I imagine that for some people it was and for others it wasn't. I wouldn't know because I wasn't there. I don't see the relevance of your question within the context of this thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
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I imagine that for some people it was and for others it wasn't. I wouldn't know because I wasn't there. I don't see the relevance of your question within the context of this thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
As opposed to the relevance of this post?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
When it comes to non-Mozartian Classical period music, my favourite is probably G.B Viotti - who I discovered fairly recently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJpgs7RhCHs
He reminds me of Hayden if Hayden has a bit more vitality in him - I find Hayden excellent background music, and very pleasant, but I can rarely sit and listen to a Hayden symphony.
Luigi Cherubini's Requiem in c is also a great work from the Classical period.
The post was in reply to one submitted by stlukes but I'll make it easier for you as you appear to have missed the point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
I don't see the relevance of your question within the context of this discussion.
I accept your apology, Emil.
There's a good boy but you still haven't answered the question:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
What is the relevance of your question within the context of this discussion?
There's no reason for me to answer that. You screwed up with your first question. No do overs. Since the discussion had no relevance to the thread, I hardly see why I need to justify the relevance of a comment made pertaining to an already irrelevant topic.
OK... returning again from our digressions to the subject at hand:
Flash Mobs and Classical music are quite fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrEk06XXaAw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotat...w9_S4PNV0#t=2s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAXAs...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRKKmY5yCv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBaHPND2QJg
These surely do much to undermine the notion that "classical music" is not for everybody.
Currently I've been listening to some of the most outrageously daring baroque music... composers who were far ahead of Schoenberg when it came to employing dissonance for expressive purposes:
Jean-Féry Rebel (1666~1747):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnlaCenlNHk
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644~1704):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9DJpaxT7wg
Wait until you get to the second movement... absolutely mind-blowing for the time!:yikes:
Those flash mobs are pretty cool. I think the dancing ones, while kind of neat, are pretty dumb and nothing more than a novelty act. I wouldn't stop and watch them, that's for sure. I think it can be easily argued that the people doing these classical music flash mobs are really doing a public service, exposing those to a bit of high sculpture and music they wouldn't otherwise be exposed to. Who knows, maybe someone sees one of those and the seeds for a love of classical music are planted. I know I'd be pretty stoked to see one of those. Symphony ticket prices are outrageous, after all.
:lol: I really love this forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
Wonderful piece! A cinematic battle scene complete with soldiers drinking before the fight, a tense march, the dramatic conflict, and the mournful aftermath.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Though the second movement (in which several drinking songs are played simultaneously, ending in cacophony) predates the layered thematic experiments of Ives by 250 years, it's only a theatrical device. Biber's real innovations here are in string techniques: the players must strike the strings with the wood of the bow, snap them against the fingerboard, and weave paper between them to simulate martial drumming during the march movement.
Don't forget Biber's use of special tuning... including crossing strings... as employed in his great Rosary (Mystery) Sonatas.
I agree, by the way, that Biber's layering of tunes... which results in a sort of chaotic dissonance... is largely a theatrical device... but I would suggest that this was the great value of dissonance whether employed by Biber, Gesualdo, Mozart, or others. I am reminded of the critic who suggested that the failure of Abstract Art wasn't the abandonment of illusion, but rather the abandonment of expressive distortion. That, in a way, strikes me as the failure of Schoenberg and his followers: the loss of the expressive possibilities of dissonance within the larger context of a tonal work.
Granted, the outrageously daring composers of the last century sound a lot different than the ones of Biber's day. It's all good.
I went to see the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday, the theme of the night was Latin American composers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vwZAkfLKK8
I just came across Arturo Marquez' Danzón Nº 2 on the classical radio here perhaps a month ago. I will certainly be saving that video... and perhaps picking up Dudamel's DG disc:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Flawless performance of a great solo piano piece.
http://youtu.be/jPlte-4OTMw
I am somewhat burned-out on Romanticism... or rather I should say I have been investing far more effort recently in exploring the music of other periods. At the present I have been digging deep into the Baroque era violin works which predate Bach's violin concertos and his brilliant Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.
