Classical Listening

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I highlighted my personal favorites... but these are in no way intended as a suggestion of "better" or "worse". My own tastes lean toward vocal music... especially choral... and away from atonal music. The highlighted composers are simply those who have really engaged me. In most instances I have several discs by each of them. But exploring contemporary music is different from exploring the older "classics" in that with the older music, the hard work of discerning "better" and "best" has been done for us by time. We're also confronting artists who are working in a language which in many cases has not been absorbed by the culture and so it can be quite challenging at times.

Cool. I haven't actually gotten into any choral music, but I'll check it out.

to St. Luke's...my god, you're like a veritable walking encyclopedia!

Not to mention art and authors, .

What do you all think of Jay Greenberg. One of his songs started on Pandora, and since I liked it I clicked his name and was surprised to see he was born in 1991. I found this video about him. Quite fascinating.

[Emil Miller]

One of my favourite pieces by Sibelius the master of atmospheric music. The ending, as with so much of Sibelius, is magical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lt4z...&tracker=False

[LitNetIsGreat]

Philippe Jaroussky, Stabat Mater - enjoy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFuEQ...el_video_title

[stlukesguild]

While I vastly prefer the female soprano or mezzo to the use of the male choirboy or countertenor in roles written initially for the castrato, Philippe Jaroussky is rapidly becoming one of my absolute favorite singers.

I've been listening to a good deal of Vivaldi lately as an argument erupted over at the classical music site that I frequent as to how good Vivaldi really is. A great many... even among the seasoned classical music audience... seemingly know Vivaldi only for his concerti grossi... especially the Four Seasons. While there are some lovely works among these, listening to a few too many back to back can lead one to agree with Stravinsky who suggested that Vivaldi only wrote one concerto... but he wrote it 400 times.

In many ways I think that Vivaldi's reputation is not unlike that of Handel's some 20+ years ago. At that time, Handel was acknowledged as one of the great Baroque composers (although few beyond Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel were even known), but his reputation rested almost exclusively upon the Royal Fireworks Music, the Water Music, the Concerti Grossi op. 3 & 6, and the Messiah. This would be like reducing Bach to the Brandenburg Concertos, the Violin Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, and the Mass in B-minor.

Since that time Handel's 100+ cantatas, 40+ operas, 29 oratorios, and other vocal/choral works have been uncovered and recorded. As a result it has become clear that Handel was indeed one of the greatest composers of the Baroque... perhaps second only to J.S. Bach... and not so far behind him as once believed. But Vivaldi? Among the Baroque aficionados there are those who will sing the praises of Zelenka, Biber, Rameau, Domenico, and Alessandro Scarlatti. Based upon the Vespers, a couple extant operas, and the madrigals many are ready to proclaim Monteverdi as the greatest composer of the Early Baroque. But Vivaldi? Vivaldi only codified the solo concerto: the concerto for mandolin... for oboe... for violin, etc... He wrote a vast array of Concerti Grossi including the Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons), L'estro Armonico, La Cetra. But his vocal music has for long been almost forgotten... and I might suggest that any view of Vivaldi without his vocal music is just as skewed as a view of Bach or Handel without their vocal music.

Vivaldi claims to have written some 94 operas! Around 50 of these titles have been identified with the scores surviving in whole or part of nearly 30. Vivaldi composed an equally large body of sacred choral and vocal works. The mezzo, Magdalena Kozena admits to having been uninterested when first approached with the prospect of doing a Vivaldi recording. Kozena... and other leading singers as talented as Sandrine Piau, Vivica Genaux, Simone Kermes, Topi Lehtipuu, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Philippe Jaroussky, Sondra Radvanovsky, Andreas Scholl, and Jakub Burzynski have all recently discovered the wealth of Vivaldi's vocal works and in the process, provided us with any number of magnificent recordings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVgIt...layer_embedded

While I love Jaroussky's uneathly voice, I find Burzynski's driving version of the same work to be equally thrilling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceazC...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFweN...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpVNM...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFM9W...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX83BSR0mug

