The Smiley Smile Message Board

Non Smiley Smile Stuff => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: JK on February 26, 2015, 11:53:53 AM



Title: I Hear A Symphony: A "classical" music topic?
Post by: JK on February 26, 2015, 11:53:53 AM
I noticed an opera thread somewhere but not a general "classical" (awful word but it'll have to do) topic.

As a great fan of symphonies, my opening post is one by a 20th-century favourite of mine, Jean Sibelius:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKhCHvaAc3o

Any other takers? 

 



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: alf wiedersehen on February 26, 2015, 01:05:26 PM
I haven't really dug too deeply into symphonies, but I'm a big fan of classical piano and organ pieces. I guess I don't have any particular favorites to share - I usually just go on YouTube and choose some at random to listen to. I also had a college piano class where every once in a while, the teacher would perform pieces from different classical eras in the hopes that we could learn what was unique about each. I don't remember everything I learned, but I do remember that she was a brilliant pianist.

I think I liked the works of Brahms and Bach the most.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Larry Franz on February 26, 2015, 01:40:56 PM
My entire musical education was a college introductory course that began at 8 am. The only thing I remember is my head frequently jerking up as I tried to stay awake. But a couple of people eventually got me interested in classical music to the point where I've sometimes listened to that more than rock.

I don't have time to listen to all of the Sibelius right now, but I tend to prefer later 19th and 20th century composers like him, and a few others, Beethoven in particular. I also prefer chamber music in general, especially string quartets.

Here's Carl Nielsen's 4th Symphony, "The Inextinguishable". It was recommended by someone who thought it might appeal to me as someone new to classical music. It did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niF6Y7ZNqys [UPDATE: No -- it was actually Nielsen's 4th!!!]

But, aside from Beethoven, my favorite composer is Bela Bartok. This is his Concerto for Orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C68SkzGb6Ww


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Alan Smith on February 26, 2015, 02:17:11 PM
John K, I'm greedily hoping this topic gets a lot of bites.  I'm starting to develop a interest in classical outside the Baroque and the Dambusters theme.

I've been getting into Benjamin Britten and I've read some interesting things about Bartok's violin concerto, so might be pursuing that one.

Looking forward to sitting down and watching the vids from both you and Larry Franz.

One of the key things that confounds me is which version of a classical piece should one seek out in terms of the performing orchestra - LSO, Weiner Philharmonic, etc?  Or is that a moot point?
And which labels to avoid?


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Larry Franz on February 26, 2015, 07:50:00 PM
One of the key things that confounds me is which version of a classical piece should one seek out in terms of the performing orchestra - LSO, Weiner Philharmonic, etc?  Or is that a moot point?
And which labels to avoid?

Hi Alan -- Those are good questions but difficult to answer. People love to argue about which versions are best, but it all comes down to personal taste. You might look around on the internet, however, and you'll find lists and recommendations like this:

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/greatest-recordings-of-all-time-chosen-by-leading-musicians


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Ron on February 26, 2015, 08:03:30 PM
I'm a redneck so don't look at me for too much deep discussion about long lost classical favorites, but like anybody I love classical music, I only know most of the famous stuff though.

I've always enjoyed Bach's stuff.  His Double Violin Concerto is beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJh6i-t_I1Q



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NickandthePassions on February 27, 2015, 08:06:15 AM
Interestingly, the vocal arrangements and harmonies of the Baroque era don't appeal to me, I guess because I'm so used to Brian's vocal arrangements. I consider myself a fan of "modern" classical music. My favorite are Prokofiev, Debussy, Satie, and Philip Glass (although he's a different era). Prokofiev's Nevsky...woah!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: halblaineisgood on February 27, 2015, 09:01:52 AM
Play this one loud.
Glenn Gould -Bach G Minor Concerto https://www.sendspace.com/file/u4ry6m


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Larry Franz on February 27, 2015, 09:37:17 AM
I don't have time to listen to all of the Sibelius right now, but I tend to prefer later 19th and 20th century composers like him, and a few others, Beethoven in particular. I also prefer chamber music in general, especially string quartets.

Here's Carl Nielsen's 4th Symphony, "The Inextinguishable". It was recommended by someone who thought it might appeal to me as someone new to classical music. It did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niF6Y7ZNqys

Reminder to self: Do not post on Internet before rushing out the door! The Nielsen symphony I was thinking of was his 5th Symphony, not the 4th. Sorry about that!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHXKjXNWBc


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Larry Franz on February 27, 2015, 12:51:40 PM
The classical piece that especially impressed me recently was Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"), composed in 1976. I heard it on the car radio the first time and stayed in the car until it was over (which took a while, because it's 53 minutes long).

I believe this is the 1992 recording that, according to Wikipedia, went to top of the classical charts in the US and UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIvEtzGEVTA


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 27, 2015, 04:16:18 PM
Wow. Nielsen's Fifth, Glenn Gould, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Gorecki's Third... what a musical treasurehouse! Makes me glad I started this thread. :=)

Actually, the first version I ever heard of the Nielsen symphony is still the only one for me.  It's by Jascha Horenstein with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and was recorded in 1969. To quote myself on another website: "At one point [in the first movement] as the orchestral forces gather, Nielsen instructs his snare drummer to 'improvise as if at all costs he wants to stop the progress of the orchestra'. Alfred Dukes in the Horenstein recording goes the furthest, climaxing with a furious salvo of rimshots."
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXVTlnBLxXI


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 28, 2015, 02:04:27 PM
Here are two movements from two of my favourite 19th-century symphonies, Mendelssohn's 5th ("The Reformation", in the version I own) and Franck's lone symphony in D minor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvsslDvk8E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKsQOpTTd7w

And one from a 20th-century masterpiece. Note the use of the Ondes Martenot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv67YkOWJNA 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 03, 2015, 10:34:00 AM
This is one of my all-time favourite symphonies, Shostakovich's Fourth, in the definitive recording by the Moscow Phil under Kirill Kondrashin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7U2WzC47sQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7U2WzC47sQ)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Please delete my account on March 04, 2015, 01:01:48 AM
I know so little about classical music- it's so hard to get to know what you like and don't like when everything sounds so great. Except I always have a harder time liking vocal classical music, whether its opera or art song or whatever. The singing style is so different to what I'm used from folk and pop. But I'm gradually becoming accustomed to it.

I think, apart from the obvious choices of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach, I really like Greig, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, and Schnittke


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: beatnickle on March 04, 2015, 05:06:48 AM
Pavane, Opus 50 by Gabriel Faure......... a divine listening experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 08, 2015, 07:54:48 AM
I know so little about classical music- it's so hard to get to know what you like and don't like when everything sounds so great. Except I always have a harder time liking vocal classical music, whether its opera or art song or whatever. The singing style is so different to what I'm used from folk and pop. But I'm gradually becoming accustomed to it.

I think, apart from the obvious choices of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach, I really like Grieg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, and Schnittke


Agree about vocal things. I love choral music but all that exaggerated vibrato by soloists can get pretty tedious. There are exceptions, of course, like the wonderful Kathleen Ferrier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7S162WFNI8

And I can agree with your choice of composers, except for Bach----still having trouble with him. ;D


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Please delete my account on March 09, 2015, 02:11:34 AM
Yeah, I 'd also make an exception for Kathleen Ferrier. I have one of her records. But I may be biased because of my maternal Irish heritage.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 10, 2015, 02:01:08 PM
This is one of my favourite works by a French composer, Maurice Ravel, under one of my favourite conductors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SvjJF6zs1k


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 31, 2015, 12:19:59 PM
Pavane, Opus 50 by Gabriel Faure......... a divine listening experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI)

Fauré wrote some wonderfully restrained music. His Requiem is worth checking out. This is the sublime closer, "In Paradisum":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIB9Tq5uWIc

   


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 04, 2015, 03:10:31 AM
Another Frenchman who wrote a magnificent Requiem was Maurice Duruflé. But perhaps his finest hour for me is as an organist in Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Timpani and Strings in G Minor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_Concerto_(Poulenc)). I don't iike concertos as a rule----pitting one player against the rest----but I love this one, here in the original (and best) version:   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF0e9CSQNXQ


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: SBonilla on April 04, 2015, 05:04:56 AM
Pavane, Opus 50 by Gabriel Faure......... a divine listening experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI)
The Ventures - Ravel's Pavane...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4WB9iJLp3Q

I know, I know, it's not classical, but it's still a great track.



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: beatnickle on April 05, 2015, 04:52:35 AM
Pavane, Opus 50 by Gabriel Faure......... a divine listening experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM6tFwYaoI)
The Ventures - Ravel's Pavane...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4WB9iJLp3Q

I know, I know, it's not classical, but it's still a great track.



You're right...... that is a great track.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: feelsflow on April 05, 2015, 10:47:14 AM
I played this for Easter morning.  Spiritual and uplifting.  Played with passion and power.

Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Sergei Rachmaninoff:  Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13

https://youtu.be/1q0t683xaWI


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on April 05, 2015, 06:33:07 PM
This is one of my favourite works by a French composer, Maurice Ravel, under one of my favourite conductors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SvjJF6zs1k
The opening several minutes, in my opinion, one of the most spectacular pieces of music ever written:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHrstmOPKBQ

Debussy's La Mer has a similarly spectacular opening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOCucJw7iT8
The transition around the 1:38 mark brings tears to my eyes,


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: rn57 on April 05, 2015, 07:12:16 PM
If we're talkin early 20th century French composers, I've always had a soft spot for Albert Roussel. Below, his Symphony No 2 from 1920:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHTXGePpP7A


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 06, 2015, 02:13:01 AM
Love the choice of music, guys (including The Ventures!). Actually I'm listening to the Roussel symphony now. Thanks for the tip, rn57. Stirring stuff, which oddly puts me in mind of Shostakovich at times. I know, have and love his Le festin de l'araignée orchestral suite but that's about it...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: halblaineisgood on April 07, 2015, 06:50:45 PM
Here's some more Glenn Gould/Bach : https://www.sendspace.com/file/khi534
Dig it.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 08, 2015, 01:15:01 AM
Here's some more Glenn Gould/Bach : https://www.sendspace.com/file/khi534
Dig it.