Among the composers I am listening to are Johann Paul Westhoff
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Johann Jakob Walther:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
the brilliant Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Giuseppe Tartini:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Arcangelo Corelli:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Antonio Pandolfi:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Jean-Fery Rebel:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Jean Marie Leclair:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Francesco Veracini:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
On the other hand... I have picked up a couple of Romantic era recordings lately. Liszt is a composer I have too long ignored. I just got this one today:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Can't ask for a better combination for the Romantic music of Liszt than Richter and Kondrashin.
Then I was introduced to Richard Wetz recently and listened to the 3rd Symphony on Spotify. The third symphony is truly marvelous and powerful. As a Romantic era fan you should certainly check him out, Emil.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3QEEDa2WII
Wetz is a composer where form is more noticeable than content and I agree with the reference to Bruckner in the Youtube comment section. I don't think it would appeal to many listeners except perhaps those who have a particular liking for Bruckner.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Wetz is a composer where form is more noticeable than content and I agree with the reference to Bruckner in the Youtube comment section. I don't think it would appeal to many listeners except perhaps those who have a particular liking for Bruckner.
To a great extent the same can be said of Brahms. Bruckner, for all his aspirations and admiration of Wagner, was (like Brahms) tethered to the structural form of early Romanticism/late Classicism... in a word: Beethoven. To a great extent the same is true of the arch-Modernist, Arnold Schoenberg. For all his Romantic Wagnerian credentials, Schoenberg's developments owe far more to the formal structures of Brahms' chamber works. Perhaps that is why I prefer Berg of all the Second Viennese School. He is far more lyrical and one could imagine him evolving along the lines of something between Debussy and Richard Strauss has Schoenberg not gotten hold of him.
Brahms acknowledged his debt to Beethoven but I doubt that he would have had much time for Bruckner even though he also used massive orchestral forces.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
It would be difficult to to imagine Bruckner producing anything as thrilling as this for example.
http://youtu.be/yb6qkZY6TLU
The Sao Paulo SO are killing the Albert Hall tonight.
Nope, I have just been listening to the London Symphony Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky's 'Manfred' Symphonic poem conducted by Jurowski. It received tumultuous applause.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
Actually the Sao Paulo SO performed at the proms 3 days ago under Maris Jansons, the main work being the New world Symphony by Dvorak.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
I take it you're not a Brucknerian, Emil. He was a composer I discovered on my own... in the classic Eugen Jochum recordings:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
I will admit that as a composer he is very dense... and I think the same is true of Brahms. I really struggled with his symphonies until I heard John Eliot Gardiner's recordings which are far more "transparent".
Bruckner lacks the lyricism (and neurotic angst) of Mahler, the absolute mastery of orchestration and orchestral "colors" of Richard Strauss, or the insane and emotionally overwhelming genius of Richard Wagner... and certainly he cannot rival Brahms' breadth and depth... especially his chamber music and choral works... but he surely makes a 5th among these great late Romantics... every bit the equal to Sibelius or Grieg.
Herbert von Karajan makes this quite clear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CEiZ7DTVZ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkfjG...feature=relmfu
I think Bruckner at times rivals Mahler, at least when you compare their symphonies. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with any of Bruckner's other works beyond the symphonies. At their best, Mahler is better, but it is very hard to compete with Mahler's 2nd and 3rd symphonies.
Bruckner's symphonies have sometimes been likened to gothic cathedrals as the structure is their most noticeable feature and it's on this point that I'm reminded of Sir Thomas Beecham's amusing comment that Elgar's 1st symphony was the musical equivalent of St Pancras Station.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9...srailwayst.jpg
Really, the only important works that Bruckner composed beyond the symphonies were his choral works which are probably best represented in the classic recordings by Eugen Jochum (Perhaps THE great Brucknerian):
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
... or in the marvelous recent set on Hyperion:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
Of course, in his limitations Bruckner is rather similar to Mahler whose only works were symphonies... and song cycles that in most cases are not far removed from his symphonies. In my opinion, Mahler's masterpiece was Das Lied von der Erde.
