Classical Listening

[stlukesguild]

I'm still working my way through Wagner's Ring. Currently I'm listening to the third opera of the quartet: Siegfried. The deeper you get into this work the more astonished you are with the absolute audacity and genius of this often quite nasty man that was Richard Wagner. Fans of opera often rate Mozart's Don Giovanni or Le Nozze di Figaro or Verdi's La Traviata or even Wagner's own Tristan und Isolde as the greatest opera ever written... but then acknowledge that the Ring is something beyond this. The scale of this work, the grandeur of the music and the drama, the complexity and grandeur of the narrative... the superhuman mythos that invents an entire world takes opera miles beyond anything that preceded it to such a degree that I cannot help but agree that the only possible comparisons are with such towering artistic epics as Dante's Comedia, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Aeschylus Oresteia, the great Gothic cathedrals, Michelangelo's Sistine, the buried army of Qin Shi Huang, etc...

[Emil Miller]

The Sibelius has long been one of my favourite concertos but this performance by David Oistrakh simply blows all others away. I can't say more because I'm literally speechless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJOCquXwh1A

[laymonite]

Okay, so, I focused on Bach during Week 1 of the new year. Of the handful of pieces I listened to, his passions really stole my attention: St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion; and, of course, the famous (and rightfully so) Mass in B Minor. I made a playlist on YouTube of the Mass in B Minor (link below). His Concerto for Two Violins (S. 1043) is nice, as is the familiar Fugue in D Minor--this also really helped me understand what a fugue is! I also feel much more enlightened on the baroque style. Phil Goulding used Peter Rubens's paintings to give a sense of baroque.

Sorry for the terse assessment--Bach is owed a great deal more--but I am still very much a classical music infant, and I suspect I'll have more to say as my knowledge grows this year.

Now onto Mozart for Week 2!

My Playlist of the Mass in B Minor:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...3687AC862C3826

[stlukesguild]

There are those who place Bach's vocal works at the pinnacle of his achievements, while others would place his solo instrumental composition (especially those for keyboard) at the top. Personally, I see no need for an either/or dichotomy. Bach composed some of the greatest music ever composed across a vast array of forms and genre. You are right that he is much "more"... and neither Bach, Mozart, Beethoven... nor any of the towering figures of classical music may be fully digested over a short period of time. Such is the project of a lifetime... but it means there will always be new and brilliant discoveries.

Currently, I am beginning to explore English and American "lieder" or "art song". While I can somewhat fudge my way through the German of Schubert, Schumann, Stauss, and Mahler's lieder, there is something to be said for listening to a body of art song in one's native tongue.

Right now I'm listening to Ivor Gurney:



Gurney was both a poet and composer of some real merit. As a poet, he is placed among the poets of the First World War. Gurney had a rather sad life, ending up institutionalized after several attempts at suicide as a result of his bipolar disorder, and dying in his 40s as a result of tuberculosis. As a composer, he is known mostly for some 300+ songs. His friend, the composer Gerald Finzi, suggested that there was very little of the whole of Gurney's entire oeuvre that might be called "bad." His songs build upon some elements of Schubert, Schumann, and the rest of the great German lieder composers... but there is far more of English Romantic folk music at play. This particular disc is limited to the song settings of texts by other poets, including Shakespeare, Yeats, Masefield, Edward Thomas, Thomas Nashe, and Edward de la Mare. I will certainly looking into the Hyperion disc of Gurney's settings of his own poems as well.

One of Gurney's finest songs sung by the great Anthony Rolfe Johnson:

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

Here is one of Gurney's strongest poems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW5hoNqRH-4

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'm a huge metal head, and as funny as this sounds, I find a lot of similarities between metal and classical (not all, of course, but some), especially when it comes to progressive metal. Usually I hear it when the classical music is dark, or fast. The tone and intricacy just seem similar.

This being said, does anyone have an recommendations as to some darker-toned classical music?

[stlukesguild]

Darker-toned classical music:

Holst- The Planets, Mars, The Bringer of War:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bcRCCg01I

Carl Orff- Carmina Burana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjvqY-U9gV0

Richard Wagner- Götterdämmerung - Siegfried's Funeral March

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a53s4jyCqqU

Mussorgsky- Night on Bald Mountain:

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

Richard Strauss- Also sprach Zarathustra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIPD1WoLheY&feature=fvst

Frédéric Chopin - Marche Funèbre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgw_RD_1_5I

J.S. Bach- "Erbarme dich mein Gott" from the St. Matthew Passion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYz9EiXBZM4

J.S. Bach- Toccata and Fugue in D-minor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVJD3dL4diY

J.S. Bach- Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STij8KmsgcI

Now if you really want DARK, you need to move into the 20th century where things really start to get ugly:

Ligeti- Lux Aeterna:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnuAaKiX1sg

Giacinto Scelsi- Elohim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tScH8...eature=related

Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfBVYhyXU8o

George Crumb- Black Angels:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV6BeeoX474

Compared to Krzysztof Penderecki and George Crumb, metal is music for wusses.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Thanks for posting, looking forward to making my way through your selections.

I just finished Holst which brought images of "War of the Worlds" to mind.


.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Compared to Krzysztof Penderecki and George Crumb, metal is music for wusses.

LOL, we'll see about that, .

Also, the Hoist, awesome stuff. Has it been used in a movie, or a score similar to it? It seems familiar, especially 1:20-1:50.

Edit 1: I GOT IT! It sounds like the Bowzer levels in the original Mario Brothers game.

Edit 2: No, that isn't it. It has a similar sound, but there's still something else that I'm thinking of....

Edit 3: Nope, it's the Mussorgsky that Mario Brother's sounds more similar to. Still can't put my finger one where I've heard the Holt.

