Classical Listening

[stlukesguild]

Naxos has what appears to be (currently) 10 volumes of Weiss' lute music marvelously performed by the acclaimed Robert Barto. The music is indeed captivating... delicate... magical. I will surely pick up a few of these recordings. I've only recently got around to getting the Bach lute suites (on lute... I've had them on guitar for some time).

[Musicology]

Naxos has what appears to be (currently) 10 volumes of Weiss' lute music marvelously performed by the acclaimed Robert Barto. The music is indeed captivating... delicate... magical. I will surely pick up a few of these recordings. I've only recently got around to getting the Bach lute suites (on lute... I've had them on guitar for some time).

Hi stlukesguild,

Yes, Weiss's music is so nice. I found this today on youtube -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4I2kZM_JWY

Regards

[stlukesguild]

Always... always... always... I return to Bach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QuNZHTG-tM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRnA8VaFzD8

Movements 1 and 3 from Cantata no. 82

To think that Bach churned out cantata after cantata... week after week... with such absolutely brilliant and moving music... just boggles the mind.

[Musicology]

J.S. Bach
Magnificat
Gloria patri

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejOaUn0Ub5o

[LitNetIsGreat]

Always... always... always... I return to Bach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QuNZHTG-tM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRnA8VaFzD8

Movements 1 and 3 from Cantata no. 82

To think that Bach churned out cantata after cantata... week after week... with such absolutely brilliant and moving music... just boggles the mind.

Too true Stlukes, too true.

I've been comforting myself again with Mozart's 26th Piano Concerto:

First movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stLTO64ADs

I think the reason I like this is that it was one of the first classical CDs I bought - I think I picked it up at random on a whim! I've played it over and over again throughout the years. It's also got the 23rd on. I'm more than happy that it is being played live into a couple of months - must remember to find it out and book it.

[Musicology]

It's a nice piece. A few weeks ago I looked at the original (so-called 'autograph') score. Strange the second and third movements of this concerto are not even in Mozart's handwriting and the work itself was never published in his lifetime. (Like 500 other works published in his name up to decades after his death). Nor have any performance parts of this concerto ever been found. But that's true of all the Vienna concertos. Apart from that there are only 200 reasons why this piece is not by Mozart. Wonder why the left hand part is missing for almost the entire work, for example.

But the music itself is very nice and I like it a lot. Sometimes the actual authorship doesn't seem to matter. As we see here.

Regards

Too true Stlukes, too true.

I've been comforting myself again with Mozart's 26th Piano Concerto:

First movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stLTO64ADs

I think the reason I like this is that it was one of the first classical CDs I bought - I think I picked it up at random on a whim! I've played it over and over again throughout the years. It's also got the 23rd on. I'm more than happy that it is being played live into a couple of months - must remember to find it out and book it.

[Emil Miller]

Too true Stlukes, too true.

I've been comforting myself again with Mozart's 26th Piano Concerto:

First movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stLTO64ADs

I think the reason I like this is that it was one of the first classical CDs I bought - I think I picked it up at random on a whim! I've played it over and over again throughout the years. It's also got the 23rd on. I'm more than happy that it is being played live into a couple of months - must remember to find it out and book it.

Yes Friedrich Gulda was particularly noted for his performances of Mozar but, unfortunately, like millions of others, he was swayed by the politically manufactured zeitgeist of the 1960's and became the ludicrously self-advertising clown of the concert circuit. There are many pianists, just as worthy of consideration, who lack the self-advertising showmanship of the late Mr Gulda.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh don't start all that up, no offense of course. (To musicology)

Yes it's a nice piece - I'm not saying it is his best work (or to you want is termed as Mozart's best) but it is just one of those that I've had for ages that plays easily and always goes down well.