It's because of Brahms greater breadth and his mastery in such a variety of forms (symphonies, choral works, chamber music, lieder, music for solo instrument, concertos, etc...) that I would give him the nod as the greater composer... although I think Richard Strauss' reputation will only continue to increase due to his mastery of orchestral music (the tone-poems and Alpine Symphony), the operas (a number of which are among the most frequently performed) and his wealth of lieder that goes well beyond the brilliant Four Last Songs.
Bruckner's symphonies have sometimes been likened to gothic cathedrals as the structure is their most noticeable feature...
Bach's music has also frequently been compared to the Gothic cathedrals.
...and it's on this point that I'm reminded of Sir Thomas Beecham's amusing comment that Elgar's 1st symphony was the musical equivalent of St Pancras Station.
It could be worse... Schoenberg's work too often strikes me as the musical equivalent of the Brutalist concrete bunkers of Moshe Safdie for the Montreal Expo:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...io/th_220a.jpg
Well Goethe likened architecture to frozen music, but in this day and age both music and architecture have, unfortunately, very different meanings to when he made the comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Just a little find. If anyone wants to listen to a large selection of classical radio online, then you can download (for free) itunes. From here you can select from a fairly large body of radio stations in classical, jazz, blues and pretty much everything else really. In the classical section you can listen to things like the Mozart/Baroque/Opera/channel and things like that. Not bad at all.
Currently listening to the Mozart piano channel!
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...sL._SS400_.jpg
This disc, featuring Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica includes music by Sibelius, Arvo Pärt, Raminta Šerkšnyté, Robert Schumann, Michael Nyman, Franz Schubert, Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer, Shostakovitch, Lera Auerbach, Piazzolla, Georgs Pelecis, and Alfred Schnittke. Kremer illuminates the thoughts behind the musical selection with the following (from the liner notes):
"Out of the depths I cry to you." Countless poets and musicians have used these timeless words from Psalm 130. I feel they are especially urgent in our time, when the world is afflicted with greed, corruption, and false prophets...
In today's world, oil is ... used to sustain tyrannical regimes, be it in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Myanmar, or Russia. Despite painting themselves as advocates of democracy, their rulers engage in Soviet-style suppression of free speech, the show trials, and presumption of guilt. In these Orwellian states everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. Drunk on oil, the worshipers of the golden calf seek to silence the opposition and build wall between peoples and states. Contrary to that, we, the worshipers of Art, believe it is our duty to build bridges and to stand up in support of those who are trying to build a more democratic society, those who are fighting for transparency and truth. Therefore, I would like to dedicate De Profundis to all those who refuse to be silenced, who understand that the real freedom is within us.
Yet my intention is not to make De Profundis a political statement, for politics represents only the surface of things, while the artists featured on this record affirm a deep-rooted personal expression that can resonate with anyone. For music, unlike authoritarian rulers, speaks with an outstretched hand, not with a clenched fist...
So, "out of the depths", these artists cry out for a better world, one that is not dominated by the superficiality of sales figures, ratings, self-promotion, and "small talk."...
Each of the twelve pieces selected for this album sends its own individual message to the listener... one that my colleagues and I have tried to illuminate. Now it is up to you, dear listener, to fuel your soul.
I spent yesterday afternoon with a pair of 2-disc sets:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...mL._SS400_.jpg
This set features a number of Boccherini's symphonies, including "La casa del Diavolo"; the Stabat Mater, and the Quintet G. 328. The symphonies are all quite nice... but the Stabat Mater and the quintet are something truly special. The Stabat Mater is scored for a small chamber orchestra and solo vocalist. The work is quite beautiful... and uniquely intimate in comparison with Rossini's or Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. The quintet is equally striking... enough to motivate me to explore more of Boccherini's chamber works.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...cL._SS400_.jpg
I have a good number of recordings by Yehudi Menuhin including the Bach violin concertos... but I just picked this set up for next to nothing... and it is worth far more than what I paid. Menuhin was still a teenager when he recorded this set... and yet they are played with such assurance and feeling. An excellent addition to Kremer, Szeryng, Grumiaux, and Milstein. The only other recordings I can imagine wanting are those of Heifitz and Rachel Podger. But not now.
