Classical Listening

Over the holidays I've had plenty of time to listen to music sitting in the light of the Christmas tree and the glow of the candle-light. One new disc I've been listening to is Three Ragas by Ravi Shankar, recorded in the late 1950s.

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Ravi Shankar was a phenomenal musician... one of the greatest sitar players within the classical Indian tradition. He became well known, for better or worse, through his association with the Beatles. Nevertheless, he was no pop version of exotica. Intriguingly, I found that the droning modal qualities of the Indian ragas are not as out of place with my other holiday listening as might be thought. There is something quite similar to the modal qualities of Medieval European music... Gregorian Chants, Leonin, Perotin, Gesualdo, etc...

This example of Shankar playing comes from much later in his career:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JjrW...130F9D&index=3

On Christmas Day I listened to the old traditional masterwork for the holiday:
Handel's Messiah.

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Like Shankar, the Messiah has been hyped by popular culture to a point where many might doubt it's merit. Doubt no further. Handel stands not far beneath Bach in the pantheon of Baroque composers... indeed within the whole of Western classical music. The Messiah may just be his greatest achievement. Handel composed a vast array of operas and oratorios... to say nothing of his instrumental music. There are a number of truly masterful oratorios... which were virtually operas sans the drama/acting with an emphasis on choral passages. Saul, Solomon, Judas Maccabeus, and Joshua are all masterpieces in their right... but the Messiah is something special. The wealth of memorable arias and choruses is unrivaled:

"Comfort ye, my people"-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhy2S...om=PL&index=12

"O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion"-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWXxf...eature=related

"All we like sheep have gone astray..."-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeAGb9KK1cs

"Lift up ye heads, o ye gates..."-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kzgVzg8nVk

"Hallelujah"-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uOabPZScQs

"I know that my redeemer liveth"-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sytc...eature=related

"The trumpet shall sound..."-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7555EtvhwKQ

And one could certainly discover any number of other "peaks" within this marvelous work. I had hoped to see the work in person this year... but other things intervened. Oh well...

Today I have been playing a disc that just arrived in the mail from Amazon: Anna Netrebko: Souvenirs:

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While there are undoubtedly several contemporary singers whom I prefer to Netrebko, she is undoubtedly one of the "hottest" rising stars of opera. I have been following her since first coming upon her marvelous Russian Album which is many ways spurred my recent interest in Russian opera. This latest collection focuses upon "lighter" and more intimate/personal music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soyAJE4U_BI

The disc collects any number of sensual and joyful arias from various late 19th century operettas... a number by composers who are in no way household names: Emmerich Kalman...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYf-u9MZZR8

Richard Heuberger, Geronimo Gimenez. There are also a number of songs, performed in orchestral version, by Grieg, Strauss, Reynaldo Hahn, and others. The music is perfectly suited to Netrebko's lyrical soprano and her marvelous ability to exude a theatrical sensuality. One of the songs included on the disc is Franz Lehar's Meine Lippen, Sie küssen so heiss (My lips, they kiss with such fire) which Netrebko performed is a joyous... almost cabaret manner... before the BBC Proms audience:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_kaO...eature=related

One of the highlights of the new disc is the Bacarolle from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann performed in duet with Elina Garanca (with whom Netrebko performed the marvelous recent recording of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u0M4CMq7uI

Highly recommended!:thumbs_up

It's in the mid-20s outside... snowing and blowing... and I'm sitting in my cozy little library...

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the tree is decorated to the hilt and all lit up... the candles are burning... and I'm sipping hot chocolate with whipped cream and nibbling on a few chocolate truffles dusted with coffee. And the music?... some sweet Viennese confections: decadent operetta arias, waltzes, and lieder. Perhaps its just that I've been so seduced by Anna Netrebko's recent disc (and who couldn't be seduced by Anna Netrebko:blush:) or perhaps its just childhood memories of The Sound of Music over the holidays... or the annual New Years' Day Concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic playing Strauss waltzes. Whatever the case may be I'm currently in a big Viennese mood.

Beside the Netrebko, I've been listening to the classic Elizabeth Schwarzkopf recording of operetta arias from the late 1950s:

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and the operetta and folk song recordings of Rita Streich:

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Elizabeth Schwarzkopf was one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th century and was a rather fascinating figure. An beautiful icy blond... in the manner of Grace Kelly...

