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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
That's a nightmare! :lol: I just didn't want to be the first to say it. But we'll let Mutatis be who he is and love him anyway, as long as he's into classical too. I just don't want to go to any of his parties!Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Plus ça change...
The flag may be different but the message is the same.
I still think the Germans did it better.
http://youtu.be/vHZmxlhuQVM
Just been checking around You Tube and came across this stupendous finale to the Mussorgsky/ Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition, which uses Ravel's orchestration but adds a choir to magical effect.
http://youtu.be/JwrqAipON2w
Comparisons to Nazi Germany, eh? If only there was an emoticon that gave the middle finger. I posted that as a joke, though the energy at metal concerts, and positive vibe (and it is positive, no matter what you may think) is unequaled by anything else.
Still, making fun of something just because you don't understand it is completely ignorant--you'd think this forum would be free os such folly.
Now that is quite a unique performance. Never heard a choir with it. Do you know where one can get the whole suite (if they indeed record all of it)?Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
My praise of Beethoven vocal music was more in the context of the Classical Period, and with an appreciation of how little he wrote for voice. Certainly, such Baroque composers as Purcell, Bach, Pergolesi, Rameau wrote magnificently for voice. And for me, the Bach Cantatas have long reigned supreme.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
What Beethoven did write for voice is radically different from both predecessors and successors alike and, like Bach, he seems to use voice as an orchestral instrument - one capable of meeting extreme demands. I get the impression when listening to voice in Fidelio that each singer is asked to compliment, or compete with, the ferocious complexities of orchestral backing. Such raw symphonic complexities (best illustrated by his third attempt at an overture in the gargantuan Leonora No. 3) are rarely found in a more benign vocal music of Haydn, Mozart of Schubert. Is such ferocity bad?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lokasenna
Over the decades, nothing on radio more rivets my attention than Beethoven songs or excerpts from Fidelio. In vocal music as elsewhere, Beethoven's disdain of the dictum moderation in all things is the essence of his enduring appeal.
Douglas Gamley was an Australian composer and arranger who worked with some of the greatest and also some of the not so great musicians during the thirty years he spent in England: mostly in films. His use of choir and organ in this piece is inspired and greatly enhances the power and ambience of the music. There is reference to his having rearranged the whole work but I haven't been able to trace a recording of it:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Mussorgsky "The Great Gate of Kiev" - Douglas Gamley's orchestration video
Douglas Gamley conducts his own orchestration of the finale from "Pictures at an Exhibition," with the New Symphony Orchestra, the Men's Chorus of the Ambrosian Singers, and the organ of Kingsway Hall, London. From the Readers Digest 10-LP set "Music for You," produced by Charles Gerhardt (published 1968).
Lately I have taken interest in Mussorgsky since we first touched on his music in the painting thread. Since then I can't seem to get enough of "The Old Castle".Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ssfDQirqVk
I went ahead and purchased Valery Gergiev and the Wiener Philharmoniker performance of Pictures at an Exhibition
.
Yes, it's very atmospheric, as are all the musical 'pictures' in the original piano score. The amazing thing is that Ravel was able to capture their essence so brilliantly in his orchestration. I don't think even Mussorgsky would have done it better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
Utterly hilarious ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Thank you for posting the link; I have listened to the Pictures twice in live concert, but the addition of the choir was very powerful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
I love this, after all the initial coughing (which is unfortunately in too many videos).
I'm failing to see the joke in Emil's vid. Not because it's supposedly making fun of my vid . . . I'm just not finding the correlation.Quote:
Originally Posted by cl154576
I'm glad you find it hilarious but I don't think the Pentagon are very amused. If the UK had paid a little more attention to what was happening in Germany during the pre-war period, it might not have had to face many of the problems that emerged when they eventually declared war on Germany.Quote:
Originally Posted by cl154576
http://youtu.be/Hkt7Nw0PE2E
As for the Mussorgsky, the opening with the bell at fff is brilliant, and the deep sound at 1,56 just before the choir comes in is masterly. The accentuation of bells throughout underlines the Russian nature of the work. The use of the organ at 6.01 and 6.08 adds to the notion of holy Russia and I'm surprised that Leopold Stokowski didn't think of these changes first.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
I meant the speech, not the army.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
I'm confused.
Perhaps you should have made that clear, seeing as how most members don't speak Mandarin Chinese.Quote:
Originally Posted by cl154576
Sorry. I forget where I am sometimes ... I can translate later if I finish my work, but it's mostly the tone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
To maybe bring this back on track, a little.
