Printable View
Great performance by Pollini with exquisite tone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
I was discussing Chopin with my piano teacher yesterday and she's going to do an arrangement of Chopin's 'Raindrop' prelude for me which, giving the ceaseless rain we've been having, seems more than a little appropriate.
Chopin's Nocturnes are surely among my favorite works. I have the iconic Rubinstein recording and the equally marvelous recording by Earl Wild... one of the most under-rated pianists due to his having recorded almost exclusively for a minor record label... yet his Rachmaninoff is absolutely ESSENTIAL!
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...HL._SX300_.jpg
Returning to Chopin... I agree the Pollini is marvelous... so much so I'm tempted to pick it up... not merely for the Chopin... but to add some Pollini to my library... where he is sorely lacking.
Wow great stuff. I have some Chopin's recordings but just stumbled on the Pollini on Youtube. The Rachmaninov sounds the next on the list.
Nobody, but nobody, tugs the heartstrings like Puccini.
http://youtu.be/y_ebmTkOtpQ
These broadcasts by Bernstein are priceless for those who think they don't like 'classical' music.
They show exactly how it's put together and, using the first movement of Brahms 4th Symphony,
also what a musical genius Brahms was.
http://youtu.be/wXo2Ab_KFsE
http://youtu.be/0CzB63yCg0c
http://youtu.be/Y9YTjFFyVQk
http://youtu.be/W66wrC3wVCo
http://youtu.be/rHLkkVFhwwU
Speaking of Brahms...
My father's friend, who plays violin in the Santa Barbara Symphony, will be connecting me with her son, who plays cello, and a pianist, and we will play the Brahms Clarinet trio, with me on clarinet. I am very excited! It's a wonderful piece, and I haven't played classical music seriously, or indeed played with anyone but myself, for quite some time.
I can't listen to things like this without the need to reach for a glass of red wine. I don't know they just seem to go together. I've only got San Miguel and some ale in the fridge though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Been reading a bit of Fry's (Stephen) second volume of his autobiography (and not yet out of Cambridge!). In it he talks about his passion for Wagner...amongst other things. Funny he only ever went to three lectures at university, instead he just cruised through it and had fun. Wagner's not something I have listened to really, but stuck some of this on in the background as I stare at my chess books and board.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L44Ml8K_mDg
Well Neely, the fact that you have only San Miguel is almost a as tragic as Madame Butterfly itself: let me recommend a Moulin-a-Vent from Sainsbury's top range selection, a trifle more expensive but well worth the money. I doubt that Karajan would have been pleased that you are staring at chess books while he was conducting Wagner but, never mind, here's a piece of Wagner that will set you up to get checkmate in three:Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
http://youtu.be/k5bhKktF1FE
I just got out of a masterclass instructed by Yo-Yo Ma. He is a very entertaining presence whether or not he is playing the cello, but when, as the first group got ready to perform he walked down the aisle to listen from the audience's perspective, a lady behind me half-whispered, "Oh my god, he's real!"
I wasn't sure whether I was amused at the lady's willingness to sound like a fool, or disgusted at the implied hero-worship, which I feel is totally unnecessary when it comes to appreciating the art of music. What say you?
it is true that great performers do arouse hero worship in their students, not to mention the general public. This is understandable as they are the conduit through which the music of the masters is transmitted at its highest level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lykren
Some more Chopin. A slower interpretation it seems from this random find, Brigitte Engerer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdimyyD-ZQk
Not sure if I prefer this yet or not.
While I love Pollini as a pianist, I am not fond of his Chopin for the most part as I find a bit too mechanical (the one exception are the Etudes), just as I find Rubinstein's Chopin a bit too drawing-room (especially in the more expressive pieces; though I think he's a good fit with the pieces more dance-inspired). For Chopin my two go-tos are Arrau for the darker, emotional pieces; Cortot for lyricism; Zimmerman for the longer, expressive pieces; and Ohlsson for an overall "reference" (he's solid on everything).
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending has been voted the country's favourite piece of classical music. (according to Classic FM listeners, that is).