Can't beat Mr Gould. In fact, it's just about the only way I can listen to Bach. The man's a genius (Glenn Gould, I mean). ;D 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Fire Wind on April 08, 2015, 01:57:04 PM
One of my favourite Bach pieces is 'Erbame Dich' from the St Matthew Passion.  Seen the passion performed a couple of times, but with a woman in the role.  Someday, hopefully I'll get to hear a counter-tenor singing it, given that, like many here I assume, I have a penchant for men singing high.  Here's the John Eliot Gardiner version -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Vi8GrdGao

My favourite classical guy is probably Wagner, particularly the late stuff, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, The Ring.  Bite-sized chunks lose the power, though, so I don't have particularly favourite clips to post.

Not sure about a favourite symphonist.  Often, I prefer their chamber works or other stuff.  Mozart's piano concertos, plus his operas, and Schubert's string quartets.  One symphonist I like a lot is Bruckner, particularly his 7th and 9th symphonies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYj1mDIz6_M

One guy I tried exploring a while back was Hugo Wolf, though never made it all the way through his songbooks.  Fantastic songs, though.  Here's a favourite, 'Der Knabe und das Immlein' from his Morike Lieder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVRHwUsG9oA





Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 14, 2015, 02:58:04 AM
Love Bruckner's Ninth. Wagner's orchestral music too, but not once they start singing, lol.

This is a fascinating work by Paul Hindemith, his Concertino for Trautonium and Strings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvg7H0co5Rw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: alf wiedersehen on May 24, 2015, 01:31:50 AM
I recently bought and have been playing this:
(http://ecsmedia.pl/c/nocturnes-b-iext21282807.jpg)
Gorgeous stuff.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Peter Reum on May 25, 2015, 01:57:25 PM
Any Russian composer....especially Mussorgsky


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: RangeRoverA1 on May 26, 2015, 04:54:38 AM
Listening now-
 Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia - Beethoven's Symphony №3, E-fmaj (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnBhpQ2IHY4)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: joshferrell on May 28, 2015, 06:14:29 PM
well if you like RnR then you will like Mozarts symphonies 40 and 41...they are pretty dark and they fit on an album,,usually side one is 40 and side to is 41 so it's the length of a typical rock album,,, these are his last two symphonies,,,also his Requiem which fits on a record too,, it's like a rock album too in the sense of how dark it is and how long it is...just long enough and not too long...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 29, 2015, 03:37:39 AM
Any Russian composer....especially Mussorgsky

i can go with that. :=)

Here in Rotterdam we have an annual Gergiev Festival, held in September and named after my favourite living conductor, Valery Gergiev, who is the festival's guest of honour. This year's featured composer is Rachmaninoff:   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nrf4Ib2oYw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 17, 2015, 03:11:49 PM
Jean Sibelius was born 150 years ago this year. I love his symphonies but his symphonic poems shouldn't be overlooked.

This is Tapiola, one of his last works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy0_zqEOp4A

Read a little about it here: http://inkpot.com/classical/sibtapiola.html


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 04, 2015, 07:43:26 AM
I'm no fan of J.S. Bach as such. That said, I love pianist Glenn Gould's performances of his music and Anton Webern's arrangement of the "Six-part Ricercar" from Bach 's Musical Offering. But my favourite rendition of Bach is that by Alban Berg in his Violin Concerto...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_(Berg)

...of "Es ist genug" from Bach's cantata O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Ewigkeit,_du_Donnerwort,_BWV_60

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScDHnoGVltQ

This brief chorale sounds surprisingly modern to my ears. Berg introduces it on the solo violin (beginning in the YouTube link below at 19:40), alternating with Bach's original version (in the clarinets).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmWfihQJgBE  


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 13, 2015, 12:22:18 PM
The opening fanfare of Paul Dukas' La Péri is often heard alone, yet it only really makes sense when followed by the swirling, exotic main body of the work, like a musical "once upon a time".   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmh3A7ohFnc


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Alan Smith on November 13, 2015, 04:01:04 PM
The opening fanfare of Paul Dukas' La Péri is often heard alone, yet it only really makes sense when followed by the swirling, exotic main body of the work, like a musical "once upon a time".   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmh3A7ohFnc
Thanks for the link and insights re La Peri, john - I recently picked up a '69 LSO conducted by Richard Bonynge LP, so some good comparison material and food for thought next time I spin it (I really enjoyed the first listen through).

I also recently took a plunge/blind purchase of Heifetz doin' Bruch's Scottish Fantasy Concerto No. 1 and Vieuxtemps' Volin Concerto No 5 in A Minor OP. 37 (phew) from 61/62.  Wonderful stuff, both pieces - I hear a lot of influence on contemporary scores, including possibly Michael Nyman's Drowning by Numbers soundtrack: perhaps that's just me tho'

Thanks again - A


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 15, 2015, 04:52:16 AM
The opening fanfare of Paul Dukas' La Péri is often heard alone, yet it only really makes sense when followed by the swirling, exotic main body of the work, like a musical "once upon a time".   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmh3A7ohFnc
Thanks for the link and insights re La Peri, john - I recently picked up a '69 LSO conducted by Richard Bonynge LP, so some good comparison material and food for thought next time I spin it (I really enjoyed the first listen through).

I also recently took a plunge/blind purchase of Heifetz doin' Bruch's Scottish Fantasy Concerto No. 1 and Vieuxtemps' Volin Concerto No 5 in A Minor OP. 37 (phew) from 61/62.  Wonderful stuff, both pieces - I hear a lot of influence on contemporary scores, including possibly Michael Nyman's Drowning by Numbers soundtrack: perhaps that's just me tho'

Thanks again - A

I have that same recording. The Bruch concerto is so well-known and often played but it still sounds great every time. I heard it performed live by Ray Chen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39oTb9a5jow) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra not so long ago. A stunning performance, although Heifetz is still the guv'nor in my book. ;=)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 03, 2015, 02:30:47 AM
This suits my mood right now, particularly in light of recent sad developments round these parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGMwNe9WWmE



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Cool Cool Water on December 03, 2015, 12:28:09 PM
This suits my mood right now, particularly in light of recent sad developments round these parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGMwNe9WWmE



Excellent stuff from Barber. An all time classic imo.  ;D


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 03, 2016, 03:50:58 AM
Of all great American composers, Charles Ives probably comes the closest to the Americana of Brian and VDP (Happy Birthday, Van Dyke!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHs6VGKZ4Wo


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 28, 2016, 03:25:00 AM
Powerful stuff now from Jean Sibelius, a favourite composer of mine.

"In Pohjola there are thick, dark forests
that dream wild dreams, forever secret.
Tapio's eerie dwellings are there
and half-glimpsed spirits, and the voices of twilight."  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy0_zqEOp4A

Edit: I see this is its second airing in this thread. There's always that risk, of course...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 16, 2016, 02:53:21 AM
I don't think I've linked this yet. Carlos Chávez's Symphony No. 2 (Sinfonía india) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinfon%C3%ADa_india) could not be further removed from its predecessor in this topic:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHn0FfB6GGU


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 02, 2016, 04:03:51 AM
Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra is much more than just the 2001 theme. 
Herbert von Karajan conducts what may be the definitive performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3eEHZCahVU

(Crank up the volume to catch that initial low C!)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 13, 2016, 05:04:54 AM
I think it was Prokofiev who wrote, way back during the last century, that there was still so much to say in C major. The Czech composer Leoš Janáček (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leos_Janacek) certainly bears this out. The opening melody of his Sinfonietta will be familiar to ELP fans.  (R.I.P., Keith E.) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIL5CM3ce5U


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 16, 2016, 05:15:56 AM
Apologies if I've posted this already.

Maurice Ravel wrote some fantastic pieces for orchestra but this ballet suite probably takes the cake.

You may need to turn up the volume to catch the initial early morning stirrings. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooh6qOR_dFc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnis_et_Chloé


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 27, 2016, 01:31:55 AM
My favourite "classical" piece for this occasion. Happy Easter, folks. :=)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHFJ0lU9Us


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 13, 2016, 10:20:56 AM
Ottorino Respighi's symphonic poem Pines of Rome is an overwhelming experience in the right hands, such as here under Fritz Reiner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBcNFcMZmEg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pines_of_Rome


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 01, 2016, 02:31:20 AM
If Gustav Holst is best known for The Planets, much to his dismay (he didn't rate that work highly), this haunting miniature is arguably his masterpiece. Apparently the composer thought so too. Crank up the volume----it begins very quietly and much of it is hushed. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msIL7eavgk4

http://www.phillipcooke.com/on-gustav-holsts-egdon-heath/



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 12, 2016, 06:36:16 AM
Veering slightly off course, here are two fairly (or rather unfairly) obscure works you might lend an ear to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=940dNX5zHEU

(Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Pejačević)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8iFPHq6zjM

(Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Fanelli)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 02, 2016, 02:28:36 AM
The English composer Edward Elgar was born 159 years ago today. This is my favourite among his compositions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPCQNlWnG-8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_Concerto_(Elgar) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_Concerto_(Elgar))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: thorgil on June 18, 2016, 05:48:01 PM
I love Nielsen's symphonies, especially the 4th ("The Inextinguishable") and the 5th (with the snare drum fighting the rest of the orchestra). I'd name him as #1 among the underrated composers.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 19, 2016, 10:46:20 AM
I love Nielsen's symphonies, especially the 4th ("The Inextinguishable") and the 5th (with the snare drum fighting the rest of the orchestra). I'd name him as #1 among the underrated composers.

