Classical Listening

I've been all over the classical spectrum over the last couple of days: Mozart's piano concertos 13, 14, 15, 16, Mozart's violin concertos 3-5 by Andrew Manze, Richard Strauss' Burleske, Tod und Verklarung, and Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier by Reiner, Bach Cantatas by Rilling, Beethoven's Christ on the Mt. of Olives also by Rilling... and right now its Domingo, Dessay, Voigt and some "great bleeding chunks" by Richard Wagner... whose 200th birthday May 22 was certainly of far greater importance than the 100th of the Rite... although I still love the Rite.

As for Emil's hatred for the Rolling Stones... he must have been a Beatles man.:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neely

Time to raise the stakes in this desperate hour.

Back to work on Monday. The misery is already upon me, though I am being brave, a bit like Jesus at the last supper...stoically accepting his fate, as he clasps his wine filled goblet with white knuckles...ha, ha.

And here's some classic Woody Allen on the theme for Emil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCNZfdTezo

I love the bit a 2.28 where she goes off track - see this the funny Allen stuff Emil refuses to watch, ha, ha.

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Hang on for another month or so and you will be into the long break.
Was that Michael Caine I spotted in that clip? I don't know who was the most desperate, he for acting (?) in the film or Woody Allen for signing him up.
In any case, self-conscious smart arse American humour (?) is just embarrassing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I've been all over the classical spectrum over the last couple of days: Mozart's piano concertos 13, 14, 15, 16, Mozart's violin concertos 3-5 by Andrew Manze, Richard Strauss' Burleske, Tod und Verklarung, and Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier by Reiner, Bach Cantatas by Rilling, Beethoven's Christ on the Mt. of Olives also by Rilling... and right now its Domingo, Dessay, Voigt and some "great bleeding chunks" by Richard Wagner... whose 200th birthday May 22 was certainly of far greater importance than the 100th of the Rite... although I still love the Rite.

As for Emil's hatred for the Rolling Stones... he must have been a Beatles man.:D

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Now, now, StLuke. Surely you must know that the classical spectrum doesn't consist entirely of Germanic music.
As for pop groups of every stripe, with the accent on 'tripe, hatred is too strong a sentiment to apply to their pathetic maundering, although I will admit to an amused contempt.

Now, now, StLuke. Surely you must know that the classical spectrum doesn't consist entirely of Germanic music.

It is open to some small debate as to whether the English language produced the greatest body of known literature in the West. There is really no debate considering classical music. The "Austro-Germanic Hegemony" absolutely dominates: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Haydn, Handel, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms... this group alone is as if the English literary canon could boast not only of Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer, but also Dante, Homer, Tolstoy, Montaigne, Cervantes, Baudelaire, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Virgil. My collection of Austro-Germanic composers outnumbers that of every other nation combined... including your beloved pop musicians.:D

Having said that... I quite love the French and Italians... followed by the Russians, the English (who actually do have some lovely music) and then all the rest. I've actually got Puccini lined up for today.

As for pop groups of every stripe, with the accent on 'tripe, hatred is too strong a sentiment to apply to their pathetic maundering, although I will admit to an amused contempt.

Aha! A Monkees man!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYNuU6Xtms

No, no I think he's into Beach Boys (that's a group Emil not an homo insult, ha, ha.)

Quote:

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Hang on for another month or so and you will be into the long break.

Was that Michael Caine I spotted in that clip? I don't know who was the most desperate, he for acting (?) in the film or Woody Allen for signing him up.
In any case, self-conscious smart arse American humour (?) is just embarrassing.

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Yes that's what I'm thinking, get through it for one more half-term and then six weeks off followed by a short half-term and then a week in Tenerife in October.

Yes it was Michael Caine, he's very good at playing the wooden square in that most loved of films. I doubt I will be listening to anything tonight, I'm going to smash one last glass of Cumberland Ale though for the road.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neely

No, no I think he's into Beach Boys (that's a group Emil not an homo insult, ha, ha.)



Yes that's what I'm thinking, get through it for one more half-term and then six weeks off followed by a short half-term and then a week in Tenerife in October.

Yes it was Michael Caine, he's very good at playing the wooden square in that most loved of films. I doubt I will be listening to anything tonight, I'm going to smash one last glass of Cumberland Ale though for the road.

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Now if you had said Beach Girls, my interest might have beeen aroused as long as they were not a caterwauling group of harpies.