We English dilettantes love him. All of his stuff seems to hit a chord with our English senseabilities- it sounds like nostalgia - an invocation of a long lost England that probably never really existed. I suspect he is hardly known Internationally.
Again. It's always being voted number one. That said, it is a gorgeous piece - though there is that one bizarre section where it goes a little mad, and which I always cannot help but think of as 'The Lark Machine-Gunned'...Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
I think English music is generally less appreciated internationally. It's almost treated as a joke, I think, by some people. I've got a Swiss friend who just loves to wind me up about the poor quality of English music, despite never having actually listened to any VW, Elgar, Britten, Purcell or Byrd.
I know in the past I've also had an amicable barney with our own St Luke's over that book he often recommends to people (Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works), which I think has a distinctly anti-British bias. Only VW makes the top 50, and pretty near the bottom - surely Britten and (particularly) Elgar should make anyone's top 50, or is Elgar really the inferior of Borodin and Couperin?
I think it would be fair to say that English music is parochial but there are individual works that are, nevertheless, brilliantly composed.
It's understandable that the idiom is intensely English and perhaps doesn't travel well but surely something like Nimrod from the Enigma Variations (inspired by a German friend of the composer) is as universal as any other composition.
And the equally wonderful Tallis Fantasia at number 3 - Simon Rattle had this as the centrepiece of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's Philharmonie 50th anniversary last October, played on radio 3 last week. You might still catch it on BBC iPlayer if you want a real treat...Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hxj7
"Perhaps because of Vaughan-Williams’s success in breaking free of the German influence, it’s often said that his music is so English that it could not possibly appeal outside these shores. Strange to realise, then, that there are more performances of his symphonies in Germany than in England."
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/v...s-re-assessed/
I'm biased, but has anyone composed more beautiful music? Certainly I'd admit that Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninov, and a few others, have written music as beautiful, but I think he's up there with these greats. Anyone outside England agree with this?
That list was utterly bizarre. There were tons of film and video game soundtracks on it. :ack2:Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
I think the one genuinely, almost indisputably, great English composer was Purcell, who is absolutely sublime and grossly underrated. The others, I think, are more variable in quality. Britten, VW, Elgar, and Byrd all have some really, really good music, but I don't think they were consistently great enough to list them in the top tier of great composers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lokasenna
There's always Gustav Holst.
I think English music is generally less appreciated internationally. It's almost treated as a joke, I think, by some people. I've got a Swiss friend who just loves to wind me up about the poor quality of English music, despite never having actually listened to any VW, Elgar, Britten, Purcell or Byrd.
I think in part England's music pales beside its literary achievements. I also think that there is this unfortunate gap between Purcell and the great British contributions to early music...
William Byrd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZSB0WTyIrg
Thomas Tallis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-ZAAi4UQQ
John Dowland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7vLOjzG4no
Henry Purcell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IhWTB2Y_w8
Then there are but a few truly interesting figures until the late 19th & 20th centuries.
Personally, I quite like John Field:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYqOOY4pTNE
His Nocturnes were the model upon which Chopin would produce his masterworks.
I actually have a sizable collection of British "classical" music... more, I suspect, than by Americans. I certainly love Ralph Vaughan-Williams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd3nWm2PitI
But I'm probably equally fond of Delius:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVeaAhYluOc
I've never really warmed to Elgar... but this is indisputably beautiful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqvOVGCt5lw
But there are others... lesser known... but brilliant at times...
Arnold Bax:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixF5f2cqIKo
Ernest J. Moeran:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebP_ehR6oLE
Herbert Howells:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ozrtxC4TmE
Britten is undoubtedly a fairly major figure... Top 50?... That's always open to debate. I think Britten's "weakness" as far as popularity... beside his embrace of certain Modernist atonalities... is the fact that his strongest works are predominantly vocal works... especially operas. Still I quite love his Cello Sonatas inspired by Shostakovitch and Rostropovich.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_FyQPsILnU
I know in the past I've also had an amicable barney with our own St Luke's over that book he often recommends to people (Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works), which I think has a distinctly anti-British bias.