He's amazing, isn't he? The Horenstein version of his Symphony No. 5 is one of my favourite recordings of anything----particularly that first movement! This exquisite miniature is from the same 1969 Unicorn album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQi08boz6xg


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: thorgil on June 20, 2016, 04:32:25 PM
Ah, the Saga-Drøm, another fantastic (in more than one meaning) piece, and Jascha Horenstein directs it so well. Thanks for the link! :)

Speaking of underrated music, imho this is a very underrated gem, though it's by Beethoven himself. I noticed that classical works integrating folk or folk-like tunes (here, starting at 6.57) tend to be underrated. The great Ludwig putting folk dance music in the middle of a serious piece? Preposterous!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQaS5P9gxwg





Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 21, 2016, 03:37:43 AM
Ah, the Saga-Drøm, another fantastic (in more than one meaning) piece, and Jascha Horenstein directs it so well. Thanks for the link! :)

Speaking of underrated music, imho this is a very underrated gem, though it's by Beethoven himself. I noticed that classical works integrating folk or folk-like tunes (here, starting at 6.57) tend to be underrated. The great Ludwig putting folk dance music in the middle of a serious piece? Preposterous!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQaS5P9gxwg

I've never been a fan of the Ninth Symphony (except perhaps in the fantastic Beethoven cycle under René Leibowitz, now unfortunately removed from YouTube) but here you have the finale of the Ninth and a piano sonata all rolled into one. And it's not too long. Perfect! Maybe it's underrated because it's treated as a preamble to the Ninth rather than as a work in its own right. I love it. Thanks for that, Thorgil.

Perhaps Beethoven's most famous rustic episode is in the 3rd movement of his Pastoral Symphony, up to and including a flat-footed folk dance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbFxVVLM2zc

  


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 26, 2016, 04:27:05 AM
Heard an excellent performance of Fauré's Requiem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_(Fauré)) yesterday with just piano accompaniment. Most enlightening to hear a skeletal version of a work whose original scoring was for organ or (as here) orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYC2uyxSC60


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 13, 2016, 05:56:37 AM
In the Netherlands, if ever they play something from Smetana's Má vlast, it's always "Vltava", which is a wonderful piece but there are five others, two of which are truly magnificent: "Vyšehrad" and this one whose English title is "From Bohemia's Woods And Fields".  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQj33Oh_qOQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_vlast

This is for Alan Smith, who I'm sure looks in here from time to time. It may even inspire him to start a "classical" topic across the road (if they don't have one already).


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 17, 2016, 04:42:14 AM
Allegri's Miserere is a fascinating work with an equally fascinating history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri) [evidently takes two steps to get there]

This for me is the definitive version from 1963, with some stunning soprano singing from the then 12-year-old Roy Goodman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piPiVndX7kw



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 30, 2016, 10:54:12 AM
The Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara died three days ago aged 87----a good age, I suppose.

The choir I accompanied at rehearsals used to perform works by him and pretty demanding they were too.

This is my favourite work of Rautavaara's, the haunting Cantus Arcticus for orchestra and tape:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uRQkXSfDOU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantus_Arcticus

Rest in peace, maestro.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on July 30, 2016, 01:23:02 PM
Why hadn't I known of this thread before?

I grew up surrounded by classical music. My parents both sang in a concert choir and my Dad was in the New Orleans Symphony Chorus as well.
In college I had a student subscription to hear the Symphony concerts. Heard all the Beethoven symphonies that year, also was the first time hearing Pachelbel's Canon.
While in the Symphony Chorus was able to sing Beethoven's Ninth under the direction of then wunderkind Leonard Slatkin, and later on Maxim Shostakovich conducted us in his father Dmitri's The Execution of Stepan Razin, a wild and wonderful piece with a surprising, macabre ending. I'll always treasure these experiences.

Have been attracted to classical music with Folk elements, so Grieg, Kodaly, Bartok, Vaughn Williams, Copland, Dvorak, and some Beethoven are favorites. Also a soft spot for French music of Debussy and Bizet.
And of course, our wonderful local composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. My piano teacher was a big fan of his and had done a lot of research into his work when she was in college way back in the day.

Sung a bunch of Requiems over the years, my favorites being Faure and Durufle. Was just contrasting the two "In Paradisum" versions. Faure's version is so angelic and peaceful. Durufle's in contrast indicates a bit of unsettledness. As a Beach Boys fan I love unusual chords - that final chord in Durufle's version - wow! Positively slays me!

Am open to suggestions for further listening and will check out the suggestions given.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 30, 2016, 02:34:57 PM
Welcome to this thread, NOLA BBF! :=)

i first heard Stepan Razin (on the radio) in '62 (which does tend to date me) under Rozhdestvensky, whose bracing (not to say fiery) approach to conducting was new to Western ears. A fantastic work. And you've sung it----under Maxim Shostakovich! I saw him conduct once, when Valery Gergiev was held up in New York. (This was just days after 9/11.)  It was his father's Fourth Symphony (my favourite) and you can imagine what an electric performance that was, not least because of the circumstances.

My list of names would include all the people whose music I've linked here. But I generally tend to like works rather than composers...  

Duruflé's and Fauré's Requiems are both stunning in their own way. Yes indeed----that final chord!!!

As for Gottschalk, I found this orchestral work of his: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_kKKFPbz4M

I shall give it a listen later...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 31, 2016, 03:57:39 AM
Why hadn't I known of this thread before?

Regrettably a number of its posters have since moved on. I'm still hoping Alan Smith (or maybe Silken) will start a "classical" topic at the new site. Every board should have one, you know.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 01, 2016, 02:40:32 AM
As for Gottschalk, I found this orchestral work of his:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_kKKFPbz4M

I shall give it a listen later...

What a wonderful piece! Amazing to think this was written in 1859, the year Brahms' first piano concerto was premiered. I'd always imagined Gottschalk to be from much later but he was born two years after Beethoven died...  

Seeing the name Tchaikowsky mentioned across the road, it struck me that he hasn't been featured yet in this topic. His Capriccio Italien is a fine example of a work dedicated to a country other than that of its composer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-jWskOx3mg  


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: thorgil on August 04, 2016, 05:24:47 AM
Capriccio Italien is a good piece by one of my fav composers, but imho the masterpiece in the "homage to another country" genre is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nP0gqKmWuY

The finale is majestic, and you can easily imagine it played by a big bagpipe band.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 04, 2016, 06:51:26 AM
The finale is majestic, and you can easily imagine it played by a big bagpipe band.

I can see (or rather hear) what you mean!

I have (and love) nos. 4 and 5 and a bunch of brilliant overtures but the Scottish seems to have passed me by----until now. Many thanks!


Before that, I listened to some Wagner conducted by a great favourite of mine, Sergiu Celibidache:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlZeO_GT45k





Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: thorgil on August 04, 2016, 07:13:28 AM
Ah well... Tristan & Isolde... that's sublime. It's Wagner's Pet Sounds, much like the "Ring" is his Smile. :)

Everybody who, like me, has watched a lot of classic Hollywood movies has listened, usually without knowing it, to countless uncredited variations on Tristan & Isolde's music...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: halblaineisgood on August 04, 2016, 04:32:54 PM
Macho Man Randy Savage's entrance theme!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 07, 2016, 05:43:37 AM
Macho Man Randy Savage's entrance theme!

I had to look this up, never having heard of Randy Savage. Yes, a fine entrance theme indeed. :=)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc1lu-WU3hI


Actually, I came here to link a stunning piece I heard this morning by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. I know his Sensemayá but heard this linked one and its companion pieces in the suite La Noche de los Mayas for the first time today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEo5RKvs8gY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvestre_Revueltas



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 10, 2016, 07:10:43 AM
This has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of choral music written during the past fifty years, if not of all time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn5ken3RJBo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morten_Lauridsen

At the risk of having my knuckles rapped (or much worse) I respectfully dedicate this to Silken across the road and wonder whether her choir sings this.

The choir I used to accompany at rehearsals once performed this gem together with a second choir. That was an amazing experience----and their finest hour.
 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on August 10, 2016, 07:44:28 AM
Oh my goodness.
Thank you.
Such beauty.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 17, 2016, 01:08:54 PM
I once met the composer Herbert Howells. It was some time in the mid '60s. I'd been convinced to apply for a place at The Royal College of Music in London----a ridiculous idea, as I was nowhere near qualified to do so. I was interviewed by this Mr Howells, who was equally at a loss as to why I was there! What did I think of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven? In those days not much, I'm afraid. Poor man. Well, that was that.

Much later, I got to hear some of his music and fell in love with it. It's a funny old world, to be sure.

"My" choir used to sing a number of his works, including this heartbreaking Requiem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hBco-7y6M

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Howells


 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 31, 2016, 06:45:38 AM
Noticing halblaineisgood's question about Tchaikovsky in a future on-board Q&A with the Big Fella, I think Brian might warm to old Tsch.'s Manfred Symphony, by no means his most famous work in the genre but certainly my favourite. The passionate first movement is worth the price of admission alone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvIPcRwIW04

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Symphony


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 01, 2016, 04:28:32 AM
Being an incorrigible musical snob, it took me a while to get to appreciate the genius of George Gershwin but his and Leonard Bernstein's music are firm favourites with me now.

This is for bringahorseinhere:   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RcUPs2S-MM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Overture


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 10, 2016, 03:15:09 AM
Saw Daniel Lozakovitj playing Prokofiev last night at a local music festival.

It's good to keep in mind that he is only fifteen! And boy did he wow them yesterday...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwwZu6hl8sk


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: SurfRapGrungeFiend on September 12, 2016, 09:08:10 AM
Saw Daniel Lozakovitj playing Prokofiev last night at the Gergiev Festival in Rotterdam.