This is still one of my all time fave vids on YT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tGA6bpscj8
Last year the best purchase I made was of the box set of J.S. Bach's Sacred Materpieces/Cantatas performed by John Eliot Gardiner with the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6157/...e275631189.jpg
This box set was produced rather cheaply. The box (as can be seen from the picture) is rather poorly constructed from lightweight cardboard and the discs contained in paper sleeves... as with old LPs. The accompanying booklet is minimal (at best) with little information beyond the identification of each track on the discs and a link to an online site where one might download the texts. On the other hand, for little more than $30 US you get 22 discs of the finest recordings of Bach's St. Matthew and St. John Passions, the Mass in B-minor, the Magnificat, the Christmas Oratorio, and 11 discs of the many of Bach's finest cantatas. I should also note that when I say 22 discs of the "finest" recordings... I am not exaggerating. Gardiner's recordings of any of these individual works are commonly considered to be the standard against which all others are measured... and purchased separately, the St. Matthew Passion alone can run nearly as much as this entire set.
This year, once again it has been a box set that has been perhaps my greatest purchase of the year. Sony re-released the first 15 discs of classic recordings by the Huelgas Ensemble, the Belgian-based choral group of around 20 unaccompanied singers, specialising in Early Music (Middle Ages to Renaissance), many written by obscure or little-known composers such as Agricola, Riquafort and Ciprio de Rore.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6154/...38aed0f59d.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6163/...c72a51f164.jpg
Once again the set runs around $30-$35 US for the 15 disc boxed set... but in this instance Sony has pulled out all the stops in packaging. The box itself is beautiful... great graphics and produced of heavy stock cardboard with a second heavy cardboard liner that can be removed to allow for ease of access (in case you plan on playing all the discs one after the other). Each individual disc is housed in a lighter-weight cardboard case designed to allow easy removal of the disc by simply squeezing. The set is capped of by a 200+ page booklet which includes the texts of the works in the original Latin (in most instances) as well as in French, German, and English translation. The only possible complaints is that the original cover art is lost (although this wasn't always the finest)... reduced to an image the size of a postage stamp reproduced on the back of each individual disc liner. Neither are the original liner notes reproduced... although one might surely look up the individual composers on the internet. For example, I'm currently listening to the 15th century Franco-Flemish composer, Alexander Agricola, and I find there is plenty about him available on the net.
Once again, as in the Bach box set, any shortcomings... even less in this instance... are more than compensated for by the quality of performance and wealth of music at a bargain price. This set is ideal for anyone wishing to delve deeper into the realm of "Early Music".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naap4CWanv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk_pPTiyUDs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL40Zxi1IFo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGUjyFqQ1aI
http://brandnewmoods.blogspot.com/20...-ensemble.html
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6169/...3e325d5b63.jpg
Where I have always struggled with Schoenberg and found him too "lumpen" and leaden... like Brahms at his worst without the tonality... this is not so of Berg. And once again I find I immediately warm to Berg's work. I already have another version of the Lyric Suite, but I find this one "special" on several accounts. Surely the Kronos Quartet plays this music in a manner at once deft... sensuous... fluid... and lyrical.
The work was famously an expression of Berg's tragic love for Hanna Fuchs-Robbetin. Berg had already been married some 14 years, but he was overwhelmed with a grande passion for Hanna, the sister of the Austrian novelist Franz Werfel, the wife of a Prague industrialist and mother of two. Divorce for either was unthinkable and only rarely, through missives sent via trusted confidants count the two communicate or arrange the rare clandestine meetings. The affair was impossible and heart-breaking for both. Hanna broke down in tears at seeing Berg at an opera house. Berg drunkenly wandered the streets for hours and ending standing beneath his beloved's window in a silent parody of the ritual of courtly love.. The two resigned themselves to a silent suffering of this love that could not be.
Berg's Lyric Suite was laden with symbolic expressions of this love which were only later (1977) deciphered by the musical scholar George Perle who had access to the original annotated copy of the score sent by Berg to Hanna. With this, Perle discovered that the suite originally concluded with a setting for quartet and soprano of Baudelaire's poem, De profundis clamavi in the German translation by the German Symbolist, Stephan George. This concept of transcending the inarticulate expression of the instrumental with song was of course born of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in which the bass soloist suddenly silences the orchestra to announce the song of brotherhood. Berg's mentor, Schoenberg, adapted the idea to his string quartet, the final movements of which adapt Stephan George's poems, Litany and Transport.
Berg must have suspected that the performance of the suite with the original intended vocal finale would have resulted in a too obvious comparison with Schoenberg... but also... considering the lyrics of the chosen text by Baudelaire:
To you, you sole dear one, my cry rises
Out of the deepest abyss in which my heart has fallen.
There the landscape is dead, the air like lead
And in the dark, curse and terror well up...
I envy the lot of the most common animal
Which can plunge into the dizziness of a senseless sleep...