Goulding's book could be argued to have an even greater anti-American bias as not a single American makes the list. His list was actually quite objective in that he, the author admittedly knew little of classical music, and based his list upon statistics (how many pieces by each composer were played on the major classical music radio stations in a year, number of recordings of a given composer, record sales, length of entries of each composer in major texts on the history of classical music.). What we need to remember is that the world of "Classical Music" spans a period from approximately A.D. 1000- until the present. There are dozens of major composers from the Middle Ages, as many again from the Renaissance, quite a bit more still from the Baroque and the Classical Era... and then things really take off during the Romantic/Post-Romantic/Modern era.
...is Elgar really the inferior of Borodin and Couperin
Perhaps not... but he probably is less important than J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, W.A. Mozart, L.v. Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, G.F. Handel, Monteverdi, Wagner, Brahms, Debussy, Faure, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Mendelssohn, Mahler, Schubert, Schumann, Rameau, Gluck, Vivaldi, Alessandro & Domenico Scarlatti, Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Donizetti, Boccherini, Shostakovitch, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Offenbach, Massenet, Perotin, Leonine, Gesualdo, Dufay, Hildegard of Bingen, Bartok, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Jan Dismas Zelenka, Hugo Wolf, Chopin, Liszt, Dvorak, Arcangelo Corelli, Purcell, Buxtehude, Vaughan-Williams, Mihaud, Poulenc, Bellini, Telemann, Sibelius, Grieg, Bruckner... and if we count the Modernists: Schoenberg, Berg, Webern.
My point is that it is quite easy to compile a list of 50+ major composers who quite honestly deserve such recognition. Whether Elgar deserves to be placed upon such a list is quite debatable.
I'm biased, but has anyone composed more beautiful music? Certainly I'd admit that Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninov, and a few others, have written music as beautiful, but I think he's up there with these greats.
Yep, you're biased. I love Vaughan Williams but I have no delusions of placing him alongside Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, etc... The core of VW's oeuvre are his 9 symphonies... laden with beautiful music, no doubt, but certainly not as innovative or brilliant as the finer symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Brahms, etc... Beyond this?
In the Fen Country
Norfolk Rhapsody
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Fantasia on "Greensleeves"
The Lark Ascending
Five Mystical Songs
Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Dona nobis pacem
Hodie, a Christmas cantata
All counted you might get a full 10 or 12 CDs worth of music as VW's "essential" core works. You'll need more than that for Beethoven's piano sonatas, Haydn's major string quartets, or Mozart's 4 great operas.
I think St Luke's point about innovation is the key. The true greats brought something fresh that influenced and affected those who came after. Britten, VW, Elgar probably didn't do that.
My teacher, a conservatory trained pianist, is making a particular study of the Beethoven piano sonatas and she was showing me the complexity of a certain passage in the Waldstein. Clearly, there are few compositions in English piano or orchestral music that would match Beethoven's but one would have to be musically dead not to appreciate this Vaughan Williams piece.
http://youtu.be/S9x9RwMt0l0
We're all biased, silly boy. This is art and it never ceases to amaze how many propose that an opinion can be turned into a fact—as if taste was, in anyway, objective. Canons are but monuments that are either too old and sticky to rid ourselves of our parents tastes, or simply the generation's favorites as a rebellion to such. Even innovation and it's worth, influence and it's properties (all impossible to prove, even with acknowledgement), are but mere opinions when used in judging the "brilliance" or "quality" of an artwork.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
So slow down before you start calling someone out for being biased as if you were not yourself.
Wow, 4 1/2 hours of Mozart Violin Sonatas on one youtube video! That's got to be a more than decent youtube post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEn6SRVAE4
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA280_.jpg
This is a stunning performance (Charles Mackerras was THE "go-to" man for Leoš Janáček) of a stunningly beautiful opera... one that is rarely performed... and that I had never heard until now. I picked up this recording in hope of listening to it prior to attending the innovative performance of The Cunning Little Vixen by the Cleveland Orchestra:
http://www.clevelandorchestra.com/13...LITTLE-VIXEN-/
http://www.cleveland.com/musicdance/...cunning_l.html
Unfortunately, the performances came upon the end of the school year with all the added paperwork as well as retirement parties for several close co-workers.