*****
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...oL._SS400_.jpg
This interpretation of the Stabat Mater is a world away from that by Boccherini which I played yesterday. Boccherini's work is deeply personal... intimate... heartfelt... scored for a solo vocalist (soprano) and small chamber ensemble. Rossini's Stabat Mater is clearly operatic... but what else would one expect of Rossini? Writing on his Petit messe solennelle, Rossini pondered, "Dear God, here it is finished, this poor little mass. Is this sacred music which I have written... or music of the Devil. I was born for opera buffa as you know..." Rossini might just as well have been speaking of the Stabat Mater. I am immediately struck at how "operatic" the second movement is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu_hkisDbMQ
The piece is fabulous... but seemingly suggests a swaggering character laden with braggadocio from an opera by Rossini (or Verdi). But the lyrics?
Her soul sighing
anguished and grieving
was pierced by a sword.
O, how sad and afflicted
was that blessed mother
of the Only-begotten,
who mourned and grieved
and trembled when she saw
the sufferings of her glorious son.
A bit of a disconnect between the music and the text? :lol:
Crackin' bit of Mahler on Tonight. BBC 4
A proper conductor that.
Can anyone recommend pieces that are in the same vein as the first movement of Nielsen's 5th symphony? I've been listening to this lately, over and over, and I can't get enough of this beautiful structure. I'm sure I'll be asked to better articulate what I mean by "the same vein"; but I can do no better than to say: any other piece that comes to mind when you listen to this movement of Nielsen's symphony.
Thanks!
It was a day for "light"... melody-laden opera/operettas:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...7L._SS400_.jpg
Richard Tauber was a singer of incredible natural fluidity... perfectly suited for Viennese operettas... which is what he was most known for. I have the marvelous Dutton recording of his songs/arias from Lehár. This disc featured less well-known composers of Viennese operettas (beyond Strauss, Lehár, Flotow, and Lortzing) including Oscar Straus, Robert Stolz, Emmerich Kalman, Paul Abraham, and Jaromir Weinberger.
*****
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...KL._SS400_.jpg
I played this... in the Jeffrey Tate recording... last night...
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
...and was so blown away I had to play it again. I've actually owned Karajan's recording of Hänsel und Gretel for at least 5+ years... but for whatever reason never got around to listening to it. A huge loss on my part. For an opera often described as a folk opera/fairy-tale opera/children's opera, Hänsel und Gretel could not boast of a greater pedigree. The tale upon which the opera was based was first collected and given serious literary consideration by the Brothers Grimm. The tale was related to the brothers by a certain young girl by the name of Dörtchen Wild... who would become Mrs. Wilhelm Grimm.
Engelbert Humperdinck was a precocious protégé of Richard Wagner who had spent time at the "master's" side dutifully copying Parsifal. It was his sister, Adelheid Wette, who requested that Humperdinck set to music her children's play of Hänsel und Gretel. She was so delighted with the result, that she insisted her brother expand his efforts... and compose an entire opera. Humperdinck was not immediately thrilled with the request... after all, as a sworn Wagnerian, he took a lofty view of the operatic calling. What would Wagner think!? And what chance did such an undertaking have in competition with those upstart Italian operas with all their sex and violence passed off as social commentary?
Humperdinck's sister prevailed... luckily for us... and the opera was composed and set for production at the same theater in Weimar where Wagner's Lohengrin had premiered. The Kapellmeister who accepted the opera was none other than Richard Strauss. Sensing the importance of the event, Strauss engaged the distinguished conductor of the Munich Opera, Hermann Levi (Wagner's favorite) to conduct the premier. When the singer employed to perform Gretel took ill, the premier was postponed for a week... and Levi was no longer available... so Strauss conducted the opera himself.
