A Clockwork Orange is interesting, The Beethoven played on a tinny sounding electric organ without any classic orchestration. Is that Classical Music?
Printable View
A Clockwork Orange is interesting, The Beethoven played on a tinny sounding electric organ without any classic orchestration. Is that Classical Music?
The music is, but the performance isn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
I picked up on this collection by chance. They are all marvellous renditions but the Karajan Shostakovich N0.10 and the Bernstein N0.7 are nothing short of stupendous. Even if one doesn't appreciate the music, the playing almost defies belief. The Tilson Thomas Mahler 2nd is also an amazing performance.
http://youtu.be/wGVAaVOyzEA
Karajan's Shosty 10 has long been acknowledged as the recording by which all others are measured:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...kL._SY300_.jpg
Admittedly, I need to listen more to Shostakovitch' and Prokofiev's symphonies. I am far more familiar with other genre by each.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I have just checked it out in my Gramophone Good CD Guide and they say much the same. They also give pride of place to Bernstein's 7th; which reminds me of the feud that developed between Stokowski and Toscanini who were both desperate to conduct the first performance outside of Russia when the score was smuggled out of Leningrad during the German siege of the city in WWII. In the event, Toscanini won and made a celebrated recording with the NBC Symphony Orchestra for RCA.
Page 99 discussion is in similitude to an article I just read this hour about the Classic Rock genre. Now bear with me, I'm not trying to interject Rock into your discussion in any way shape or form in comparison with Classical... whatever, but read the article and substitute your favorite niche of music and see if a similar algorithm isn't leading, manipulating, ... (je ne sais quoi) classical/popular music of your own bent: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...m_medium=email .Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Robert Schumann has, with Franz Schubert, occupied that somewhat neglected symphonic era between Beethoven and Brahms. Although there are a number of recorded sets of his four symphonies, they are not performed in concert as frequently as they deserve. If they don't measure up to Beethoven's symphonic output or that of Brahms, the very beginning of this video until 1.20 is as great as anything in German music. To my mind it's the greatness that Germany was, is and will always be:
http://youtu.be/S-UfnzBhS0s
Schumann's reputation has languished under the reputation of his having been poor at orchestration just as Brahms and Bruckner's have suffered from a reputation of being overly dense. A great performance of any of these works proves just how wrong these assessments were/are. George Szell was one of the greatest interpreters of Schumann. He took the attitude that Schumann was a great symphonic composer... wholly worthy of standing alongside Beethoven and Brahms... and his intensity and clarity has the listener in agreement. John Eliot Gardiner applied a great deal of research upon the instruments, orchestras, performing styles, and scores of Brahms and Schumann. His HIP (Historically Informed Performance) approach brings a greater transparency and muscularity to works that can sink under their own weight when weighed down with an excessively florid Romantic manner.
Good to see another admirer of Schumann.
It's interesting to note that Karajan was much in favour of Schumann's symphonies and recorded them with both the Berlin and Vienna symphony orchestras. I have the Berlin set but I also like Bernstein's characteristically exciting conducting in these works. Bernstein doesn't believe in slavishness to tempi and knows when to let the orchestra play. In this regard he was like Beecham who famously said of conducting: 'Do what you like but don't be boring.'Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Here's part one of Rachmaninov's evocative Isle of the Dead, it was composed after he saw one of a number of paintings on this theme by Arnold Böcklin a Swiss painter. The one shown here is my favoured version but I saw another in the Kunstmuseum Basel when visiting Switzerland some years ago. A woman I had known for many years once lived in the road where the artist had a house and we visited it together. It was then an infants school and it was amusing to see pictures by the pupils pasted onto the windows.
http://youtu.be/N10YZ2Sk3Kg
Hey StLuke, thanks for bringing Angela Hewitt to my attention. I'm listening to her Goldberg Variations right now and it's incredible!