Ah well... this recording will have to do... and it is quite brilliant... and hard to believe the entire opera was inspired by a comic strip!!!
I highly recommend this work... and this recording... for anyone fond of/with an interest in Eastern European music or opera.
Stluke, I heard a lovely little ditty recently called Gaudete from 1582, and I'm not sure whether I should put it with my classical list or my folk music list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete What do you think?
Here's the version I really like from folk rock band Steeleye Span
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDc2FD-vy8M
But there are others from more classically inclined groups
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbKWk6RzaiM
Anyway, it's got me looking at a bunch of polyphonal sacred music of the era. It sort of ticks some of the same boxes as Monteverdi's madrigals for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKPK3CINlWU
The term "classical music" is difficult to define considering that it essentially includes everything from this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdJSy9vXGNQ
to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87UE2GC5db0
to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi6SDINpeTw
to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZazYFchLRI
There is no defining style to "classical music". Quite honestly, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU
... has more in common with the lieder of Schumann, Schubert, and the mélodie of Faure and Debussy... has more in common with the tradition of Western Classical music than does Xenakis. Yet many within the world of classical music would argue that Xenakis represents modern/contemporary "classical" music, while Somewhere over the Rainbow is mere popular music.
And the dividing line can be even more blurred. Many would define this as "classical music":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRDMKOMsyQ4
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFHdRkeEnpM
but not this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGLpczTtnEM
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHJoS2gMx3Y
Ultimately, the term "classical music"... which was only first employed (outside of referring to the Classical Era of Mozart, Haydn, and Boccherini)... around the late 19th and early 20th century... in an attempt to differentiate "serious" music of the upper class elite from that of the masses is not a term intended to define a style (like Baroque, Romanticism, or Jazz) but rather a term intended as a value judgment. Many within the world of classical music, however, deny this notion because ultimately it would suggest that it is just possible that the finest songs by Hollywood songwriters, jazz, even "standards" of country, bluegrass, and pop may eventually be recognized as the "classical music" of our era as much... or more than the music of Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Philip Glass. They counter that "classical music" can be defined as music with a known composer that has been given a definitive form by said composer in the form of the score. This concept, however, clearly doesn't hold water. Baroque composers frequently employed improvisation... as much as jazz musicians... in their performances. Then there are examples of works such as Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition which is known more in its orchestral transcriptions by Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel than in its original score for solo piano.
Older music... songs, dances, motets, dirges, etc... by unknown composers... "folk music" if you will... has commonly been accepted as a form of "classical music". Tunes such as Gaudete have often been collected in medieval and Renaissance song books and re-scored for multiple voices or even instrumentation. One need only think of Christmas carols that have been orchestrated for large Romantic-era orchestras.
There are any number of interesting blurrings of classical and popular music. I'm especially fond of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKzkbpIiuSs
Here we have John Potter, member of the Hilliard Ensemble, performing John Dowland's music with jazz-like improvisations... and then we have to consider that Dowland himself quite blurs the line between the traditional idea of "classical music" and popular music.
But lets go a little further and build on Monteverdi's famous Lamento della Ninfa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d83WpdINleE
Classic FM isn't aimed at the serious classical music lover, it's aimed at people wanting a change from Pop music on BBC Radio 1/2, but don't want to be challenged too much. Hence the film & game music. The game music appearing is intriguing, it shows that more young people are listening than I might have expected! Classic FM attracts a lot of Daily Mail readers who want to appear sophisticated, and feel that voting for this list is a worthwhile use of their time. Hence, I guess, the patriotic "little England" feel to the voting. (Not that I dislike Vaughan Williams - this shows Daily Mail readers have some taste - but gaining 1 & 3 spot is ridiculous!)Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Those Brits who would say "ack" along with you are listening, mostly, to BBC Radio 3 :) I tend to flick between the two stations, I usually change to Radio 3 when film music or the too-well-known "smooth classic" pops up yet again. But I retreat from Radio 3 when something *too* challenging appears.