Tenerife eh? I hope you're not planning on getting tattooed and earinged like the guy who recently fixed my computer before he jetted off to the Canary Islands which apparently are host to many a modern day neanderthal.

Michael Caine is to acting what pop groups are to music and it's no coincidence that both he and they are a product of the 1960s.Never has so much rubbish been sold by so few to so many.

Another half term? Accck! I can't even imagine such torture. I have just two more days with kids (Tomorrow and Tuesday) followed by the long Summer break which is virtually the only thing that still makes teaching bearable as the Educrats do more and more to destroy learning and the profession as a whole. I'll be thinking of you Thursday Neely... with my feet up in the studio and a cold British stout or Belgian ale in hand.

:cheers2:

Now if you had said Beach Girls, my interest might have beeen aroused as long as...

...they were all petite and submissive Asian girls with a penchant for Romantic piano concertos.:devil:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Now if you had said Beach Girls, my interest might have beeen aroused as long as...

...they were all petite and submissive Asian girls with a penchant for Romantic piano concertos.:devil:

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I've no idea what you are talking about, unless it's something like this:

http://youtu.be/PmaGcQyAKcM

Yes, got another seven weeks, well one of them almost done, 6.2 weeks left. Spent all this week knackered with headache.

Well we got a good deal with the Tenerife holiday, 4 star hotel all inclusive and this is the nearest beach.
http://www.spain-tenerife.com/UK/bea...del-duque.html
That's got to be better than Skegness!

Well it certainly looks OK but have you thought about the downside? No draught beer except for Fosters lager and no fish and chips. You could be wishing you were back in Skegness after a few days. I read that one of the natural interests on offer at your chosen resort is whale watching but you could do that in Skegness with all those blubbery bodies milling around the seafront.
Keeping this thread on track I paid a visit to Frederick Delius's grave in a Limpsfield churchyard yesterday because it was at the end of a 12 mile hike across what must be some of the most glorious countryside anywhere. Because of the extra long winter, everything that was held back, has now burst out into the most amazing mass of foliage and brilliant flowers along the way. Kent used to be described as the garden of England and in some respects it still is.
Thomas Beecham, Delius's champion, is also buried in the churchyard but I was too tired to search for his grave and had to sit under a yew tree with Delius's tombstone just a few feet away while I rested up for a while. Here's Beecham conducting the composer's most popular piece.

http://youtu.be/004hhSukj80

No imagination tonight, on my first weekend being back, with Vivaldi Four Seasons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIWaL8qqiqs
Some Bach Violin.

And then move on to some Bach piano, for the lads...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upyIvoWdNFQ

Friday night and we went out for Mexican (do they even have such in the UK?) including two large Margaritas. I wanted a couple of shots of Tequila on the side... but I gotta get up at 5 AM.:prrr:

Right now I'm sipping a tall straight vodka on the rocks with Cecilia:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...ZL._SY300_.jpg

Cecilia, you go girl!:cheers2:

5am and alcohol is a bad combination, but then again 5am without alcohol is still pretty bad. Yes me have Mexican but it tends to be thrown in with Mexican/Italian restaurant combined.

How about some Medieval music to start the morning off with a bang and wake up Stluke's?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUGYlGNhcRc

I quite fancy the flavour of Medieval music though I don't know anything much about it, I'll have to dig around. I can't listen to such music though without fancying a goblet of ale, meat and a lusty wench but it's far too early for any of that.

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Originally Posted by Neely

5am and alcohol is a bad combination, but then again 5am without alcohol is still pretty bad. Yes me have Mexican but it tends to be thrown in with Mexican/Italian restaurant combined.

How about some Medieval music to start the morning off with a bang and wake up Stluke's?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUGYlGNhcRc

I quite fancy the flavour of Medieval music though I don't know anything much about it, I'll have to dig around. I can't listen to such music though without fancying a goblet of ale, meat and a lusty wench but it's far too early for any of that.

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Well here's a classic that's not quite medieval but not far off.


http://youtu.be/bNtxIwsLYcw

:lol:

Great stuff Emil! Sounds like something from an episode of Heartbeat.

Had a little goblet of ale, and some meat, just something missing...? Oh, some violin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etB8MAjNaz0

Been stuck in the house all day today with the kids, so tomorrow I fancy taking the motor out for a spin. Maybe in the Red Lion in Linton, sat in the village green with a pint of ale and a book for company?

http://www.pubs.com/main_site/pub_de...hp?pub_id=1531

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neely

Great stuff Emil! Sounds like something from an episode of Heartbeat.

