Classical Listening

[stlukesguild]

Schubert's songs are so beautifully done! I recently bought his Goethe-Lieder:

This is a great disc... but then again, did Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau make many duds?

I'm intrigued to see a certain degree of fondness for the German lied here... and I am a a great lover of such myself. I wonder, however, about who shares a similar like for French melodies?

[stlukesguild]

I've been listening to a broad array of music over the last day and an half.



Handel's Esther is an absolutely marvelous oratorio written to be performed under more intimate conditions than many of the composer's oratorios. As a result, Handel employed various chamber-like groupings of instruments in a manner not unlike that employed by Bach in many of his cantatas. The use of the delicate harp in the aria "Praise the Lord with Cheerful Noise" is especially delicious, but the work as a whole is laden with beautiful arias and choruses. The performance by The Sixteen with Harry Christophers is brilliant as always.



After having been introduced to Hoffmeister by member of a music site that I frequent I checked him out on Spotify and was immediately enthralled by what I heard. As a result I placed an immediate order for this disc. While waiting for it to arrive in the mail I ended up listening to it twice on Spotify. Sunday I listened again... this time to the actual disc. These clarinet quartets are absolutely delightful... delicious... worthy of being placed along-side Mozart. Highly Recommended!



I've always had a special love of the clarinet. The instrument conveys a sensuality reminiscent of chocolate, and considering what many composers have achieved with the instrument (Mozart, Brahms, Weber, Berg, Schumann, Copland, Stammitz, etc...) I am not alone in my love for this instrument. Indeed, while I am not a huge chamber-music buff, I do tend to be on the lookout for chamber works employing the clarinet. This collection of clarinet works by modern composers (Astor Piazolla, John Harbison, Gunter Schuller, Evan Ziporyn, etc...) is a lovely collection of chamber works featuring the clarinet. As in most instances, my response to chamber music is something that slowly evolves... something that demands several hearings. What I have heard surely suggests that the effort will be worth it.



I have been exploring The Art of the Fugue through several different recordings and in several different incarnations recently. This recording, by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX may just be my favorite. As Bach composed the work without specifying a specific instrumentation or orchestration some critics have suggested the work was never even intended for performance, but solely as abstract theory to be experienced only through the score. Savall fully rejects this notion and elects to employ an instrumentation using viola da gamba and wind instruments in the manner of a number of other contrapuntal compositions of the Baroque, including works by Purcell, Orlando Gibbons, and William Byrd. The resulting work captures a liveliness without losing the sense of the internal structure. Again, Highly Recommended.



I gave this one a spin again. Weigl was a leading figure in the Viennese symphonic tradition following Mahler, Bruckner, etc... While close with Schoenberg, who spoke kindly of him, Weigl continued to explore the symphony within traditional tonality. The "Apocalyptic" Symphony begins with the structure growing slowly out of a cacophonous wall of chaos. The symphony evolves very much within the German symphonic tradition yet brings a unique voice that is very much worth exploration.



This is one of the most impressive discs I have come across recently. I have a number of other recordings of music by Michael Daugherty and greatly enjoyed them all, but put off buying this disc because of doubts about the very idea of a symphony in homage to Superman. I now wish I had bought this disc as soon as I came across it... especially considering all the positive critical response it had garnered. The work is truly spectacular. I would heartily recommend it to anyone interested in exploring contemporary music within the "classical" tradition, yet turned off by a lot of the more atonal and avant garde strains of such music. This music is at one modern and accessible... indeed... dare I say it? It is actually "fun".

The central composition, the Metropolitan Symphony is not actually a traditional "symphony" but rather a suite of orchestral movements in homage of Superman and the ambiguities, paradoxes, and energies of this American myth.

The opening movement, entitled "Lex" employs police whistle, suggestive of the usual comic-book police chases involving Superman's arch-rival, Lex Luther. The music is sheer energy suggestive of the chase through the crowded city streets of Metropolis.

"Kryton" employs a dark churning glissandi and firebells creating a tonal painting of the apocalyptic last days of Kryton, the planet of Superman's birth.

"MXYZPTLK" is the mischievous imp from the 5th dimension that wreaks havoc throughout Metropolis. This movement is the scherzo of the work, bright and playful.

"Oh, Lois!" is composed with a tempo marked "faster than a speeding bullet". This rapid movement laden with various percussive elements suggests the rapid motion scenes of chases, screams, crashes, etc... of the comic-book tradition.

"Red Cape tango" the final movement of the symphony, is the most fascinating. Daugherty employs a dark tango to evoke the red-caped superhero's fight to the death with Doomsday as something akin to a death tango in the bullfight ring. The movement employs the melody of the same Dies Irae employed by Berlioz in his Symphonie Fantastique. The effect is quite fitting, as the work, according to the music critic of the London Times, is surely a worthy Symphonie Fantastique of our times.

I absolutely loved this piece... yet in all honesty I found the second work, Deus Ex Machina, a three-movement suite for piano and orchestra no less enthralling. Deus Ex Machina or God in the Machine explores the great trains of the past. The first movement... laden with elements of atonality and cubistic fracture... was inspired by the Futurist triptych, States of Mind by Umberto Boccioni. The second movement, Train of Tears, alludes to the "lonesome train on a lonesome track" with "seven coaches painted black" that carried Lincoln to his home for burial after his assassination. The beautiful comber movement is repeatedly pierced by the sound of the "Taps". The final movement... apocalyptic and elegiac... speaks of the final days of the great steam trains as captured in a series of photographs by O. Winston Link.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'll have to check out the Superman CD. I'm a huge comic book geek, so it seems a wonderful fit. I have to geek-out and correct you on something, though, Stlukes (I must take any opportunity to show you up, no matter how trivial, after all), but Supe's planet is "Krypton," not "Kryton." I like how they use the villain of MXYZPTLK for one of the songs since he's one of the more obscure baddies. I guess he's the only one who could fit the happy tune.

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of this:





I find Vivaldi is the best, bar none, listening to help write a paper. The soothing and relaxing music is so conducive to productivity. I wouldn't listen to it in the car or anything, but this may have been the most useful musical purchase I've ever made. I owe many a paragraph to it.

[chrisvia]

(Hereby erasing a pointless reply.)

[stlukesguild]

Ack!!! How did I perpetuate the typo "Kryton" for "Krypton" more than once? And here I am toying with employing Superman, Batman, etc... into my paintings as a sort of Modern American mythology. I must hang my head in shame.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Ack!!! How did I perpetuate the typo "Kryton" for "Krypton" more than once? And here I am toying with employing Superman, Batman, etc... into my paintings as a sort of Modern American mythology. I must hang my head in shame.

Please, don't let your small faux pas keep you from doing that, because it sounds pretty badass.

[Emil Miller]

I am toying with employing Superman, Batman, etc... into my paintings as a sort of Modern American mythology. I must hang my head in shame.

You might be the new Roy Lichtenstein.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Since we're sort of on the subject of comic book characters, I've always loved the theme for the 1990s cartoon, Batman: The Animated Series. It's just a wonderful little piece by Danny Elfman that really nails the tones of Batman. It's also a great show--it may be good for some inspiration, StLukes--it has a very noir feel. I still watch it regularly.

[Emil Miller]

One of the most sparkling piano pieces ever written.


http://youtu.be/XE4i9Eqe_gs

[chrisvia]

In response to stlukes call for French mélodies interest, I've been listening to Berlioz's <<Les nuits d'été >>:



And Duparc's chansons:



I've also been listening to random selections from Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Though I do enjoy the German lieder, especially Schubert's Goethe-lieder, my tastes tend more toward the French art songs.

[chrisvia]

And the sweeping, elevated emotion of Schubert's Serenata (975), played by the Royal Schubert Orcestra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olrNo3W1sTU



Here at work, staring at yet another electronic surface, I can close my eyes and let this piece transport me back to another time.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Some Glenn Gould and Bach for Christmas (or anytime):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOf_L4cNHc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGO0w...eature=related

(Currently listening.)

[stlukesguild]

I have been fond of French mélodies (especially Faure, Debussy, Duparc, etc..) for some time now as several older posts here attest. For whatever reason, I never stumbled upon Berlioz' Les nuits d'été until quite recently. Admittedly, I have long had little or no interest in Berlioz... something that has only recently begun to change. Anyway... sometime earlier this year I got around to playing this disc:



I was absolutely blown away by these orchestral songs. I immediately picked up this:



This disc featured several orchestral song cycles or suites: Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer (an exquisite work), Ravel's Shéhérazade, and Debussy's 5 Poèmes de Charles Baudelaire (arranged by John Adams). I also discovered that may favorite current female French singer, Véronique Gens, had also made a recording of Berlioz' work... thus I had to run out and get this as well:



In spite of my love of French mélodies (and I should note I have a good collection of art songs from Russia, England, the US... and even South America... I am profoundly enamored of classical vocal music as a whole) German lieder remain central to my love of "art songs". I must have 7 or so recordings of Schubert's Wintereisse (perhaps my single favorite song cycle), 4 exquisite versions of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, and something like 9 or 10 recordings of Strauss' Four Last Songs. Of course I am an avowed Straussian... in that he is my favorite composer of the 20th century.

[Emil Miller]

http://youtu.be/Vn7UnQWkcjY

[chrisvia]

Tonight I'm going to a local art house theatre to see Lars Von Trier's Melancholia, which makes use of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde!