Classical Listening

[stlukesguild]

I've been reading a good deal on opera lately and I'm quite fascinated with the French Baroque operas... an era I had largely ignored until recently. This production of Lully's Cadmus et Hermione is absolutely visual magic... making it quite clear that I truly need to explore DVD options of my favorite operas. Anyway... take a look at the visuals of this opera... staged in a manner that recreates the historical staging of the Baroque era... down to limiting the lighting to candle-light:

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

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

I ordered (and have already received) this spectacular production of another French Baroque opera: Rameau's Le indes galantes. Again, it is a feast for the eyes as much as the ears:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP0uq...eature=related

The dance/ballet was from the start an essential element of French opera (where it was for a time banned from Viennese opera). The Francophile leanings of the Russians undoubtedly led to the similar obsessions with the ballet among Russian composers... who would return the favor with the French productions of Diaghilev and Nijinsky with Stravinsky, etc...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFeZt...x=0&playnext=1

[_JadeRain_]

I love anything my Chopin and Mozart. They are my two favorite composers, though, I am not sure how I would rank them!

[stlukesguild]

Both are marvelous composers... and unrivaled at composing unforgettable melodies. Chopin owed much to Mozart's classical sensibility. At a time when pianistic virtuosity (such as that of Liszt) was King, Chopin (like Schumann) embraced a simpler style ( in spite of the fact that Chopin was no slouch as a pianist). I've only recently begun to explore Chopin's music once again... especially in the unmatched performances of Arthur Rubinstein:







The shimmering opening of the Polonaise-Fantasie is surely worthy of Debussy... although Chopin quickly returns the classical structure of the dance form (Polonaise).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_AqTY0jkCM

[Musicology]

J.S. Bach
Aria and Chorale
From Cantata 105

'Kann ich nur Jesum mir zum Freunde machen so gilt der Mammon nichts bei mir'
(If I can only make a friend of Jesus, mammon is worth nothing to me').

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD01n...eature=related

[Petrarch's Love]

Wow, St. Luke's thanks for those clips of that amazing production of Rameau's Indes Galantes. The visuals in general are amazing, and the choreography is spot on. Updated enough that it's fresh for a modern audience, but beautifully suited to the music. I think some of those dance clips would be really helpful to explaining music like this to people who have trouble getting into it, since I think a lot of people for some reason hear Baroque music and assume that its designed to be very, very staid and formal, when much of it was intended to be dance music to get people moving. This production really highlights the movement and the passion inherent in such music.

[Emil Miller]

Another great piece from Vaughan Williams.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9x9RwMt0l0

[Musicology]

Thanks Brian Bean,

This is a wonderful overture. A special favourite of my mother who believed it to be a virtual musical definition of all that is good of England.

Another great piece from Vaughan Williams.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9x9RwMt0l0

[Emil Miller]

Thanks Brian Bean,

This is a wonderful overture. A special favourite of my mother who believed it to be a virtual musical definition of all that is good of England.

Yes it certainly epitomises an England that, unfortunately, is no more.
Not politically correct I know but all the better for it.

Here is another piece of quintessentially English music even though the opera that it comes from is set in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6-UGlNyjn0


Delius died at Grez in 1934 and was buried in a nearby cemetery on the Marlotte road that leads out of Grez. The interment ceremony was unusual: there was no priest present, and there were no prayers or music. In 1935, in completion of his own declared wish to be buried in 'a quiet country churchyard in a south of England village', his remains were exhumed and taken from France to the United Kingdom. Jelka contracted pneumonia during the Channel crossing, and could not attend the funeral. On 24 May an Anglican interment took place at the Church of Saint Peter in Limpsfield, Surrey. Vast crowds converged, and a section of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, together with the cellist Beatrice Harrison (of Oxted, nearby), who had given early performances of his works, performed after the funeral ceremony, and Sir Thomas Beecham gave the address. After Jelka died, four days later, she was interred in the same grave as her husband. Beecham's grave is situated approximately ten metres from theirs.


The church mentioned in this extract from Wickipedia was on a country walk that I used to do and I visited the grave of Delius, but it is only now that I have discovered that Thomas Beecham was also buried there. Beecham was a great champion of Delius's music so I suppose he wanted also to be interred in the same village churchyard.

[Musicology]

From Finland's most famous composer Jean Sibelius -

'Karelia Suite'
Op.11
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Charles Mackerass

Intermezzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtIw5AkUEsE

and -

Same piece

Alla marcia

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

[Musicology]

Jean Sibelius
Violin Concerto
Second Movement

Soloist - David Oistrakh

(1966, Moscow)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj6q...eature=related

[Emil Miller]

In response to StLukes dislike of Shostakovitchian bombast here is the beautiful elegiac slow movement to his 2nd piano concerto.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1iXHFzl8wY

[Musicology]

Edward Greig
Concerto in A Minor
End of Second Movement
Soloist - Dinu Lipatti (1950)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKDRdEretC0

[Musicology]

Robert Schumann
Concerto in A Minor
End of Final Movement
Soloist - Dinu Lipatti (1947)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4ebJ...ext=1&index=49

A rare chance to hear part of a little known masterpiece by one of England’s finest composers - Ralph Vaughan Williams.

An opera on John Bunyan's, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ (1942). Here under rehearsal by Sir Adrian Boult.

(A musical journalist of the time described this opera as "summarising in three hours virtually the whole creative output of this wonderful composer").

//

From Acts 3 and 4 -

a. http://www.mediafire.com/?idjzhd2myxj

b. http://www.mediafire.com/?kmllvyimej1

[LitNetIsGreat]

Joyfully at the start of a chamber music festival over here entitled "Classical Revolutionaries" featuring for the most Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert - gets me out of the house and great deal on prices for students!

Last night was Mozart's Oboe Quartet, Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and Wind and Schubert's great (but long) Piano Trio. Tonight's line up features Mozart's Divertimento which the programme notes says is "considered to be the greatest work ever written for this combination" sounds pretty good!

[Emil Miller]

Another 20th century giant was Maurice Ravel. This is an outstanding performance of the 2nd movement of his first Piano Concerto, which surely matches the legendary recording made by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qOhg58PwXg