4732567204_18a4ffa424_b.jpg

Before the Historically Informed Performance movement delved deeper into Baroque music, Vivaldi was commonly seen as the third of the great Baroque composers along side of J.S. Bach and Handel... in spite of the fact that his known oeuvre was limited to little more than the Four Seasons and a few other concertos.

Vivaldi, however, has long had his detractors. The Four Seasons is overplayed to the point of irritation... in spite of it being a truly masterful work. Stravinsky disparagingly suggested that Vivaldi had not written 100s of concertos, but rather the same concerto 100s of times. Of course a cursory hearing of the whole of nearly any musical genre: jazz, bluegrass, Romanticism, opera, and not merely the Baroque or Vivaldi may lead one to the assumption that it all sounds alike.:frown2: But the further one delves into the music, the more breadth, variety and originality one discovers.

Such has been true of the appreciation of Vivaldi as the result of relatively recent discoveries of vast previously unknown scores of Vivaldi's music... especially opera and choral works. Vivaldi's vocal works are among his most spectacular creations... among the greatest of all Baroque music. The Naive Record label has been releasing an entire series of simply stunning recordings of Vivaldi's vast repertoire with a focus especially on the previously unknown works. One of the most splendid recordings has been that of the Vespri per l'Assunzione di Maria Vergine (or the Vespers for the Assumption of the Virgin Mary):

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1214/4732567238_b18bdce651.jpg

Monteverdi, earlier, had composed a famous Vespers of 1610. Vivaldi was employed in the same city (Venice) and was known to have been commissioned to compose several Vespers... almost certainly including one for the same great cathedral (San Marco) in which Monteverdi's choral masterwork had been performed. Unfortunately, only separate elements of various whole Vespers have survived in Vivaldi's manuscripts. These, parts of various wholes, however, are inclusive enough for musicologists to construct a single whole Vespers... wholly of Vivaldi's composing. This reconstruction includes some of Vivaldi's most sublime music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0ib8EIHnw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HaBQUblJiA&feature=related

The Psalm 126, or Nisi Dominus contains one of Vivaldi's most haunting creations, the unearthly Cum dederit... heard here in two equally beautiful... and yet very different performances... the first by the Polish conductor and counter-tenor, Jakub Burzyński:

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

The second version... perhaps less driven and earthy... but even more frighteningly "unearthly" is by the fast rising superstar counter-tenor, Philippe Jaroussky:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVgItFV0kBY

In fact... one may here listen to the whole of the Nisi Dominus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQJgM-4UYs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyhbQ8A0yEg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVgItFV0kBY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ7IB2a3TnM&feature=related

[Musicology]

Leo Delibes (1836-1891)
Ballet
'Coppelia' (1870)


1. Introduction and Mazurka

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=1u160JsFrkk&feature=related

-

2. Coda

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=vRyWfDkr3Y8&feature=related


///

[IceM]

Curious question; as one who has only experieced classical music through Academic Decathlon curriculum (two years ago was music of Latin America, last year pertaining to the French Revolution, this year to the Great Depression), I'm grosly ignorant to the vast library of masterpieces unheard by my ears. I download music frequently. Can anyone recommend me some lovely pieces that may be available for download? I'd really love to expand my boundaries.

Thanks,
IceM

[Emil Miller]

Curious question; as one who has only experieced classical music through Academic Decathlon curriculum (two years ago was music of Latin America, last year pertaining to the French Revolution, this year to the Great Depression), I'm grosly ignorant to the vast library of masterpieces unheard by my ears. I download music frequently. Can anyone recommend me some lovely pieces that may be available for download? I'd really love to expand my boundaries.

Thanks,
IceM


I'm sure there are plenty of forum members who could recommend something, but it would depend on what you mean by 'lovely pieces'.
Why not check out the many links posted on this thread which covers a wide range of musical expression?

[Genocide]

Curious question; as one who has only experieced classical music through Academic Decathlon curriculum (two years ago was music of Latin America, last year pertaining to the French Revolution, this year to the Great Depression), I'm grosly ignorant to the vast library of masterpieces unheard by my ears. I download music frequently. Can anyone recommend me some lovely pieces that may be available for download? I'd really love to expand my boundaries.

Thanks,
IceM

I'm not really sure what you're looking for but I know a way I usually manage to find a good song is on theradio. When I'm at home and just parusing the internet I use online radio (http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?genre=classical) broadcastings.

What are some of your favorites, if you don't mind me asking?

[IceM]

I love piano compositions; Franz Liszt's Liebestraum is my favorite to date. Tchaikovsky* is always a thrill to listen to, and I enjoy some of Mozart's pieces.

The issue is, I'm so ignorant to what much great music is simply because I haven't been able to hear it. My region of California has no classical station; my internet is faulty and typically cannot upload Youtube videos; and it cannot play online radio, either. I tried, thanks for the link nonetheless.

I'm just looking to hear more classical music and wondering which pieces composed are worth listening to.

[Emil Miller]

I love piano compositions; Franz Liszt's Liebestraum is my favorite to date. Tchaikovsky* is always a thrill to listen to, and I enjoy some of Mozart's pieces.

The issue is, I'm so ignorant to what much great music is simply because I haven't been able to hear it. My region of California has no classical station; my internet is faulty and typically cannot upload Youtube videos; and it cannot play online radio, either. I tried, thanks for the link nonetheless.

I'm just looking to hear more classical music and wondering which pieces composed are worth listening to.

I'm amazed that you don't have access to music in California but if you like piano music it has to be Chopin, preferably the waltzes and nocturnes, not to mention the etudes and his two piano concertos. Tchaikovsky's ballet music for The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker are all brilliantly tuneful and I would also recommend his Romeo and Juliette concert overture and especially the Francesca da Rimini overture. No other composer can match Tchaikovsky for tuneful orchestral pieces but the number of non-symphonic works by other composers is vast and you might look at Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Dvorak and Mendelssohn for some really enjoyable music. Another composer whose music is very melodious and exciting is Rimsky Korsakov; especially his Russian Easter Festival Overture and Scheherazade.
This only scratches the surface and is fairly random but it might help.

[Genocide]

The issue is, I'm so ignorant to what much great music is simply because I haven't been able to hear it. My region of California has no classical station; my internet is faulty and typically cannot upload Youtube videos; and it cannot play online radio, either. I tried, thanks for the link nonetheless.

I'm not going to lie, there are a lot of "great pieces" that are highly praised that I'm not too fond of so if you ever happen to run into a random piece you can't stand, don't feel bad, okay? :]

I'm really confused as to why you don't have a classical station! California and I are more than friends and so far where I've been I've managed to find at least one wherever I go (though one of my favorites was shut off not too long ago).

If I were you I'd be at a cd shop testing out what they have. Good luck, though.

[stlukesguild]

If piano works like Liszt's Liebestraum interest you then I would second Brian's recommendation of Chopin's Waltzes and Nocturnes. To these I would add Schumann's Papillons, Carnaval, Fantasiestücke, Kinderszenen, and Kreisleriana. Schubert's Impromptus would also fit in here and then perhaps Beethoven's more famous piano sonatas: 8 (Pathetique), 14 (Moonlight), 17 (Tempest), 21 (Waldstein), 23 (Appasionata), 26 (Les Adieu). I would also suggest you listen to Mozart's piano concertos... especially the late ones: numbers 18-27 for example.

Really, if you are just beginning to explore the world of classical music you would do well to look to a guide to the basics. I would highly recommend the book, Classical Music; the 50 Greatest Composers and their 1,000 Greatest Works by Phil G. Goulding. This book is well written in a clear and concise language that avoids excessive technical jargon. It is much more than a check-list of the "greatest" composers. It offers a basic understanding of classical music forms and structure, developments, history, as well as a good many of the technical terms.

Today a new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations arrived. This is perhaps my 6th or 7th version of this magnificent work... but then again... one can never have too much Bach. While I tend to prefer Bach's keyboard works played upon the piano (especially when performed by such masterful interpreters as Glenn Gould, Rosalyn Tureck, Angela Hewitt and Murray Perahia) this particular recording, by Andreas Staier on Harmonia Mundi, is played on the harpsichord. This is surely one of the finest harpsichord recordings I have heard. The instrument is well recorded... avoiding the jarring and jangling nature that makes it difficult to listen to some harpsichord recordings for long. This is a full and rich-sounding instrument, and Staier makes judicious use of the organ-like stops on the instrument that can lend a greater variety or sound color to the work.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4075/4753024919_a94d1f8691.jpg

The work also comes with a DVD in which there is a brief (perhaps 20-minute) interview with the performer:

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2hFP79Q1Ds

Highly recommended!:smile5:

And now I'm on to the second disc that arrived today... a collection of works by Gérard Grisey... who is a bit further out there than Bach.:smilewinkgrin:

Today yet another Bach purchase arrived in the mail... although in this instance the work is something of the Holy Grail of Bach recordings:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4094/4756774380_d151d14162.jpg

Last December I had planned upon purchasing this set of Bach recordings by Gardiner...

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4121/4756912276_93104b9319.jpg

... but I ended up putting off this purchase wanting to save the money for the holidays. This disc contained the Saint Matthew Passion, the Saint John Passion, the Mass in B-minor, and the Christmas Oratorio and through Amazon Marketplace dealers it ran from $35-$45 US. I am now glad I put off buying, for this new box set (top) contains not only all four of those works but the Magnificat and 35 of Bach's Cantatas as well... 22 discs in all... and the price is no greater than the earlier set!!

These works are the central achievements of Bach as a composer of sacred choral music... and any number of the individual compositions (the Saint Matthew Passion, the Mass in B-minor, the Magnificat) might be counted among Bach's greatest works... and among the greatest works ever composed. The recordings by John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and English baroque Soloists are regarded by many critics (in Gramophone, BBC Music, Penguin Guide, etc...) as being the "first choice" for many of these works. These recordings include such talented and renowned singers as Bernarda Fink, Barbara Bonney, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Magdalena Kozena, and Anne Sofie von Otter.

Currently, I am listening to the Mass in B-minor. This work was composed upon a scale beyond any of Bach's other works in terms of the orchestral forces employed. Here we find Bach utilizing the brass, timpani, massed choirs... and a variety of instrumental soloists. Some have suggested that Bach was inspired... a provoked to prove himself... by the example of the great choral works of Jan Dismas Zelenka. Zelenka, working for the Catholic court in the large city of Dresden had access to a far greater orchestra and choir than Bach in had in Leipzig, and the Mass in B-minor was dedicated and presented to Zelenka's patron, August III, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and Elector of Saxony, in a failed bid to obtain the position of court composer.