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she was reputedly the favorite singer of Adolph Hitler... as well as of the great German conductor, Herbert von Karajan. Indeed, her cold perfectionism and silvery voice was perfectly suited to Karajan's own similar aesthetic temperament. She was also a favorite of Walter Legge... one of the greatest impresarios and opera producers (famous for numerous classic recordings from the 50s and 60s done for EMI)... so much so he later married her. Where Maria Callas almost certainly cut her career short by attempting to tackle roles that were beyond her range well after she capable, Schwarzkopf had the good sense to move to a repertoire more suited to her voice as she grew older: resulting in numerous marvelous recordings of lieder (by Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, Strauss, and others) as well as classic recordings of lighter Viennese operettas. Her recordings of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (in the role of the Marschallin, Princess von Werdenberg) and Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus (in the role of Rosalinde)... both with Karajan conducting... remain the standards by which all others are measured. Her disc of operetta arias contains a slew of luscious bon-bons that are equally a joy to listen to. The tunes include compositions by Strauss and Lehar... but many of the works are by composers all but forgotten today, including Richard Heuberger, Carl Zeller, and Rudolf Sieczynesky. Among the real gems is Lehar's "Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAI12axZL5k

Johann Strauss II's "Nun's Chorus & Laura's Song":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VCsj7QYzyA

"In chambre separee" from Der Opernball by Richard Heuberger-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBj5AMiXEi4

Rita Streich was born in Germany and had her operatic debut during the WWII. Following the war she became a much sought-after singer for light coloratura-and-soubrette soprano roles. Her exquisitely light and delicate voice earned her the reputation as the "Viennese Nightengale" following her move to Vienna. Streich recorded several delicious recitals of operetta arias and folk songs. Among a few favorites I would count Johann Strauss II's "Frühlingsstimmen":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkFWL1rhx6k

Camille Saint-Saëns' "Le Rossignol et la rose":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfyxG...eature=related

the Yiddish Folksong, "Schlof Sche Mein Vogele"-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze9hO...eature=related

and Friedrich von Flotow's "Last Rose of Summer" from his opera Martha. The tune should certainly be well-enough known with lyrics from the old Irish poet, Thomas Moore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTHMZ...eature=related

Hi St. Luke's--Glad you're having such a cozy post holiday afternoon. Your library cum Christmas tree looks absolutely idyllic. (Of course I'm not suffering too much out here in the sunny 70 degree weather of California either.) Thanks for the links. The Chicago Lyric Opera will performing Lehar's Merry Widow when I get back in January and as I thought about the upcoming performance I had just been realizing that I have almost no light opera in my music collection and had been musing about what might be a good recording to start with, so yours is a timely post. The Schwarzkopf recording might be a good anthology to add into my vocal music mix. There are times when one distinctly feels like a few "bon-bons" as you say. :)

Over the past week I have repeatedly been listening... with great enthusiasm I might add... to the music of a recent discovery (for me): Charles Koechlin. Koechlin was a French composer (November 27, 1867–December 31, 1950) whose music was quite individual... even eclectic... although he is commonly placed among the French Impressionists. It is with a certain degree of disbelief that I first listened to this composer... and then sought out more and more by him... especially when one considers my admiration for French music of the period: Ravel, Debussy, Fauré, Satie, Reynaldo Hahn, and many others have been familiar to me for quite some time. But I had never even heard of Koechlin... and this is all the more surprising when I began to look at his biography.

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Koechlin studied at the Paris Conservatoire. His teachers included Massenet, with whom he studied composition, and his fellow students included a number who would soon rank among the leading figures of French Modernist music: George Enescu, Reynaldo Hahn, Henri Rabaud and Florent Schmitt. He continued his studies as a pupil of pupil of Gabriel Fauré, where his fellow-pupils now included Ravel and Jean Roger-Ducasse. Fauré was a major influence on Koechlin; in fact Koechlin wrote the first Fauré biography in 1927 and orchestrated the popular suite from Fauré's Pelléas et Melisande. Ravel spoke of Koechlin.