It's good to keep in mind that he is only fifteen! And boy did he wow them yesterday...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwwZu6hl8sk

Incredible, he makes it look tooo easy.. I woulda broke a string 0:37


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on September 12, 2016, 04:55:49 PM
Great performance.
Closed my eyes while listening. Mental video of horses galloping across a field, birds flying, swooping up and down, our dog chasing a squirrel up a tree...

Oh, Prokofiev. Mainly know him from the wonderful Peter and the Wolf heard when a child. Will explore him further.
Hard to go wrong with those incredible Russian composers.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 13, 2016, 02:05:43 AM
Oh, Prokofiev. Mainly know him from the wonderful Peter and the Wolf heard when a child. Will explore him further.
Hard to go wrong with those incredible Russian composers.

My two eldest grandchildren attended a performance of Peter and the Wolf last Sunday:

http://gergievfestival.nl/en-us/Programme/Zaterdag-en-US/Peter-en-de-wolf-4-met-verteller-en-US

They knew the piece already from a tape but now they could actually watch the orchestral instruments playing the various roles...   


Yes, the Russians are amazing. (I know Peter Reum is a big fan.)

And do they ring the changes! I cannot imagine a greater contrast between Prokofiev's serene First Symphony (the "Classical") and its modernist successor, which I heard during that same festival.

Shostakovich is another who wrote lighter stuff (quite literally to keep himself alive during The Terror) as well as some of the most profound symphonies ever...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: thorgil on September 14, 2016, 05:36:56 AM
There is also a good rock version of "Peter and the Wolf":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rock_Peter_and_the_Wolf

Stephane Grappelli playing "The Cat" is worth the price of admission by himself.

And yes, the Russians are amazing. Their music is second to none.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 14, 2016, 07:07:16 AM
There is also a good rock version of "Peter and the Wolf":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rock_Peter_and_the_Wolf

Stephane Grappelli playing "The Cat" is worth the price of admission by himself.

And yes, the Russians are amazing. Their music is second to none.

Thanks for the link, sir.

This is one I found while tidying up my own "classical" topic. Maybe those fearsome gong strokes towards the end will spur someone at PSF to start a similar topic over there. Every music forum worth its salt should have one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hxWp5QBN4g

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foulds


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 09, 2016, 06:03:12 AM
Everyone should hear this magical gem by Claude Debussy at least once in their lives.

The first audience did better than that: they requested (and got) a repeat performance...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZvbuAXdmv4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_a_l%27apres-midi_d%27un_faune




  


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on October 09, 2016, 06:29:15 AM
Thanks. Haven't heard this in a while.
Just listened to it. Perfect music to get the day going, not just for afternoons!  :)
This and Grieg's "Morning Mood" are great songs for lazy Sunday mornings.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 30, 2016, 03:36:16 AM
This and Grieg's "Morning Mood" are great songs for lazy Sunday mornings.

True. Ravel's second Daphne et Chloé suite is another...

For those who can receive it (and are interested) the BBC is an hour or so into playing 12 hours of non-stop classical music (and some jazz, but no speech at all):

http://radiotoday.co.uk/2016/10/radio-3-to-play-non-stop-music-for-12-hours/ 



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on October 30, 2016, 08:33:01 AM
Thanks. Was able to listen for a couple of hours before going to church services.
Nice symphony followed by fast sitar music followed by Monteverdi followed by bossa nova followed by...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 21, 2016, 07:40:25 AM
John Knowles Paine is a name I can't say I'm familiar with. His "ocean fantasy" Poseidon and Amphitrite is a gem that should be better known:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fnPXD075Jc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Knowles_Paine



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 23, 2016, 03:47:35 AM
John Knowles Paine is a name I can't say I'm familiar with. His "ocean fantasy" Poseidon and Amphitrite is a gem that should be better known:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fnPXD075Jc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Knowles_Paine

In fact I would heartily recommend the entire playlist of "American Classical Music (19th/early 20th century) ":

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMv5p5cWZLjBlnMJgxJ6Mls05-fOWMVL-


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 04, 2016, 01:20:33 AM
Heard the slow movement from Ravel's G Major Piano Concerto on the radio this morning in the wake of some awful news from Oakland, CA.

This is respectfully dedicated to the victims of that tragic event: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlBIOOLcWLM


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 08, 2016, 05:55:41 AM
This is bound to have the purists screaming sacrilege but I think it's great. Vivaldi's Four Seasons does tend to get up one's nose after the 555th hearing, so kudos to Max Richter for respectfully "recomposing" it. See what you think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYWfJuMGMA
 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 24, 2016, 03:36:03 AM
Strauss, Janowitz and Karajan----it doesn't get much better than this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUJgye0A5PY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundula_Janowitz

 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on December 30, 2016, 07:53:37 AM
Oh that was exquisite! Thanks for introducing me to Ms. Janowitz. Can't believe that I didn't know about her until now. Such a beautiful, clear tone. Will definitely check out more of her songs.

Last night I was watching a special on Shakespeare, showing scenes from various plays.
Among the scenes shown was the Balcony Scene from Romeo and Juliet. They performed the Prokofiev's ballet.
Hadn't seen that in a while - so beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a04IcHI1fFQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a04IcHI1fFQ)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: feelsflow on December 31, 2016, 11:50:38 AM
Wanted to add something to this thread as we all move to a new year.

I'm travelling through pepperland:  https://youtu.be/DIj8l_hS3lA



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: pixletwin on December 31, 2016, 11:57:57 AM
I just finished copying the last disc from  my Mozart 225 boxset. That was a pain the butt!  :lol


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on December 31, 2016, 01:32:32 PM
Oh you got that Mozart box set! I've been tempted and almost "bit" when I saw the price below 400 dollars. It's gone back up again at least temporarily.

To add- just checked - there are so many other choices to get Mozart's works. Am mainly interested in his choral works and operas.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: pixletwin on December 31, 2016, 01:56:01 PM
It's worth it from a Mozart-geek perspective. It's has things I have dreamed off for decades that aren't available anywhere. Like recordings. On Mozarts instruments. Fragments like the Mozart only score of the Requiem.  Also the books included are excellent.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on December 31, 2016, 03:12:09 PM
That's right. I had read about the excellent books that are included. And a Mozart only score of the Requiem? Wow, that sure is tempting!
Will see if the price can come down just a bit.

Happy New Year!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: pixletwin on December 31, 2016, 04:05:22 PM
That's right. I had read about the excellent books that are included. And a Mozart only score of the Requiem? Wow, that sure is tempting!
Will see if the price can come down just a bit.

Happy New Year!

The Mozart only Lacrymosa is heartbreaking to hear.... but... HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU TOO! :)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 31, 2016, 06:00:17 PM
The Mozart only Lacrymosa is heartbreaking to hear.... but... HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU TOO! :)

Must see if I can dig that out.

Happy New Year to you, Elizabeth and pixletwin. And to everyone else who reads this. :=)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: feelsflow on December 31, 2016, 06:39:00 PM
Happy New Year.  I've made it through.  Time has waved it's hand across America.





Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: feelsflow on January 01, 2017, 12:22:02 AM
a closing song for the night.
https://youtu.be/7X6u1vYwoCc

Nicky and a few stones.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 06, 2017, 11:52:42 AM
Another death, I'm afraid. On the positive side, the conductor Georges Prêtre reached the ripe old age of 92. Although it seems he was best known for his interpretations of opera, I have a wonderful LP of orchestral music by Debussy under his baton.

Here's the maestro together with another legend, the soprano Victoria de los Ángeles, in a 1963 performance of "L'invitation au voyage" by Henri Duparc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1yEoHjkV1k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Prêtre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_de_los_Ángeles


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 09, 2017, 01:02:45 AM
It's that day again (although it seems Shostakovich was in fact depicting the Soviet Union's brutal suppression of the then recent Hungarian Uprising):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EqjseZX4vM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 21, 2017, 03:19:28 AM
Maxim Shostakovich conducted us in his father Dmitri's The Execution of Stepan Razin, a wild and wonderful piece with a surprising, macabre ending.

This version under Kondrashin may well be the definitive recording. I discovered it a week or so ago.

Spine-tingling stuff. Vitali Gromadsky's bass is out of this world!  

https://youtu.be/H0wSxjy3Kyo


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on February 21, 2017, 06:13:25 PM
Thank you for posting the link.
Stepan Razin is incredible. Love the wacky ending when his severed head starts laughing!  :lol
I remember Maxim S talking to us. There was a little section after the execution where the chorus sings that people should dance. This is followed by jolly music. This was confusing to me. Maxim S explained that the soldiers/police had guns pointed at the crowd: "Dance or die." His explaining things to us really made the piece come alive.

When Maxim S returned for another season as Music Director, there were t-shirts made available that said "Max is back!" Wish I had gotten one of them. There was a gala for the Symphony, and the folk ensemble that I was in performed. Got so nervous when I and a couple of other singers/musicians stood right in front of him and sang a couple of Russian folk songs. Kept thinking, "please don't screw up the pronunciation too much!" He smiled at us and nodded - did he like the songs (did he understand  the words) or was he just being polite? Anyway, everything I saw about him indicated that he was a Class Act.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on February 21, 2017, 07:10:38 PM
It's that day again (although it seems Shostakovich was in fact depicting the Soviet Union's brutal suppression of the then recent Hungarian Uprising):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EqjseZX4vM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich)


Very powerful and moving. The buildup, then all of a sudden, quiet.
Interesting that he was depicting the Hungarian uprising. Even in the post-Stalin era he had to be very careful.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 22, 2017, 04:11:37 AM
When Maxim S returned for another season as Music Director, there were t-shirts made available that said "Max is back!" Wish I had gotten one of them. There was a gala for the Symphony, and the folk ensemble that I was in performed. Got so nervous when I and a couple of other singers/musicians stood right in front of him and sang a couple of Russian folk songs. Kept thinking, "please don't screw up the pronunciation too much!" He smiled at us and nodded - did he like the songs (did he understand  the words) or was he just being polite? Anyway, everything I saw about him indicated that he was a Class Act.