The scale of this work leads one to wonder just what Bach might have achieved beyond his already unfathomable achievements, had he ever been awarded a position worthy of his talents, such as the rank of court composer in Dresden, Vienna, Salzburg... or Paris... or a free-lance position such as Handel had in London. While Handel, Biber, Zelenka, and Rameau cannot rival the depth of spiritual feeling and the intimacy exuded in Bach's cantatas written for the relatively small Lutheran churches of Leipzig as required by his position as Cantor of Thomasschule and Director of Music in the principal churches in the town (primarily St. Thomas and St. Nicholas), one wonders what Bach might have done with the forces of a truly grand orchestra and choir. One can only imagine Bach's genius applied to choral works on the level of grandeur expected at the French court in Paris... or operas and oratorios written for the great London audiences and their marvelous grand orchestras.

Nevertheless... we still have the Mass in B-minor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcqaYnoJR_A&feature=related

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZvkSSVp3H8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JltB78F0J90&feature=related

[Musicology]

This morning, after seeing some plants growing in the garden heard this for the first time in months -

'Bach was an inside job' !!! LOL !!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=NBT76RViKRw&feature=related

[Lokasenna]

On a friend's advice, I'm just getting into Mahler for the first time, and enjoying myself so far. The 6th symphony is particularly rousing!

[stlukesguild]

I first got into Mahler with the First (love that death waltz set to 'Frère Jacques'), the Second (the great "Resurrection") and the 5th and 9th Symphonies in the brilliant Barbirolli recordings. I now think that my favorite work would be Das Lied von der Erde conducted by Bruno Walter and featuring the great English contralto, Kathleen Ferrier. Her performance... especially of Der Abschied... a long orchestral song celebrating the eternal cycle of death and rejuvenation... as the singer knew she herself was dying... composed by Mahler who was equally aware of his own mortality... is incredibly heart-wrenching. Ferrier, ever the professional, apologized for what she felt was a missed cue. Bruno responded that it was he and the audience who should apologize that they were not all in tears.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtV7TSRLs5Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X_Ii0ymVRM&feature=related

Currently I'm doing a little listening to a cappella vocal works. The first collection being a selection of the works by arch-Modernist, György Sándor Ligeti (1923-2006).

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4116/4779138948_4345920cf7.jpg

I like a good many of the pieces well enough... especially the well-known Lux Aeterna used in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnuAaKiX1sg

Currently I'm listening to something older... quite a bit older. Some of the music here dates from the 4th century!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4756774560_ca2346bc34.jpg

The music is chant of the Melchite or Imperial Byzantine Church. The music evolved from a culture in which Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Arabic rubbed shoulders in the streets... and in philosophical, religious, and artistic institutions. This chant eventually made its way west to Morocco and into Islamic Spain where remnants remain in music today. In many ways it makes the music of Ligeti sound almost "conservative" by way of comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VoD_Zt0aFk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAhvJVu6BH4&feature=related

[Musicology]

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=mc2zHMvxQbg&feature=related

and also -

BWV 62
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=DWwZNNh7T9g&feature=related

[stlukesguild]

Interestingly enough... the duel between the arch-Modernists and those who refused to abandon Romanticism. The Modernists too a progressive approach, abandoning tonality and harmony and pushing ever forward into increasingly challenging and difficult musical languages that often left even the educated audiences baffled. The Romantics continued to champion traditional tonality and harmony as essential... even natural to music. Many Modernists would accuse their Romantic rivals of being reactionaries... stuck in the past... and pandering to the broadest possible audience. In turn, they were accused of having abandoned music's ability to communicate with a public as a result of their esoteric efforts at experimentation for the sake of experimentation.

By the late 20th century, the entire dispute had become something of a non-issue to subsequent generations of composers... many of whom saw either side as just one more possibility... and freely combined elements of tonality with the dissonance or atonality of Modernism. Another camp abandoned the dispute altogether... recognizing that the dispute which was essentially that of 19th century musical ideals vs those of the 20th century ignored the wealth of other musical possibilities... including non-Western musical forms... and "Early Music".

Concurrent with the explorations of "Early Music" by composers such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki, Erkki-Sven Tüür, etc... the interest in the studies of Early Music increased and these would have a major impact upon the performance of music in the form of the Historically Informed Performance (HIP) movement. HIP recordings employed the proper period instruments and performing styles to the recording of early music, be it Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, or Gesualdo. Prior to this point, most recordings of earlier composers were performed upon modern instruments, using the large-scale Romantic-era orchestras, and modern performance techniques.

Beyond the rethinking of the older masters such as Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, the HIP led to a greater awareness and exploration of other composers within the older musical styles. Where the larger classical music public were well aware of an entire range of masters from the Romantic era, the baroque was often limited to Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi... with perhaps a nod to Domenico Scarlatti. It was soon discovered that the Baroque was not so limited, but rather there were any number of other masterful composers such as Biber, Zelenka, Rameau, Lully, Corelli, and Scarlatti's father, Alessandro, also at work. Exploration expanded to Renaissance and Medieval music where an equally broad array of composers were unearthed and began to see the light of day through recordings: Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Josquin, Palestrina, Perotin, Leonin, Hildegard of Bingen, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, John Dowland, and Nicolas Gombert... who I am currently listening to.

Nicolas Gombert was born in Flanders c. 1495 and was employed in the entourage of the Emperor, Charles V. In this position he traveled widely around Europe spreading the innovations of Franco-Flemish music to the Iberian Peninsula. Gombert was perhaps the leading composer following Josquin and prior to Palestrina. His efforts centered upon the composition of vocal music... sacred works (masses, motets, a Magnificat, etc...) and secular (chanson/songs) where he developed polyphonic music... or music that employs multiple "voices"... singers singing different melodic lines at the same time (as many as 6, 8, 10, or 12 different voices with Gombert) which harmonically weave together into a single sound. Some of his compositions are for unusually large vocal ensembles for the time, and the secular works are often especially complex. Gombert is also known, like Gesualdo, for employing elements of dissonance for expressive purposes. While the music of composers such as Gombert immediately strikes the modern listener as perhaps soothing... hypnotic... clearly spiritual in content, it might serve well to note that in its day it was some of the most daring and cutting edge music... music that many of the more conservative church leaders found shocking... overly ornamental... even blasphemous!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4756136397_6f98e5ffc8.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0yaz1_65v4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuwKXSVlN-w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWs6kcgS1Wo&feature=related

[Musicology]

Here is the answer. We are free to forget the question.

J.S. Bach
Concerto for 2 Keyboards
BWV 1061

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=6vbbnJ69Mc8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=CzTb1CMVfOU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=Cdbf9ZGhN3I&feature=related

'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof'

J.S. Bach
Concerto for 3 Keyboards
Allegro
BWV 1064/1

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=SGNxFbeM6DU&feature=related

[stlukesguild]

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/4800406032_478b8c8a9d.jpg

According to Wikipedia: Byzantine music remains the oldest genre of extant music, of which the manner of performance and (with increasing accuracy from the 5th century onwards) the names of the composers, and sometimes the particulars of each musical work's circumstances, are known (although Robert/Musicology will probably be along to inform us that it was all the invention of the Jesuits, the Free Masons, Hollywood, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster:sosp:). The Byzantine Church came into existence in a place in which Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin all rubbed shoulders. Some of this music dates back to as early as the 4th century. It was largely preserved both as it passed down from generation to generation orally, but also in a rough form of notation known as Ekphonetic notation, which involved symbols used as a mnemonic device to assist in their cantillation. The music was not set rigidly as in more modern Western music, but rather allowed for a deal of improvisation while adhering to notes within the given mode, metrical scheme, accents, and patterns.

Today I'm listening to a second disc by Soeur Marie Keyrouz, who is virtually the unrivaled as a cantor of this ancient music. She was born in Deir el Ahmar in Lebanon and is a member of the Melkite through her religious congregation, she took her vows in the Melkite/Melchite or Byzantine Greek Catholic Church. She has a joint doctorate in musicology and anthropology from the Sorbonne. She has collected and performs a variety of so-called "Oriental" Christian chants, mostly preserved in Greek, Syrian, and Arabic manuscripts and through oral tradition. She is accompanied on this disc by the Chorale De L'église Saint-Julien-Le-Pauvre which provide the steady choral drone over which her voice soars. Not only is this music intensely spiritual... and hypnotic... but the disc is beautifully packaged in a booklet containing the complete texts in translation and a number of lovely reproduction of Byzantine art of the era. Soeur Marie Keyrouz has become something of a "cottage industry" with a high-tech web site of her own:

http://www.keyrouz.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAhvJVu6BH4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ql5V_Osp2Y

[Virgil]

My summer learning project is to learn and experience Beethoven's string quartets. Today I was listening to Opus 127.

Here's that great first movement, Sonata form of course:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5mQQnkKm1k

[stlukesguild]

My summer learning project is to learn and experience Beethoven's string quartets. Today I was listening to Opus 127.

A formidable challenge, indeed! I've honestly never been a big fan of quartets... although I certainly have listened to Beethoven's, Schubert's, Shostakovitch's, Mozart's, Haydn's and a number of others with pleasure. I sometimes wonder if it is not due to my love of song that I am so enamored of nearly any form of vocal music... but find I'm less than enthralled with chamber music... to say nothing of a good deal of modern music?:sosp:

My own goal has been to broaden my grasp of Baroque and earlier music. At the same time... I've been getting back to my American roots in also touring through some of the pioneers of R & B, Blues, Rock, etc... such as Mahalia Jackson, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Little Richard, Son House, B.B. King, Little Jimmy Scott, Joe Williams, Etta James, etc...

[Gladys]

My summer learning project is to learn and experience Beethoven's string quartets.

Discovering these in the 1970's, I much later experienced the same feelings - an appreciation of intense existential beauty and fragility - in novels of Dostoevsky, Henry James, James Joyce, Arundhati Roy, and others. Frail, fleeting visions of naked eternity, crystallised in the moment.

[Virgil]

My summer learning project is to learn and experience Beethoven's string quartets. Today I was listening to Opus 127.

A formidable challenge, indeed! I've honestly never been a big fan of quartets... although I certainly have listened to Beethoven's, Schubert's, Shostakovitch's, Mozart's, Haydn's and a number of others with pleasure. I sometimes wonder if it is not due to my love of song that I am so enamored of nearly any form of vocal music... but find I'm less than enthralled with chamber music... to say nothing of a good deal of modern music?:sosp:

Chamber music doesn't have the power of orchestral music, but it has incredible subtlty. In some respect they have a higher level of artistry.


My own goal has been to broaden my grasp of Baroque and earlier music. At the same time... I've been getting back to my American roots in also touring through some of the pioneers of R & B, Blues, Rock, etc... such as Mahalia Jackson, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Little Richard, Son House, B.B. King, Little Jimmy Scott, Joe Williams, Etta James, etc...
Well, I'm a huge blues fan. :D Those are some great names there.


Discovering these in the 1970's, I much later experienced the same feelings - an appreciation of intense existential beauty and fragility - in novels of Dostoevsky, Henry James, James Joyce, Arundhati Roy, and others. Frail, fleeting visions of naked eternity, crystallised in the moment.