This rendering of Rachmaninov's Paganini variations is quite simply stunning. I have heard various versions of it over the years but never have I experienced a performance of such dynamism and commitment, where the orchestra brilliantly articulates the nuances of the piece and is so completely at one with the soloist. Exciting, thrilling, moving are but mere words that don't cover it; this item from the video's comments comes nearest.
snaaptaker
4 months ago
WOW!!! What a gutsy, fiery, almost savage, mad RUSSIAN performance! I loved it.
It's been awhile since I heard a competition contestant whom I thought deserved to win, but, IMO, he certainly did.
BRAVO!!!☺
http://youtu.be/AAu6BRWL8p8
There was a point... perhaps around 10 years ago... where I found that my library (I'm talking books here) had reached a sort of saturation point and I found myself rarely purchasing new books... or rather books by authors who were new to me, or books by authors well-known to me that I had yet to have read. At this point I began to find that a good majority of my purchases involved obtaining better... or alternative editions of works I already owned: new translations, well made often hard-covered quality editions of favorite, dog-eared volumes.
I find that over the last year, my approach to purchasing music has headed in a similar direction. The number of recordings of music that is wholly "new" to me has greatly dwindled. Instead, I am focused upon better productions and alternative recordings of the music that is most beloved by me. Over the last year, the number of recordings I own of Mozart's Magic Flute has increased to more than 10... while I have more than 5... often closer to 8... recordings of most of his other major operas (Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, etc...). Back in October I picked up this set of Wagner's Ring cycle:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...eL._SX355_.jpg
This set... in a hard-box with each of the four operas in their own hard-box... comes complete with full librettos and illustrated books. It features a marvelous cast (Jessye Norman, Lucia Popp, Peter Schreier, Kurt Moll, Cheryl Studer, Siegfried Jerusalem, and more...) and has been critically acclaimed as being among the finest productions/performances of the Ring. So far I have listened to Das Rheingold and must agree it is a worthy recording... and it was had for $20 US!!!
I toyed with the idea of purchasing this set:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...hL._SX425_.jpg
It features all of Maria Callas' studio recordings... brilliantly remastered... and presented with their original covers and a hard-bound book. Unfortunately, I found I just couldn't justify the $200 price right now at the holidays... especially when I'll be shelling out a good chunk for a trip to NYC. I did, however, pick up a number of the individual opera recordings... most of which go for around $9.50 US...
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...PL._SY355_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...ZL._SY355_.jpg
http://a2.mzstatic.com/eu/r30/Music/...er326x326.jpeg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...gL._SY355_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...oL._SY450_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...jL._SY450_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...wL._SX466_.jpg
I'll probably pick up the majority of these over time. It may cost a bit more... even considering that I probably won't get all the various recital discs... but it won't be such a big bite at once... especially as I'm getting other recordings as well:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...oL._SY450_.jpg
I have most of these... but Szell is worth a good box set... especially for a little over $8 US.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...OL._SX466_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...bL._SY450_.jpg
I should be ashamed of having so little by Heifetz... in spite of collecting box sets by any number of other great violinists of last century.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...sL._SY450_.jpg
This set replaces 4 two-disc sets of Debussy and Ravel by Martinon. I've been listening to it for a week now. Spectacular! I'll probably "gift" the 2-disc sets that this replaces to a classical music-loving friend. I'll do the same with the individual Szell/Beethoven discs.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...kL._SY450_.jpg
This just arrived today. For quite some time I've sworn by Karajan's 1963 Beethoven cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic. I knew of his later recordings from the 70s and 80s... but I wasn't even aware of the existence of this set with the Philharmonia. So far I've listened to the 3rd. Good stuff. Karajan was at the top of his game in the 50s.
Many of the box sets that I have purchased involve alternative recordings of major works by composers who are among my favorites... but who I never set about listening to in alternative recordings... for whatever reason. Since Summer I picked up a couple of sets of Mahler:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...jL._SY450_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...7L._SY450_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...nL._SX450_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...0L._SY450_.jpg
http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Music4...er326x326.jpeg
For far too long I underestimated Sibelius... but repeated listenings to these two sets has changed that. I especially love the Barbirolli set.
