Classical Listening

[Emil Miller]

There's no reason for me to answer that. You screwed up with your first question. No do overs. Since the discussion had no relevance to the thread, I hardly see why I need to justify the relevance of a comment made pertaining to an already irrelevant topic.

I really love this forum.

[Anton Hermes]

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644~1704):

Battalia a 10 in D major, C. 61

Wonderful piece! A cinematic battle scene complete with soldiers drinking before the fight, a tense march, the dramatic conflict, and the mournful aftermath.

Though the second movement (in which several drinking songs are played simultaneously, ending in cacophony) predates the layered thematic experiments of Ives by 250 years, it's only a theatrical device. Biber's real innovations here are in string techniques: the players must strike the strings with the wood of the bow, snap them against the fingerboard, and weave paper between them to simulate martial drumming during the march movement.

[stlukesguild]

Don't forget Biber's use of special tuning... including crossing strings... as employed in his great Rosary (Mystery) Sonatas.

I agree, by the way, that Biber's layering of tunes... which results in a sort of chaotic dissonance... is largely a theatrical device... but I would suggest that this was the great value of dissonance whether employed by Biber, Gesualdo, Mozart, or others. I am reminded of the critic who suggested that the failure of Abstract Art wasn't the abandonment of illusion, but rather the abandonment of expressive distortion. That, in a way, strikes me as the failure of Schoenberg and his followers: the loss of the expressive possibilities of dissonance within the larger context of a tonal work.

[Anton Hermes]

Granted, the outrageously daring composers of the last century sound a lot different than the ones of Biber's day. It's all good.

[OrphanPip]

I went to see the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday, the theme of the night was Latin American composers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vwZAkfLKK8

[stlukesguild]

I just came across Arturo Marquez' Danzón Nº 2 on the classical radio here perhaps a month ago. I will certainly be saving that video... and perhaps picking up Dudamel's DG disc:

[Emil Miller]

Flawless performance of a great solo piano piece.

http://youtu.be/jPlte-4OTMw

[stlukesguild]

I am somewhat burned-out on Romanticism... or rather I should say I have been investing far more effort recently in exploring the music of other periods. At the present I have been digging deep into the Baroque era violin works which predate Bach's violin concertos and his brilliant Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.

Among the composers I am listening to are Johann Paul Westhoff



Johann Jakob Walther:



the brilliant Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber:



Giuseppe Tartini:



Arcangelo Corelli:



Antonio Pandolfi:



Jean-Fery Rebel:



Jean Marie Leclair:



Johann Heinrich Schmelzer:



Francesco Veracini:



On the other hand... I have picked up a couple of Romantic era recordings lately. Liszt is a composer I have too long ignored. I just got this one today:



Can't ask for a better combination for the Romantic music of Liszt than Richter and Kondrashin.

Then I was introduced to Richard Wetz recently and listened to the 3rd Symphony on Spotify. The third symphony is truly marvelous and powerful. As a Romantic era fan you should certainly check him out, Emil.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3QEEDa2WII

[Emil Miller]

Then I was introduced to Richard Wetz recently and listened to the 3rd Symphony on Spotify. The third symphony is truly marvelous and powerful. As a Romantic era fan you should certainly check him out, Emil.

Wetz is a composer where form is more noticeable than content and I agree with the reference to Bruckner in the Youtube comment section. I don't think it would appeal to many listeners except perhaps those who have a particular liking for Bruckner.

[stlukesguild]

Wetz is a composer where form is more noticeable than content and I agree with the reference to Bruckner in the Youtube comment section. I don't think it would appeal to many listeners except perhaps those who have a particular liking for Bruckner.

To a great extent the same can be said of Brahms. Bruckner, for all his aspirations and admiration of Wagner, was (like Brahms) tethered to the structural form of early Romanticism/late Classicism... in a word: Beethoven. To a great extent the same is true of the arch-Modernist, Arnold Schoenberg. For all his Romantic Wagnerian credentials, Schoenberg's developments owe far more to the formal structures of Brahms' chamber works. Perhaps that is why I prefer Berg of all the Second Viennese School. He is far more lyrical and one could imagine him evolving along the lines of something between Debussy and Richard Strauss has Schoenberg not gotten hold of him.

[Emil Miller]

Wetz is a composer where form is more noticeable than content and I agree with the reference to Bruckner in the Youtube comment section. I don't think it would appeal to many listeners except perhaps those who have a particular liking for Bruckner.

To a great extent the same can be said of Brahms. Bruckner, for all his aspirations and admiration of Wagner, was (like Brahms) tethered to the structural form of early Romanticism/late Classicism... in a word: Beethoven. To a great extent the same is true of the arch-Modernist, Arnold Schoenberg. For all his Romantic Wagnerian credentials, Schoenberg's developments owe far more to the formal structures of Brahms' chamber works. Perhaps that is why I prefer Berg of all the Second Viennese School. He is far more lyrical and one could imagine him evolving along the lines of something between Debussy and Richard Strauss has Schoenberg not gotten hold of him.

Brahms acknowledged his debt to Beethoven but I doubt that he would have had much time for Bruckner even though he also used massive orchestral forces.
It would be difficult to to imagine Bruckner producing anything as thrilling as this for example.

http://youtu.be/yb6qkZY6TLU

[prendrelemick]

The Sao Paulo SO are killing the Albert Hall tonight.

[Emil Miller]

The Sao Paulo SO are killing the Albert Hall tonight.

Nope, I have just been listening to the London Symphony Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky's 'Manfred' Symphonic poem conducted by Jurowski. It received tumultuous applause.

[Emil Miller]

The Sao Paulo SO are killing the Albert Hall tonight.

Actually the Sao Paulo SO performed at the proms 3 days ago under Maris Jansons, the main work being the New world Symphony by Dvorak.

[stlukesguild]

I take it you're not a Brucknerian, Emil. He was a composer I discovered on my own... in the classic Eugen Jochum recordings:



I will admit that as a composer he is very dense... and I think the same is true of Brahms. I really struggled with his symphonies until I heard John Eliot Gardiner's recordings which are far more "transparent".

Bruckner lacks the lyricism (and neurotic angst) of Mahler, the absolute mastery of orchestration and orchestral "colors" of Richard Strauss, or the insane and emotionally overwhelming genius of Richard Wagner... and certainly he cannot rival Brahms' breadth and depth... especially his chamber music and choral works... but he surely makes a 5th among these great late Romantics... every bit the equal to Sibelius or Grieg.

Herbert von Karajan makes this quite clear:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CEiZ7DTVZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkfjG...feature=relmfu