His musical education occurred during of great change and innovation in music. As Koechlin himself would recall, "There were... strange insights, lie windows opening into the mystery of sounds, or like glimpses into that great virgin forest: the Music of the Future." The whole generation including not only Stravinsky and the Viennese circle of Mahler and Schoenberg and Berg, but also the French Impressionists were most profoundly shaken by the experience of one composer: Richard Wagner... and nothing inspired them as much as his complex, unresolved dissonances and virtual polytonalities (or the use of more than one key simultaneously) of his brilliant opera, Tristan und Isolde. The French composer who seemingly grasped the potential of Wagner's innovations most profoundly was, as Koechlin notes, "a strange, mysterious, fellow composer whom Florent Schmidt... praised to the skies: Claude Debussy. To tell the truth, I knew almost nothing of him while I was a pupil... but this 'nothing' was quite a bit. Sometimes a single bar by a colleague of genius is enough to open the door to enchanted gardens, where we might gather other flowers than his."

Koechlin's music is quite varied in genre and style. There are elements of the lush shifting of keys to be found in the classic examples of Impressionism... especially of Debussy. At times there are elements of atonality and even serialism (inspired by Schoenberg and his followers)... but in general, Koechlin is too much of a classicist... deeply admiring of Faure and Chopin... to employ dissonant "noises" to too vulgar an extreme. Inspired by nature, the the Middle-East and Asia (some of his works sound almost Japanese), Hollywood, films, and even jazz, there are moments when Koechlin recalls an American composer such as Copland and other moments when he is as complex and abstract as Bach.

Koechlin composed symphonies and symphonic poems (the most famous forming part of a composition inspired by Kipling's Jungle Book) and a number of other symphonic compositions. He also composed works for chorus and a body of songs, which have only recently begun to be discovered and appreciated as among the finest examples of Modern French song. However, it seems his most admired works are to be found among his many compositions for solo instrument (piano, flute, clarinet, etc...) or small chamber groups.

His exquisite works for solo piano are worthy to stand alongside of those of Debussy and Ravel. The pieces are marvelously poetic and evocative:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofUKzA9Ttqk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG3BJ...eature=related

The composer was also a master of works for clarinet, saxophone, and flute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBAfgBVLz_8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBOjl...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovi2oUTMryc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akYuKpui59M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQgi8...eature=related

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Today I got another disc of Koechlin's music bringing my over-all collection to 4 (whoo-hoo!:rolleyes:). I was fascinated with the brief history of the saxophone included. The instrument was invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and by 1857 a class (taught by Sax himself) opened in the Paris Conservatoire. Unfortunately, the class closed in 1870 and the saxophone was left to fend for itself... showing up rarely in orchestral music and making its biggest impact upon jazz. Intriguingly... perhaps in part as a result of the sax classes... the saxophone enjoyed a degree of popularity with early French Modernists... and showed up again in response to the popularity of jazz... in the French Conservatiore in 1942.

The disc is an achingly lovely collection of Charles Koechlin's works for saxophone and piano. The music is quite beautiful... sensual... delicate... beautiful examples of French Impressionism that I would heartily recommend to anyone with a fondness for Ravel or Debussy.

This piece probably doesn't belong on the Classical Listening thread as it is a hybrid. It is by a Scottish composer of mainly film music called Craig Armstrong whom I had never heard of until a few days ago. I have been able to find out quite a bit about him through Google but, apart fom this music being played by the London Sessions Orchestra, I cannot trace the name of the choir or the libretto of the piece. Does anyone know where I can find them?


http://www.last.fm/music/Craig+Armst...ion%29/+videos.

Thanks for posting the Koechlin links, St. Luke's. I've been listening to them while doing some teaching prep and they're quite lovely. I had never heard of him before either and I wonder why. Interesting.

Brian--I couldn't get your link to work for some reason.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

Thanks for posting the Koechlin links, St. Luke's. I've been listening to them while doing some teaching prep and they're quite lovely. I had never heard of him before either and I wonder why. Interesting.

Brian--I couldn't get your link to work for some reason.

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Sorry to hear that, how about this haunting piece from Philp Glass ?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK--Y

Quote:

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Sorry to hear that, how about this haunting piece from Philp Glass ?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK--Y

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That is a lovely piece. Is it from the film, The Hours? I only saw a very short part of the introduction to the film once (wasn't too impressed with that bit) but the score is very good. Glass has some pretty decent pieces.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

That is a lovely piece. Is it from the film, The Hours? I only saw a very short part of the introduction to the film once (wasn't too impressed with that bit) but the score is very good. Glass has some pretty decent pieces.