Bach - Piano concertos. Make me cheerful.
I'll take it you mean Bach's keyboard sonatas as Bach didn't write any Piano Concertos for the simple reason that the Piano didn't exist as of yet.
Personally, I love Bach's concertos played on Modern Piano:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jovQnR2Tk-I
And Bach always seems to be the perfect music for the season.
And Bach always seems to be the perfect music for the season.
That reminds me... I must play the Christmas Oratorio here soon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6MMW-NJmt8
Here's a piece I am learning over Christmas.
http://youtu.be/GNUpWAQuuVA
The last post was Christmas Day? No classical music fans here? :confused:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psjbxzxagx.jpg
I was quite impressed with what I heard in sampling this set on Spotify and so I put in an order for it. It arrived today and I'm listening to the first disc which features the "Unfinished" 8th and no. 6. Many of the recordings that speak most to me are those which offer an interpretation quite new from what I am used to hearing... or one which is quite insightful... revealing elements of the work that I had not really recognized before. Gardiner's performances of Brahm's, Schumann's, and Beethoven's symphonies, for example, fit this bill, IMO. Immerseel's Schubert does so as well. I find it holds up well and adds something of real worth and insight among some of the finest recordings of Schubert's symphonies, including those by Von Karajan, Karl Böhm, Marc Minkowski, Carlos Kleiber, Furtwängler, Bernstein, Marriner, etc...
Immerseel's Beethoven is top-notch, and I've certainly heard good things of the Schubert. Gardiner's Brahms and Schumann are excellent.
A couple of beauties I've been listening to recently:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...1L._SX466_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...zL._SX466_.jpg
Silvestrov's Silent Songs is possibly his greatest work IMO. I must get those Brahms' sextets considering I tend to feel Brahms' chamber works are perhaps his greatest achievements.
Yes, in all likelihood the Silent Songs are Silvestrov's greatest work.
You might want to consider getting the whole box of Hyperion's Brahms chamber music, even if you have other recordings of some of it.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...XL._SX466_.jpg
That set looks quite good, but honestly I have solid recordings of almost all of Brahms' chamber works with the exceptions of the Quintets and Sextets:
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psx7o9cypr.jpg
http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...psclfdgzrj.jpg
I'm looking at the Talich recording of the Sextets... and the Alexander Quartet... whose recordings of Beethoven I quite like... for both the String Quintets and Sextets.
What IS particularly nice about that box set is that it is not limited to a single ensemble. I tend to prefer to collect various the interpretations of various artists/ensembles/orchestras before I set about purchasing box sets of a complete oeuvre by a single artist/ensemble/orchestra.
It's a good idea to pick the single discs of Raphael Ensemble's sextets and quintets if you don't want the whole box.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Time to spin Sibelius's Wood Nymph (Vänskä & Lahti SO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7tLqZXFMNo
Not classical strickly speaking, probably, but for the last year or more I have been enjoying the occaisional bout of Glenn Miller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92ATE3IgIs
And all of the usual favourites...
Then just tonight I only thought of reading a little about him, from which I discovered that he died in 1944 when his plane went missing over the English channel while abroad going to entertain the troops. Well I didn't know this, very sad.
I have been learning to play this piece in a simpler arrangement without the introduction but, even so, it's unlikely that it will ever sound as good as this:
https://youtu.be/Coa1XaGQuz0
A marvelous work, Emil! Exquisite transcription of an achingly beautiful passage by Wagner.
Yes it's such a seemingly simple melody but amazingly constructed through a series of modulations that create the beauty of the piece. It's unlike anything I have played before.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
This thread is a treasure. Keep em coming! :)
Having such a large number of You tube videos in my favourites box, I decided to delete some of them but this one's staying.