Yes Friedrich Gulda was particularly noted for his performances of Mozart, but, unfortunately, like millions of others, he was swayed by the politically manufactured zeitgeist of the 1960's and became the ludicrously self-advertising clown of the concert circuit. There are many pianists, just as worthy of consideration, who lack the self-advertising showmanship of the late Mr Gulda.

Oh right, I'm not that familar with him. The CD I have is not Gulda though, I just posted that as an example.

[stlukesguild]

As with many works of the core repertoire one almost needs to sample different interpretations. I have a good number of the insurmountable recordings by Alfred Brendel... but I also have selections by Vladimir Ashkenazy, Robert Levin's HIP recordings with John Eliot Gardiner, Mitsuko Uchida, Rudolf Serkin, and Murray Perahia. I am truly enthralled with Perahia's recordings... of Bach and Beethoven... as well as the acclaimed Mozart... and so I am looking at the complete box set. I am also looking at the Gardiner set for period instruments... but then there's rather pricey... but continually acclaimed recordings by Viviana Sofronitzki which I have never heard.

Touring YouTube I found these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxk50KlKmc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0Hd2GsR30

Quite nice... but of course the sound quality is limited on YouTube.

[Musicology]

Hi there Neely,

No offence of course. The only thing that offends me about Mozart's piano concertos is that most people don't get offended by them being performed, published and described as Mozart's for almost two centuries. But, apart from that, we are in complete agreement. The Sirens of Homer were definitely less seductive.

(I think the Gulda version of Concerto 20 and 21 on DG is specially wonderful)

Regards

Oh don't start all that up, no offense of course. (To musicology)

Yes it's a nice piece - I'm not saying it is his best work (or to you want is termed as Mozart's best) but it is just one of those that I've had for ages that plays easily and always goes down well.

[oshima]

I was curious: has anyone on this thread watched movies about composers multiple times specifically for the music? I've probably watched Immortal Beloved at least ten times, just because the drama seemed to lend different sort of weight to the music than when I'm just listening to it with my eyes closed. The flashback scene of teenage Ludwig running through the forest to escape his father and wading in the lake during the ninth never fails to give me goosebumps.

[stlukesguild]

I think that there are any number of scenes from films... not merely those on composers... that resonate with the mind as a result of the merger with the music. Surely Hitchcock might be credited with giving birth to the one real commercially viable employment of Modernist/atonal music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5j...eature=related

the horror film.

Masterful uses of music in film include:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx07A...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWnmCu3U09w

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

[oshima]

I think that there are any number of scenes from films... not merely those on composers... that resonate with the mind as a result of the merger with the music. Surely Hitchcock might be credited with giving birth to the one real commercially viable employment of Modernist/atonal music]

Indeed, there are many great uses of music in film. Even if you limited the choice of music to "classical", there are many films that have wonderfully scored scenes. One of my personal favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC2UB...eature=related

Not to mention amazing original orchestral scores where both the scene and the songs are inseparable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Y49...eature=related

I suppose I highlighted composer bio pics like Immortal Beloved or, say, Amadeus (as inaccurate as this particular film might be) because in most cases they focus on one composer's music throughout the film, and because of the particular feeling one gets when watching a sketch of the composers life played to his (her?)own music.

[Emil Miller]

Most bio pics of composers are usually romanticised beyond recognition if one has read the known facts about them. Occasionally there is a genuine attempt to portray them as they were. The following is an extract from a famous British TV production made many years ago about Edward Elgar, generally considered to be England's greatest composer. It shows the last scene where recollections of his life cross his mind as he lies dying within sight of Worcester cathedral to the strains of Nimrod, one of his Enigma Variations and one of the greatest pieces of music composed anywhere and by anyone you care to name.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfP6auxiUOI

[Wilde woman]

I rediscovered my love for cellist Stephen Isserlis last night while I was struggling through Bordieu. The only recording I have of him is a collaboration with Joshua Bell and the Takacs Quartet. They played some Ravel and Chausson, if I remember correctly.

Can anyone recommend more stuff by him?