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Yes it is from the film and though I haven't seen it the storyline seems very contrived to me, although I think there is a good case for making a film solely about Virginia Woolf. There is an extract from the film of The Hours on the video I have posted concerning her and it appears to be sensitively handled. I understand that Glass studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and I can hear the French influence in this music, although there is something eerily American about it also which I find a lttle disturbing.

Thanks for posting the Koechlin links, St. Luke's. I've been listening to them while doing some teaching prep and they're quite lovely. I had never heard of him before either and I wonder why. Interesting.

Petrarch... I hadn't heard of him myself until just recently. I finally built two new shelves and got all my CDs shelved and organized. As a result I found myself more clearly able to recognize those areas where I felt my collection was lacking. While I have a good deal of late 19th/early 20th century French vocal music... chanson... I noticed that beyond Debussy, Ravel, and Faure there was scant little else in instrumental work. Thus I set about to rectify the situation with discs by Dutilleux, Florent Schmitt, Charles Tournemire, Ernest Fanelli, Henri Rabaud, D'Indy, and a number of other contemporaries of Debussy, Ravel, and Faure. Koechlin seems to have been the strongest... the most unique... and the most prolific of these composers. I quickly purchased 4 discs by the man including one collection of solo piano works entitled Les Heures Persanes, a second disc of other works for solo piano, one disc of works for piano and clarinet, and a final disc of works for piano and saxophone. I am currently lusting after his collection or suite for solo flute entitled Les Chants de Nectaire which some have compared to Bach's suites for solo cello as a great towering work of a hermetic genius. Even if the work does not live up to such hype, it is quite haunting... and reminiscent of japanese music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akYuK...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQgi8...eature=related

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

This piece probably doesn't belong on the Classical Listening thread as it is a hybrid. It is by a Scottish composer of mainly film music

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0wPBYDQ6Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQH84rbM_94
Besides, Prokofiev scored Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky. Aaron Copland composed music for The Red Pony. Ralph Vaughan-Williams tried his hand at film scoring several times, notably on Scott of the Antarctic, which music became the basis of his seventh symphony.

Cinema can be very sophisticated. It's shaped and informed how I perceive the classics. When I hear Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings I think of Platoon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T7swpa13_c When I hear the Intermezzo from Cavaleria Rusticana I think of the opening scene of Raging Bull. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQhwi8kk-dE When I hear certain pieces by Bach, Vivaldi, or Boccherini I think Master and Commander. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZg02IqJyHM

Prokofiev's film scores seem the most successful among major composers. In most other instances they seem but minor endeavors... diversions in search of a quick chunk of change. Korngold may have been the best among serious composers who made a career of writing film scores, but there are some other interesting composers as well. I quite like Eleni Karaindrou, a contemporary composer. She has written extensively for films:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WbdS...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAz9V...eature=related

Of course the linking between a piece of music and a film can be something of a negative... completely changing the intention of the piece. In past generations it was impossible to hear the Overture to Rossini's William Tell without thinking of the Lone Ranger. Now Also Sprach Zarathustra will forever be linked with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Penderecki's music with The Shining, and of course the Ride of the Walkure with Apocalypse Now!. The music certainly reinforces the film... but I don't know that the film necessarily strengthens the music... unless we consider that film may be one of the venues through which a larger audience has been introduced to orchestral music.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

In most other instances they seem but minor endeavors... diversions in search of a quick chunk of change.

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Kind of like The Magic Flute or Rasselas.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0wPBYDQ6Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQH84rbM_94
Besides, Prokofiev scored Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky. Aaron Copland composed music for The Red Pony. Ralph Vaughan-Williams tried his hand at film scoring several times, notably on Scott of the Antarctic, which music became the basis of his seventh symphony.