I have on occasion passed through the village of Limpsfield where Delius is buried next to his wife. Fittingly, Sir Thomas Beecham is also buried in the churchyard which I visited to pay my respects to the composer and a great conductor.
https://youtu.be/004hhSukj80
Delius is one of those composers along with Rachmaninoff, Copland, Puccini... and to a lesser extent, Richard Strauss... who are often reviled by the sworn self-appointed champions of Modernism. Honestly, I can't understand how anyone would rather listen to almost anything by Schoenberg, Webern, or Xenakis than Delius. Then again, I'm admittedly a sensualist and I turn to the arts for pleasure, not for shock and unsettling innovation.
I've been listening to Sibelius recently... another great Late/Post-Romantic whose music was dismissed by the Modernists to such as extent as to reportedly have resulted in his near abandonment of composing or even talking about his music during his later life. Theodor Adorno suggested that if Sibelius is "good" this invalidates the standards of quality from Bach to Schoenberg, while the composer, theorist and conductor René Leibowitz went so far as to describe Sibelius as "the worst composer in the world" in the title of a 1955 pamphlet.
Really?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5zg_af9b8c
Beecham also championed Sibelius and Richard Strauss who praised Beecham's performances of his music.
He was one of a long line of great conductors that seems to have ended with Karajan. I recently purchased a Japanese company's remastered version of Mengleberg's 1924 performance with the New York Philharmonic playing Stauss's Ein Heldenleben that is simply mind blowing in its scope. The sound is phenomenal for its time and if it cannot match the sound quality of Karajan's version with the BPO, it surpasses it in performance: something I never thought conceivable.
Here is an example of the stunning intensity that the giants of the past brought to their conducting: I'm just blown away by the Koussevitzky Boston Symphony rehearsal of Beethoven's Egmont overture ( at 18:36) where the dynamics and precision playing are extraordinary and unmatched by anything I have come across in recent times.
https://youtu.be/LYnqU4AJvtA
I'm a big fan of Schoenberg and like some Xenakis, but otherwise I am in complete agreement over Delius, well, and arts in general as a source of sensual pleasure instead of uncomfort. Delius wrote some very fine music indeed - and was a pioneer in fusing African American music and European classical music.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
As for Sibelius, I'm a huge fan - and not just because we're both Finns. I think you are wrong in thinking that the modernists were responsible for Sibelius's silence, though. He had health (and family) issues and needed to stop drinking alcohol, which had been for a very long time his medication for tremor. Additionally, he may have very well served his artistic goals in the last works as well as he ever would have.
Regarding Sibelius's innovations, his handling of time and development, or rather non-development, and textures and harmony, his influence was crucial to Feldman, minimalists and spectralists (along with the French, of course). I recently dug a few relevant passages from the Cambridge Companion to Sibelius and posted them in the relevant thread on another forum (where you are a member as well).
I've listened to a good bit of Osmo Vänskä & Sinfonia Lahti recordings of Sibelius symphonies and tone poems lately, as well as Erich Hoeprich & Nachtmusique's recording of Mozart's Gran Partita. All first rate.
I do not like Schoenberg's ludicrous attempt to create a new kind of music based on excessive use of modulated notes and/or chords as used with discretion by Wagne'. i.e twelve tone music. It was a dead-end leading nowhere because it abandoned the prerequisite of harmony.Quote:
Originally Posted by North Star
The Osmo Vänskä & Sinfonia Lahti recordings have received critical acclaim as Sibelius performances but I ask you to listen to the 1950 recording with the Boston Symphony of the 2nd symphony under Serge Koussevitsky, which, among my other recordings of the work, is the perfect example of maintaining the line from the beginning of the music's development to the most stunning finale that currently exists on record.
The poet, Randall Jarrell, speaking on the limitations of Abstract Expressionism, suggested, "perhaps painting can do without the necessity of imitation, but can it do without the possibility of distortion?" This question seems apt when addressing Schoenberg and his heirs and "atonality". Dissonance brings to bear a powerful emotional impact when employed by Biber, Bach, Rebel, Mozart (the "Dissonance Quartet") Wagner, etc... as these passages stand out in powerful contrast to the tonality of the whole. In this sense it is like the expressive distortions of Michelangelo, Bronzino, Ingres, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, etc... which strike me as having far more potential than absolute abstraction.