Good, but not Perlman/Barenboim:Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boqbZTBAlOY
That box set is one of the highlights of my life, with at least eight sonatas, for me, up there with VW's "lark".
The points being made about several composers beating VW for variety, volume, and innovation are, I think, well made.
And how on Earth could you choose between this Mozart Sonata and Lark? It's like choosing between ice cream and strawberries! Both number 1 (along with a hundred other delicacies...)
Why is there an obsession with lists in British pop culture?
Welsh National Opera did a well-reviewed production of it the other year - I had hoped to go, but time constraints meant that I could not. I've never heard it, but following this glowing recommendation I will do!Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I am always uncomfortable with the use of 'classical music' as a catch all expression for that which exists outside the genre of popular music.
I prefer to think in terms of the great eras of mucial development such as the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic, but even here the looseness of the terminology is open to misinterpretation.
Back in the dim mists of time ( the 1970s to be exact ) I was given an LP of music by a German friend. It was a series of pieces by a contemporary French composer called Saint Preux and was a tuneful if not a particularly distinguished composition. I had forgotten about it until recently when my piano teacher drew my attention to an Ave Maria attributed to the early Baroque composer Giulio Caccinni; whom I had never heard of. The melodic structure immediately reminded me of Saint Preux and I said it sounded very much like seventies French music, such as was used as a background to various French films of the period, and I couldn't see how anyone would think that it was a 16th century work.
On investigation I discovered that it wasn't French but composed by a Russian and subsequently passed off as Caccini's work. Here's the story:
Ave Maria" is a popular and much recorded aria composed by Vladimir Vavilov around 1970. It is a musical hoax generally misattributed to Baroque composer Giulio Caccini. Vavilov himself published and recorded it on the Melodiya label with the ascription to "Anonymous" in 1972. It is believed that the work received its ascription to Giulio Caccini after Vavilov's death, by an organist Mark Shakhin (one of its performers on the mentioned "Melodiya" longplay), who gave the "newly discovered scores" to other musicians; then in an arrangement made by the organist Oleg Yanchenko for the recording by Irina Arkhipova in 1987, then the piece came to be famous worldwide.
http://youtu.be/zXehRR_ziBw
http://youtu.be/3hE-cxohDGY
I am always uncomfortable with the use of 'classical music' as a catch all expression for that which exists outside the genre of popular music.
How does one define "popular music"? Offenbach, Lehard, Strauss II etc... were all the "popular music" of their time. To a great extent, the same can be said of Mozart, Dowland, or many examples of medieval or Renaissance folk music ("Greensleeves"?).
Well much would depend on the definition of 'popular' which my dictionary gives as ....'pleasing to or esteemed by the general public or a specific group or an individual.'Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
So on that basis, some of the examples you have given might have appealed to the general public whilst others might have been popular with a specific group and others with individuals. But popular music in contemporary terms would refer almost exclusively to recordings of songs that are accessed electronically, rather than works from the musical periods I have mentioned, although there may be exceptions that underline the rule
I return to a forum after multiple years' absence, find a few posts on a thread mentioning popularity and classical music, and immediately make myself that person by posting this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFvQOc4xS2k
Seriously, though, I was having a conversation with a classical music appreciator just the other day in which I found myself arguing in favor of movie themes as probably one of the most productive and enduring forms of orchestral (or what we often lump under that unwieldy umbrella, "classical") music. Not only was I thinking of the now common "movie night" live performances of film scores that have now become common annual events for many orchestras, but of how the genre fits into a longer tradition, not only of music associated with Opera and Ballet (in both of which cases the music is an integral component directly linked with the words or movements being delivered on stage), but also of composers who wrote incidental music for the stage, including Beethoven's Coriolan and Egmont music, Grieg's Peer Gynt suite, Shubert's Rosamund music, Mendelssohn's Midsummer accompaniment, etc. Such music, like music for film is, as the designation suggests, "incidental," supposedly only there as an ornamentation to the spoken theatrical piece, and yet, of those mentioned above all of the plays but Midsummer and Peer Gynt have been largely forgotten as the motivating reason for the (originally much subordinate) musical composition, while the music itself has been incorporated separately into the cannon of classical music.