Nicely said. :)

[stlukesguild]

My own musical tastes are all over the place, and I will admit that some of what I love can be thought of as quite esoteric... especially to those just beginning to explore "classical music". With that in mind, I offer up the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pVW4Z8qOUE



If there is one piece of classical music composed by an American that I certain will last, it is surely Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. This piece of music must surely be one of the most absolutely heart-wrenching artistic experiences I have ever known. The Adagio began as the middle movement of Barber's string quartet, but the composer himself recognized the worth of the piece and scored it for full orchestra. He sent a copy of this score to the great conductor, Toscanini. Toscanini returned it without comment, which deeply annoyed and hurt Barber... until he was informed by the conductor that he had returned the work because he had already memorized it entire. Toscanini gave the first performance of the Adagio for Strings with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on November 5, 1938 in New York. This recording was selected in 2005 for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the United States Library of Congress.

The Adagio for Strings is such a moving and somber piece of music that it is no surprise that it was broadcast over the radio at the announcement of Franklin D. Roosevelt's death. It was also played at the funeral of Albert Einstein, the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco, during the radio report of John F. Kennedy's assassination and again was performed in 2001 at Last Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall to commemorate the victims of the September 11 attacks, replacing the traditional upbeat patriotic songs. It was also played during the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. On April 13, 2010 Adagio for Strings was performed at the special joint session of the Polish Parliament and Senate three days after the tragic plane crash. It has also been repeatedly used in television and film, including Oliver Stone's Platoon and David Lynch's The Elephant Man.

Barber also composed a choral setting of the Adagio, Agnus Dei:

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

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4813463735_4db9777881.jpg
-Samuel Barber

Here's one that Petrach's Love might appreciate:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4814185752_d9c3482c69.jpg

:):):)

This particular madrigal by Moneteverdi absolutely blows my mind... with the high plaintive voice rising above the others in a sweetest/saddest of laments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxcMZl6YwNs

Exquisite!!!;):yesnod:

[LitNetIsGreat]

Currently playing:

http://cdn.naxosmusiclibrary.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk/sharedfiles/images/cds/others/TLS015.gif

I logged into Naxos and this Liztz recording of Beethoven's 9th symphony popped-up so I hit the "go" button! Seems very sharp and energetic (and fast), here is the second movement on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1KmDqb_16g&feature=PlayList&p=5304EC57166DC46D&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=3

[Lokasenna]

Currently playing:

http://cdn.naxosmusiclibrary.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk/sharedfiles/images/cds/others/TLS015.gif

I logged into Naxos and this Liztz recording of Beethoven's 9th symphony popped-up so I hit the "go" button! Seems very sharp and energetic (and fast), here is the second movement on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1KmDqb_16g&feature=PlayList&p=5304EC57166DC46D&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=3

Ooh, now that I like!

[stlukesguild]

Naxos has some really great recordings. Might I suggest you look into the Kodaly Quartet recordings of Haydn's string quartets (they are among the best at any price). For something a bit more modern, check out any of Antoni Wit's recordings of Penderecki (Wit studied under Penderecki). Istvan Bogar's recording of Brahm's Hungarian Dances are also among the best. Naxos is also great for recording new composers that rarely ever get recorded by the major labels.

[Emil Miller]

Currently playing:

http://cdn.naxosmusiclibrary.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk/sharedfiles/images/cds/others/TLS015.gif

I logged into Naxos and this Liztz recording of Beethoven's 9th symphony popped-up so I hit the "go" button! Seems very sharp and energetic (and fast), here is the second movement on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1KmDqb_16g&feature=PlayList&p=5304EC57166DC46D&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=3

This a great transcription of Beethoven's symphony by Franz Liszt, a man who was capable of transcribing virtually any orchestral piece for the piano. Beethoven was a much better composer than Liszt but Liszt is acknowledged to be a better pianist than Beethoven who was one of the 19th century's greatest pianists.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Naxos has some really great recordings. Might I suggest you look into the Kodaly Quartet recordings of Haydn's string quartets (they are among the best at any price). For something a bit more modern, check out any of Antoni Wit's recordings of Penderecki (Wit studied under Penderecki). Istvan Bogar's recording of Brahm's Hungarian Dances are also among the best. Naxos is also great for recording new composers that rarely ever get recorded by the major labels.

Great will do.

I don't know what I'll do when I lose the Naxos connection next year - I might have to enrol on something just to keep it (and my student card) alive!

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Been exploring Tristan und Islode.

Wagner's concept of gesamtkunstwerk and music-drama is in fact a bit different from traditional grand-opera, and we have it on authority from G. B. Shaw ('The Perfect Wagnerite') that in Wagner's late work (i.e., after Lohengrin) the voice is treated as an equal instrument with all other orchestral instruments--hence Wagner's design of the stage and orchestra pit at Bayreuth: the orchestra is not only sunken, but there is a large overhanging shell which looks something like this:
\~~~-G-----/
which pushes the orchestra's sound waves on to the stage as the vocalists' sound waves are projected towards the audience, thusly achieving an equal acoustic intensity.

Wagnerian vocalists are a separate category of opera singers due to the long rôles, stamina and physical requirements needed.

But in any case it is often unseemly how some hyper-enthusiasts tend to treat vocalists as if they are thoroughbred racehorses, handicapping their performances at the track as it were.
It's the wrong approach to art appreciation, which should be one of gratitude and humility.

One would imagine that any vocalist invited to perform with great orchestras at major venues would be entirely qualified, and therefore any performance of a major Wagnerian work should be appreciated for its individuality all round, including the unique timbre and tessitura of the vocalists' instruments: meaning, each singer brings something special to the table.

Of Tristan recordings, some have greatly favoured the Furtwängler--although it is virtually an 'antique' recording it's been remastered--featuring the famous Flagstad (although she couldn'd hit her high-Cs which were dubbed by Schwarzkopf):
http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Tristan-Isolde-Richard-Classical/dp/B0001E8C14/ref=cm_lmf_tit_28

The 1966 Böhm set is justly admired:
http://www.amazon.com/Tristan-Isolde-Richard-Wagner/dp/B000001GXS/ref=cm_lmf_tit_8
(The previous year 1965 Böhm's complete Niblung's Ring cycle ditto:
http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Ring-Nibelungen-Box-Set/dp/B000025ESY/ref=cm_lmf_tit_27 )

Kleiber's white-hot realization is incredibly admirable:
http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Tristan-Isolde-Richard-Classical/dp/B0006ZFQP8/ref=cm_lmf_tit_9

Finally, the Karajan and Bernstein readings have their merits, but the three CD format of the Böhm and Kleiber have their attractions.
http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Wagner-Tristan-Isolde/dp/B000002SDZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279810034&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Tristan-Isolde-Wagner/dp/B000025MLF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279810104&sr=1-1

(Bernstein set is OOP and therefore $$$$, although Hildegard Behrens was definitely a great Wagnerian dramatic soprano...)


Which one to get for a novice? Quick answer: Kleiber or Böhm.

[Lokasenna]

Tristan was recently discussed in the opera thread - the recent Barenboim production from La Scala is really quite an incredible production, if you're interested. Waltraud Meier is a stunning Isolde, but the entire cast is excellent.

[Musicology]

J.S. Bach
Cantata 205

'And, turning neither left nor right, he continued...'


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33nKaU7UDwE

[stlukesguild]

I prefer the Karajan recording of Tristan to all others. Nothing can equal the berlin Philharmonic under the control of such a perfectionist as Karajan... and as you note, the late Wagner works are as much about the orchestra as the vocalists... or rather the vocalists are but one more instrument within the whole. Karajan's recording has a certain icy eroticism that strikes me as perfectly suited to the work. After Karajan... I'd probably go with Bohm... and as you probably know... Bohm's set is cheaper than Karajan... or the out of print Bernstein... which I have not heard, but know is considered to be quite a controversial recording.

J.S. Bach
Cantata 205

'And, turning neither left nor right, he continued...'

I must admit that Musicology has at least one redeeming quality... his unfailing passion for Bach... which I can certainly not fault.

it is often unseemly how some hyper-enthusiasts tend to treat vocalists as if they are thoroughbred racehorses, handicapping their performances at the track as it were.

Opera fanatics are far more obsessed than fanatics of almost any other field outside of sports and politics. Where a classical music buff may disagree as to which recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas is best they are not likely to refer to Gilels and Rubinstein as talentless hacks, "sluts" or "whores" if they happen to prefer Kempff. This, however, is quite common among opera fanatics. All one needs to do is read the comments on nearly any YouTube video of an opera performance... especially those involving contemporary female singers. While I surely have favorite singers... singers I prefer to others... I can't imagine the need to so viciously attack the efforts of any other singer... especially when... as you note... nearly any singer who attains a certain status... performing with leading orchestras and at major international venues most certainly has a degree of ability that is well beyond that of most.

[Musicology]

Hi StLukesguild,

I am of course an ignorant man. But I have been humbled by the fact of it over and over again. Whether that counts for anything is an open question. In the meantime I marvel at what seems, to me, beyond criticism.

Regards

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=Y-AInuUAaRg&feature=related

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Los Angeles Opera recently completed a Niblung's Ring cycle--which was great--so I've been listening to a lot of late Wagner lately.

Also exploring Russian Romantic opera with Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, comparing Abbado's Boris Gudonov with Karajan's.


Waltraud Meier is a stunning Isolde.

Meier's a fine vocalist; she sang Marie in Berg's Wozzeck under Barenboim (who's a great Wagnerian conductor as well).

[Petrarch's Love]

Here's one that Petrach's Love might appreciate:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4814185752_d9c3482c69.jpg

:):):)

This particular madrigal by Moneteverdi absolutely blows my mind... with the high plaintive voice rising above the others in a sweetest/saddest of laments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxcMZl6YwNs

Exquisite!!!;):yesnod:

What lovely music and music discussion it seems I've been missing lately. Thanks for the madrigal, St. Luke's. I had never heard that one before. You made me break my budgetary ban on i-tunes and spend the 99 cents on that track so I can carry it around in my i-pod. Was good and resisted buying the whole 2 CD collection it's on. Are the rest of the selections as good? Should I put it on my list of possible things to buy when grant money from kind patron comes in?

I've been listening to some early English music this afternoon in hopes it will inspire more rapid dissertation writing. I thought I would post "O Mistress Mine" from Shakespeare's 12th Night. It's one of the few of the many songs that appear in Shakespeare's plays that we can match with a high degree of confidence to an original tune, in this case one by Thomas Morley. Here's the best I could find of it on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxuab73IBR8&feature=related

I will take my hat off to anyone who can explain to me why the song is accompanied by photographs of what I think are sloths (though I'd also like to know if they are something other than sloths, since I'm no zoologist). The much better, and sloth-free recording of the tune and other either original or contemporary setting of Shakespeare's songs (with the original pronunciation) is the CD I am listening to and use for teaching purposes:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e386/LeonardoD/mzipvoiwmjg170x170-75.jpg

[stlukesguild]

In 2000... the 250th anniversary of J.S. Bach's death, the International Bach Academy of Stuttgart commissioned new settings of the 4 passion narratives of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These commissions went to four very different contemporary composers: Wolfgang Rihm, Sofia Gubaidulina, Tan Dun, and Osvaldo Golijov:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4819836248_40255f0e0b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4819214525_e356c4cbc6.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4118/4819214455_fc979be67c.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4141/4799772963_f4c4742a12.jpg

I have owned Tan Dun's Water Passion After St. Matthew for some 4 or so years now. It is a strange... yet somehow compelling work. The other three have been on my wish list for a good length of time now. Today my copy of Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos arrived and I have been giving it a first listen. Where Tan Dun's effort was decidedly challenging... at times difficult... clearly within the Modernist tradition, Golijov's work is decidedly populist... employing the rhythms, instrumentation, joyful choruses, language (it is largely in Spanish... with some Latin and Aramaic passages) of Latin American Music.