Again, there are exceptions. I like Berg's Lyric Suite... and a few other works. With few exceptions, Xenakis just irritates me. I far prefer Giacinto Scelsi or Tristan Murail... but then their works are very much "tonal"... or even "modal" like Medieval music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H__4F3t4IxE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4EIx0XzPzg
I'm also quite fond of Toru Takemitsu who builds more upon late Debussy (and even Brahms' chamber works) than Schoenberg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjvkYQgFbL4
Today I was listening to Furtwängler Conduct Richard Strauss & Bedrich Smetana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-F42vkGuAc
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG...er=allrovi.com
If only Furtwängler had lived a bit later and been able to take advantage of the improved recording technology. Nevertheless, this recording is marvelous.
My "go to" for Sibelius is Barbirolli:
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG...er=allrovi.com
... but this Beecham recording is stunning!
http://cdn.discogs.com/_Z7GuLRMe7Ak3...35537.jpeg.jpg
I must credit it with really turning me onto Sibelius.
He was one of a long line of great conductors that seems to have ended with Karajan.
Emil... you may be right with regard to the tradition of German/Italian/French and even Scandinavian composers of the Romantic, Post-Romantic/early Modern era... and I know this is your oeuvre. I would disagree with you when it comes to other oeuvre. Jordi Savall, John Eliot Gardiner, Rene Jacobs, William Christie, Harry Christophers, Masaki Suzuki, Marc Minkowski, Valery Gergiev, etc... all all equally brilliant conductors specializing more in the realm of Baroque and "Early Music", the Classical Era, and in the instance of Gergiev, Russian music... especially Russian opera. These are all areas where Karajan, Furtwangler, etc... were not necessarily the strongest.
There aren't enough great English language songs in classical music. I envy Italian and Germans that they can hear so much great music in their native language. Diggin' this tune by Purcell lately (Sound the Trumpet).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDUEI4RDESo
Also, this might straddle the line between popular and classical, but I've been listening to this song by the Jacobean minstrel Philip Rosseter "When Laura Smiles."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svN6RCDtSCk
Rosseter was somewhat popular in his own day, but would probably be forgotten if he weren't the best friend of Thomas Campion. I didn't know that Campion's poems were meant to be played with a lute and he was trying to do some sort of merger of music and poetry like Pound did centuries later. Anyway, Rosseter helped him set tunes to his poetry, published with him, and when Campion died he was the sole beneficiary of Campion's estate. Here's what Campion's songs sound like:
"Shall I Come, Sweet Love, To Thee"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKClQ-Kevjg
It reminds me of that other great English language poet Robert Burns who wrote several hundred popular songs. Everyone has heard "Auld Lang Syne" sung at New Years, but have you heard "A Man's A Man For A' That"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1ZraF0AYKg
Point taken. I agree that there are other conductors working in fields that require a different technique to those schooled in music of the period you have mentioned. I would, however, disagree with the view that Russian music might not be conducive to great performances by conductors who traditionally are thought of as belonging to the Germanic school of romantic and post-romantic composition. Mengelberg's 1929 recording of Tchaikovsky's 4th with the Concertgebouw is as stunning as one could possibly wish for.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Of course you are right about performances of Russian Music. That's why I stressed opera. A good many of Gergiev's finest recordings are of Russian operas that have been long ignored of underrated: Rimsky-Korsakov's, Prokofiev's, Shostakovitch', etc... Beyond Mengelberg there was also Kiril Kondrashin, Evgeny Mravinsky, Igor Markevitch, and one would have to include Von Karajan considering his recordings of Tchaikovsky's symphonies. Then you have Bernstein, Robert Craft, Pierre Monteux, Ernest Ansermet, etc... as master conductors of Stravinsky.
For English-Language songs check out Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Ned Rorem, Jake Heggie, Charles Ives, and many English composers: give a listen to Ian Bostridge' The English Songbook for a good introduction. Is the oeuvre of English classical song equal to that of the Austro-Germans? Of course not. But perhaps only the French come close.