The questions of what incidental theatrical music is, and what its newer cousin the film score is do put some useful pressure on what is defined as "popular." Historically speaking, for example, we know a few of the ballads and tunes that were originally sung on the stage during some of Shakespeare's plays. When plays that were originally part of the popular culture become canonical, as in the case of Shakespeare, do the songs that were an integral part of it also attain some sort of canonical status? What if the tune is no longer popular but the plays still are (the reverse of Rosamund's fate in which the Schubert lives on without the play)? And what if one of the tunes Shakespeare fancied also got some attention from Robert Moreley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVSogD3IvS4 while another lapsed into Elizabethan obscurity?
Certainly one cannot imagine Star Wars being studied in the future without Williams' score. What are we missing when we watch certain silent films for which the original score was lost? What films might be more valued if we had the music, and which might be almost entirely forget-able without it? Where does a composer coming directly out of the late romantic style like Korngold place along the popular-classical spectrum, and does his association with a popular medium like the 1938 Adventures of Robinhood affect this? http://youtu.be/uT6dLPfSCL8
What of the recent Lord of the Rings soundtrack: http://youtu.be/1OvmsZ5-gYw ? Unlike Star Wars, I had to google the name of the composer for that one--Howard Shore--indicating that the music isn't garnering as much fame and popularity as an artistic production separate from the Peter Jackson's (no googling required) film, and yet I find it pleasant enough to listen to that I can see it branching off to stand on its own as a piece something like Bruch's Scottish Fantasy.
Come to that, how does a popular, mixed media work like a film blur the boundaries of genres created to describe stand alone musical performances. For example, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has a "Night at the Movies" series that has encompassed everything from John Williams' Wagneresque Star Wars motifs to Henry Mancini's jazzy Pink Panther score, and a lot else beside harder still to place in a box.
Of course the most important question is whether or not St. Luke's will allow movie scores on his classical music thread. And, if that doesn't seem too big a stretch, my brother recently brought to my attention the fact that a number of classical orchestras nationwide have recently hosted performances of "classic" video game scores. So, the real question is whether, if I post the Pacman or Mario Brothers music to this thread I will be immediately exiled from these forums for another few years. I'll give it a try:
Mario Brothers: http://youtu.be/_9bB7r0M9kg
Pacman: http://youtu.be/3AEoXhRc8ws (warning: listening to more than 10 seconds may result in slightly incapacitated thinking skills, but the full 10 hours provided is probably some unconstitutional form of torture)
Perhaps I deserve exile. :p
Yes. I wholly agree that film scores share a commonality with opera, ballet, and incidental music... including Schubert's Rosamunde:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N7ltIYWdP4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t0TIhKoUbY
There are certainly any number of brilliant musical moments in film scores:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwf96OEaYBg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgF-rcHcPqE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al21Vtlsg4A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWqKPWO5T4o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAtvMRz4mAY
I think the problem with film scores as opposed to the other incidental music forms is that it is the film and not the music that sets the pace... and to an incredible degree. A composer may be directed to establish exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds of intense, dramatic music, followed by exactly 23 seconds of a beautiful theme as the love interest in the film enters, followed by 17 seconds of a darker theme as the villain appears, etc... In many ways, the use of the motif places film music as an heir to Wagner... which shouldn't be surprising, considering all of Wagner's heirs, such as Korngold, who went into the business. If film music survives over the long-run (outside of the films themselves), I suspect it will take the form of the suite... with the strongest passages preserved and re-structured (and at times re-orchestrated) into a more coherent form... again, not unlike what we see with many ballets.
Has there been a more popular orchestral score in the twenty-first century than Requiem For a Dream's Lux Aeterna by Clint Mansell?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVIRcnlRKF8
Point taken on film music. I rather like Philip Glass' music for "The Hours":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvA7ZcsKFcQ
But I do find the choices made by Classic FM are often banal, perhaps because they are happy to churn out background music for car drivers, and films are full of undemanding background music...