So, after listening to all those, I really enjoyed them. Of the first group (pre-20th century), I've heard almost all of the selections--I wouldn't have been able to name them, though, except for Also Sprach Zarathustra. The problem, for me, with a lot of these is that I have heard them, and they have become so corrupted by their use in popular culture, it's hard to get the images out of my head, especially with Orff's (it's been used in so many damn commercials).

I couldn't get into the last four. Extremely dark, yes. And, if I continue the heavy metal analogy, it is darker than most metal, but has none of the brutality. You can't have metal without brutality. The last four were very good, and conveyed that feeling of doom quite perfectly, but to draggy for my tastes (and, it felt like I was listening to a horror movie, haha).

I guess a better characterization of what I like about metal is the power and energy. The darkness comes secondary. I LOVE Holt's Mars, The Bringer of War; I've listened to it several times--you can literally headbang to it. I actually bought the whole Planets album on iTunes (fully realizing not every song will be like Mars) and really like it.

Another of my favorite classical pieces (still realizing I don't know many) is Stravinsky's Firebird. Yes's endorsement doesn't hurt, either.

I'm curious, StLukes, do you like any metal? I have probably mischaracterized myself in this thread, as it isn't like I only listen to metal; I like rock, classic rock, reggae, jazz, prog-rock (really love prog-rock), fusion, and now I'm trying to get more into classical. Metal will always be my favorite, though .

[stlukesguild]

Another of my favorite classical pieces (still realizing I don't know many) is Stravinsky's Firebird. Yes's endorsement doesn't hurt, either.

The obvious next step is Starvinsky's Rite of Spring which stands as the iconic work of Modernist music... rather like The Wasteland and Ulysses are in literature or Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is for painting.

I'm curious, StLukes, do you like any metal? I have probably mischaracterized myself in this thread, as it isn't like I only listen to metal; I like rock, classic rock, reggae, jazz, prog-rock (really love prog-rock), fusion, and now I'm trying to get more into classical. Metal will always be my favorite, though .

I largely stopped listening to head-banger music toward the end of high-school as I began to explore all the other musical possibilities in far greater depth. I may pop on Led Zeppelin once in a blue moon... but even they largely seem to pale in comparison to the raw honesty of the blues of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, etc... from which they sprang. My own listening now is about 80% classical (which can range from Byzantine chant c. 1000 AD to Osvaldo Golijov's heady stylistic mixes composed just last week) with the remaining 20% spent listening to jazz, blues, rock, bluegrass, folk, and some non-western music... with jazz making up the largest part of this.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'm sure I don't have to tell you Led Zepplin isn't metal, haha.

I know I continuously extol the virtues of metal, but there is a lot out there with amazing writing and musicianship, with lots of jazz and progressive elements. There's a band called Aryeon (music written by one man) that is pretty much a metal-opera. Dream Theater, Dimmu Borgir, Opeth, Between the Buried and Me, Symphony X, Pain of Salvation--all extremely artistic. It's just a matter of getting pas the harsh vocals.

I'll definitely check out Rite of Spring next. Still digesting Holst's Planets.

Who're some of your favorite jazz musicians?

[stlukesguild]

Who're some of your favorite jazz musicians?

My favorites would be Duke Ellington and Miles Davis followed by Thelonius Monk, Dizzie Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, Lennie Tristano, Louis Armstrong, John Coletrane, Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Count Basie, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Modern Jazz Quartet, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Bennie Goodman, Charlie Mingus, Eric Dolphy, as well as jazz blues vocalists such as Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Little Jimmy Smith, Joe Williams, etc...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Good stuff. I really like Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, also. I am definitely not as well versed as you, though. Some of my favorites are (some of these are more contemporary and cross over into the fusion genre) Pat Methany, Al Di Miola, Bela Fleck, and John McLaughlin.

[Taliesin]

Darker-toned classical music...

You know, if one were to ask me for darker-toned classical, the second piece that comes to mind (after the obvious "O Fortuna") comes from a bloody ballet.

Dance of The Knights from Prokofjev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet"

I think Prokofiev generally tends to be rather dark - at least those works that I have heard.

And I have the feeling that I should start to listen to classical in a more orderly manner - finding out what the important pieces of some important composers are and trying to understand the differences between the styles instead of randomly listening to pieces from my small collection and browsing around YouTube in a haphazard manner.

[stlukesguild]

Yes... you almost sense the tension between the house of Montague and the house of Capulet. Prokofiev is marvelous at taking forms that are traditionally "beautiful" and twisting them in a certain manner so that they take on a skewed or dark hue.

One of my favorite such compositions by another composer is Ravel's La Valse... in which I can almost sense the collapse of old Vienna in the form of a Waltz that is falling in on itself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRmavWyVLWw&feature=fvsr



I'm still delving deeper into the Baroque... with a focus upon the German, French, and Italian composers beyond Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. Today I've been giving a first listen to Johann Hermann Schein, who was J.S. Bach's predecessor (by some 90 years- 1617-1630) as Cantor of St. Thomas' Cathedral, Leipzig. Like Bach after him, Schein was well aware of and influenced by the musical innovations coming out of Italy. Schien composed for both secular and liturgical purposes. Believing that the spiritual meaning of his liturgical music should be conveyed with the greatest conviction he was not hesitant to employ the latest inventions of secular music. In the case of Schein's Israelis Brünnlein it was the Italian madrigal that Schein drew upon. Israelis Brünnlein stands as an oratorio composed of twenty-six madrigals set to German religious texts drawn from the Old Testament:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC-KKDNU4H4

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

[oshima]

Great Chopin performances and decent sound quality for youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MzrA...eature=related Also found this great track by Handsome boy modeling school that uses a Brandenburg Concerto sample. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTRcskwiRRA