Who is a good artist to start with for a newbie for classical music?
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Who is a good artist to start with for a newbie for classical music?
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This set showed up on Spotify so I had to give it a listen. Absolutely f***in' fantastic!! An essential collection for anyone with a love of "early" (ie. medieval) music... such as myself.
The editorial review in Amazon.com states:
Catharism was the name given to a Christian religious sect that appeared in the Languedoc region of what is now southern France and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Cathars saw matter as intrinsically evil. They denied that Jesus could become incarnate and still be the son of God and thus, the Catholic Church regarded the sect as dangerously heretical. Faced with what they saw as a rapidly spreading cancer, the Church called for a crusade, which was carried out by knights from Northern France and Germany and was known as the Albigensian Crusade. This campaign, and the inquisition that followed it, eradicated the Cathars completely. It also had the effect of weakening the semi- independent southern principalities in the area, ultimately bringing them under direct control of the King of France. Occitania, once a crossroads of many cultures, was one of the victims of the Albigensian Crusade. Occitania s refined culture culminated in the troubadour tradition, which subsequently spread to Italy, Spain and Greece. Related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesingers in Germany, trovadorismo in Galicia and Portugal and the trouvères in northern France. On this album, Jordi Savall not only explores the classical period of the troubadour school from around the turn of the 13th century, but also provides us with a comprehensive historical and artistic background of this Golden Age. It is time we remembered this forgotten kingdom where much of what we call Western culture was incubated.
The music of this lost culture is not only brilliantly explored through Savall's performances... but also in the form of the lavish illustrated book that accompanies this set of discs. I will be certainly looking forward to purchasing this in the not-so-distant future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veJlR...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Vew...eature=related
This culture should be of interest to those enamored of European history and literature. Occatania or Aquitania was key in the spread of the tradition of lyrical poetry from Islamic Spain into France and Italy. This was the culture of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-More, and Chrétien de Troyes. The literary conventions of lyrical poetry and courtly love begun at her Palace of Poitiers were further refined by Bertrand de Born and Bernard de Ventadour, both of whom were admired by Dante and the poets of the Florentine Renaissance. Aquitaine would later become the birthplace to one of France' greatest writers, Michel de Montaigne.
Who is a good artist to start with for a newbie for classical music?
It depends upon what sort of musical background you are coming from and what sort of music you currently prefer.
That's a bit complicated. I listen to different genres of popular music. I'm for something that's easy to get into to prepare me for what is considered the more difficult stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I suggest you find a list of eminent composers and sample each on Youtube. This way you may realize your own tastes and find music that will inspire you to inquire further. There is no ideal place for everyone to start.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.lucifer
What you must recognize is that the larger (or extended) forms of "classical music" (symphonies, sonatas, concertos) are quite removed from the structure of the usual popular song which is built upon a simple repeated melody and perhaps a second counter melody. The extended forms of classical music may employ a melody or tune... but then this may be explored through a series of increasingly complex variations or developments of this motif or theme. You might think of a popular song as being like a simple and easy to grasp literary form like a sonnet or ballad (and most pop songs are rooted in simple poetic forms like the ballad going back to the troubadours- see the post on Occitania/Aquitaine above). The larger extended forms of classical music are closer in form and development to an epic poem... or novel.
Perhaps the "easiest" works of classical music to first get into are the Baroque concerti grossi. These are commonly built upon a 4/4 beat (like most pop music) or at least a steady dance rhythm. The movements tend to be short and built upon an easy to grasp melody or motif. Among the most popular are Vivaldi's Four Seasons, J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, G.F. Handel's Water Music, Vivaldi's Mandolin Concertos, etc... You might also explore the shorter works of later eras. I would recommend Chopin's Nocturnes...
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and Schumann's works for piano:
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You might also do well to select a key work from every era and major genre just to get a feel for what you like.
From the Baroque... beyond Bach's Brandenburg Concertos
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Vivaldi's Four Seasons...
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and Handel's Water Music/Royal Fireworks
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I would also suggest J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations...
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and Handel's Messiah...
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From the "Classical Period" you should look into Haydn's string quartets as an introduction to chamber music...