Great point on ballet suites St. Luke, I tend to get bored listening to full ballets, but not the suites.
Walton made a good stab at producing suites from his film scores:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUt5ysms3sU
Incidental music for films and plays that has serious pretensions to become classical music, like Egmont & Star Wars, is usually in overture form - so it's really designed to be stand alone anyway! Such pieces are usually short, and not the best work of the composer, apart from Williams... and maybe Walton...
Film music is all too often a pastiche of the major composers' works, particularly in the orchestration, and while enjoyable on its own level it often doesn't stand up to any but the most indulgent musical examination. Philip Glass's music for The Hours is something of an exception as not all of it was composed for the film, and Glass's musical education included studying with Nadia Boulanger. It's ironic that William Walton's music may best be remembered for his film scores rather than Belshazzar's Feast or the viola concerto while his Crown Imperial march resembles a grandiloquent version of Elgar at his most 'nobilmente'.
http://youtu.be/2AKIFKwSSoE
We have Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings on our CD changer in the car. It's music, it's played by The Royal Philharmonic, it sounds like a classical piece, it can stand alone without the film perfectly well, so although it is definitely a pastiche I'd say it qualifies.
I remember when some major film scores went a bit experimental in the early days of electronic music, it didn't really work, possibly because the job of the music is essentially background, so traditional orchestration is familiar enough not to jar.
It's a nice score, though it always annoys me - all those bloody celtic harmonies wafting around where they have no place to be. I doubt Toller's would approve, given his desire to create a uniquely English mythology...Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
Some movie scores can be superb, to the extent that they can stand apart from the film and still be enjoyable - I knew the soundtrack from The Piano for years before I saw the film, and wonderful though the movie was I'm not quite sure it lived up to its superb music. One of my favourite lesser-known composers in Erich Korngold, whose movie scores rank among his best work - Robin Hood, The Seahawk, Captain Blood, and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex suites are superb orchestral works that one can enjoy without ever having seen the films from which they are taken. The lines are further blurred in his wonderful Violin Concerto in D major, a work designed only for the concert hall that nevertheless samples and develops on some of the themes he used for his movie scores.
I also like John Williams, though he isn't in the same league...
Video game music is, slowly, getting more mainstream appeal. There was a minor brouhaha when several game themes made their way in the Classic FM Hall of Fame (which is a UK-based public poll of the 'best' 100 classical pieces), the station itself noting the controversy:
http://www.classicfm.com/hall-of-fam...-fame-opinion/
The station subsequently released a programme that was intended to introduce non-gamers to video game music, which is summarised here: http://www.classicfm.com/discover/vi...er-game-scores.
Of course, there are still people who stick their noses in the air out of sheer bloodymindedness - in much the same way as they used to discount film music. I've been a keen gamer for many years, and part of that experience has been enjoying the music - indeed, it's probably what got me into classical music in the first place. And whilst I've not found anything in a video game to rival Wagner or Beethoven, there's plenty that I have enjoyed.
And, of course, some video game composers directly relate their music to earlier, more famous works - Nobuo Uematsu is probably most famous for this, but they all do it. Take his 'One-Winged Angel' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGe6ZsxqhQw) which riffs on Carmina Burana, or his 'Dancing Mad' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMFCM0SKbnY), a complicated and leitmotif heavy piece whose third movement of quotes Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
I'm surprised in a discussion of great soundtrack music Ennio Morricone's scores to A Fistful of Dollars, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, or The Mission haven't been mentioned. The Ecstasy of Gold is so much fun to listen to!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0wPBYDQ6Y
Chariots of Fire by Vangelis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYJzcUvS_NU
A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics by James Horner from the Beautiful Mind soundtrack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDEx6tolC6w
The Lawrence of Arabia theme by Maurice Jarre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdFwhhH2x7I
Let's not forget Lieutenant Kije by Prokofiev
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hINfOSlMANc
or his Andrei Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible soundtracks