Classical Listening

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

A wealth of inspiration here.
For the past few weeks, I've had Antonin Dvořák's - "Humoreska" stuck in my head.
I can't get enough of it, but I must force myself to move on.

Here are two recordings performed by three of the greats.

First Heifetz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB8mzdO3MnI

and now Perlman and Yo Yo Ma:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xaIH...eature=related

My son plays violin and is currently learning "Transylvanian Lullaby" from the movie "Young Frankenstein", which is great, but the old man wants to hear him play "Humoreska"!
It's tough getting a teenager to do what you want!

.

[Emil Miller]

Here is the ultra glamorous Lola Astanova playing Rachmaninoff. I doubt that it would have received his seal of approval but even he would have given her top marks for technique. The ending really did make me laugh out loud.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPEd8AZX5dQ


This is probably the most incredible playing you will ever see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1fgo7hp-Ko

[Musicology]

Missa in A Major
Kyrie
BWV 234/1

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

[Emil Miller]

And here is Yuja Wang playing the great romantic Mendelssohn piano concerto No1 in a terrific performance combining personal beauty with brilliant playing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0L_pAqLAi0

[Musicology]

Sergi Prokofiev
Concerto No. 3
1st Movement
Live Peformance
RAI Orchestra
Turin 2008

Soloist - Martha Argerich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL-HA4Heu2M

[stlukesguild]

Recently I have been making some efforts to rectify a few areas of obvious short-comings in my music collection. I am currently on the look out for an entire Ring Cycle. I am also looking to get hold of a number of Verdi operas... which my collection is woefully devoid of... in spite of the fact that La Traviata is a personal favorite... and perhaps the first opera I ever saw (on television) while Aida was the first opera I ever saw in real life... the experience which absolutely seduced me and turned me into an opera lover.

Right now, however, I'm listening to a slew of Stravinsky's music which I picked up for next to nothing through secondary dealers on Amazon. The Naxos recordings are already grossly inexpensive... especially considering the quality of the Robert Craft recordings. I have long loved Stravinsky... but for whatever reason, my collection of his music has remained limited to a few of the obvious works: Petrouchka, the Firebird, Histoire du Soldat, and of course the Rite of Spring. Again... for whatever reason... over time I have acquired more music by Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Bartok... and even Schoenberg... who I really don't like.

Anyway... these discs go far toward rectifying this problem:









So far I've listened to the Greek Ballets twice through. The disc truly highlights Stravinsky's chameleon-like nature. The first ballet, Apollo, is quite classical in clarity of form. I most enjoyed the second movement with the solo violin playing a romance-like solo almost suggestive of a Baroque violin sonata... that eventually turned into a waltz... but a waltz gone "wrong"... not unlike those of Prokofiev or Ravel's La Valse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1iJu...eature=related

The second ballet, Agon, has been proclaimed by some as Stravinsky's masterpiece. I won't speak to that now, having only first listened to it. I will say I found it to be the strongest of these three works. Agon is constructed of a collection of brief pieces each having a unique orchestration. In one moment the composer has scored for flute and harp, in the next for woodwinds and percussion, and in the next for cabaret-like horns. There are elements of Agon that are as strident as The Rite of Spring... but then he turns around and presents something delicate and almost worthy of Debussy Impressionism... which then melts into something a bit more atonal and suggestive of Takemitsu and something exotic and Eastern. Stravinsky has clearly learned from Schoenberg and the "Second Viennese School" but he rejects the abandonment of tonality... employing rather both dissonance and harmony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz0mqFnZhLk

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

Where Apollo presented us with Stravinsky's take on Classicism, and Agon had him playing with Modernism, Orpheus is Stravinsky toying with Romanticism. There are long passages of lush and beautifully sweeping melodies that might lead you to think you were listening to Bax, Vaughan-Williams, or Virgil Thompson... until he begins to play around with a strident passage here and there... with the blurring into something a bit off or a bit dissonant.

Personally I found this disc quite enjoyable and almost immediately accessible... although it is clear that Stravinsky's formalism... his manner of playing with expectations... demand repeat listenings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1ZI4SIAuMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TCen...eature=related

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

I am quite looking forward to exploring the other discs.

Currently I'm listening to this disc of lovely music by Gabriel Faure. It's too bad that his reputation centers for many solely upon his Requiem... marvelous as that is. Faure's songs and his chamber works are absolutely exquisite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZbU...eature=related

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

[Musicology]

Giovanni Andre Fioroni (1718-1778)
Andante for Solo Harp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwYqZTpvQx8

Best wishes for this Christmas and in the New Year.