Had a little goblet of ale, and some meat, just something missing...? Oh, some violin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etB8MAjNaz0

Been stuck in the house all day today with the kids, so tomorrow I fancy taking the motor out for a spin. Maybe in the Red Lion in Linton, sat in the village green with a pint of ale and a book for company?

http://www.pubs.com/main_site/pub_de...hp?pub_id=1531

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Now when it comes the the violin, I prefer music to be somewhat sweeter than Bach, who is rather too dry for my taste, even though I was playing him on the piano earlier today. In this connection there's nothing sweeter than the divine Sarah playing Massenet's Meditation.

http://youtu.be/LasbhkKzfOo

It is time to fully embrace the bombastic nature of Beethoven!

I found my i-pod thing at the back of my sock drawer and shoved Beethoven's 9th on it from You Tube (I forgot you can get You Tube on it, great).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3217H8JppI

Go for it Sunny Jim.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neely

It is time to fully embrace the bombastic nature of Beethoven!

I found my i-pod thing at the back of my sock drawer and shoved Beethoven's 9th on it from You Tube (I forgot you can get You Tube on it, great).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3217H8JppI

Go for it Sunny Jim.

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Well if you will hang around with Bach and Mozart, it's not surprising that you find Beethoven's 9th symphony bombastic. It might have been better if you had listened to something like this: http://youtu.be/Bbje2CU9Ltw

If you're still not wholly into Beethoven, how about one of his greatest overtures. The photo was taken, as you can imagine, long ago in Vienna.


http://youtu.be/D3qbOTgEJOk


http://imageshack.us/a/img802/6451/9dkc.jpg

Currently listening to Jean-Philippe Rameau, one of the great composers of the Baroque, performed with such verve and muscularity by Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CwrOf50EL.jpg

Honestly, I love Romanticism every bit as much as Emil... but I just can't imagine limiting myself to a single musical era or genre. Before Rameau I was listening to the Rolling Stones... and even earlier today... while at the studio painting... I played Herbert von Karajan performing a selection of Romantic era ballet music... followed by Sonny Boy Williamson. Tomorrow I must give a new disc of Eleanor Steber singing Richard Strauss... recorded here in my hometown.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Honestly, I love Romanticism every bit as much as Emil... but I just can't imagine limiting myself to a single musical era or genre. Before Rameau I was listening to the Rolling Stones... and even earlier today... while at the studio painting... I played Herbert von Karajan performing a selection of Romantic era ballet music... followed by Sonny Boy Williamson. Tomorrow I must give a new disc of Eleanor Steber singing Richard Strauss... recorded here in my hometown.

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Strangely enough, the first music I fell for was Bach. It used to be played by the school orchestra, consisting of the teacher on piano accompanied by about a dozen nine-year-old boys on violins and recorders, and would drift into our classroom during boring lessons. Obviously it wasn't his more complicated music but the kind of thing I now play on the piano. Then when I was eleven, we were taken to a children's concert where the London Symphony Orchestra played, inter alia, Borodin's 'Polovtsian Dances' and I was overwhelmed by the power and melodic invention of the music. So while I find Bach and pre-romantic composers pleasing enough, they don't measure up to the far greater expressive capacity of the modern day symphony orchestra. Naturally, I didn't stay stuck in the romantic era and I have posted composers as varied as Shostakovich and Gershwin on this forum but for preference I always return to the romantics, from Beethoven to Richard Strauss, Rachmaninov and all the others in between.

As for genre, while I like popular music that has a melody, good lyrics and well modulated voices, I don't consider the grotesque and infantile noise that passes for music now worth listening to.

I have never heard of Sonny Boy Williamson but the name doesn't inspire confidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXDUN7flrY

...when I was eleven, we were taken to a children's concert where the London Symphony Orchestra played, inter alia, Borodin's 'Polovtsian Dances' and I was overwhelmed by the power and melodic invention of the music. So while I find Bach and pre-romantic composers pleasing enough, they don't measure up to the far greater expressive capacity of the modern day symphony orchestra.

:mad2:

Great photo Emil, amazing experience and I'm currently listening to that brilliant overture as I type and ponder my empty Cumberland glass (don't panic I have plenty more in the fridge, breathe out).

I can also relate to Stluke's suggestion about mixed genres though, as today I have been listening to Black Sabbath's new album with Ozzy!! Not bad. Bach, Beethoven and Black Sabbath!? For me I think maybe it is just a question of mood.