The reviewer of The New Yorker exclaimed that Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos "drops like a bomb on the belief that classical music is exclusively European art. It has a revolutionary air," while the Boston Globe critic declared the work to be "the first indisputably great composition of the 21st century." I agree on all accounts. It is along with Peter Lieberson's Neruda Songs and David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion one of the strongest and most moving works of classical music written since the turn of the millennium.

The piece is truly revolutionary... in the same manner in which Gershwin's Porgy and Bess was revolutionary in that like Gershwin's constuction of a serious opera based upon the jazz and other native American popular and classical music traditions, Golijov has the audacity to construct a work of "serious" music... a passion play in homage to that greatest of European masters: J.S. Bach... from the traditions of folk, pop, and classical music of Latin America.

Osvaldo Golijov was born and raised in Argentina of Jewish Romanian and Russian heritage. In the 1980s he moved to Israel where he absorbed the musical traditions of the Middle-East: ancient Hebrew, Arabic, and Christian. Over his career, his music has merged elements of this tradition with those of Latin-American and Spanish music, klezmer, Western classical, and pop. Golijov stages the entire drama of the Passion of Christ within a Latin-American setting that displays his affinity with the music of this aspect of his heritage far more than any other work that I have heard by the composer.

Golijov argues that Christ was a man of the people... a man of the streets... and should be presented in decidedly populist manner. Christ himself is often represented by the voice of the entire choir: as everyman. The composer employs a large choir that at times divides into two or even three choirs which echo or even argue with each other. The composer states that he thought of the distinct choirs as being based upon South American Easter processionals rooted in the Latin American synthesis of Catholicism and the Yoruba religion brought by African slaves. He intends something connoting the rituals and joyful processions coming from various villages as opposed to the Protestant tradition of somber meditation.

The initial effect of La Pasión según San Marcos is somewhat disconcerting... as if the take on the most sacred of narratives was almost blasphemous. The composer, after all, has the audacity to set this most sacred of narratives within a musical frame that at times suggests a rowdy South American night club with blaring horns and singers with sensuous smokey voices mouthing songs of seduction. But the music is also very effective.

There are sudden shifts in mood... going from the most uproarious and passionate, to passages of simplicity and quiet. In the scene of Gethsemane, the music suggests a delicate English choir with voices sailing high above. In the face of this, a mezzo sings the most haunting tune... suggestive of the Spanish lament or "deep song".

The most moving moment comes with the aria, Lúa Descolorida (Colorless Moon... the Aria of Peter's Tears). This aria sets a poem by Garcia-Lorca's beloved Rosalía de Castro written in Gallego (the language of the Galicia region in Spain) and defines despair in a way that is simultaneously tender and tragic. The soloist sings her haunting lament against the muted sounds of a string quartet. The aria was originally written for and performed by the singer Dawn Upshaw. Golijov states "the strongest inspiration for Lúa Descolorida was Dawn Upshaw's rainbow of a voice... I wanted to give her music so quietly radiant that it would bring an echo of the single tear that Schubert brings without warning..." It achieves this quite well... and in the context of the Passion... following Peter's 3rd denial of Christ... it powerfully conveys his emotions... his regret, pain, torment, and mourning. In a sense, it stands as the emotional climax of the entire work.

Where Lúa Descolorida is preceded by a moment of silence that makes it all the more powerful, it is followed by vicious voices... almost hissing and spitting... as they mock Christ. The Passion rapidly unfolds at this point. The journey to Golgotha and the crucifixion are accompanied by a raucous... at once mocking... yet joyful chorus that at once suggest Christ's tormentors... but also the joy of the believers who celebrate the Crucifixion as the penultimate event in the life of Christ... and ultimately humanity.

In the final moments the Crucifixion is portrayed... as it might be in a Latin-American passion play. The choir as the crowd shouts in derision: "Come down from the cross if you be the King of the Jews." And then: muerte... and Christ calls out, "Elohi, Elohi, Lama Shabachtani"... "My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?" In the final movement, Kaddish, a haunting Prayer for the Dead sung in Christ's own language of Aramaic as the women mourners repeat Christ's final words.

This particular recording comes complete with a DVD recording of a 2008 live performance of the work in Holland. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvTiWPV2da0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5FgOHMTqfs&feature=related

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

What lovely music and music discussion it seems I've been missing lately. Thanks for the madrigal, St. Luke's. I had never heard that one before. You made me break my budgetary ban on i-tunes and spend the 99 cents on that track so I can carry it around in my i-pod. Was good and resisted buying the whole 2 CD collection it's on. Are the rest of the selections as good? Should I put it on my list of possible things to buy when grant money from kind patron comes in?

The aria in question is undoubtedly the centerpiece of the entire cycle... but the 8th book of Monteverdi's madrigals as a whole is one of his supreme masterpieces... and the la Venexiana performances could not be better. Following the purchase of this and the 7th book... combined with the Vespers and L'Orfeo has me now thinking that Monteverdi may just be the most underrated of composers... ranking along side of Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Verdi, and few others among the greatest non-German composers.

[kasie]

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;926801.....Opera fanatics are far more obsessed than fanatics of almost any other field outside of sports and politics. Where a classical music buff may disagree as to which recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas is best they are not likely to refer to Gilels and Rubinstein as talentless hacks, "sluts" or "whores" if they happen to prefer Kempff. This, however, is quite common among opera fanatics. All one needs to do is read the comments on nearly any YouTube video of an opera performance... especially those involving contemporary female singers. While I surely have favorite singers... singers I prefer to others... I can't imagine the need to so viciously attack the efforts of any other singer... especially when... as you note... nearly any singer who attains a certain status... performing with leading orchestras and at major international venues most certainly has a degree of ability that is well beyond that of most.[/QUOTE]

This is keeping an old tradition alive, I think - it was not uncommon in the nineteenth century to have rival factions in Opera houses disrupting performances with cat-calls and raucous comments. I can't help feeling it is a custom that should be more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as someone once said, :), especially in the twentyfirst century.

[Musicology]

Hector Berlioz (1803-69)
'Shepherd's Farewell'
'L'Enfance du Christ'
(King's College
Cambridge
England)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0vO4LDImrc

Hector Berlioz (1803-69)
Duet
"Nuit paisible"
Opera
'Beatrice and Benedict' (1862)

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=JtZleGpT9Gk&feature=related


///

[dafydd manton]

This is keeping an old tradition alive, I think - it was not uncommon in the nineteenth century to have rival factions in Opera houses disrupting performances with cat-calls and raucous comments. I can't help feeling it is a custom that should be more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as someone once said, :), especially in the twentyfirst century.

To be fair, hanging, ducking witches, trial by ordeal, burning at the stake and Whig or Tory parliaments were traditional here, but fortunately, we've moved on a bit since then. Nor do we refer to people as a "bull's pizzle" any longer, as the Bard did, so hanging on to something objectionable just because it is "traditional" is less than desirable. By the way, where I live, up until fairly recently the outside toilet was traditional, but somehow, in the middle of the night when it was chucking it down with rain and blowing half a gale, we never really felt that connected to history.

[kasie]

Don't tell me you have done away with the ty bach, Dafydd.:shocked:

[Scheherazade]

I get obsessed with "Gymnopedies" every now and then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7DBoiyBoJ8&feature=related

[Musicology]

Hector Berlioz
Overture
'Le Corsaire' (1844)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCkfi3uR7yY

[Lokasenna]

I'm falling back on an old favourite while I work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5C99JyP2ns

Elgar's Cello Concerto - this is just the first movement, but everything else is on Youtube. This is probably the most famous recording - Jacqueline Du Pré on the Cello, with Barenboim conducting.

It's very unlike Elgar's usual jovial style, but that makes it all the more special. It is a profound piece of music, filled with deep emotion, and never fails to move me.

There is an anecdote that says of Elgar, during his final illness, that he remarked to a friend: "If ever after I'm dead you hear someone whistling this tune on the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed. It's only me."

It is a sentiment I can understand.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Abbado's Carmen with Teresa Berganza (and Plácido Domingo).
http://www.amazon.com/Bizet-Carmen-Georges/dp/B0006ZFQNA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1281626345&sr=1-1



Can't get Carmen out of my mind since seeing Elina Garanca (with Alberto Alagana) in the MET's recent staging.

Elina Garanca is Carmen for me now--oh mamma!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elina_Garanca

[Musicology]

Take it away, little Kapellmeister ! Amazing bass line. Amazing parts. Amazing vocal line. You heard it first. And that is all.

J.S. Bach
Ebarme dich, mein Gott
Soloist - Maureen Forrester (contralto)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tXqQlFdcQ&feature=related

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Now: some little-heard, little-known Viennese chamber music:
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Romantics-Chamber-Music-Walter/dp/B000EDWM40/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1281907102&sr=1-1

[Emil Miller]

Now: some little-heard, little-known Viennese chamber music:
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Romantics-Chamber-Music-Walter/dp/B000EDWM40/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1281907102&sr=1-1

Why do you always direct us to Amazon rather than Youtube where we can actually hear the music?
Incidentally, I read in the French press that the Hotel d' Alsace has recently been renovated and now costs considerably more than formerly.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Honestly I don't really 'do' YouTube (nor Facebook, nor Twitter).

I started collecting records (LPs & 45s) in the 1960s; in the 1980s I went CD, and that is what I use now--hard copy CDs (not downloads) with loudspeakers (not iPod with earbuds).

The download/iPod thing is for a younger generation than I.
(Besides, the techne involved in compressing and downloading over the internet distorts the sound, so I'm told.)

The reason I give Amazon links? Well, it's just something I'm familiar with.
If you wanted to find the music elsewhere I'm sure you probably could.

[stlukesguild]

I'm still exploring the Baroque in some greater depth. Once again I'm listening to Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber and Jan Dismas Zelenka:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4880778291_bc0d6946e1.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/4892393999_1ba29eba35.jpg

I went into a little background of both of these composers earlier this summer:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47822&page=27

At that time I was exploring mostly their choral works. Now I am listening to their instrumental pieces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT7T2qa2ZuE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9wKFH6qJ10&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw9FzJXj4VA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLc0mCP_0NY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUo50eZZNao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A29rhG-Nqk0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsoqJga4-DY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g9PKDTRupQ&feature=related

Composers such as Zelenka and Biber offer a context for the great J.S. Bach... who as great as he was... did not exist of compose within a vacuum. Rather there were any number of greatly talented... even brilliant... composers who were essentially his peers... writing music worthy of exploration... and not involved in some great conspiracy involving the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, the Freemasons, or any other secret society.