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and from Mozart, the last two symphonies:
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the late piano concertos:
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and the Requiem:
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From Beethoven, the 5th symphony:
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and the most popular piano sonatas:
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continued...
From Schubert, the last two symphonies:
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and the Impromptus:
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With Wagner, look into the Orchestral "highlights":
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Brahms is best come at first for his chamber music. His clarinet works are among his finest:
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Dvorak's last symphonies give you a good idea of the late 19th century symphony... and also establish a tradition for subsequent American classical music:
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Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff composed some of the most popular piano concertos... played stunningly here:
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Another key Romantic masterpiece that is easy to love is Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (and the Night on Bald Mountain):
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Debussy's Impressionism points the way toward the 20th century:
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Into the 20th century, the icon of Modernism was surely Stravinsky's Rite of Spring:
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Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, however, is perhaps the most recognized work of music of the century:
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The other two giants of 20th century Russian music are Prokofiev and Shostakovitch. It's actually hard to select a single icon work that best represents Prokofiev (unless it's Peter and the Wolf) but with Shostakovitch there are several to pick. Ultimately, I'd go with his 10th symphony:
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Bartok pushes you into Modernism and even atonality:
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The last selection I would include is this disc which includes Barber's famous Adagio for Strings... a great American Masterpiece... as well as Mahler's great adagio from his 5th symphony, and a couple examples of the great English tradition of pastoral music:
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These recommendations are almost all available at a budget price... and every last one of them is among the finest recorded version available... a great many the best possible version IMO (Beethoven's 5th, the Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Royal Fireworks, Impromptus, Rite of Spring, Mozart 40-41, etc...)
I would also highly recommend a good book to introduce you to classical music, the forms, history, etc... I personally like this one:
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I suggest you find a list of eminent composers and sample each on Youtube. This way you may realize your own tastes and find music that will inspire you to inquire further. There is no ideal place for everyone to start.
I agree that YouTube offers a great source at which to sample music... but I don't think sampling classical music in 5-minute snippets is necessarily the best way to explore it. It reduces it, in a sense, to a collection of highlights of favorite tunes, rather than leading the individual to explore the whole of these works.
There is no answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.lucifer
Grab every chance you have of listening to classical music and then go to explore deeply the artist(s) who caught your attention, BBC Radio 3 has this synoptic programme running from Monday to Friday every week which I think it's a very useful learning/exploring tool for newbies.
Looking at your list of performers, I note that many of them figure in my own collection but I doubt that many of them were able to perform as creditably as Aimi Kobayashi at the age of four. I agree that child prodigies have littered the pianistic scene since Mozart and will continue to do so but it is worth remembering that it is also littered with many great names of the past who have now been forgotten. Obviously, with the advent of recording, the possibility to hear various performances from the past is there but, in the final analysis, music is subjective and ones choice remains personal. It is true that the standard repertoire has been repeatedly recorded throughout the last century and beyond but that was generally for the benefit of the western world. Now the the focus is moving East there will be many, if not more, people who will prefer to listen to the brilliant performances of the likes of Yundi Li, Sahra Chang, Juja Wang, Aimi Kobayasahi etc etc. All of whom have gone through the mill at competition level and been acclaimed by critics in the West as well as their own countries. I see no reason to doubt that some of the musicians from the East will go on to match their western counterparts in achieving the highest levels of performance as, in some cases, they are already doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm5pbLMn8j8
Stillness of the Mind - Abel Korzeniowski from A Single Man (directed by Tom Ford)
Now the the focus is moving East there will be many, if not more, people who will prefer to listen to the brilliant performances of the likes of Yundi Li, Sahra Chang, Juja Wang, Aimi Kobayasahi etc etc. All of whom have gone through the mill at competition level and been acclaimed by critics in the West as well as their own countries. I see no reason to doubt that some of the musicians from the East will go on to match their western counterparts in achieving the highest levels of performance as, in some cases, they are already doing.
I think you overestimate the shift of power and culture to the East. We've been hearing the same thing for 40+ years since Japan came into its own again after the war. Obviously more countries... including those in the East (India, Japan, China, Korea) are becoming major players on the economic and cultural stage. Unlike you, I don't see this as inherently resulting in a great decline of other nations. It would seem to me that the quality of living in Britain, France, Germany... most of Europe... has not nosedived since the United States and the USSR took the lead as the great world powers.
Having said this much, I agree that more and more Asian performers are going to make their way into the world of Western "classical music". Mitsuko Uchida has already proven herself, along with Yo Yo Ma, Seiji Ozawa, Sumi Jo, Myung-whun Chung, Sarah Chang, and perhaps finest of all Masaaki Suzuki and his brilliant Bach Collegium Japan. Can any of these performers stand up to comparison with the very best. Uchida and Suzuki can. Yo Yo Ma is surely one of the best living cellists, but I don't know if he can rival Rostropovitch, Casals, Pierre Fournier, or Janos Starker. Ozawa was an OK conductor... but no Szell, Karajan, Furtwangler, Barbirolli, etc... Still I certainly agree that with time we will undoubtedly get more great performers from Asia... and Australia, and South America, etc... and your little Aimi Kobayasahi may indeed be one of them.
I personally subscribe to the sociological theory that great master are generated in Generations 0-2 of a new institutional structure. The known masters nowadays are all beneficiaries of the new institutions of recorded music - thus personally I believe that unless something fundamental changes, it would be very difficult for later generations to attain the master status on the same footing as Rubinstein, Heifetz, etc. So emerging Asian artists' only hope to achieve true greatness lies in the opportunity that new technologies fundamentally change classical music consumption patterns.
[QUOTE=stlukesguild;1087627Having said this much, I agree that more and more Asian performers are going to make their way into the world of Western "classical music". Mitsuko Uchida has already proven herself, along with Yo Yo Ma, Seiji Ozawa, Sumi Jo, Myung-whun Chung, Sarah Chang, and perhaps finest of all Masaaki Suzuki and his brilliant Bach Collegium Japan. Can any of these performers stand up to comparison with the very best. Uchida and Suzuki can. Yo Yo Ma is surely one of the best living cellists, but I don't know if he can rival Rostropovitch, Casals, Pierre Fournier, or Janos Starker. Ozawa was an OK conductor... but no Szell, Karajan, Furtwangler, Barbirolli, etc... Still I certainly agree that with time we will undoubtedly get more great performers from Asia... and Australia, and South America, etc... and your little Aimi Kobayasahi may indeed be one of them.[/QUOTE]
But, once again, all of the artists you name are familiar to me and have been for many years. Over decades of listening to great music I must rely on my ear and experience. In my view, it's not only Asian soloists but orchestral musicians in general who are demonstrating standards of performance that are the equal of those currently given by western musicians.
It is true that solo cellists and individual conductors have yet to emerge onto the international stage but I don't doubt that it will happen.
As for great piano playing, this Russian audience appears to be in agreement:
http://youtu.be/PX57r1l5W3U
Medieval music,Church music are my favorites
Theatre of Voices,The early music consort of London,Millenarium,
Acantus
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To help restore a little sanity and peace, I have once again found myself returning to those heavenly monks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5p_U8J0iRQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5Ao...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&fe...&v=VTdJTRlaXqw
Few things have such a restful effect on me than Gregorian Chant. It's enough to make me drop it all and run off to join a monastery, beautiful. (I could get a job hoeing the earth and changing the candles perhaps?)
It gives me a great appreciation for Latin as well.
Anyone watching the programmes about the Symphony on BBC4? I'm finding them enjoyable and informative and friend who claims to be non-musical says she is finding them a revelation, not least because she didn't realise how many symphonies she knew!
No, I did see a clip about them but I never got around to watching.
I haven't seen it, I think that the subject requires more than the four programmes allotted to it but I was listening to Simon Russell Beale presenting a programme about Russian music on radio 3 yesterday and he certainly has a good grasp of the subject and a very unobtrusive but informative style of presentation.
To help restore a little sanity and peace, I have once again found myself returning to those heavenly monks...
Few things have such a restful effect on me than Gregorian Chant.
I know what you mean, Neely... but for me this always comes about from a return to Bach. I recently picked up this disc:
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I hadn't listened to the Musikalisches Opfer in years. Indeed, I only had a single copy of the work which fleshed out a 2-disc set of the Art of Fugue. For whatever reason the piece never grabbed me, and so I rarely ever listened to it. But this recording by Jordi Savall... much like the majority of his recordings... really opens up your ears to an oeuvre that is much better than I used to think. I had the same experience with his performance of Handel's Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music... and his Brandenburgs are top-notch. I'll take them over Suzuki.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQWsOG7IJA0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPqdBWWiHyE
Of course, far from relaxing would be an actual analysis of the amazing structure of Bach's music... including the awe-inspiring "crab canon" which is constructed of the same music played forward, backward, and interwoven in a manner virtually beyond comprehension:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IN_FyhmY8U
:eek:
The B-A-C-H theme that was made famous in the classic science popular work Escher, Godel and Bach (I might have the order wrong), did that refer to the Musical Offering of the Art of Fugue?
In the German system of key spellings, the lettering runs from A through H, rather than A through G. Our B-flat is the German B, and B is denoted H. This allows one to spell the name B-A-C-H on the keys, thus:
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Bach himself was well aware of this, and used it in the final, unfinished contrapunctus of The Art of the Fugue.
The theme of the Musical Offering came about as follows:
The Musical Offering (German title Musikalisches Opfer or Das Musikalische Opfer), BWV 1079, is a collection of canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, all based on a single musical theme given to him by Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great), to whom they are dedicated. The Ricercar, a six-voice fugue which is the highpoint of the entire work, was put forward by the musicologist Charles Rosen as the most significant piano composition in history. This Ricercar is also occasionally called the Prussian Fugue, a name used by Bach himself.
The collection has its roots in a meeting between Bach and Frederick II on May 7, 1747. The meeting, taking place at the King's residence in Potsdam, came about because Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel was employed there as court musician. Frederick wanted to show the elder Bach a novelty, the piano, which had been invented some years earlier. The King owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Gottfried Silbermann. During his anticipated visit to Frederick's palace in Potsdam, Bach, who was well known for his skill at improvising, received from Frederick a long and complex musical theme on which to improvise a three-voice fugue. He did so, but Frederick then challenged him to improvise a six-voice fugue on the same theme. The public present thought that just a malicious caprice by the King, intent upon humiliating philosophers and artists. Bach answered that he would need to work the score and send it to the King afterwards. He then returned to Leipzig to write out the Thema Regium ("theme of the king").
Two months after the meeting, Bach published a set of pieces based on this theme which we now know as The Musical Offering. Bach inscribed the piece "Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta" (the theme given by the king, with additions, resolved in the canonic style), the first letters of which spell out the word ricercar, a well-known genre of the time.
The "thema regium" appears as the theme for the first and last movements of the 7th Sonata in D Minor by Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, written in about 1788, and also as the theme for elaborate variations by Giovanni Paisiello in his "Les Adieux de la Grande Duchesse ds Russies," written in about 1784, upon his departure from the court of Catherine the Great.
Humphrey F. Sassoon has compared the theme issued by Frederick II to the theme of an A minor fugue (HWV 609) by George Frideric Handel, published in Six fugues or voluntarys for organ or harpsichord. Sassoon notes that "Handel's theme is much shorter than the King's, but its musical 'architecture' is uncannily similar: jumps followed by a descending chromatic scale." He also elaborates on their additional similarities, which lead Sassoon to suggest that Bach used Handel's A minor fugue as a structural model or guide for the Musical Offering's Ricercar a 6, and that its musical concepts may also have influenced Bach's development of the Ricercar. Nevertheless, the Ricercar is longer and incomparably more complex than Handel's fugue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Musical_Offering
I agree with Stlukes. It is either the monk fellows or Bach for me as the bottom line. At this moment the monks are winning, but Bach is never far behind.
I have a couple of Benedictine recordings on CD and saved to my PC, but there is so much beautiful stuff out there on the likes of You Tube, that you can come across so many restful pieces all the time. Take this one almost at random:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ela-Z7HqqS8
I can all but see myself hoeing the veg patch and changing the candles for my more devoted brethren. It I wasn't directed to be an atheist by my own mind then this sort of stuff would instantly have me converted to the Catholic faith...
I think if I did believe in past lives, which I don't, then I think I would have been a monk in one of them at least.