In terms of reading I have also been doing, lots of chess 1-2 hours a day (driving me insane), but also All Creatures Great and Small, Wordsworth and a little Milton. Post modernism in action or just mood music? I don't know.

I just enjoy going where the mood takes me. For example I have not listened to the Beatles for months and months but when I did I was playing it for hours a day. I just think I have an addictive personality that milks enjoyment while it is there.

Anyway, the Jean-Philippe Rameau stuff is fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zegtH-acXE

I shared the above brilliant piece with a friend and made him show it when he covered a French lesson and he made them watch it over and over; the council estate kids must have though what the .....:eek:

In terms of classical music though, or music at its most serious, I tend to return to either Mozart or Bach and usually the same pieces as previously posted over and over. Bach and Gould for example can often throw out everything else. And Mozart opera has the same effect.

Edit: How can you not want to run around like a nutter and renounce life in worship to the arts when you hear such things as this?:

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

I have come to wholly embrace Picasso's thoughts on the sources of art. Picasso suggested that art built wholly upon the "elite" or "fine art" eventually stagnates... ossifies... and becomes academic. I think of this not only when I look at something like this... which was being churned out as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were rethinking the direction of painting and pointing the way toward Modernism:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psa0c2c038.jpg

... nor even the contemporary equivalents such as:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps173312bc.jpg

... but I think that art such as this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8d0126ea.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psbee8fcbb.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psdb615efa.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...pse23582a9.jpg

... is just as much "Academic". I can't imagine the development and the proliferation of such art prior to the shift in Art Education away from the ateliers and art schools toward the universities and colleges. Its a purely intellectual art devoid of any sensuality, passion, or emotion... any element drawn from the world outside the protective cocoon of the university art department and the contemporary gallery system.

Picasso argued that "true" art is created in the same manner in which the Aristocrats of the Italian Renaissance "created" their children: through a merger of the "high" and the "low-born." When I look at the work of the Modern artists I admire I recognize this merger. Degas could draw like an old master... but drew upon imagery from the contemporary ballet, night clubs, brothels, etc...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psbae04caa.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps08200adf.jpg

Max Beckmann might employ jazz singers, bellhops, and the New York Times alongside Wagnerian or Homeric heroes:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps342b9ab1.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6859fc2e.jpg

The idea of limiting oneself to listening solely to some notion of an elite "high art" when it comes to music doesn't interest me in the least... any more so than the reverse: those who only listen to pop music.

By the way... that's a great performance of "Les Indes galantes"... William Christie with the fabulously theatrical Patricia Petibon... and there's also the lovely Danielle de Niese is the earlier portions of the opera. I have this performance on DVD... one of my absolute favorites.

But I also love Marc Minkowski's version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKvd4tMkFHc

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXDUN7flrY

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This video contains content from
Warner Chappell and UMG, one or
more of whom have blocked it in
your country on copyright grounds.



:lol: Divine intervention?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neely

Edit: How can you not want to run around like a nutter and renounce life in worship to the arts when you hear such things as this?:

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

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Because I'm more likely to be listening to something like this. At 9.08 it actually reaches for heaven with a breadth and scope that makes Mozart seem like a miniaturist.
As a young man Strauss studied aesthetics and so was able to compose this at 25. It's the Berlin Philharmonic at its best under the composer's greatest interpreter.

However, you have the consolation of knowing that Mozart was Strauss's favourite composer as he was for Tchaikovsky also.

http://youtu.be/_XkQi_dfWEA

Because I'm more likely to be listening to something like this. At 9.08 it actually reaches for heaven with a breadth and scope that makes Mozart seem like a miniaturist.