[Musicology]

J.B. Vanhal (1739-1813)
Symphony in G Minor (c.1777)
Finale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwrsjILL6r8&feature=related

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Symphony No. 2 (c.1811)
Finale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgY9cV5QcsI&feature=related

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 4
Finale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boqy-DzkAdE&feature=related

//

[Lokasenna]

While I should be working, I am in fact listening to music, as usual. Right now, I am listening to the wonder that is Haydn's 'Nelson' Mass in D Minor.

Have a listen to this wonderfully dark, tempestuous Kyrie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JRDB09pZB0 (http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JRDB09pZB0)

[Musicology]

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-88)
Symphony for Strings & Continuo in E minor 'Hamburg'
H. 652, Wq. 177
Freiburger Barockorchester
Gottfried von der Goltz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KJTsQf22dM&feature=related

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-88)
Cello Concerto
Wq. 172
3rd Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OdOabG8lMM&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-s9LYuMfR8

[stlukesguild]

Chandos records has done a marvelous job of rediscovering a wealth of composers of the "classical era" beyond Mozart and Haydn... composers including:

Francois-Joseph Gossec
Johann Baptist Vanhal
Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Adalbert Gyrowetz
Joseph Myslivecek
Paul Wranitzky
Vaclav Pichl
Leopold Antonin Kozeluch
Franz Krommer
Leopold Antonin Kozeluch
Christian Cannabich
Antonio Salieri
Franz Xaver Richter
Carl Stamitz

Honestly, this is not an era I have explored in much depth beyond Mozart, Haydn, Rossini, early Beethoven, Boccherini, and a few others. Like many who came to classical music, it was the Romantic era that I first began to explore in great depth and since then I have put a good deal of effort into a greater exploration of the Baroque, Renaissance, Medieval, and Modern/Contemporary eras.

Lokasenna... I love Haydn's mass as well... but for some reason your link isn't working... at least not for me. I thought I'd post a version with the Conservatory of the LSO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsvUguOVLa0

and a second version with Simon Preston, Tom Krause, Sylvia Stahlman, Wilfred Brown
Conducted by David Willcocks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSU_vQ7aT1s

Since Schubert recently popped up... let's give a listen to his lieder... where he remains unrivaled... and his Winterreise is perhaps his supreme achievement in the genre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0uxvHQFQKU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pze4NxCOjg0

Thomas Quasthoff is phenomenal! I have had the chance to see him live twice now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLsaSm5iG9o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF6eNCkYOws&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF5DuLqYgtA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSHdVCy6Gj8&feature=related

Ian Bostridge, a tenor, brings a unique approach to these lieder commonly sung by baritones. He also presents the entire cycle in a beautifully realized film available on YouTube

[Lokasenna]

Lokasenna... I love Haydn's mass as well... but for some reason your link isn't working... at least not for me. I thought I'd post a version with the Conservatory of the LSO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsvUguOVLa0

and a second version with Simon Preston, Tom Krause, Sylvia Stahlman, Wilfred Brown
Conducted by David Willcocks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSU_vQ7aT1s

How strange! It isn't working for me either anymore. But thank you very much for the alternative links!

[Musicology]

Frederic Chopin
Valse Brilliante
Dinu Lipatti

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r08ZddiW74&feature=related

CPE Bach
Concerto in F
3rd Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMkzyiEu9NU&feature=related

CPE Bach
Sinfonia in E Flat
Prestissimo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4_1OxOImM&feature=more_related

[LitNetIsGreat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok24iv3Fcxc&NR=1
I find myself listening to various Bach cello suites - seems to have put me in a strange sort of sombre/thoughtful-like mood.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Ha, ha. I was in the library yesterday and a walked passed a small "junk" box of a few CDs for sale for 50p. I had a quick peek and I happened on, coincidentally, a double CD of Bach's cello suites 1-6!!! They are played by some guy called Trules Mork and seems a good quality CD, just playing it now. At 50p it was an insult not to buy it anyway!

#And then from the cello to the piano. Bach's English Suites, quite wonderful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXSJf-1EzNU

[Musicology]

Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 8
3rd Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYfliiuj4-c&feature=related

[Sebas. Melmoth]

some guy called Trules Mork[/url]

Truls Mørk is generally considered one of the finest cellists around; however, last year he was tragically infected with Lyme disease and can now no longer play the cello.

Now: Russian piano music by Balakirev (mazurkas) with Alexander Paley.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Truls Mørk is generally considered one of the finest cellists around; however, last year he was tragically infected with Lyme disease and can now no longer play the cello.

Really? That's a sad story. It must be awful for a musician not to be physically able to play. Poor chap.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Terrible indeed.

Well, you snapped up a lucky break with Mørk's Bach's solo cello.

Now: Karajan's Rimsky's Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.
http://www.deccaclassics.com/cat/single?PRODUCT_NR=4757718

[Musicology]

J.S. Bach
Cantata 211
Coffee Cantata

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx36sptbaY4&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

This is from the film Rhapsody in Blue which was the usual Hollywood biopic. However, Oscar Levant's playing of this work is incomparable and easily the best of the many posted on Youtube.

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

[stlukesguild]

I have mixed feelings about Gershwin. He was really a pop song composer who attempted to pass himself off as "serious" classical composer... and yet his famous Rhapsody in Blue was actually orchestrated by the composer Ferde Groffe. The best version of Porgy and Bess, in my opinion, is that of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald who recognized that the work is a piece of popular music, and succeeded in bringing out the strength of the jazz elements and the great melodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA

Unfortunately YouTube doesn't have a version of the brilliant version of "It Ain't Necessarily So."

Currently listening to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's famous Stabat Mater... written literally upon the composer's deathbed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLKw6kSOqIw&p=7B08A47D2AD9BE33&playnext=1&index=1

His use of expressive dissonance was quite innovative... and considering that he died at at 26, one can only imagine what he might have achieved.

[Emil Miller]

I have mixed feelings about Gershwin. He was really a pop song composer who attempted to pass himself off as "serious" classical composer... and yet his famous Rhapsody in Blue was actually orchestrated by the composer Ferde Groffe. The best version of Porgy and Bess, in my opinion, is that of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald who recognized that the work is a piece of popular music, and succeeded in bringing out the strength of the jazz elements and the great melodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA

Unfortunately YouTube doesn't have a version of the brilliant version of "It Ain't Necessarily So."

I agree with you assessment of Gershwin but I think it is fair to say that the US has not produced as many well-known concertos as it might have done. Of course the Gershwin work is heavily influenced by his popular music but as a piece of authentic Americana I haven't heard anything that approaches it; notwithstanding Groffe, Copland, MacDowell , Bernstein, Adams, Glass et al.

[Petrarch's Love]

I'm still exploring the Baroque in some greater depth. Once again I'm listening to Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber and Jan Dismas Zelenka:

I went into a little background of both of these composers earlier this summer:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47822&page=27

At that time I was exploring mostly their choral works. Now I am listening to their instrumental pieces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT7T2qa2ZuE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9wKFH6qJ10&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw9FzJXj4VA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLc0mCP_0NY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUo50eZZNao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A29rhG-Nqk0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsoqJga4-DY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g9PKDTRupQ&feature=related

Composers such as Zelenka and Biber offer a context for the great J.S. Bach... who as great as he was... did not exist of compose within a vacuum. Rather there were any number of greatly talented... even brilliant... composers who were essentially his peers... writing music worthy of exploration... and not involved in some great conspiracy involving the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, the Freemasons, or any other secret society.

Thanks for this, St. Luke's. I had never heard the Biber you posted and I don't think I've ever heard anything by Zelenka. The Biber I'm especially tempted to add to my own music collection.

Though, for all I know it already have some in my collection. It's a little like Christmas around here music-wise. I volunteered to help my mom clean out the garage the other day and unearthed: 1) My Grandfather's clarinet, which I've now experimented with enough to play the theme from Beethoven's 9th on and 2) My grandmother's extensive collection of classical music CDs which I had assumed my mom had given away when my grandmother died a few years ago. So, here I am, listening to this lovely Pergolesi St. Luke's posted above and busy sorting through piles of CDs/uploading them so that I can transport them all via computer/ipod to Chicago with me.

My favorite find of those I've listened to out of the pile so far has been a disc of Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli performed by a group of Venetian musicians, Interpreti Veneziani, whom my grandmother and I heard play in a Venetian church where they play regularly some years ago. One of the tracks off the album that has been posted to youtube (I would ignore the somewhat distracting snippets of Paris offered in the visual portion of the video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwvnNb0OVIs

Back to sifting through my musical treasure trove now (the complete symphonies of Mahler just sitting in the garage all this time!!!)

Edit: By strange coincidence, just as I'm thinking how much I'm enjoying the Pergolesi, a disc of the Stabat Mater jumps out at me. Maybe if St. Luke's keeps posting beautiful pieces I'll keep finding them in my grandmother's magical pile of CDs. :D


Truls Mørk is generally considered one of the finest cellists around; however, last year he was tragically infected with Lyme disease and can now no longer play the cello.


I hadn't heard that. How tragic. I remember vividly hearing him in a concert a few years ago when he played at my university. I had not heard of him before at the time I went and was completely unprepared for what a remarkably moving and expressive cellist I was going to hear. A very powerfully understated performer and one of, if not the best I've heard perform live (including Yo Yo Ma). I hope that something can ultimately be done for him. He isn't a very old man if I'm remembering right.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Life is a very fragile thing: heard the American violinist Pamela Frank was disabled from an acupuncture procedure gone wrong; something happened with the brilliant dramatic soprano Cheryl Studer which derailed her career.

Edit: oh, and last month Mikhail Pletnev was busted in Thailand for attempted sexual assault on a boy.

[Lokasenna]

Life is a very fragile thing: heard the American violinist Pamela Frank was disabled from an acupuncture procedure gone wrong; something happened with the brilliant dramatic soprano Cheryl Studer which derailed her career.

Edit: oh, and last month Mikhail Pletnev was busted in Thailand for attempted sexual assault on a boy.

Jacqueline du Pré leaps to mind as well - one of the greatest cellists in history, who was rendered incapable of playing at the age of 28 by MS, and then finally killed by it at the age of 42.

[Emil Miller]

Here is that giant among cellists, Rostropovich in the greatest concerto of them all. It always gets to me when I hear the intermingling of birdsong with distant bugle calls as the sun sets on the Czech countryside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7e7LFhfN_s

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Now auditing the pick of the litter: Karajan's 1983 Carmen.

Mon Dieu!

[Petrarch's Love]

Beautiful, Brian. Makes me want to run out and get the Rostropovich Dvorak. I don't know if I've ever seen a video of him playing before. He holds his cello very differently from most players I've seen. It's almost horizontal for much of the piece. I wonder if that was a necessity because he was shorter than average or if it was some sort of technique he developed. I imagine it would make thumb position much easier, and it might be easier to drop the bowing arm into the strings with more weight and force with the instrument at that angle.

Meanwhile, I've just found the loveliest recording of Mozart's double piano sonata with Radu Lupu and Murray Perrahia and am listening to the slow movement right now. I found a snippet of their recording on youtube which I'm posting despite the grainy sound and abbreviated length because the accompanying footage is gorgeous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2CLk_W8FoA

This is a better quality and complete recording of the whole movement for those who may not know it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdPTF-NEZg0&feature=related

[stlukesguild]

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4097/4933894186_97508155c7.jpg

Franz Schubert's early death at age 31 may have been the greatest loss in classical music... even greater than the premature death of Mozart. Schubert was a phenomenally prolific and prodigal composer. While still in his teens, Schubert was already composing mature lieder (German art songs) such as Gretchen am Spinnrade which sets lyrics from Goethe's Faust. Schubert was afforded little formal musical or compositional education, and his family lacked even the resources to provide him with a piano. As such, Schubert often struggled with counterpoint and other formal elements of composition as well as with the structural concepts demanded by larger compositional forms such as the symphony, the sonata, and the opera.

The composer, instead, focused upon smaller musical forms... especially the string quartets, which are among his greatest works and owe to the composer's fluency upon the violin and his experiences making music in small intimate settings. Even more important was his innovations within the genre of the lieder. Where lieder were minor aspects of the oeuvres of Mozart and Beethoven, they become the center of Schubert's compositional output. He is generally acknowledged as the greatest songwriter ever.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4102/4933894162_2e8bc44ccb_z.jpg

Schubert came to the lieder at a fortuitous moment. German poetry was undergoing a great flowering during the Romantic era and Schubert was inspired by many of these poems. Where the usual lieder simply set the lyrics of the poem to a lovely melody, Schubert took the composition of songs much further. The voice and the piano accompaniment were seen as equal partners. The composer developed a great array of tonal and coloristic effects upon the piano... much as Beethoven had done with his piano sonatas... to such an extent that the accompaniment is almost "orchestral" in its range. He also approached the poems which he set in a dramatic... narrative manner... so that the music essentially paints an image of what is expressed in the texts... or what Schubert perceived in the texts... for in most instances, the composer brought a far greater depth to the songs than actually exists in the poems alone.

Schubert composed over 600 lieder... including 3 major song cycles: Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Maid of the Mill), Schwanengesang (Swan Songs), and Winterreise (Winter's Journey). Where Schubert had never been able to successfully realize an opera, with these song cycles the composer was able to create a dramatic epic constructed of a collection of miniatures... rather as poets have long composed epic collections from a collection of sonnets and other short lyrical verse (Petrarch's Canzoni, Spenser's Amoretti, Herrick's Hesperides, Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, etc...)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4933894354_15c7674137.jpg

The greatest of the song cycles, in the opinion of many... myself included... is the Winterreise. Winterreise sets a cycle of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. The songs present the voice of the poet/lover, forming a distinct narrative or dramatic sequence. The narrative, greatly simplified, begins with the poet, whose beloved now fancies someone else, leaving her house secretly in the middle of the night, abandoning the town and following the icy, frozen river to another village. He longs for death, and is reconciled to his loneliness. The ice and the cold... the darkness, and the stark and barren winter landscape mirror his emotional state. Along the way, he encounters various people who shun him as the outsider. At the very end, he comes upon an ancient barefoot hurdy-gurdy man, cranking out his music alone... yet no one listens... cares... or has given him so much as a penny. His only audience is the dogs who growl at him. But he just continues playing... and the singer/poet follows him. This allegorical journey of the soul clearly mirrored Schubert's own journey as a largely unknown composer... knowingly approaching death.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4933301351_b3b1441f23.jpg

The music of the Winterreise travels through a diverse emotional and stylistic array. The are songs that mirror simple German hymns, ballads, Viennese waltzes, even elements suggestive of Modernist skittering of notes across the piano, or droning modal sounds... like Medieval chants.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4141/4933894316_dcec588e3d_z.jpg

I recently came across this performance of the Winterreise by the English tenor, Ian Bostridge, and the pianist Julius Drake. Initially I was a bit reserved about Bostridge performing the cycle as I have long been familiar with performances of this work by baritones and bass singers... but was surprised to discover that the work had originally been scored for tenor... and Bostridge is a marvelous singer of lieder. The entire cycle was dramatically staged and filmed by the director, David Alden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLsaSm5iG9o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF6eNCkYOws&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fofrz6zjJhA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXwylBUlJhs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF5DuLqYgtA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSHdVCy6Gj8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSnsdCfE81U&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2m-LnoPQvk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoPQ35bNPBI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2CMVacArAw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gkOOGYnNlc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fee9G91lQQ4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvyvwB8vlUI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6IX4Tij2dQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR5qFMGtzh0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hA0PUhiq4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvm7Hnii-6U&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iouvvHs991k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIg7gXdlRLw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCodERikAqA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB1LDiwYA9Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdgiUVSDBqk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovozgp1PJVI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14j7btI_D4w&feature=related

A good many of these songs are exquisitely beautiful... incredibly moving. The finale... Der Leiermann is absolutely hypnotic... and stunning, while the cycle as a whole is emotionally harrowing.

[Musicology]

What a wonderful piece this is. And the remarkable Rostropovich.

This particular piece has a simplicity and directness all of its own.


Here is that giant among cellists, Rostropovich in the greatest concerto of them all. It always gets to me when I hear the intermingling of birdsong with distant bugle calls as the sun sets on the Czech countryside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7e7LFhfN_s

A rare live recording of the Dvorak Concerto with Rostropovich as soloist from 1965.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-h_Fa3SJ_o

[Emil Miller]

A rare live recording of the Dvorak Concerto with Rostropovich as soloist from 1965.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-h_Fa3SJ_o

Thanks so much for this performance, it's simply magical.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Now: Brahms' Two String Quartets Op. 51 with the Alban Berg Quartet.

The ABQ is very accurate, but tends to be harsh and shrill.

[Musicology]

Yes Brian,

An amazing work. Amazing performer. Rostropovich. From Dvorak in music that could only have been written in a nation of strong people - the America Dvorak saw.



Thanks so much for this performance, it's simply magical.

[Emil Miller]

Yes Brian,

An amazing work. Amazing performer. Rostropovich. From Dvorak in music that could only have been written in a nation of strong people - the America Dvorak saw.

I don't think that the America that Dvorak saw particularly influenced the concerto. It is full of nostalgia for his homeland which, given the nationalistic music of Smetana, owed little to Dvorak's period in the US. In the same way that, although the inclusion of certain negro spirituals is often cited as a major inspiration, the New World symphony is resolutely central European in it's emotional appeal.

[stlukesguild]

There are certainly themes in the New World Symphony that were inspired by American folk music... but I agree that Dvorak remains solidly within the European tradition. Indeed, he is probably the composer who remained closest to the classical tradition of Beethoven and Brahms.

What I'd be interested in exploring is any possible American influence on Mahler. Mahler spent from January 1908-March 1911 mostly in New York where he had taken the helm of the New York Philharmonic. Shortly before leaving for the US, Mahler's daughter, Maria, died of scarlet fever. This wrought great tension between Mahler and his wife who blamed him for tempting fate with his cycle of orchestral songs, Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children") written two years earlier. Mahler was himself diagnosed with a weak heart which only exasperated his feelings of angst. He had always been superstitious and fearful of an early death to the point that he had avoided composing a ninth symphony out of fear of the "Curse of Beethoven's Ninth" (No great symphonist had succeeded in writing beyond a ninth symphony after Beethoven).

In New York he composed his great symphonic song cycle, Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth") which is a meditation on death and the eternal cycle of nature. Believing he had avoided the curse, and had essentially written his own ninth (his song cycles being little different from his symphonies), he began a true Ninth Symphony. Before the premier, Mahler discovered that Alma had begun an affair with the architect, Walter Gropius. Mahler actually sought counseling from Sigmund Freud and agreed to stay with Alam for the sake of his health, in spite of the fact that she carried on with her affair (Alma was actually somewhat infamous for having carried out affairs or married half of the leading artists in Vienna including Mahler's pupil, Alexander von Zemlinsky, probably Gustav Klimt, the theater director Max Burckhard , Mahler himself, the architect Walter Gropius, the artist Oscar Kokoschka, and the poet Franz Werfel).

One wonders... considering that Mahler composed the great Das Lied von der Erde, the Ninth Symphony, and the unfinished 10th Symphony while in New York just whether there was any American influence on these works. Honestly, I don't recognize as much myself... rather I see far more in Dvorak's New World Symphony and Quartet... but is makes for an interesting question.

[Musicology]

Hi stlukesguild,

I thought the same - for a long time. The Cello Concerto of Dvorak appears to be 'solidly within the European tradition'. That is how we all hear of it. But as years have passed I started to think very differently.

I will post on my view separately. This wonderful work is so much more than music of European tradition. At least, so I now see it.

Regards



There are certainly themes in the New World Symphony that were inspired by American folk music... but I agree that Dvorak remains solidly within the European tradition. Indeed, he is probably the composer who remained closest to the classical tradition of Beethoven and Brahms.

What I'd be interested in exploring is any possible American influence on Mahler. Mahler spent from January 1908-March 1911 mostly in New York where he had taken the helm of the New York Philharmonic. Shortly before leaving for the US, Mahler's daughter, Maria, died of scarlet fever. This wrought great tension between Mahler and his wife who blamed him for tempting fate with his cycle of orchestral songs, Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children") written two years earlier. Mahler was himself diagnosed with a weak heart which only exasperated his feelings of angst. He had always been superstitious and fearful of an early death to the point that he had avoided composing a ninth symphony out of fear of the "Curse of Beethoven's Ninth" (No great symphonist had succeeded in writing beyond a ninth symphony after Beethoven).

In New York he composed his great symphonic song cycle, Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth") which is a meditation on death and the eternal cycle of nature. Believing he had avoided the curse, and had essentially written his own ninth (his song cycles being little different from his symphonies), he began a true Ninth Symphony. Before the premier, Mahler discovered that Alma had begun an affair with the architect, Walter Gropius. Mahler actually sought counseling from Sigmund Freud and agreed to stay with Alam for the sake of his health, in spite of the fact that she carried on with her affair (Alma was actually somewhat infamous for having carried out affairs or married half of the leading artists in Vienna including Mahler's pupil, Alexander von Zemlinsky, probably Gustav Klimt, the theater director Max Burckhard , Mahler himself, the architect Walter Gropius, the artist Oscar Kokoschka, and the poet Franz Werfel).