Green beans anyone?
Edit: also this stuff has directly made me much happier and saner over the last couple of weeks. I think it has helped to rescue me somewhat actually, so thanks!
Ironically, one of my girlfriends from college used to tell me that she could easily imagine me as a medieval monk. In part this was due to my love of the "classics" in art, music and literature. In part this was due to the nature of my own artwork which built, in many ways, upon Baroque, Renaissance, and pre-Renaissance elements. I many ways this was due to my nature as a bibliophile... nay bibliomaniac... who was never to be seen without a stack of books... including several journals and sketchbooks in which I was forever scrawling obsessively. "Not to worry," she would assure me, "I don't think of you as the lonely, celebate, monk cloistered away in some dank, dark monastery." Rather, she declared, I reminded her of the sort of Friar Tuck type: brawling, wenching, and drinking (only the best Trappist Ale I should hope) while holding a book in one hand or reciting poetry ala José Ferrer's Cyrano de Bergerac.:cheers2::smash::ladysman: That's an image I could live with.
As for Gregorian (and other forms of chant) as well as Bach. I currently had 3 more volumes of Bach's cantatas performed by John Eliot Gardiner, the English Baroque Soloists, the Monteverdi Choir and soloists arrive in the mail. I'm slowly working toward the complete set. I also put in an order for this:
http://www.amazon.com/Sequentia-Hild...2372322&sr=8-1
8 discs of the music of Hildegard of Bingen (plainchant and other musical forms) by Sequentia, an excellent group of "early music" specialists. The set includes two discs I already have... but for the price of a single new pop album, I get 8 wonderfully atmospheric and calming discs of the divine Hildegard. I also (madly) sent away for 3 more discs of Bach's Art of Fugue. I have 4 or 5 versions already, but I was absolutely blown away hearing Jordi Savall's on Spotify:
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At the same time I had to pick up Helmut Walcha's classic version on organ...
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...which was the first recording of Art of Fugue I knew. I used to sit in the basement with the lights all off and listen to this hypnotic music over and over until I could almost grasp the mathematical structure like a Gothic Cathedral, and understand the medieval concept of the "music of the spheres".
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The last version I purchased on a whim. Not only were the reviews good... but I was fascinated with the unique instrumentation: Oboe, clarinet, alto clarinet, saxophone, and bassoon.
Here's another piece from the period that sought to break free from the straight laced constraints of classicism and reach beyond to the heroic.
http://youtu.be/p_TFvoSnx88
"The World is a book
and those who do not travel
read only one page."
-St. Augustine of Hippo 5th c.
The conductor whose efforts I have been listening to the most recently is surely Jordi Savall. Savall is known for his performances of "early music": the Baroque and earlier... much of it "forgotten" to the mainstream "classical" repertoire. He is also a leading figure in exploring music which crosses the boundaries of East and West.
Jordi Savall's The Road to the Orient, released in 2006, presented a musical portrait of Francisco Javier and his remarkable trip from Spain to Japan. During his own travels for research and preparation for this new set, Savall met a group of talented Japanese musicians who soon became friends and with whom he performed in many concerts around the world. Repackaged following the catastrophes in Japan, Savall's Hispania & Japan: Dialogues is a specially priced album that features the most significant pieces from the musical dialogue between Spain and Japan. Alia Vox's deluxe packaging includes the usual comprehensive, richly illustrated and highly informative hardcover book plus a special bonus a miniature fold-out Japanese screen replica depicting the arrival of the first Europeans in Japan. Alia Vox is donating all profits from the sale of this set to the Japanese Red Cross.
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Francisco Javier (Xavier) was born in 1506 in the Kingdom of Navarre. He was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary and a co-founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). He studied under St. Ignatius of Loyola and led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time. He was influential in the spreading and upkeep of Catholicism most notably in India, Japan, and Borneo. Javier was known for singing psalms, much to the fascination of the native people, as he strode about through the islands of Japan. People traveled far to see the distinguished Jesuit. In 1605, some 50 years after Javier's death, a publisher in Nagasaki brought out an edition of Javier's psalms and other religious songs in a text entitled, Manuale ad Sacramenta. These 19 songs, including the Gloriosa Domina represent the first influx of Western music in Japan. While Christianity was officially banned in Japan in 1613, its practice (and the music) continued clandestinely in certain island communities near Nagasaki.