So slowly does the spindle of time unwind.
it would have led to unwanted speculation among the scandal-mongering Viennese, and so once again Berg resigned himself to silence, and the melody composed for Baudelaire's words was dispersed among the instruments of the quartet. This melody was reconstructed by Perle. By placing this melody once again before the quartet, the shattering finale draws clearer thematic connections to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, itself a masterpiece of love and suffering in silence. In Berg's setting the voice ends before the quartet, conveying, perhaps, that there are no longer any words fitting to such suffering. Each instrument of the quartet then equally dies away... losing its voice in silence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GOu6GxZVW0
Gorgeous women and great music go together.
http://youtu.be/_-xwx-Z3ijc
Indeed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQR0LQskL4E
:smile5:
Yes, really gorgeous women and music there Emil, Luke. :) Watching Yu-Na, I found it interesting the role of her coach in her life who has taught her all that he knows and she is capable of magic.
It's unfortunate that she and her coach have since broken up. I don't know anything about skating but, checking her out on Google, there was an acrimonious parting of the ways for reasons that are not at all clear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vonny
She has made a fabulous amount of money since becoming an olympic and also world champion in womens' skating but she owes it all to her Canadian coach who was himself a former champion skater. The professional life of a skater is very short but at least we have the video footage of her performances in which she is simply ethereal. I posted this some time ago in another thread but here she is again winning the 2010 olympic championship. Beauty personified.
http://youtu.be/yc35PYNEQMk
Thanks for this Emil. I hadn't seen her before. I'm sure she had natural talent and practiced very hard, but it's true she would have gotten no where on her own.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
The commentaries on the videos are very interesting. She is a mixture of shyness and competitiveness, (which can make food for vultures.) Her coach protected her, they say. Protecting a girl is not something society respects because it keeps girls from "growing." But it seems Yu-Na developed her full potential and her unique self. I don't know what the coach protected her from, but maybe from other girls that he didn't want her to emulate, maybe from criticism, or from believing that being different equaled inadequate and unacceptable.
I understand about people seeking the best education, but I still wonder why she left her coach. It happened after she had fully succeeded, not before, which makes me think she did drop him. How disillusioning. How sad for him.
My personal preference has long been for music of the German/Austrian tradition (Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Brahms, Schumann, Strauss, Mahler, etc...) followed by the Italians and the French. I have not necessarily disliked the Russians... but rather they have simply not been my favorite... at least not since I was a teenager and the gushing emotions spoke to me.
Recently, I have begun to rediscover a lot of Russian music. Russian operas are intriguing in their predominant use of bass and baritone singers... although the general scarcity of lead female characters is less than endearing. The French long embraced the ballet... dance... even in their operas, and 19th century Russia's love of all things French resulted in a great tradition of Russian ballet which continued into the 20th century. I've been exploring any number of the classic Russian ballets:
Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet is quite fabulous... at once drop-dead gorgeous... and yet laden with enough of a tinge of the dark and sinister... the dissonant... to not make it seem but a pastiche in the 20th century:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB0PV...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB3sd2BAxys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJQiGCdTFk
Looking through videos of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, I came across the performance of the Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China who are every bit as brilliant athletes as anyone I've seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gLDG...eature=related
I'm interested to hear what some of you classical buffs think of this.
The longest fingers you ever did see, the face of an angel and fabulous artistry and control. This is definitely one of my favourite performances and at 2.05 I'm somewhere else.
http://youtu.be/p0L_pAqLAi0
Suo Gan - Empire of the Sun soundtrack. Brilliant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To8vb...eature=related
Seeing is believing.
http://youtu.be/R_WBdb4Hu_Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOA-2hl1Vbc
Pachelbel's Canon in D. One of the best classic pieces ever.
also John Barry's "Out of Africa" brilliant modern piece. Stunning cinematography.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DANTm...eature=related
__________________
In the previous video she was four-years-old now here she is three years later.
http://youtu.be/LwED9gYIa0o
I just picked up a record of JS Bach's cello suites, which I'm listening to now - so good!
I''m addicted to Rameau at the moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-QzU9EZUXE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0kidZRGKJw
Here's Aimi Kobayashi at 14 playing Beethoven's Waldstein sonata.
This girl is destined to be one of the greatest pianists of all time. I doubt that Beethoven could have played it better.
http://youtu.be/hoTdKWOVGVs
It's not an addiction, it's good taste in music :coolgleamA:Quote:
Originally Posted by swannbeam
And here she is at age 15.
I would love to see her play in London but I keep forgetting she is so young and will not be taking on the concert circuit until she is a little older. Although she has performed in New York and St. Petersburg, most of her engagements are in Japan. There are many brilliant young musicians coming out of Asia but this one borders on the supernatural.
http://youtu.be/eQbUJmy7yjY
I'm interested to hear what some of you classical buffs think of this.