Andreas Romberg
(1767-1821)
Clarinet Quintet in E Flat Major
Op. 57

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc81b_FhnGA

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

[laymonite]

Just got Goulding's book for Christmas (a belated gift, indeed, but worth waiting for I think), and I plan to delve into a composer a week for 2011! I'll post my thoughts each week here!

[stlukesguild]

For Christmas I used some of the money I earned from a bonus for our students have met their yearly goals to finally purchase Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen... well actually not one complete Ring cycle but two:

Herbert von Karajan's studio recording from the mid/late-1960s:



and Clemens Krauss' live Bayreuth recording from the early 1950s:



Krauss' recording has arguably the greatest cast of Wagnerian singers at the absolute height of their abilities, while Karajan employs a marvelous collection of newer singers with the focus upon the symphonic brilliance of the work.

I', currently working my way through Karajan's Ring... just now finishing the second opera:



On the first listening I read the synopsis, but then listen through the whole without following the libretto... focusing on the music. After this I'll give a second listen following the libretto closely. Ultimately approaching this work is like first coming upon Dante's Comedia, Milton's Paradise Lost, Joyce's Ulysses, or the Sistine Ceiling. The work is so incredibly epic in scale that I imagine I'll be listening to almost nothing else for quite a while... which is frustrating as I have Turandot (Puccini), Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Richard Strauss), Le Nozze di Figaro, Tamerlano (Handel), Des Gewaltige Hahnrei (Goldschmidt), Carmen (Bizet), and several other operas waiting in the wings.

[Emil Miller]

Here is the great, and I mean great, Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninoff's Concerto No.2. If I were young enough and rich enough, I would marry her tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2JyZE-OaXY

[LitNetIsGreat]

Here is the great, and I mean great, Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninoff's Concerto No.2. If I were young enough and rich enough, I would marry her tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2JyZE-OaXY

Oh yes, we have noticed you have a crush on Miss Wang don't worry. I agree she is a most able player indeed!

[laymonite]

Any recommendations on a good recording of Bach's Mass in B Minor?

[stlukesguild]

Almost always at the top of the recommendations for any of Bach's choral works are the recordings of John Eliot Gardiner with the Monteverdi Choit and the English Baroque Soloists. Rather than buying this work alone, however, I would suggest this box set:



This set currently costs twice what the Mass in B-minor costs alone... but where the Mass in B-minor consists of two CDs this box set contains 22 CDs!! Included are the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Mass in B minor, the Magnificat, and the Christmas Oratorio as well as 10 discs of Bachs finest cantatas. All of these recordings are the same as the Gardiner recordings of these same works that were all rated consistently among the finest available choices. The soloists include some of the finest in the field of Baroque music including Nancy Argenta, Barbara Bonney, Michael Chance, Bernarda Fink, Magdalena Kozená, Anne Sofie von Otter, Mark Padmore, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Andreas Schmidt and Stephen Varcoe. The only draw back is the absence of any libretto or text to the works, although they offer a link to the same online. This set was one of the greatest purchases I made in music all last year. I still haven't shelved it as I have been playing various works from it in continual rotation.

Other possible choices after Gardiner include:

Philippe Herreweghe is always a top contender for any Baroque-period work. His Mass in B-minor is rated one of the absolute best:



When it comes to Bach's choral works there are essentially 4 major contenders who have recorded or are in the process of recording everything: Garniner, Ton Koopman (who has yet to record the Mass), Philippe Herreweghe, and Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan Orchestra:



I'm personally not a great Suzuki fan. I find his productions too perfect... to the point of being somewhat cold. Perhaps this has something to do with singers who do not relate to the emotional impact of the texts... or perhaps its just me.

After these top 3 choices there are always the "old school" recordings, perhaps the finest of which is Otto Klemperer's with his great collection of singers, but others would include the recording by Karl Richter and that of Herbert von Karajan:



I seriously wouldn't recommend them as a first choice for the simple reason that they present Bach in the guise of the large Romantic-era orchestra. They are perhaps best to listen to once one is already familiar with more historically informed performances of Bach.

[Emil Miller]

Here is the final movement of Brahms mighty 1st piano concerto played by Stephen Hough and the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer.
This is a high point in German romanticism. The ending from 9.39 leads to a spectacular shot of the Albert Hall to coincide with the tremendous blaze of the final notes


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9KVYzZEbY

[laymonite]

Thanks, stlukes. I found the first-mentioned box on Amazon.