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJoalfIaOz0

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZbYoHTP0ko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JzU23XgpJo

[Emil Miller]

Here's another favourite Sibelius piece accompanying a clever bit of animation. The animal's movements are brilliantly done and for anyone who has such a pet, it's also very moving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX92pHpPc-k

[Lokasenna]

Here's another favourite Sibelius piece accompanying a clever bit of animation. The animal's movements are brilliantly done and for anyone who has such a pet, it's also very moving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX92pHpPc-k

I'm glad you're enjoying Sibelius at the moment. I recently listened through a huge mound of his work, and I really loved it - very powerful music.

[Emil Miller]

I'm glad you're enjoying Sibelius at the moment. I recently listened through a huge mound of his work, and I really loved it - very powerful music.

The symphonies, tone poems and violin concerto mark Sibelius as a musical giant. His music has so many qualities that almost anyone who appreciates great music is taken with it and yet it is so individual in it's structure and tonality. With the exception of Richard Strauss, I don't think anyone uses horns to such great effect. Coincidentally, Valse Triste tells the same story as Strauss's Death and Transfiguration except that the moribund figure in the first is a woman. If you get a chance to hear the 2nd symphony by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky on CD you will hear the definitive recording. I have a number of recordings of it and no conductor carries the musical line straight through from beginning to end as he did. Koussevitzky made two recordings of the 2nd with the BSO in 1935 and 1950. The 1935 on Naxos Historical is marginally better with marvellous re engineered sound in an amazingly powerful performance.There is a Youtube video of it but the sound is poor. The Gramophone Good CD guide says this about his 1933 recording of the 7th with the BBC symphony Orchestra:
It remains the most electrifying performance ever committed to disc, an account of extraordinary intensity and concentration, and the new transfer gives it a body and presence that are exhilarating.

Not bad for a recording that's 78 years old.

[stlukesguild]

I have all of Sibelius' Symphonies and Tone Poems... and in some cases more than one recording... but for whatever reason I have been slow to warm to his work. However, I immediately fell in love with this magnificent recording:

[Lokasenna]

I've been listening through Simon Rattle's interpretations of Sibelius. According to my music mentor, none of his recordings of the symphonies are the absolute best, but the general quality is high overall.

[Emil Miller]

I agree that favourite performances must be largely subjective in a genre such as music. In the case of Sibelius, the enormous power of the music does require a special application on the part of both orchestra and conductor. The emotional impact, as great as it is, runs parallel to a heightened awareness of the music's composition. In recorded versions sound quality is particularly important and the extract given below shows how clarity of sound enhances the overall effect of one of this composer's most famous works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Jxi96LDm4

[Lokasenna]

Today, I've been listening to some Korngold - a very underrated composer. This wonderful and subtle violin concerto must rank among the best of the genre:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

[stlukesguild]

Unfortunately, his stint as a Hollywood film composer led to Korngold's reputation for "more corn than gold." His violin concerto was somewhat unfavorably received because of the dominance of Modernist atonality at the time, but I agree that it is a lovely piece. His early operas were also quite marvelous:

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1IrY...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQBo9...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lF3t...eature=related

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

Had Korngold, who was Jewish, not needed to remain in Hollywood as a result of the rise of Hitler, he might have represented a serious competition for the other great German operatic composer, Richard Strauss.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Another version of Vivaldi's Stabat Mater, Jochen Kowalski:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YugP4...1&feature=fvwp

[Emil Miller]

One of the most amazing compositions ever and certainly very few pieces are as exciting. The ending always reminds me of being in a very fast car that suddenly loses control and does a terrific skid into a wall.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsFP2FcEdxs

[LitNetIsGreat]

Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9nG2KyEp2A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U40xBSz6Dc

Yes, as triggered by my current Woody Allen obsession. Mrs Neely is sick of Woody Allen, a film every other night - tough!!! If the broad has a probbblem she'll have to go an' see my analyst...