I'm hoping he'll pay our concert hall another visit sometime. This time I'll have the score of his father's Fourth Symphony with me, hopefully for signing! There's a fantastic description of this wayward masterpiece in Ian MacDonald's book The New Shostakovich


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 27, 2017, 10:19:18 AM
Max Reger is hardly a household name, yet he wrote music that is eminently listenable. Perhaps his interest in academic musical forms, fugues and the like, make his music seem "difficult" or "dry", particularly when placed among that of his Late Romantic peers. His Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart should dispel that image:

https://youtu.be/-mVQxR9Ll9U

http://www.maxreger.org/max_reger_biography.html


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 27, 2017, 10:19:58 AM
While I'm here, there is a wonderful Reger anecdote. One critic was persistently scathing in his reviews of Reger's music. On one occasion, the composer's response was:

"I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me."  :lol  


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Wrightfan on March 04, 2017, 02:26:14 PM
The 2nd movement of Beethoven's ninth is music at it's best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwIvS4yIThU


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on March 04, 2017, 03:17:11 PM
I'm enough of an old hag to remember that second movement as the "Huntley-Brinkley theme" (US news program way back in the day)

Always thought it a bit funny when, at the 1:20 mark, Beethoven just stops it suddenly and decides to do it all again.

Great music!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on March 04, 2017, 03:27:13 PM
I'm hoping he'll pay our concert hall another visit sometime. This time I'll have the score of his father's Fourth Symphony with me, hopefully for signing! There's a fantastic description of this wayward masterpiece in Ian MacDonald's book The New Shostakovich

That book looks really interesting.

I'm presently reading a book about the Siege of Leningrad (which will take a while as the siege lasted a long time  :( )
Then I'll read "Symphony for the City of the Dead - Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad."
Then will listen to his Symphony No 7 "Leningrad" written in honor of his beloved city.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 06, 2017, 06:55:13 AM
I'm presently reading a book about the Siege of Leningrad (which will take a while as the siege lasted a long time  :( )
Then I'll read "Symphony for the City of the Dead - Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad."
Then will listen to his Symphony No 7 "Leningrad" written in honor of his beloved city.

Enjoy!

That monstrous mechanical advance by the German Army in the Leningrad reminds me of the faceless (and remorseless) Teutonic Knights in Alexander Nevsky, both in Eisenstein's visuals and in Prokofiev's music, where they're accompanied by a meaningless Latin chant:     

https://youtu.be/-x5grdx3g_8


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 06, 2017, 07:27:17 AM
This is quite an earful: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau accompanied by none other than "our" Leonard Bernstein in "Um Mitternacht" from Mahler's Rückert-Lieder:

https://youtu.be/h9661ev8-Qc

 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 08, 2017, 02:50:54 AM
Sticking with Herr Fischer-Dieskau, here he is in Schubert's unbeatable song cycle Winterreise accompanied by Alfred Brendel, another favourite of mine, who recently retired from performing.

I'm not sure whether this performance is definitive----it's certainly up there among the very best.

Ignore the orchestra tuning up at the onset----it's piano and voice only. Enjoy!
    
https://youtu.be/dfLGYDBVnYM


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 02, 2017, 12:19:33 PM
Has this been posted here yet? I've no idea.

Charles Ives has a lot to answer for.  So has Mr Bernstein. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXD4tIp59L0


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: rab2591 on April 06, 2017, 05:28:57 AM
Found this yesterday and have been obsessed with it since. Golijov's Azul featuring Yo Yo Ma. The opening track is incredible, and the Dvorak piece is turning into a favorite.

https://itun.es/us/cN1cib (https://itun.es/us/cN1cib)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 06, 2017, 01:10:58 PM
Found this yesterday and have been obsessed with it since. Golijov's Azul featuring Yo Yo Ma. The opening track is incredible, and the Dvorak piece is turning into a favorite.

https://itun.es/us/cN1cib (https://itun.es/us/cN1cib)

I must look out for this on YouTube. It's bound to get there sooner or later...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 10, 2017, 02:58:50 AM
I'm back at a "rough draft" stage so I can listen to instrumental music while I work.

My current earful is this most enlightened selection of Late Romantic orchestral music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggcjRfI-TLY&index=1&list=PLY9AQ6MtYEKK_n5X26zQHHAs2jgp7ffW2


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 15, 2017, 02:11:24 AM
May you all have a peaceful Easter, folks. :=)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRrJ2MXwmRQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passio_(Pärt)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 24, 2017, 02:09:10 AM
I love Haydn symphonies (he wrote over a hundred, you know).

The second movement from "The Clock" (#101) was on the radio this morning...

Here it is, under one of my favourite conductors, Jascha Horenstein:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M-cmFKdp-Y


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: RangeRoverA1 on April 24, 2017, 04:54:23 AM
Long-time lurker 1st time poster.
Haydn is good, written many positive major key things like Mozart. What do you regard the best Haydn work discounting the radio?


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 24, 2017, 06:11:02 AM
Long-time lurker 1st time poster.
Haydn is good, written many positive major key things like Mozart. What do you regard the best Haydn work discounting the radio?

I like all the symphonies and even listened to them all while working a while back.

I've always been intrigued by #22, "The Philosopher", possibly because of the title...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaR32rtYOyo

Welcome to the "classical" topic!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: pixletwin on May 06, 2017, 05:19:32 PM
I have been intrigued by Gesualdo lately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFXrMrp1o60


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 07, 2017, 01:33:55 AM
I have been intrigued by Gesualdo lately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFXrMrp1o60

I agree. Extraordinary to think he wrote this in the early 1600s!

A fascinating composer with a fascinating if lurid life story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Gesualdo 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 08, 2017, 12:48:03 AM
Riccardo Muti rocks Respighi's socks. This version of Pini da Roma was once chosen as the best----maybe it still is. Wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a7LAKZCUlA

I played football with my son on the grass in the first image of the vid. Must have been in '84 or '85...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 16, 2017, 06:12:14 AM
I cannot recommend this 300+ selection of Late Romantic works for orchestra highly enough. There are very occasional glitches and one serious dip in volume (Respighi again) but 99% of what I've heard so far (140 pieces!) has been astoundingly beautiful. Hats off to compiler David W!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggcjRfI-TLY&list=PLY9AQ6MtYEKK_n5X26zQHHAs2jgp7ffW2

And after piece #316, what's to prevent one from starting at the beginning again? :hat


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on May 22, 2017, 07:27:28 AM
Hi,
Here's a Battle of Ave Verums, both of which I've sung a lot over the years.  they are both wonderful.

Mozart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXjn6srhAlY

Byrd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFZZMF7SRRo



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 23, 2017, 02:03:24 AM
Great post there, E.

BBC Radio played this wonderful piece this morning as a response to last night's horrific attack in Manchester:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Czo0BSHvw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on May 23, 2017, 06:08:11 AM
So beautiful.  :'(

I love that, although it's a sad song, the lyrics speak of hope.

(There have been other occasions where Barber's Adagio for Strings was played after a tragic event, That piece is almost despairing)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 23, 2017, 06:59:07 AM
So beautiful.  :'(

I love that, although it's a sad song, the lyrics speak of hope.

(There have been other occasions where Barber's Adagio for Strings was played after a tragic event, That piece is almost despairing)

I remember on the normally jubilant last night of the 2001 BBC Promenade Concert series in London (this was September 15) they changed the programme. Conductor Leonard Slatkin told the audience that when the British suffer a tragedy, they play Elgar's "Nimrod". "And we play this." And "this" was Barber's heart-rending Adagio.   


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on May 29, 2017, 07:05:44 AM
On FB yesterday was a post from Smithsonian Folkways. Folkways is a label that specializes in folk music around the world.
The article was about one of their recordings available - Bela Bartok's field recordings of Hungarian music.

Bartok spent much of his time recording folk musics of the various ethnic groups in the area, and incorporated them into his music.

One of the songs I sang in college was Bartok's "Four Slovak Folk Songs."
The first song, The Wedding, is achingly beautiful. The woman, getting married, will now be living far from her parents, siblings.
The alto line for this song is incredible.
The other 3 songs are folk dances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGyo_w4oyDQ


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on May 29, 2017, 07:10:56 AM
Sticking with folk music, Zoltan Kodaly was an ethnographer and composer, as well as a mentor and close friend to Bartok.

One of the favorite choral works I've done over the years was the Budavari Te Deum. Such a joy to sing. 20 minutes or so of bliss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SgjYuF8dkY


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on May 29, 2017, 07:45:55 AM
And now for something completely different...

Was thinking, what's the most difficult classical music I've done? The most difficult was, by far, Catulli Carmina by Carl Orff.  None of the wonderful music or charm of Carmina Burana. We had so much trouble with it. The only time we got it right, thank goodness, was at the performance! We were all scared to death, on pins and needles, determined, just once, to not screw up.

Another toughie, although much more enjoyable, was singing The Mighty Casey by American composer William Schuman. It's based on the iconic American poem "Casey at the Bat", about a cocky star Baseball player who is so confident that he will win the game for his team. The last two lines tell the story, however - "But there is no joy in Mudville,  mighty Casey has struck out."

Here's the final part of it. VERY hard to sing. I pride myself in being a good sightreader but  almost met my Waterloo, so to speak, with this. Spent lots of time practicing it in the loo during breaks at work. The alto line in this last section is crazy hard. And towards the end we had to hit a high A flat, at the very top of my range back then (can't hit that anymore!). Usually the top for the alto line would be a D or perhaps E.  On rare occasions, an F.

Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoHv89At0Gk

On a lighter note, don't know if Mari (RangeRoverA1) is reading this thread, but here's something she'd like. William Schuman was the first guest on a "What's My Line" episode back in 1962. (My family used to watch this program back in its early years)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ20S10LWqo


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 30, 2017, 04:58:38 AM
On FB yesterday was a post from Smithsonian Folkways. Folkways is a label that specializes in folk music around the world.
The article was about one of their recordings available - Bela Bartok's field recordings of Hungarian music.

Bartok spent much of his time recording folk musics of the various ethnic groups in the area, and incorporated them into his music.

One of the songs I sang in college was Bartok's "Four Slovak Folk Songs."
The first song, The Wedding, is achingly beautiful. The woman, getting married, will now be living far from her parents, siblings.
The alto line for this song is incredible.
The other 3 songs are folk dances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGyo_w4oyDQ

"The Wedding" is a beautiful piece. Bartok's harmonies are amazing! Another great artist forced abroad by that madman.

The Kodaly sounds good too.

So you're an alto. Is that lower or higher than a contralto or are the two interchangeable? I've seen "contralto" used for the part between the sopranos and the tenors. Maybe it's a language thing...



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on May 30, 2017, 07:58:13 AM
Guess when I think of the word 'contralto' it's the lower alto part (or Alto II). If the alto part is divided I would sing Alto I.
I LOVE singing Alto, as Soprano is so boring. I don't want to sing the melody!
In "pick up" choirs over the years (mainly choirs at work formed to sing Christmas songs) I always sung Alto because I can read music.
I remember auditioning for a choir, telling the director beforehand that I was an Alto. After checking me out he said that I really should be a Soprano II. After pleading with him he put me with the Alto I's instead.

The Sopranos would sometimes act superior. But we Altos would snicker behind their backs because we were usually much better sight readers. Really rather silly.

If by some twist of fate I had been born a male and lived in Hawthorne, somehow getting into the BBs, I wouldn't have wanted to sing the high part, and probably not Mike's low part. Put me in that "stack". I'd tell Brian, Bring It On. Give me some crazy harmony to sing. I'd be in Seventh Heaven!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 08, 2017, 01:24:15 AM
Guess when I think of the word 'contralto' it's the lower alto part (or Alto II). If the alto part is divided I would sing Alto I.
I LOVE singing Alto, as Soprano is so boring. I don't want to sing the melody!
In "pick up" choirs over the years (mainly choirs at work formed to sing Christmas songs) I always sung Alto because I can read music.
I remember auditioning for a choir, telling the director beforehand that I was an Alto. After checking me out he said that I really should be a Soprano II. After pleading with him he put me with the Alto I's instead.

The Sopranos would sometimes act superior. But we Altos would snicker behind their backs because we were usually much better sight readers. Really rather silly.

If by some twist of fate I had been born a male and lived in Hawthorne, somehow getting into the BBs, I wouldn't have wanted to sing the high part, and probably not Mike's low part. Put me in that "stack". I'd tell Brian, Bring It On. Give me some crazy harmony to sing. I'd be in Seventh Heaven!

I forgot to thank you for explaining first time round, so I'll do it now. :=)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 23, 2017, 04:02:17 AM
During the earlier phases of my work I often have music playing. Most recently, this has been the complete works of Anton Webern. It is well to remember that Webern was a miniaturist and that his entire oeuvre takes up something like five and a half hours all told.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZelEcPZU8A&index=1&list=PLTw81JEOyOZJaN77uFCQAkI0FXPKytK6t

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Webern


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 25, 2017, 02:15:09 PM
Oops, double post.  Oh well. Here's some Beethoven, played in chilling circumstances (see the comments):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3346Dq9fXM


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 17, 2017, 02:02:30 AM
Been listening to excerpts from this on YouTube while working. Highly recommended.

(http://www.maxrichtermusic.com/content/blog/large/230.jpg)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(Max_Richter_album) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(Max_Richter_album))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 31, 2017, 06:41:55 AM
Here's a great rendition of Schumann's complete symphonies under Lennie B:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifMO227wrN4

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71jQENnDN8L._SY355_.jpg)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 06, 2017, 05:28:47 AM
I've been listening to a lot of Max Richter's music lately. The latest album to come my way is Three Worlds, originally the music for a ballet called Woolf Works based on three novels by Virginia Woolf: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVLFh0tPTlQ

It contains an excerpt from the only known recording of Ms Woolf's voice. The full BBC broadcast from 1937 can be heard here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcbY04JrMaU


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 29, 2017, 10:07:39 AM
This is perhaps the most moving solo song performance I know:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Z8cmo7cbs

I remember hearing this on the radio in the 1950s. My father pointed out (I could only have been about five) that the singer, Kathleen Ferrier, had died recently. Although this only confused me at the time, it has made it an emotional listening experience ever since...      


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 01, 2017, 02:20:19 AM
I couldn't get this beautiful work off my mind during doggie-walking duties this morning. Just love that "Scotch snap"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j75FhfQYWeU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Fantasy

https://musicinvestigation.wordpress.com/music-investigation-home/




Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 03, 2017, 03:10:34 AM
I heard this choral gem this morning (I'd heard it before). Immortal Bach is an extraordinary reworking (someone described it as a decomposition, in a positive sense) of Bach's chorale "Komm suesser Tod" by the Norwegian Knut Nystedt, who died three years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q42GDx98a_k

  


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 15, 2017, 02:51:39 AM
Heard a simply staggering version of Scriabin's Le Poème de l'extase last night in the local concert hall.

This one ain't bad either...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW1efa9Ypyw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poem_of_Ecstasy


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: alf wiedersehen on September 15, 2017, 02:26:04 PM
Franz Liszt is super.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 15, 2017, 03:06:46 PM
Franz Liszt is super.

You're a classical pianist so that would make sense. :=) Some of his transcriptions of other composers' orchestral works sound fantastic.

I'm not much of a piano music fan myself----a three-year piano tuning course took care of that (all to no avail as well).

I prefer Liszt's symphonic poems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnyug-qrP-k


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: the captain on September 15, 2017, 04:02:39 PM
I consider his "Totentanz" one of my biggest musical influences and/or mind-blowers ever. I was a little obsessed with requiems in my late teens as I went to college to study music. It got a little out of hand, maybe. (What 18-year-old non-religious, non-depressed person is obsessed with masses for the dead?) But that got me in a roundabout way to this masterpiece. Sorry, jk, that you don't care for the piano!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nVmFlSV1ok


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 16, 2017, 02:19:11 AM
I consider his "Totentanz" one of my biggest musical influences and/or mind-blowers ever. I was a little obsessed with requiems in my late teens as I went to college to study music. It got a little out of hand, maybe. (What 18-year-old non-religious, non-depressed person is obsessed with masses for the dead?) But that got me in a roundabout way to this masterpiece. Sorry, jk, that you don't care for the piano!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nVmFlSV1ok

Ooohh, that was nice, cap'n. I suppose because there's a very colourful orchestra in there too. So there's blowing and scraping as well as banging...

Rachmaninoff was another who was partial to the Dies Irae----it pops up all over the place in his music. But you knew that already. ;=)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luYTzah6J9U

I love religious music for choir and orchestra----there have indeed been some fantastic requiems written over the centuries.

When in Vienna we heard Mozart's Requiem performed as part of a church service! And what a performance...

NB: I ain't religious either.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: the captain on September 16, 2017, 12:33:14 PM
Spent the early part of this afternoon with Scriabin's Symphony No. 3, The Divine Poem, playing while I cooked.

And now, on to college football.

(Normal afternoon, no? Start with Scriabin and stock, and with sports and suds.*)



*I'd never say "suds" instead of beer, but the alliteration was inescapable. Wait, I have Summit "Saga" IPA. Let me rewrite that sentence! Damnit, Time, you never skip backward when I need it most. (Which implies time travel happens to me when I need it least?)



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: SMiLE Brian on September 16, 2017, 12:41:03 PM
Gophers football and classical music?


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 17, 2017, 03:10:02 AM
Gophers football and classical music?

Why not? It was good enough for Charles Ives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqsX4TnXtNw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on September 22, 2017, 07:32:46 AM
For the people of Puerto Rico   :'(

'Souvenir de Porto Rico' by Gottschalk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu0ff_fMMDU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu0ff_fMMDU)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 23, 2017, 04:12:36 AM
For the people of Puerto Rico 

This suitably melancholy piece is by Puerto Rico's foremost contemporary composer, Roberto Sierra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q_VJkuxXQE

What a tragedy...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 24, 2017, 03:20:17 AM
Shostakovich leaves more questions than answers in this Chamber Symphony, as relevant a piece now as it was at the time of its composition in 1960:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjeyUPuqXyE

https://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/chamber-symphony-op-110a-arr-bashai-dmitri-shostakovich


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 03, 2017, 05:04:54 AM
Philip Glass has written some magnificent music, some of it extremely intimate and some wide-screen and
overpowering. Itaipu, a four-movement work for choir and orchestra, belongs to the last-named category:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNsVwBv_jcw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_(Glass)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 31, 2017, 03:35:48 AM
This gargantuan work by Olivier Messiaen was written in the space of two years just after WWII. It's a ten-movement symphony, a horrendously difficult piano concerto and a love song all rolled in one. There is also a crucial part for an Ondes Martenot, which in the overpowering performance I heard earlier this year was played, as it is here, by Valérie Hartmann-Claverie:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTlc4Nvyhw4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turangalîla-Symphonie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turangalîla-Symphonie)

https://www.valeriehartmannclaverie.com


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 02, 2017, 04:55:01 AM
A song for All Souls Day, Schubert's great "Litanei auf das Fest Aller Seelen":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrqIEwQhRMo

http://figures-of-speech.com/2015-11/aller-seelen.htm


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 08, 2017, 08:06:59 AM
I don't think we've had Steve Reich yet. I regard Music for 18 Musicians as his magnum opus. There is so much happening in it----it's like living a lifetime within the space of an hour. This is the original recording on ECM, which sees Reich and company striking out into unknown territory. Logically, all subsequent recordings, even under Reich's guidance, lack that pioneering spirit...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILpCKQlDmhc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_18_Musicians


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 17, 2017, 07:14:49 AM
I seem to be talking to myself here (story of my life) but it is a message board and messages don't necessarily require responses...