Hänsel und Gretel is almost a magical achievement in its seeming simplicity... its child-like joy... its folk-like melodies... and its spontaneity... in spite of the sophistication of the work: the mature, adult sub-texts, the sensuality and complexity of the orchestration... built heavily upon Wagner's Lohengrin and Parsifal with its spiritually uplifting moments of grace and benediction. Even the melodies that resonate with the honest simplicity of true folk music are largely Humperdinck's originals... masterful pastiches.
The work not only impressed Richard Strauss, it proved a smash hit. In London crowds flocked to Daily's Theater for the biggest show of the Christmas season, 1884. Gustav Mahler, then head of the Hamburg Opera, proclaimed Hänsel und Gretel to be a "masterpiece". Hänsel und Gretel holds the distinction of having been the first opera performed in its entirety on the radio in Europe (on the BBC) in 1923, and in the United States in 1931. In spite of the popularity of the work, for whatever reason it was never recorded before WWII... and after the war there was some hesitation in performing a piece in which the Witch puts children in an oven coming fresh upon the memories of Auschwitz.
Thus this performance by Herbert von Karajan, recorded in 1953, became the first recorded version of Hänsel und Gretel... and arguably the best. Karajan, in many ways, was ideally suited to the task... his great-grandfather, Theodor von Karajan had been a close friend of the Brothers Grimm. The cast was ideal... including Elisabeth Grümmer, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Joseph Metternich. In spite of Karajan's reputation as a task-master and perfectionist, he avoided spending much time in rehearsals, responding and delighting in the opera's spontaneous nature. The overture comes from the test run-through during which Karajan kept the tape recorder running having learned this tip from Thomas Beecham.
The entire experience can only be described as "delicious".:)
Interestingly enough... there was one sour note to it all. Following the release of this recording, Wieland Wagner sent a letter to the producer Walter Legge exclaiming dismay that his old friend could have been involved in recording such a "mediocre, second rate" opera... and employing such masterful performers and performing it so well. Karajan and Legge both laughed off the comment and accepted it as the finest endorsement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNyy0CqnjVU
*****
Following on the heels of Hänsel und Gretel seemed difficult. Surely any "heavy" or "serious" work would come of as leaden and pretentious in contrast. Thus I continued in the same vein... listening to the second operetta of this disc... the classic, Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) by Franz Lehár. There are two other fine recordings of this opera that I have... the famous version conducted by Lovro Von Maticic, and the relatively recent performance by John Eliot Gardiner. This recording, conducted by Otto Ackermann, was part of a series of recordings made by EMI after the war of classic German operettas. Many employ the same singers... as did the later Von Maticic performance. All of them are truly special.
Ackermann's Die lustige Witwe... indeed of all of his operetta recordings... are special in that he and his magnificent crew of singers... Elisabeth Schwarzkopgf, Nicolai Gedda, Erich Kunz, Emmy Loose, and Otakar Kraus... grew up with and loved this music... and after the horrors of the war it undoubtedly represented the best of a German/Austrian culture tainted by the Nazis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iay2uyHKOE0
Philip Glass studied in Paris for two years with Nadia Boulanger and the French influence in this piece is unmistakable.
http://youtu.be/iB0sXWwH_eA
Emile!!! What has gotten into you?! You're actually listening to a living composer???!!!:yikes:
I have posted some of his music on previous occasions although I am not particularly enamoured of his contemporaries. Glass is interesting because he makes a little go a long way. The other 'minimalists' seem to lack the melodic invention that I find indispensable to my enjoyment of music.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Itzhak Perlman was in The Colbert Report the other night. I'm ashamed to admit it, but this was the first time I've seen him perform, and I was pretty wowed. I like how Stephen Colbert exposes his viewers to stuff like this every now and then, too.
The interview:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...itzhak-perlman
Performance 1:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...--liebesfreud-
Performance 2:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...spanish-dance-