Classical Listening

[LitNetIsGreat]

I really liked Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. It avoided the usual pitfalls of the conventional biopic by focusing on different aspects of his life and work in each chapter. The actor who portrays Gould doesn't look at all like the pianist, but his mannerisms and speech rhythms (sometimes he's even miming to actual recordings of Gould speaking) are quite appropriate. Some fans may complain that it's an arty, self-conscious movie, and Gould comes off as an inscrutable eccentric at odds with his audience and celebrity more than a genuine human being. But the film, like its subject, is fascinating nevertheless.

Excellent thanks. I'm going to watch it, it sounds interesting. I am beginning to love some of the Amazon reviews too. Take this one on the film I read yesterday:

Available at last on DVD in the UK! I have been raving about this film for years. I video'd it off the TV years ago because it was on one afternoon while I was at work. I was astounded by it and I literally wore the tape out watching it. I have never been able to buy it because it is rare on VHS and has been noexistant on DVD in the UK until now. The film is a masterpiece and the actor playing Gould (Colm Feore) is a genius here at portraying the inner life of a genius. The non linear format of the film is structured like a piece of music and you just need to go with it. If you love Gould already, you will love this.
If you don't love Gould already, you will after watching this. Turn down the lights, lock the door and step into the mind of a genius. It is a profound and deeply moving experience that you will return to.

I write this review as I wait for my copy to arrive. When it does it will not be a good idea to disturb me for at least 93 minutes

I love the last bit especially.

Whilst on the subject of Amazon reviews (or such reviews in general) I have to share this even though it has nothing to do with music. I was looking at chess clocks for Christmas (I know, I know, but I have always wanted one) when I came across this one. I've been thinking about it all day.

Great timer. I don't play chess - I wanted something that would have two timers that could count upwards. I work from home so I use the left side for when I'm doing work and the right side for when I'm messing about, so that it guilts me into doing more work. The design is nice and sturdy. It's quite big but not stupidly so - check the dimensions before you buy to make sure it's OK for you.

What the hell?? I just can't get the image of this bloke walking around his house tapping the clock from left to right. Brilliant.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I'm about 3/4 through the Glenn Gould film thng, I've had to pause it for now because I'm dong something else. It's interesting. It's a little fragmentary and erratic for my tastes exactly, but that of course matches Gould's personality and is presumably is the point of the production?

Oh he had to be autistic. I was reading briefly that his autism was disputed by some but he surely was. He reminds me of Fischer, another disputed autistic genius who was clearly autistic.

Anyway, all week I've been listening to...guess what? Yes Gould and Bach - various - so the film thing was certainly not out of place.

I always feel a little frustrated with these genius type loner figures though. I mean so much potential to go way beyond and they always fall short of their own massive potential. We should be grateful and are to a degree, but there is something so frustrating about unfulfilled genius (unless that's just me). I mean take both Gould and Fischer as I mentioned them. Gould stopped playing live in his early 30s and his own original compositions fizzled to nothing. Fischer could have been the undisputed, greatest ever player of chess the world has ever known but quit after his world storming victory in fear that the Russians were trying to kill him (or whatever paranoia it was - regardless, we don't forgive him for it). And of course, we all know that true genius always seems to die early, like Mozart for example. How inconvenient for us.

Anyway...

Again! Let them play on!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnRIU4u7B9o

[Emil Miller]

St Luke's and I have in recent years proclaimed the virtues of various pianists and, while everyone has their favourites, there must come a point where individual preference is overruled by a performance that is so great that all others, whatever their musicality, remain as also rans. Such is the performance of Van Cliburn in the Tchaikovsky’s first Piano Concerto, which is also an historic performance because it heralded a breakthrough in East/West relations. The work’s dynamics have never been better realised than this, and the overall presentation is so majestic as to remain the greatest performance on record. If human greatness means anything at all, then this is it.

http://youtu.be/f7MAriotZyE

[LitNetIsGreat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpOtuoHL45Y
Liszt Liebestraum. Another old favourite piece.

[Emil Miller]

Beat this:

http://youtu.be/weBcmhMwGnY

[stlukesguild]

Yes... the Chinese are set to surpass America in crass bombast and vulgarity.

Yue Minjun... one of the rising stars of the Chinese art world:

[stlukesguild]

I prefer this one myself:

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;1191449]Yes... the Chinese are set to surpass America in crass bombast and vulgarity.

I doubt it, that was a Japanese performance.

[MorpheusSandman]

I've been digging on Chopin (Nocturnes, especially) and Brahms' chamber music lately... I guess that's pretty boring and safe as far as classical goes, but I'm enjoying it. Brahms' chamber works has especially given me a whole new appreciation for him as a composer.

[Anton Hermes]

I've been listening to a lot of Jonathan Harvey's orchestral work. This phenomenal British composer passed away last week. Body Mandala (2006) is a great testament to his creativity.

[stlukesguild]

I doubt it, that was a Japanese performance.

Acckk! My bad. I should have looked at the text closer. Clearly not Chinese. Surprising, however. The Japanese usually have far greater taste when it comes to classical music.

[stlukesguild]

I've been digging on Chopin (Nocturnes, especially) and Brahms' chamber music lately... I guess that's pretty boring and safe as far as classical goes, but I'm enjoying it. Brahms' chamber works has especially given me a whole new appreciation for him as a composer.

What performer on the Nocturnes?

Brahms' chamber works is quite likely the strongest aspect of his oeuvre. It was only after hearing his symphonies by John Eliot Gardiner that I came around to them... although his German Requiem is absolutely magnificent.

Currently listening to another volume of Bach's cantatas... also by John Eliot Gardiner:

[stlukesguild]

Two major losses to music this week: Dave Brubeck and Galina Vishnevskaya:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...hnevskaya.html

[MorpheusSandman]

What performer on the Nocturnes?

Garrick Ohlsson on Hyperion, which is currently the only set I have.

Brahms' chamber works is quite likely the strongest aspect of his oeuvre. It was only after hearing his symphonies by John Eliot Gardiner that I came around to them... although his German Requiem is absolutely magnificent.

I'm starting to think the same about his chamber works, though I've always been drawn to the symphonies. I personally like Klemperer's approach to them. The German Requiem I'm quite ambivalent about; I love about half the movements (1, 2, 4, and 7) and don't care for the rest. Its best moments are wonderful, though.

[stlukesguild]

Klemperer is a great "old school" approach to Brahms. Bohm, Kleiber, Karajan, and Walter are equally valid choices. Gardiner takes a historically-informed approach... basing the interpretations on what musicologists have discovered of the instruments, playing styles, orchestral sizes, etc... of the composer's life-time. His performances are more muscular... lean.. and transparent... cutting through some of Brahms notorious density. Now I'm not saying Gardiner is the last word on Brahms... but it opened up my grasp of his work so that I have a new appreciation of it... even in older performances by Klemperer, Bohm, etc...

Gardiner's performance of the German Requiem, by the way, has become the gold standard.

The essential recording of Chopin's nocturnes is that of Rubinstein by which all others are measured.



You'll want to give it a listen to at some time.