What you are missing is the realization that scale or grandeur and the wealth or breadth of elements at ones disposal are not a measure of artistic merit. There are "miniaturists" like Vermeer whose works can stand alongside the greatest epic paintings of Rubens or Veronese without blanching in the least. If we look to the history of film we find that more recent film-makers have the advantage of color and special effects and CGI and other elements that earlier film-makers could not have even imagined. This is not unlike the rich breadth and variety of musical sounds available to a composer like Wagner, Strauss, or Tchaikovsky... vs that which was available to Back or Mozart. But if I look at what was done with the limits of black & white film, for example (The Grand Illusion, Citizen Kane, Virgin Spring, Persona, The Seventh Seal, Casablanca, Double Indemnity, It's a Wonderful Life, Dr. Strangelove, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Apartment, 12 Angry Men, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, The Lady Vanishes, M., The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, etc...) I find that in no way do these films pale in comparison to those in which the film-makers had a broader array of resources at their disposal. Genius in art has nothing to do with the scale... the medium... or the breadth of tools and techniques at the artist's disposal. The painters of the Baroque were blessed with an education that included an understanding of anatomy, physiology, linear and aerial perspective, and techniques for creating the visual illusion of 3-D form that surpassed that available to most artists of the Renaissance... yet only 4 Baroque painters (Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Velazquez) can stand their own against such Renaissance masters as Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Durer, Van Eyck, Giotto, Giorgione, Veronese, Bellini, etc... In other words... its not the tools, but what you do with them (as we've all probably heard before:lol::blush:).

As much as I love Strauss and Wagner... neither surpasses Bach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGQLXRTl3Z0

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;1225401]Because I'm more likely to be listening to something like this. At 9.08 it actually reaches for heaven with a breadth and scope that makes Mozart seem like a miniaturist.

What you are missing is the realization that scale or grandeur and the wealth or breadth of elements at ones disposal are not a measure of artistic merit. There are "miniaturists" like Vermeer whose works can stand alongside the greatest epic paintings of Rubens or Veronese without blanching in the least. If we look to the history of film we find that more recent film-makers have the advantage of color and special effects and CGI and other elements that earlier film-makers could not have even imagined. This is not unlike the rich breadth and variety of musical sounds available to a composer like Wagner, Strauss, or Tchaikovsky... vs that which was available to Back or Mozart. But if I look at what was done with the limits of black & white film, for example (The Grand Illusion, Citizen Kane, Virgin Spring, Persona, The Seventh Seal, Casablanca, Double Indemnity, It's a Wonderful Life, Dr. Strangelove, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Apartment, 12 Angry Men, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, The Lady Vanishes, M., The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, etc...) I find that in no way do these films pale in comparison to those in which the film-makers had a broader array of resources at their disposal. Genius in art has nothing to do with the scale... the medium... or the breadth of tools and techniques at the artist's disposal. The painters of the Baroque were blessed with an education that included an understanding of anatomy, physiology, linear and aerial perspective, and techniques for creating the visual illusion of 3-D form that surpassed that available to most artists of the Renaissance... yet only 4 Baroque painters (Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Velazquez) can stand their own against such Renaissance masters as Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Durer, Van Eyck, Giotto, Giorgione, Veronese, Bellini, etc... In other words... its not the tools, but what you do with them (as we've all probably heard before:lol::blush:).

As much as I love Strauss and Wagner... neither surpasses Bach: QUOTE]

Well yes, of course, but great music is a very personal pursuit and each will find in it that with which they identify. In the case of the Strauss piece posted, this music has a great emotional meaning for someone who spent much of his youth in Germany, immersing himself in German history, the language and the people. For me it's not just a piece of music to be enjoyed like any other, it is Germany and, while many may plump for Bach, to my mind Richard Strauss is the summation of German genius .

You forgot to include Caravaggio and Van Dyck in the baroque. Plus, a few of those painters you list as Renaissance artists are Mannerists (Titian, Veronese).

Titian and Veronese are most certainly NOT Mannerists. Mannerism, which was born as a reaction to the Renaissance following the sack of Rome, had very little impact on the art of Venice. Of the major Venetian painters of the period the ones most impacted by Mannerism were Tintoretto and his follower, El Greco. The only paintings by Titian that suggest the least influence of Mannerism were a series of ceiling paintings that show the impact of Michelangelo:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8423dc8c.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psb0ba5ac9.jpg

While these painting show the unexpected point of view common to Mannerism, neither the anatomy nor the color exhibit the sort of exaggerations common to Mannerism.

The same is true of Veronese:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psb700070d.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6c8e49c9.jpg

Veronese's paintings show a clarity and simplicity of form, a clarity of narrative, a naturalism of pose, expression, anatomy and color, a solid clarity of space... all key elements of the Renaissance.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psccc22158.jpg


http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0876199f.jpg

Looking at Bronzino and Rosso Fiorentino... key figures in the development of Mannerism we see a confusion of form and narrative (especially in Bronzino), a gross exaggeration of anatomy, artifice of pose, a central void, a confusion of space, etc... all key elements of Mannerism.