One wonders... considering that Mahler composed the great Das Lied von der Erde, the Ninth Symphony, and the unfinished 10th Symphony while in New York just whether there was any American influence on these works. Honestly, I don't recognize as much myself... rather I see far more in Dvorak's New World Symphony and Quartet... but is makes for an interesting question.

The Cello Concerto of Dvorak. So often described as 'solidly within the European tradition'. I thought so myself for a long time. And that's true, but only in the sense of it being a glimpse made by a highly talented, even inspired, European man of a vanishing people. The native Americans of North America. And capturing the arrival of the modern 'world' as we know it. Both things just before the arrival of the 20th century.

Some years ago I was in the USA and made enquiries at the Smithsonian in Washington about the music of the native Indians. (Much of it unstudied). Out of which I started correspondence with a lady of the Seminole Indians of Florida. She did not know the Dvorak Cello Concerto and I shared it with her by posts (a series of Youtube clips of this recording).

I want to focus on the Second Movement in particular. Which, I now believe, is almost entirely based on the music of the native American Indians.

Anyway, here is that movement.

Second Movement (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Qts4pxJN8

Second Movement (Part 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArvKaMJ8oeU&feature=related

(from 4' 03'' onwards in this second part of the second movement this is a native Indian dance. The bass/rythmic parts are not specially clear in this recording, but that's what it surely is).

Mstislav Rostropovich, Cello
Carlo Maria Giulini, Conductor
London Philharmonic

This work, from the late 19th century, is totally unique. Nobody but a Dvorak could have been able to capture this in such a wonderful way.

[Emil Miller]

I hear nothing in Mahler that reflects his sojourn in America. His work schedule was phenomenal and consisted of conducting in New York, extensive tours around the country with the New York Philharmonic and sharing two seasons at the Metropolitan Opera with Toscanini. During this time he would have been immersed in the European masterworks and whatever composing he may have done would have almost certainly been within the central European tradition.
Dvorak's position was somewhat different in that he went to New York as head of the National Conservatory of Music and, as such, naturally took note of existing folk music as part of his work. However, he refuted the idea that it was the inspiration for either the New World Symphony or the so-called American Quartet that were written during his time in the US.

[Musicology]

J.S. Bach
Cantata 167
Soloist - Jo-Jo Ma (Cello)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTg4bQ2YLkc

This is true Brian. And, on folk music as such, I think he was talking at the time of musical inspiration as a whole. Trying to explain (I believe) his music 'From the New World' was not to be seen as a plagiarisation of existing music nor an attempt to quote it for its own sake but to get to its soul, not just in works such as 'From the New World', nor only in the 'American Quartet' but here, in the Cello Concerto.

Perhaps we are saying the same thing ? Since all three of these works are indisputably influenced by America and are European, though they are neither American nor European but far more.

At least, so I believe.



I hear nothing in Mahler that reflects his sojourn in America. His work schedule was phenomenal and consisted of conducting in New York, extensive tours around the country with the New York Philharmonic and sharing two seasons at the Metropolitan Opera with Toscanini. During this time he would have been immersed in the European masterworks and whatever composing he may have done would have almost certainly been within the central European tradition.
Dvorak's position was somewhat different in that he went to New York as head of the National Conservatory of Music and, as such, naturally took note of existing folk music as part of his work. However, he refuted the idea that it was the inspiration for either the New World Symphony or the so-called American Quartet that were written during his time in the US.

Wonderful story -

''In 1961, Anton Dvorak's son Otakar wrote a memoir about his boyhood trip to America, and although sixty-eight years had passed, he never forgot the Indians he met in Spillville. He described them as "medicine men" belonging to a tribe of thirty or so Iroquois who lived in tents "south of town, across the creek. ... My father was interested ... in their songs and instruments... Father received photos from the Indians. These photos were among my father's prize possessions."

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EqfucXGEUOcJ:www.dvoraknyc.org/Dvorak_Trip_to_Spillville.html+spillville+iowa+ind ians&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

[stlukesguild]

Some beautiful "early" music and some beautiful and appropriate imagery:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwPoW4R_ULc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUGH6jbkCU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrsicIsl46w&feature=related

[Musicology]

A famous live performance -

Claude Debussy
L'après-midi d'un faune
London Symphony Orchestra
(Leopold Stokowski)

(14th June 1972)

Of this legendary performance Christopher Palmer wrote in "The Musical Times" that -
"My most treasured memory of that evening is undoubtedly 'Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune', which received a reading of exceptional refinement with all the tensions and relaxations effortlessly and beautifully graded, and unerringly poetic solo work from all the woodwind. A flawless performance."

And in "The Daily Telegraph" Peter Stadlen wrote -

"Stokowski's legendary hands, though batonless, are put to the strictest functional use. His angular, almost ungainly movements are the simple tools for some of he most masterly conducting the century has witnessed....by what seemingly incongruous flicks of the wrist did he promote the fabulously sensitve solos in 'Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'? Never has lifelong global fame rested on more solid foundations."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5A4CkUAazI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1P85n9uPzE&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

Thanks for this performance of one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Being one of my heroes, I was very lucky to get a ticket for one of the last performances he gave, which was at at the Albert Hall. I can tell you that the hall was packed and the atmosphere was electric. I was seated behind the orchestra and could see a child of about seven seated in the stalls between his parents, and he was conducting with his arms by following the maestro; it was both amusing and touching to see.
Stokowski's life was really incredible, a rise from obscurity to vast riches when monetary values really meant something. Yet, despite his exotic life, he returned to the country of his birth and died in Hampshire, England. He is buried near to his parents in London.

[Musicology]

Hi Brian,

No performance or recording I've heard (and I've heard over a dozen) compares in my view with this

I once had the entire concert of that day on cassette tape (whose sound quality is of course better than this Youtube) and it amazed me then as it does now. What an orchestra and what an achievement from the 90 year old Stokowski.

Another remarkable live recording -

Richard Wagner
Overture to the opera 'Rienzi'
James Levine
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
1996

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s19dwaXjS6M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hZ_643H1_M&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

Levine's performance is exceptional for a live performance but Stokowski's recorded version with the Philadelphia orchestra ( unbelievable sound for 1927) is how it should be played. I was lucky enough to see Stokowski conduct an all Wagner programme at the Royal Festival Hall and it was one of the most thrilling concerts I ever attended. Stokowski once said: "For most of my life, people have insisted on paying me large sums of money to conduct orchestras. I never told them I would have done it for nothing."

[Musicology]

Josef Martin Kraus (1756-92)
Operatic March
(Supplied to the opera 'Idomeneo' for a certain Salzburger named Wolfgang)

1781/2

Featured in Stanley Kubrik's film 'Barry Lyndon'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B44uKY4dS1Y&feature=related

'What is man that Thou art mindful of him' ? (Psalm 8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFh-nOG2coY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD8xl8T2k-o&feature=related

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868)
Overture to the opera 'Semiramide' (Part 2)
Levente Gyorgy (cond.)
Vary Symphony Orchestra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIhmG0nepXU

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868)
Overture
'La Gazza Ladra'
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Claudio Abbado

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQW3jXnOd5s&feature=related

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh La Traviata, I can't stop playing this again - it's just absolutely wonderful - it's like drowning in red wine!!!

[Patrick_Bateman]

Is this a Thread for the Classical 'period' of music

or Art music in general?

I'll assume the latter

Johann Strauss II
Tchaikovsky

Dvorak
Vivaldi
Prokofiev

Bach


Everyone else

[Musicology]

A friend in Barcelona, Spain told me of an extraordinary recording of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos - here is part of No. 3

Johann Sebastian Bach
Brandenburg Concertos
Musica Florea
Artistic director Marek Štryncl

Concerto No. 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0VVLKkpzxs&feature=related

Wow !!

http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/download_eng

[yanni]

A little something to honour the late Pavarotti:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ASBDFjPhs&feature=related

[stlukesguild]

A friend in Barcelona, Spain told me of an extraordinary recording of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos - here is part of No. 3

Johann Sebastian Bach
Brandenburg Concertos
Musica Florea
Artistic director Marek Štryncl

Concerto No. 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0VVL...eature=related


Nice. I quite love the version by the Concerto Italiano conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9obY3GVAJw&feature=related

The Concerto Italiani with Alessandrini has made a series of consistently marvelous and fluid recordings of the Italian Baroque... including recent recordings of Vivaldi for the Naive label. Their Brandenbeurg Concertos bring an Italianate fluidity and joi de vivre to Bach's great work.

[Musicology]

Hi St Lukesguild ! The Concerto Italiano is a very nice version. Less percussive.

Enjoyed it very much !

BWV 1044/1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA3pbSBHR2E&feature=related




A friend in Barcelona, Spain told me of an extraordinary recording of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos - here is part of No. 3

Johann Sebastian Bach
Brandenburg Concertos
Musica Florea
Artistic director Marek Štryncl

Concerto No. 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0VVL...eature=related


Nice. I quite love the version by the Concerto Italiano conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9obY3GVAJw&feature=related

The Concerto Italiani with Alessandrini has made a series of consistently marvelous and fluid recordings of the Italian Baroque... including recent recordings of Vivaldi for the Naive label. Their Brandenbeurg Concertos bring an Italianate fluidity and joi de vivre to Bach's great work.

[stlukesguild]

There is always that question of what was the greatest loss in the history of music. Topping the list we are repeatedly presented with the early deaths of Mozart and Schubert... but also Pergolesi, who was but 26 at his death and yet showed such promise in his operas and his famous Stabat Mater. But one loss that rarely seems recognized is that of what might have been with J.S. Bach if he had only had a more enlightened patronage. As much as I love Bach's sacred choral music, I agree with the critic who bemoaned the loss of any opera by Bach... more concertos and other instrumental music.

[oshima]

I started listening to classical music "seriously" about a year ago, and have been sticking to music from the Holy Trinity (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven) and find myself sometimes lost for hour's in Beethoven's Sonata's, esp. the Hammerklavier recording done by Mitsuko Uchida. Slowly and with much trepidation I've been listening to unfamiliar composers, and have been enjoying F. Liszt piano work and Debussy's Nocturne.

[Musicology]

Marvellous !!

J.S. Bach - "Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto"
Arranged for Solo Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo, BWV971 -
Concerto Italiano
(Arranged by Rinaldo Alessandrini)

http://www.youtube.com/user/HARMONICO101#p/u/356/p4Mtrgo73VY

http://www.youtube.com/user/HARMONICO101#p/u/355/GteXBJdHGbk

Bach arrangement of chorale used in Cantata 22

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etB-P6a6wBs&feature=related

[Gladys]

Bach arrangement of chorale used in Cantata 22

Deceptively simple yet eternally sublime!

Discovering baroque and classical music in my teens, I long found Bach impenetrable until stumbling, in middle age, upon the cantatas. For instance, the ethereal sublimity of the duet "We hasten with feeble but diligent footsteps":


duet from Cantata 78 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujLK28Nlmq4)

[Musicology]

Goldberg Variations
BWV 988/1-4

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

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Boulez' 1970 Bayreuth Parsifal--absolutely incredible.

Just imagine: Wagner was both an epic lyric poet and a musical composer of genius.

http://www.amazon.com/Parsifal-Wagner/dp/B000009JNI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1284910667&sr=1-1

[Musicology]

Dona Nobis Pacem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpC0OvbpQJ0

''The Globalist Clowns''
AKA 'Sabre Dance'
Aram Khachachurian (1942)
Hungarian State Orchestra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY3RkXkOXbs&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

I have spent much of today learning a piano arrangement of Handel's Largo from Xerxes. When I was a boy, this was a favourite radio request on BBC, but it is only now that I am studying the score, that I see just how great it really is.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq1Iv3DkwVs

[stlukesguild]

Oh, the hell with classical music. The Stones man... the Stones!!!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4132/5021675099_a339079c87.jpg

WE all need... someone... we can lean on...

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;959189]Oh, the hell with classical music. The Stones man... the Stones!!! QUOTE]


:smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5:

[Musicology]

Hugely talented but little known German composer.

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750)
Presto in B Flat Major for Solo Lute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TDbeHRKH5A&feature=related

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750)
Presto in G Minor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVXvx1QSuyk&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvius_Leopold_Weiss

[stlukesguild]

Naxos has what appears to be (currently) 10 volumes of Weiss' lute music marvelously performed by the acclaimed Robert Barto. The music is indeed captivating... delicate... magical. I will surely pick up a few of these recordings. I've only recently got around to getting the Bach lute suites (on lute... I've had them on guitar for some time).

[Musicology]

Naxos has what appears to be (currently) 10 volumes of Weiss' lute music marvelously performed by the acclaimed Robert Barto. The music is indeed captivating... delicate... magical. I will surely pick up a few of these recordings. I've only recently got around to getting the Bach lute suites (on lute... I've had them on guitar for some time).

Hi stlukesguild,

Yes, Weiss's music is so nice. I found this today on youtube -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4I2kZM_JWY

Regards

[stlukesguild]

Always... always... always... I return to Bach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QuNZHTG-tM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRnA8VaFzD8

Movements 1 and 3 from Cantata no. 82

To think that Bach churned out cantata after cantata... week after week... with such absolutely brilliant and moving music... just boggles the mind.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4110/5026247221_8f0fe5fd49_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/5026862708_39974fee50.jpg

[Musicology]

J.S. Bach
Magnificat
Gloria patri

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejOaUn0Ub5o

[LitNetIsGreat]

Always... always... always... I return to Bach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QuNZHTG-tM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRnA8VaFzD8

Movements 1 and 3 from Cantata no. 82

To think that Bach churned out cantata after cantata... week after week... with such absolutely brilliant and moving music... just boggles the mind.

Too true Stlukes, too true.

I've been comforting myself again with Mozart's 26th Piano Concerto:

First movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stLTO64ADs

I think the reason I like this is that it was one of the first classical CDs I bought - I think I picked it up at random on a whim! I've played it over and over again throughout the years. It's also got the 23rd on. I'm more than happy that it is being played live into a couple of months - must remember to find it out and book it.

[Musicology]

It's a nice piece. A few weeks ago I looked at the original (so-called 'autograph') score. Strange the second and third movements of this concerto are not even in Mozart's handwriting and the work itself was never published in his lifetime. (Like 500 other works published in his name up to decades after his death). Nor have any performance parts of this concerto ever been found. But that's true of all the Vienna concertos. Apart from that there are only 200 reasons why this piece is not by Mozart. Wonder why the left hand part is missing for almost the entire work, for example.

But the music itself is very nice and I like it a lot. Sometimes the actual authorship doesn't seem to matter. As we see here.

Regards


Too true Stlukes, too true.

I've been comforting myself again with Mozart's 26th Piano Concerto:

First movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stLTO64ADs

I think the reason I like this is that it was one of the first classical CDs I bought - I think I picked it up at random on a whim! I've played it over and over again throughout the years. It's also got the 23rd on. I'm more than happy that it is being played live into a couple of months - must remember to find it out and book it.

[Emil Miller]

Too true Stlukes, too true.

I've been comforting myself again with Mozart's 26th Piano Concerto:

First movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stLTO64ADs

I think the reason I like this is that it was one of the first classical CDs I bought - I think I picked it up at random on a whim! I've played it over and over again throughout the years. It's also got the 23rd on. I'm more than happy that it is being played live into a couple of months - must remember to find it out and book it.

Yes Friedrich Gulda was particularly noted for his performances of Mozar but, unfortunately, like millions of others, he was swayed by the politically manufactured zeitgeist of the 1960's and became the ludicrously self-advertising clown of the concert circuit. There are many pianists, just as worthy of consideration, who lack the self-advertising showmanship of the late Mr Gulda.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh don't start all that up, no offense of course.:smile5: (To musicology)

Yes it's a nice piece - I'm not saying it is his best work (or to you want is termed as Mozart's best) but it is just one of those that I've had for ages that plays easily and always goes down well.


Yes Friedrich Gulda was particularly noted for his performances of Mozart, but, unfortunately, like millions of others, he was swayed by the politically manufactured zeitgeist of the 1960's and became the ludicrously self-advertising clown of the concert circuit. There are many pianists, just as worthy of consideration, who lack the self-advertising showmanship of the late Mr Gulda.

Oh right, I'm not that familar with him. The CD I have is not Gulda though, I just posted that as an example.

[stlukesguild]

As with many works of the core repertoire one almost needs to sample different interpretations. I have a good number of the insurmountable recordings by Alfred Brendel... but I also have selections by Vladimir Ashkenazy, Robert Levin's HIP recordings with John Eliot Gardiner, Mitsuko Uchida, Rudolf Serkin, and Murray Perahia. I am truly enthralled with Perahia's recordings... of Bach and Beethoven... as well as the acclaimed Mozart... and so I am looking at the complete box set. I am also looking at the Gardiner set for period instruments... but then there's rather pricey... but continually acclaimed recordings by Viviana Sofronitzki which I have never heard.

Touring YouTube I found these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxk50KlKmc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0Hd2GsR30

Quite nice... but of course the sound quality is limited on YouTube.

[Musicology]

Hi there Neely,

No offence of course. The only thing that offends me about Mozart's piano concertos is that most people don't get offended by them being performed, published and described as Mozart's for almost two centuries. But, apart from that, we are in complete agreement. The Sirens of Homer were definitely less seductive.

(I think the Gulda version of Concerto 20 and 21 on DG is specially wonderful)

Regards



Oh don't start all that up, no offense of course.:smile5: (To musicology)

Yes it's a nice piece - I'm not saying it is his best work (or to you want is termed as Mozart's best) but it is just one of those that I've had for ages that plays easily and always goes down well.

[oshima]

I was curious: has anyone on this thread watched movies about composers multiple times specifically for the music? I've probably watched Immortal Beloved at least ten times, just because the drama seemed to lend different sort of weight to the music than when I'm just listening to it with my eyes closed. The flashback scene of teenage Ludwig running through the forest to escape his father and wading in the lake during the ninth never fails to give me goosebumps.

[stlukesguild]

I think that there are any number of scenes from films... not merely those on composers... that resonate with the mind as a result of the merger with the music. Surely Hitchcock might be credited with giving birth to the one real commercially viable employment of Modernist/atonal music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4&feature=related

the horror film.

Masterful uses of music in film include:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx07A8dZAPU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWnmCu3U09w

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

[oshima]

I think that there are any number of scenes from films... not merely those on composers... that resonate with the mind as a result of the merger with the music. Surely Hitchcock might be credited with giving birth to the one real commercially viable employment of Modernist/atonal music]
Indeed, there are many great uses of music in film. Even if you limited the choice of music to "classical", there are many films that have wonderfully scored scenes. One of my personal favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC2UBmpyTAs&feature=related

Not to mention amazing original orchestral scores where both the scene and the songs are inseparable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Y49oWUrYo&feature=related

I suppose I highlighted composer bio pics like Immortal Beloved or, say, Amadeus (as inaccurate as this particular film might be) because in most cases they focus on one composer's music throughout the film, and because of the particular feeling one gets when watching a sketch of the composers life played to his (her?)own music.

[Emil Miller]

Most bio pics of composers are usually romanticised beyond recognition if one has read the known facts about them. Occasionally there is a genuine attempt to portray them as they were. The following is an extract from a famous British TV production made many years ago about Edward Elgar, generally considered to be England's greatest composer. It shows the last scene where recollections of his life cross his mind as he lies dying within sight of Worcester cathedral to the strains of Nimrod, one of his Enigma Variations and one of the greatest pieces of music composed anywhere and by anyone you care to name.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfP6auxiUOI

[Wilde woman]

I rediscovered my love for cellist Stephen Isserlis last night while I was struggling through Bordieu. The only recording I have of him is a collaboration with Joshua Bell and the Takacs Quartet. They played some Ravel and Chausson, if I remember correctly.

Can anyone recommend more stuff by him?

[Emil Miller]

I rediscovered my love for cellist Stephen Isserlis last night while I was struggling through Bordieu. The only recording I have of him is a collaboration with Joshua Bell and the Takacs Quartet. They played some Ravel and Chausson, if I remember correctly.

Can anyone recommend more stuff by him?

By coincidence I was listening to him playing on BBC3 radio a couple of hours ago where they gave a rave review of his recording of the Bach Cello Suites.

I couldn't find him playing on You tube but here's Yo Yo Ma in Suite No.1

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

[stlukesguild]

Yo-Yo Ma is great. I've had the opportunity to see him perform the entire Bach cello suites some years ago. My favorites for these works are Pierre Fournier:

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQg2TnYnxnI&feature=related

and of course Rostropovitch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR9lCa23kzo&feature=related

I personally prefer the slower, darker interpretations... but I would not be without Rostropovitch' fluid and fiery interpretation.

Current Listening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5fRjrTtb0M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR6m4DK4Ca0&p=77A9CB7E1C6C336B&playnext=1&index=10

Ach!!! Bach!!!:)

[mortalterror]

I was listening to one of my Pandora stations yesterday, and I heard Steve Reich's Cello Counterpoint and I was really feeling it. I thought, "Finally, something from the last sixty years which I actually enjoy!" But when I went to find a clip for it on youtube, all I could find were substandard amateur versions that didn't give me anything like what I first felt.

[Musicology]

Masaaki Suzuki
Bach Collegium Japan
Opening Movement
St John Passion
BWV 245
April 2000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ0Vgb99tsQ&feature=related

[Emil Miller]

This recording of a concert given in 1948 has all of the worst effects of a poor acoustic and, by present day standards, a primitive recording process.
Toscanini's recordings with the NBC Symphony orchestra are bedeviled by bad acoustics but despite that, the sheer brilliance of his conducting shines through; notwithstanding the ongoing dispute regarding tempi.
The ending to this video is as colossal as Wagner's vision of music's possibilities in conveying the greatness that humans aspire to.


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