The music here presents the interweaving's of Eastern and Western traditions. The disc as a whole is held together by a series of improvisations upon the Shakuhachi flute of the well-known Gregorian Chant, Gloriosa Domina. The disc as a whole conveys a marriage of the spiritual musical traditions of the east and the West.
I'm listening to the final songs of Schubert, his Schwanengesang cycle. It was brought to my attention by this NPR article:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptiveca...t?ft=1&f=10003
And this recording (cited in the article) is available on Spotify! Need to listen to it when I'm not at work, but so far it sounds as beautiful as Winterreise.
A luminous performance from a Russian orchestra of a very German work.
http://youtu.be/LHmb5CT11EY
Thanks for sharing! That was a pleasure to listen to in the midst of my hectic morning here at the office.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
I love Schubert's song cycles. I've been listening to Winterreise on repeat for a while now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7-jtRKl94Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisvia
Schubert's songs are so beautifully done! I recently bought his Goethe-Lieder:Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
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This is a great disc... but then again, did Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau make many duds?Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisvia
I'm intrigued to see a certain degree of fondness for the German lied here... and I am a a great lover of such myself. I wonder, however, about who shares a similar like for French melodies?:confused:
I've been listening to a broad array of music over the last day and an half.
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Handel's Esther is an absolutely marvelous oratorio written to be performed under more intimate conditions than many of the composer's oratorios. As a result, Handel employed various chamber-like groupings of instruments in a manner not unlike that employed by Bach in many of his cantatas. The use of the delicate harp in the aria "Praise the Lord with Cheerful Noise" is especially delicious, but the work as a whole is laden with beautiful arias and choruses. The performance by The Sixteen with Harry Christophers is brilliant as always.
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After having been introduced to Hoffmeister by member of a music site that I frequent I checked him out on Spotify and was immediately enthralled by what I heard. As a result I placed an immediate order for this disc. While waiting for it to arrive in the mail I ended up listening to it twice on Spotify. Sunday I listened again... this time to the actual disc. These clarinet quartets are absolutely delightful... delicious... worthy of being placed along-side Mozart. Highly Recommended!
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I've always had a special love of the clarinet. The instrument conveys a sensuality reminiscent of chocolate, and considering what many composers have achieved with the instrument (Mozart, Brahms, Weber, Berg, Schumann, Copland, Stammitz, etc...) I am not alone in my love for this instrument. Indeed, while I am not a huge chamber-music buff, I do tend to be on the lookout for chamber works employing the clarinet. This collection of clarinet works by modern composers (Astor Piazolla, John Harbison, Gunter Schuller, Evan Ziporyn, etc...) is a lovely collection of chamber works featuring the clarinet. As in most instances, my response to chamber music is something that slowly evolves... something that demands several hearings. What I have heard surely suggests that the effort will be worth it.
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I have been exploring The Art of the Fugue through several different recordings and in several different incarnations recently. This recording, by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX may just be my favorite. As Bach composed the work without specifying a specific instrumentation or orchestration some critics have suggested the work was never even intended for performance, but solely as abstract theory to be experienced only through the score. Savall fully rejects this notion and elects to employ an instrumentation using viola da gamba and wind instruments in the manner of a number of other contrapuntal compositions of the Baroque, including works by Purcell, Orlando Gibbons, and William Byrd. The resulting work captures a liveliness without losing the sense of the internal structure. Again, Highly Recommended.
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I gave this one a spin again. Weigl was a leading figure in the Viennese symphonic tradition following Mahler, Bruckner, etc... While close with Schoenberg, who spoke kindly of him, Weigl continued to explore the symphony within traditional tonality. The "Apocalyptic" Symphony begins with the structure growing slowly out of a cacophonous wall of chaos. The symphony evolves very much within the German symphonic tradition yet brings a unique voice that is very much worth exploration.