Cinema can be very sophisticated. It's shaped and informed how I perceive the classics. When I hear Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings I think of Platoon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T7swpa13_c When I hear the Intermezzo from Cavaleria Rusticana I think of the opening scene of Raging Bull. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQhwi8kk-dE When I hear certain pieces by Bach, Vivaldi, or Boccherini I think Master and Commander. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZg02IqJyHM

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I agree that there has been some great music written for film and also great use of music in film.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Prokofiev's film scores seem the most successful among major composers. In most other instances they seem but minor endeavors... diversions in search of a quick chunk of change. Korngold may have been the best among serious composers who made a career of writing film scores, but there are some other interesting composers as well. I quite like Eleni Karaindrou, a contemporary composer. She has written extensively for films:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WbdS...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAz9V...eature=related

Of course the linking between a piece of music and a film can be something of a negative... completely changing the intention of the piece. In past generations it was impossible to hear the Overture to Rossini's William Tell without thinking of the Lone Ranger. Now Also Sprach Zarathustra will forever be linked with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Penderecki's music with The Shining, and of course the Ride of the Walkure with Apocalypse Now!. The music certainly reinforces the film... but I don't know that the film necessarily strengthens the music... unless we consider that film may be one of the venues through which a larger audience has been introduced to orchestral music.

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Thanks for the links, St. Luke's. I've never heard of that composer or either of those two films. Are they worth watching?

Yes, there are certainly also those unfortunate uses of music in film and television that can come close to spoiling a piece of music in some instances. I think I recently mentioned on another thread here that because of a Giligan's Island episode I can't read one of Polonius' speeches in Hamlet without hearing the Toreador theme in my head, and I can't hear the Toreador theme without hearing Polonius in my head. Darn Gilligan's Island:mad: :lol:

As you say, music definitely does a great deal for film, whether the reverse is true or not is a good question. It can certainly change the sort of emotional association one has with a piece of music. Take, for example, John Williams' theme for Shindler's List. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMx2SKIRkw4) I think it's a beautiful score but, though it's obviously a plaintive, minor piece, I don't know that I would associate it with the same kind of rending emotion that I do having first heard it as the backdrop to that film. I can imagine that the same music played as the score for a sad but sappy love film might have led to people reacting very differently to the work.

On a lighter and different note, I just got back from an absolutely fantastic fantastic piano concert with Emmanuel Ax playing a heavenly and delightful all Chopin and Schumann program, so I'm in this sort of mood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRWWP7H-9SQ

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

:banana:

In most other instances they seem but minor endeavors... diversions in search of a quick chunk of change.

Kind of like The Magic Flute or Rasselas.

Don't get me wrong... nothing wrong with making art for money. Johnson himself suggested that "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Blake may have disagreed... although even he strove to make money off his art. What I was suggesting is that most of the works which you were discussing come off as minor pieces... as nothing more than a grab for the quick buck... where Prokofiev's film scores, or Mozart's Magic Flute in no way come off as minor pieces. The film genre may inherently make it difficult for the composer... or at least certain types of film. With rapid shifts in scenes and mood it must be incredibly difficult to score a film: exactly 31 seconds of melancholy music followed by a burst of triumphal music for 13 seconds, followed by another 27 seconds of calm, quiet passages, etc... This is far more rigorously structured than an opera where the composer must work with a given libretto. The demands upon the film composer are incredible... but I question the results as a stand-alone work of music. I think that in most cases a collection of highlights... a suite... not unlike that drawn from the ballets of Tchaikovsky... offers the best taste of what film music has to offer... outside of the film itself.

Besides, Prokofiev scored Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky. Aaron Copland composed music for The Red Pony. Ralph Vaughan-Williams tried his hand at film scoring several times, notably on Scott of the Antarctic, which music became the basis of his seventh symphony.

I agree that film music can be interesting in its own right but, as StLukes has pointed out, it is constrained within its cinematic context and does not often match up to music writen specifically as an audio experience. There are notable exceptions, and composers such as Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Walton etc. are obviously to be taken more seriously than John Williams for example who, as enjoyable as he is, composes essentially for the cinema. The use of great orchestral works as background music in films has led many a person to listen to the music detached from its cinematic format. I had never really bothered with Brahms until I saw Goodbye Again, a film version of Francoise Sagan's succes fou Aimez vous Brahms? After which, I got hold of any orchestral work by Brahms that I could lay my hands on. I haven't seen Master and Commander but it is interesting that the film appears to use a number of established works as background music including Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; one of the most beautiful and intensley English pieces of music ever written