I have little use for the tradition concept of "classical music" as a style of music. The very term, excepting its use to describe the period of Mozart, Haydn, Boccherini, Gluck, etc... had nothing to do with defining a style and everything with suggesting aesthetic merit: the term was intended as a means to define the great music of the upper classes as inherently superior from the music of popular/mass culture as popular music began to assert itself as a result of recording technology.
What is "classical music?" It is impossible to define because we are speaking of dozens of musical forms, genre, and styles... everything from Byzantine chants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFH8abHmO-o
to Sephardic songs and dances:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGAsvJvebwI&feature=fvst
to Plainchant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taanHO13WXE
to the Troubadors, Trouveres, and Minnesänger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7prWBWC_E
to Polyphony:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLwMEBlBBB4
to the Renaissance Madrigal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxcMZl6YwNs
to the Concerti-Grosso:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-dYNttdgl0
to the Cantata:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJcL-dSn5zo
to Opera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK1_vm0FMAU
to the quartets and quintets and chamber music as a whole:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtN1scGYJKA
to the symphony:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6K_IuBsRM4
to the lieder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx3yior5CQM
to the operetta:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4hs7vW8SV0
to the Requiem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RSMcgQfM9E
continued............
to the Ballet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZbMOq_Ge8
to Gershwin's jazz-infused opera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA
to Minimalist Film scores:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jjLMm7C2EY
And all this barely scrapes the surface. The reality is that the term "classical music" is meaningless... or rather a misnomer. What the term intends to define is that music which has survived and continues to resonate with an audience. As such it might be better termed "Classic Music" because in all reality it doesn't define any single form or style or genre or tradition but rather that which has survived because of a perceived artistic merit. In all likelihood this will survive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyE9IN7JSVU
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJE9...eature=related
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqNTltOGh5c&ob=av2n
and even this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGufQk9QOdM
this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5IOou6qN1o
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiAqGliq_pE
will outlast a hell of a lot of the music that is currently thought of as the "classical music" of today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXt4K...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13D1YY_BvWU
Having said this... I can certainly imagine that some of what Pat Metheny achieved... whether we call it "jazz" or "fusion" or whatever may certainly have the potential to survive and become a musical "classic". Having said this... I have long argued that 90%+ of all music is mediocre at best... and it is quite likely that that percentage is actually low when dealing with popular music. A great majority of it is cliche, uninspired, repetitive, and juvenile... but as is the case when we are arguing about any contemporary art, be it literature, film, painting, or music, we are all likely to differ in our opinions as to which artists and artworks fall within those few percentage points that represent artistic endeavors of real merit.
I'm addicted to Rameau at the moment.
I love Rameau myself... although I lean toward his operas and choral music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOlX-...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKvd4tMkFHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9_93xtKup4
And here she is at age 15.
I would love to see her play in London but I keep forgetting she is so young and will not be taking on the concert circuit until she is a little older. Although she has performed in New York and St. Petersburg, most of her engagements are in Japan. There are many brilliant young musicians coming out of Asia but this one borders on the supernatural.
She is phenomenal for her age... but you know as well as I do that such prodigy is meaningless. There are endless other pianists as good or better than her and only a few will ever have the passion and drive and talent to make it into the realm of the virtuoso performer. One thing she will need is the intelligence to broaden her repertoire beyond the usual warhorses that have been repeatedly recorded by pianists far, far greater. She will need to bring something original and unique. Many of the finest performers in classical music today are exploring repertoire that has long been ignored (think of Marc-Andre Hamelin recording Alkan and Scriabin) others have entered into the world of HIP (Historically Informed Performances) performing of period instruments (piano-forte or harpsichord). Competing in the usual realm of Romantic piano concertos (Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, etc...) truly limits the possibility that a performer will have any chance of success. The question every performer like your young prodigy must face is "Why on earth would I want to listen to her when I can listen to:
Claudio Arau
Martha Argerich
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Emanuel Ax
Glenn Gould
Murray Perahia
Angela Hewitt
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Alfred Brendel
Leon Fleisher
Walter Gieseking
Marc-André Hamelin
Vladimir Horowitz
Wilhelm Kempff
Stephen Kovacevich
Van Cliburn
Mikhail Pletnev
Ivo Pogorelić
Maurizio Pollini
Sviatoslav Richter
Pascal Rogé
Arthur Rubinstein
Rudolf Serkin
Artur Schnabel
Vladimir Sofronitsky
Yevgeny Svetlanov
Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Rosalyn Tureck
Mitsuko Uchida
Alexis Weissenberg
Krystian Zimerman
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
and these are but a few of the great pianists who have already recorded much of the standard repertoire.