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This is one of the most impressive discs I have come across recently. I have a number of other recordings of music by Michael Daugherty and greatly enjoyed them all, but put off buying this disc because of doubts about the very idea of a symphony in homage to Superman. I now wish I had bought this disc as soon as I came across it... especially considering all the positive critical response it had garnered. The work is truly spectacular. I would heartily recommend it to anyone interested in exploring contemporary music within the "classical" tradition, yet turned off by a lot of the more atonal and avant garde strains of such music. This music is at one modern and accessible... indeed... dare I say it? It is actually "fun".
The central composition, the Metropolitan Symphony is not actually a traditional "symphony" but rather a suite of orchestral movements in homage of Superman and the ambiguities, paradoxes, and energies of this American myth.
The opening movement, entitled "Lex" employs police whistle, suggestive of the usual comic-book police chases involving Superman's arch-rival, Lex Luther. The music is sheer energy suggestive of the chase through the crowded city streets of Metropolis.
"Kryton" employs a dark churning glissandi and firebells creating a tonal painting of the apocalyptic last days of Kryton, the planet of Superman's birth.
"MXYZPTLK" is the mischievous imp from the 5th dimension that wreaks havoc throughout Metropolis. This movement is the scherzo of the work, bright and playful.
"Oh, Lois!" is composed with a tempo marked "faster than a speeding bullet". This rapid movement laden with various percussive elements suggests the rapid motion scenes of chases, screams, crashes, etc... of the comic-book tradition.
"Red Cape tango" the final movement of the symphony, is the most fascinating. Daugherty employs a dark tango to evoke the red-caped superhero's fight to the death with Doomsday as something akin to a death tango in the bullfight ring. The movement employs the melody of the same Dies Irae employed by Berlioz in his Symphonie Fantastique. The effect is quite fitting, as the work, according to the music critic of the London Times, is surely a worthy Symphonie Fantastique of our times.
I absolutely loved this piece... yet in all honesty I found the second work, Deus Ex Machina, a three-movement suite for piano and orchestra no less enthralling. Deus Ex Machina or God in the Machine explores the great trains of the past. The first movement... laden with elements of atonality and cubistic fracture... was inspired by the Futurist triptych, States of Mind by Umberto Boccioni. The second movement, Train of Tears, alludes to the "lonesome train on a lonesome track" with "seven coaches painted black" that carried Lincoln to his home for burial after his assassination. The beautiful comber movement is repeatedly pierced by the sound of the "Taps". The final movement... apocalyptic and elegiac... speaks of the final days of the great steam trains as captured in a series of photographs by O. Winston Link.
I'll have to check out the Superman CD. I'm a huge comic book geek, so it seems a wonderful fit. I have to geek-out and correct you on something, though, Stlukes (I must take any opportunity to show you up, no matter how trivial, after all), but Supe's planet is "Krypton," not "Kryton." :lol: I like how they use the villain of MXYZPTLK for one of the songs since he's one of the more obscure baddies. I guess he's the only one who could fit the happy tune.
Recently, I've been listening to a lot of this:
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I find Vivaldi is the best, bar none, listening to help write a paper. The soothing and relaxing music is so conducive to productivity. I wouldn't listen to it in the car or anything, but this may have been the most useful musical purchase I've ever made. I owe many a paragraph to it.
(Hereby erasing a pointless reply.)
Ack!!! How did I perpetuate the typo "Kryton" for "Krypton" more than once? And here I am toying with employing Superman, Batman, etc... into my paintings as a sort of Modern American mythology. I must hang my head in shame.
:lol: Please, don't let your small faux pas keep you from doing that, because it sounds pretty badass.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
You might be the new Roy Lichtenstein.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
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Since we're sort of on the subject of comic book characters, I've always loved the theme for the 1990s cartoon, Batman: The Animated Series. It's just a wonderful little piece by Danny Elfman that really nails the tones of Batman. It's also a great show--it may be good for some inspiration, StLukes--it has a very noir feel. I still watch it regularly.
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One of the most sparkling piano pieces ever written.
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In response to stlukes call for French mélodies interest, I've been listening to Berlioz's <<Les nuits d'été >>:
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And Duparc's chansons:
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I've also been listening to random selections from Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Though I do enjoy the German lieder, especially Schubert's Goethe-lieder, my tastes tend more toward the French art songs.