As for the Baroque... yes, Caravaggio is an inexcusable omission. Van Dyck? A brilliant painter... but I don't know if I'd place him on the same level as the others. If I did... I'd have to add Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Brughel and Bosch (who I somehow forgot), Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Holbein, Correggio, Simone Martini, and a number of others for the Renaissance.

I was thinking of Mannerism in terms of it's time period 1520-1580 and you were thinking of it as a style distinct from the High Renaissance masters. True, Veronese and Titian aren't Mannerists, but they don't quite belong to the High Renaissance like Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael either. If you want to split hairs upon it and define them along stylistic lines they should be classed apart as the Venetian school.

There are definitely distinct differences between the various regional schools: the Roman/Florentine, the Venetian, the Sienese, the German, the French, the Flemish/Netherlandish. I remember that there were students who struggled in school to recognize that this was Renaissance art:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psf9587e30.jpg

... but was this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psceec2788.jpg

... and this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psa27436ea.jpg

... and this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...pse2725f71.jpg

... and this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...aphael54-2.jpg

... and this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._libyan2-1.jpg

... and this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps86640942.jpg

... and this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5d9eceb3.jpg

... and this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psbba827a4.jpg

An incredibly diverse period.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...0L._SX300_.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...5L._SY300_.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...WL._SX300_.jpg

All three recordings are fabulous. The Eleanor Steber (1914-1990) recordings of Strauss' opera extracts... and the Four Last Songs... were recorded here in my hometown. The quality of these live recordings is quite impressive. Seriously Beim Schlafengehen and Im Abendrot sent chills down my spine... and judging by the ovation following the performance, I am not alone in my response. Emil might know more of Steber as she was closer to his generation :biggrin5:... a great singer and also a real beauty in the old Hollywood style:

http://www.paulahollinsdesigns.com/i...rAPhotoS_2.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ptreDqCJL.jpg

http://marcalaninnes.yolasite.com/resources/steber.jpg

Well yes, of course, but great music is a very personal pursuit and each will find in it that with which they identify. In the case of the Strauss piece posted, this music has a great emotional meaning for someone who spent much of his youth in Germany, immersing himself in German history, the language and the people. For me it's not just a piece of music to be enjoyed like any other, it is Germany and, while many may plump for Bach, to my mind Richard Strauss is the summation of German genius .

A great many might choose this as a more apt summation of Germany... and German history of the 20th century:

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

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;1225449]Well yes, of course, but great music is a very personal pursuit and each will find in it that with which they identify. In the case of the Strauss piece posted, this music has a great emotional meaning for someone who spent much of his youth in Germany, immersing himself in German history, the language and the people. For me it's not just a piece of music to be enjoyed like any other, it is Germany and, while many may plump for Bach, to my mind Richard Strauss is the summation of German genius .

A great many might choose this as a more apt summation of Germany... and German history of the 20th century:

They might but they would be wrong, for history doesn't stop and, economically, Germany is once again the master of Europe. As for the 20th century, the roots of what happened are easily traced back to the development of Frederick the Great's Prussia, Napoleon Bonaparte's Confederation of the Rhine and Bismark's unification of the German nation. For anyone who watched the rise of the German economy, while his own sank beneath a wave of wishfull thinking, Messrs Adenauer and Erhard must rank as the two outstanding statesmen of the post-war period.

Last night I saw this conductor and violinist play the Tchaikovsky violin concerto in London with the Philharmonia although here they are in Russia with the St Petersburg orchestra in a fabulous performance.

http://youtu.be/GAkw_Wi4yIo

Also on the programme was the same composer's Francesca da Rimini but here it's another Russian orchestra and conductor in the last couple of minutes of the work. If you thought Leonard Bernstein was an energetic performer just watch this guy.

http://youtu.be/rqhhk4iBO2k

Neely and Emil... I'm going to be interested in your responses to the desert island thread:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...panded-Version

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Neely and Emil... I'm going to be interested in your responses to the desert island thread:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...panded-Version

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Yes I saw the post but haven't got round to making the selections. Anyhow, I would be prepared to bet that Woody Allen will feature in Neely's film choices and that Mozart will be in his music selection. As for the literary choices, I'm fairly confident the Pedigree Mum will not feature.

Wagner's Das Rheingold and Mozart's Requiem in D minor, been playing them a lot recently. My two favourite composers though Wagner is my number one. Who influenced Wagner? I am only familiar with a handful of major composers and the closest to Wagner's sound in my opinion is Beethoven.