Yesterday was World Philosophy Day, reason enough (as if we needed one) to post Haydn's Symphony No. 22, nicknamed "The Philosopher".  According to the work's wiki page, "the nickname dates from the composer's own lifetime. The title is thought to derive from the melody and counterpoint of the first movement (between the horns and cor anglais), which musically allude to a question followed by an answer and paralleling the disputatio system of debate. The piece's use of a muted tick-tock effect also evokes the image of a philosopher deep in thought while time passes by." Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaR32rtYOyo

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/most-programme/humanities-and-philosophy/philosophy-day-at-unesco/ 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on November 17, 2017, 07:50:47 AM
I’m lurking in the background.    ;D


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 17, 2017, 08:46:59 AM
I’m lurking in the background.    ;D

That's most encouraging, E. I shall post here more regularly. :=) 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 18, 2017, 03:05:13 AM
It appears only a handful of pianists are able to make a decent job of playing Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. Some big names, including the likes of Martha Argerich, have passed on it as being simply too demanding. This version by Horacio Gutiérrez (with the RCO under Neeme Järvi) was recommended on Dutch radio a few days ago as the version to hear (and, in this case, to follow in short score):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcte8hM6kYA     


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 12, 2017, 12:51:34 PM
I heard the name Zara Levina for the first time last Sunday on Dutch classical radio. This was the piece
they played, her Piano Concerto No. 2, in this version with Maria Lettberg at the piano. Ms Levina
(1906--1976) was a Russian composer who studied under Nicolai Myaskovsky and Reinhold Glière.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifGSdPf6pNo

https://web.archive.org/web/20141129021029/http://home.online.nl/ovar/levina.htm (https://web.archive.org/web/20141129021029/http://home.online.nl/ovar/levina.htm)

(http://www.radiosefarad.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/zaralevina.png)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 17, 2017, 12:26:57 PM
I heard a piece by the seldom-performed British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor on Dutch TV and then noticed that his
Hiawatha Overture had been programmed on UK radio earlier in the day. Most encouraging. Here is that overture: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqaSqwHlsw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 09, 2018, 04:09:06 AM
Today is the fateful day in 1905 in Russian history when soldiers of the Imperial Guard fired upon
unarmed demonstrators marching on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, killing several hundred of
them. Shostakovich commemorates it in the second movement of his Symphony No. 11, although
it is more likely a depiction of the then recent crushing of the Hungarian Revolution by Soviet troops.     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EqjseZX4vM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on January 09, 2018, 06:01:41 AM
I heard a piece by the seldom-performed British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor on Dutch TV and then noticed that his
Hiawatha Overture had been programmed on UK radio earlier in the day. Most encouraging.

Thank you for posting this. I confess to being unfamiliar with his work, something that I will now rectify! I'm so glad he didn't grow up in the US. He probably wouldn't have been able to develop as a classical composer (unless he pursued his musical training in Europe).


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 13, 2018, 03:29:33 AM
He probably wouldn't have been able to develop as a classical composer (unless he pursued his musical training in Europe).

Thankfully, times have changed (or at least I hope they have).

I heard this riveting work on Dutch radio this morning. There's more to Albinoni's Adagio than meets
the eye (or ear). It's a little complicated (my brain's hurting already) so I'll let Wikipedia do the honours. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DNY4bgtXM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adagio_in_G_minor


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 28, 2018, 12:49:55 PM
I'm familiar with (and love) E.J. Moeran's Symphony but I heard this gorgeous orchestral miniature for the first time this morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNL-pOJVRew

http://www.moeran.net/Orchestral/LonelyWaters.html


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 07, 2018, 04:53:16 AM
Johan Svendsen was a fellow countryman and contemporary of the much more famous Edvard Grieg.

Svendsen's Norwegian Artists' Carnival deserves to be heard more often:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeYS4QdPhAI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Svendsen


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 14, 2018, 05:38:05 AM
I came across this sparkling three-movement symphony quite by accident:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xOMDIOyfNo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasushi_Akutagawa


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 09, 2018, 02:31:00 AM
On the subject of little gems, this is Carl Nielsen's symphonic poem Saga-Drøm, in the version I have by Jascha Horenstein and the New Philharmonia Orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQi08boz6xg

The main work on this world-beating disc (shamefully yet to be transferred to CD) is Nielsen's towering Fifth Symphony, whose first movement in this version is essential listening (it used to be on YouTube). 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: RangeRoverA1 on March 09, 2018, 04:50:34 AM
Funny you bumped this thread today, I've got question - can you tell what's being played/ sung when Paul's grandfather appears from bottom to the stage & interferes the singing in AHDN film? It's in 43:19-44:21 min. Ta in advance.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 09, 2018, 06:38:44 AM
Funny you bumped this thread today, I've got question - can you tell what's being played/ sung when Paul's grandfather appears from bottom to the stage & interferes the singing in AHDN film? It's in 43:19-44:21 min. Ta in advance.

I had to look around but it would seem to be from the opening duet in the Finale of Act One of Johann's Strauss's operetta Die Fledermaus:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zgbnlzs-sY

This is where the AHDN excerpt begins:

Die dir einst dein Herz erfreut, [Which once delighted your heart,]
Gibt der Wein dir Tröstung schon [Wine will soon give you consolation]
Durch Vergessenheit! [By forgetting!]
Glücklich ist, wer vergisst, [Happy is the person who forgets,]
Was doch nicht zu ändern ist. [What can't be altered anyway.]
Kling, kling, sing, sing, sing [Ting-a-ling, sing, sing, sing,]
Trink mit mir, sing mit mir, [Drink with me, sing with me,]
Lalala, lalala, etc. [la la la, etc.]

But please check for yourself...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on March 09, 2018, 04:52:03 PM
At work, a big chunk of my job is to do this really tedious stuff processing real estate transfer deeds and as a result I can listen to A LOT of music while I do that. I've found that music with vocals is a bit distracting, but instrumental music, such as classical, is perfect.

Recently while doing this, I decided to listen to all 104 of Hayden's symphonies on Youtube. I started with #1 and am going in order. I just finished #51 (I think) today. Almost halfway through.

My review of them is, while they're all very nice, they all sound very similar - almost to the point where they're getting a bit tedious. But I'm going to insist to myself that I finish them all, just ... because. I can easily imagine Mr. Haydn, at the end of his career, likely unable to recall all of the symphonies he wrote, it almost seems like these authors who churn out volumes and volumes of pulp fiction stories to the point where they all seem to run into each other and you can't really tell them apart (even if they're entertaining).


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: RangeRoverA1 on March 10, 2018, 12:16:58 AM
I had to look around but it would seem to be from the opening duet in the Finale of Act One of Johann's Strauss's operetta Die Fledermaus: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zgbnlzs-sY

This is where the AHDN excerpt begins:

Die dir einst dein Herz erfreut, [Which once delighted your heart,]
Gibt der Wein dir Tröstung schon [Wine will soon give you consolation]
Durch Vergessenheit! [By forgetting!]
Glücklich ist, wer vergisst, [Happy is the person who forgets,]
Was doch nicht zu ändern ist. [What can't be altered anyway.]
Kling, kling, sing, sing, sing [Ting-a-ling, sing, sing, sing,]
Trink mit mir, sing mit mir, [Drink with me, sing with me,]
Lalala, lalala, etc. [la la la, etc.]
Thanks to the fast reply. :thumbsup Lyrics match with the AHDN bit in question. Cool music, cheerful as I like. :3d


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: JK on March 10, 2018, 02:50:39 AM
At work, a big chunk of my job is to do this really tedious stuff processing real estate transfer deeds and as a result I can listen to A LOT of music while I do that. I've found that music with vocals is a bit distracting, but instrumental music, such as classical, is perfect.

Recently while doing this, I decided to listen to all 104 of Haydn's symphonies on Youtube.
I started with #1 and am going in order. I just finished #51 (I think) today. Almost halfway through.

My review of them is, while they're all very nice, they all sound very similar - almost to the point where they're getting a bit tedious. But I'm going to insist to myself that I finish them all, just ... because. I can easily imagine Mr. Haydn, at the end of his career, likely unable to recall all of the symphonies he wrote, it almost seems like these authors who churn out volumes and volumes of pulp fiction stories to the point where they all seem to run into each other and you can't really tell them apart (even if they're entertaining).

The bold bit could have been posted by me (except that I do non-boring rough drafts of stuff). I went through all the Haydn symphonies and thoroughly enjoyed the trip. If I remember correctly, I started in the middle working my way forwards and then from the middle backwards to #1. ;D

Amazingly, at least one symphonist has written more than 104. This is Leif Segerstam's Symphony No. 253...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7Ht2W8Z6E

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Segerstam


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 10, 2018, 02:52:15 AM
Thanks to the fast reply. :thumbsup Lyrics match with the AHDN bit in question. Cool music, cheerful as I like. :3d

Any time. I used to enjoy identifying things for people on YouTube but stopped when the place became user-unfriendly... 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on March 10, 2018, 03:56:12 PM
Amazingly, at least one symphonist has written more than 104. This is Leif Segerstam's Symphony No. 253...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7Ht2W8Z6E

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Segerstam
Holy moly! While one might admire that guy's work ethic, when you're writing that many symphonies, you're pretty much writing a lot of symphonies just for the sake of writing a lot of symphonies.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: JK on March 11, 2018, 09:03:11 AM
Amazingly, at least one symphonist has written more than 104. This is Leif Segerstam's Symphony No. 253...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7Ht2W8Z6E

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Segerstam
Holy moly! While one might admire that guy's work ethic, when you're writing that many symphonies, you're pretty much writing a lot of symphonies just for the sake of writing a lot of symphonies.

Haha, yes. A better case in point perhaps is Havergal Brian, who wrote a mere 32 (!) but many are of epic proportions, particularly Symphony No. 1, "The Gothic", which I heard premiered in 1966. And a pretty staggering experience it was too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRdozy4l07g

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_%22The_Gothic%22_(Brian)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 14, 2018, 03:12:25 AM
This is in memory of Stephen Hawking, who died today aged 76. In "Neptune" from Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, the door closes slowly on the female choir with the final bar "repeated until the sound is lost in the distance". A genius now rests in peace. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EX6gCCLx_8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planets




Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 30, 2018, 02:57:11 AM
Seeing as it's Good Friday today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB5OrgydzIA

Arranged by Wagner into a concert piece, this music accompanies the second half of Act 3, Scene 1 of his opera Parsfal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsifal


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on April 05, 2018, 03:35:30 PM
I finally finished the last of them yesterday!

As I said, they're all nice, but they're VERY repetitive. I suppose that's going to happen when you write 104 symphonies. Only about a dozen of them are worth listening to more than once. Also, you could tell in the last 10-20 of them he started getting a little more adventurous, and dabbling into some of the then-new Romanticism. But I am pretty sure if you asked him near the end of his life if he could remember every one of those symphonies, he would probably say no.

At work, a big chunk of my job is to do this really tedious stuff processing real estate transfer deeds and as a result I can listen to A LOT of music while I do that. I've found that music with vocals is a bit distracting, but instrumental music, such as classical, is perfect.

Recently while doing this, I decided to listen to all 104 of Hayden's symphonies on Youtube. I started with #1 and am going in order. I just finished #51 (I think) today. Almost halfway through.

My review of them is, while they're all very nice, they all sound very similar - almost to the point where they're getting a bit tedious. But I'm going to insist to myself that I finish them all, just ... because. I can easily imagine Mr. Haydn, at the end of his career, likely unable to recall all of the symphonies he wrote, it almost seems like these authors who churn out volumes and volumes of pulp fiction stories to the point where they all seem to run into each other and you can't really tell them apart (even if they're entertaining).


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: JK on April 15, 2018, 05:00:52 AM
I finally finished the last of them yesterday!

As I said, they're all nice, but they're VERY repetitive. I suppose that's going to happen when you write 104 symphonies. Only about a dozen of them are worth listening to more than once. Also, you could tell in the last 10-20 of them he started getting a little more adventurous, and dabbling into some of the then-new Romanticism. But I am pretty sure if you asked him near the end of his life if he could remember every one of those symphonies, he would probably say no.

Proficiat, S-a. I suppose the whole concept of the symphony was developing as Papa Haydn was pouring them out. I must admit I'm a fan, although I'm not likely to repeat this marathon listening session. ;D

One of the pieces I heard during the "boring" stage of my work was this gem by Morton Gould. Harvest is part of a channel of American 20th-century orchestral music I'm listening to right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcoKsFBmk6c

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Gould



     


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 29, 2018, 04:12:32 AM
Heard this on the radio this morning. A bit out of season perhaps, but a gem just the same:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6pquwsisEc

http://old.bhso.org.uk/repert-273-Delius-Summer-night-on-the-river.htm


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: pixletwin on April 29, 2018, 10:44:07 PM
I’m curious what you all think if Crumb’s “Ancient Voices of Children”. I became aquatinted with it the same time I first heard Smile and the two and kind of welded in my mind where I found much inspiration.

https://youtu.be/yvpuiI3fGeU


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 30, 2018, 02:03:50 AM
I’m curious what you all think of Crumb’s “Ancient Voices of Children”. I became acquainted with it the same time I first heard Smile and the two kind of welded in my mind where I found much inspiration.

https://youtu.be/yvpuiI3fGeU

Thanks for sharing, pixletwin. I've heard music by Crumb before, mainly piano music if I remember correctly.

Perhaps they're too intimate (I'm happier with a broader canvas) but song cycles with a chamber group have never really appealed to me--with the possible exception of Pierrot Lunaire. The ones with orchestra by, say, Berlioz and Zemlinsky are more up my street. I can imagine AVOC and SMiLE gelling in one's mind though.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 19, 2018, 07:26:56 AM
Heard a live performance of Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird last night. Here are the closing eleven minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WsqK1mCGeY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Firebird


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 03, 2018, 07:31:00 AM
This morning I heard "Silouan's Song" by Arvo Pärt on UK radio. This deeply sad piece fits well with some news I heard yesterday at a prize-giving ceremony for architecture graduates. One of the winners could not be there to accept their award, having taken their own life late last year. How incredibly cruel life can be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A9XZ7Fw-oU


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 21, 2018, 07:25:08 AM
The soprano whom I used to help with her parts (she sings in a semi-professional choir) has resumed singing again after a bout of illness. One of the pieces I helped her with today was this incredibly moving Requiem by Herbert Howells:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hBco-7y6M

http://www.chicagochorale.org/herbert-howells-requiem/


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: RangeRoverA1 on July 21, 2018, 07:33:43 AM
His daughter Ursula Howells is jolly talented British actress. Could play heroes & villains equally well.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: the captain on July 21, 2018, 08:21:57 AM
The soprano whom I used to help with her parts (she sings in a semi-professional choir) has resumed singing again after a bout of illness. One of the pieces I helped her with today was this incredibly moving Requiem by Herbert Howells:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hBco-7y6M

http://www.chicagochorale.org/herbert-howells-requiem/

Beautiful.

I was surprised to hear Psalm 23 ("the Lord is my shepherd") in there. Was Howells the first composer to use that in a requiem? I know it's in Rutter's, and thought that was an anomaly. Now I'm wondering how common it might be, and when it entered that context. (It is an obvious fit, really.)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 21, 2018, 10:13:54 AM
I was surprised to hear Psalm 23 ("the Lord is my shepherd") in there. Was Howells the first composer to use that in a requiem? I know it's in Rutter's, and thought that was an anomaly. Now I'm wondering how common it might be, and when it entered that context. (It is an obvious fit, really.)

Looks like they're the only two to use it in a requiem. I have yet to "get" Rutter but Herbert H nails it for me. I agree--his is an achingly beautiful work.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on July 23, 2018, 03:41:08 PM
I finally finished the last of them yesterday!

As I said, they're all nice, but they're VERY repetitive. I suppose that's going to happen when you write 104 symphonies. Only about a dozen of them are worth listening to more than once. Also, you could tell in the last 10-20 of them he started getting a little more adventurous, and dabbling into some of the then-new Romanticism. But I am pretty sure if you asked him near the end of his life if he could remember every one of those symphonies, he would probably say no.

At work, a big chunk of my job is to do this really tedious stuff processing real estate transfer deeds and as a result I can listen to A LOT of music while I do that. I've found that music with vocals is a bit distracting, but instrumental music, such as classical, is perfect.

Recently while doing this, I decided to listen to all 104 of Hayden's symphonies on Youtube. I started with #1 and am going in order. I just finished #51 (I think) today. Almost halfway through.

My review of them is, while they're all very nice, they all sound very similar - almost to the point where they're getting a bit tedious. But I'm going to insist to myself that I finish them all, just ... because. I can easily imagine Mr. Haydn, at the end of his career, likely unable to recall all of the symphonies he wrote, it almost seems like these authors who churn out volumes and volumes of pulp fiction stories to the point where they all seem to run into each other and you can't really tell them apart (even if they're entertaining).
Update to my comment about Hayden symphonies.

As I said, due to what I do at work, I get to listen to A LOT of music. I've mostly been listening to Romantic-era symphonies, plus a bit of Baroque and Modern stuff. In the past few months I think I've listened to several dozen Romantic-era symphonies. And to expand upon what I said about Hayden, after you listen to a bunch of them, they all start to run into each other and sound about the same, even though they're different composers. It's made me start to ponder the nature of creativity, and art in general, and why artists move on to new stuff, to the point where they delve into increasingly marginal stuff (that is, stuff that's bound to be less popular and sound increasingly awkward). Today, after listening to the first 6 symphonies from ... I forget his name ... it made me wonder if someday art in general - at least the creation of new art - is someday going to "die" simply because it's become increasingly difficult to create things that doesn't sound like something that's already been written (actually, I've pondered that many times over the past several years, but I digress). Is art of all kinds someday going to be replaced by ... I don't know what? It's either that, or artists will increasingly be faced with the choice of creating things that are similar to stuff that's already been done, or do increasingly bizarre stuff that will have limited appeal. Merzbow becomes increasingly understandable. But then, what happens after several hundred artists have created Merzbow-style music?

Probably off-topic, but a philosophical question to ponder. I think you have to listen to about 50 Romantic-era symphonies (or, 50 High-Classical era symphonies, or 50 ....) to really get what I'm saying. After a while the repetition becomes impossible to escape, even among artists who are "different" from one another.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 30, 2018, 04:02:26 AM
Here's a composer I discovered quite by accident. Morfydd Llwyn Owen died tragically young, aged just 26. But she left quite a sizeable oeuvre behind. This is her Nocturne in D flat major for orchestra, written in 1913:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-ZYKkxYEvY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morfydd_Llwyn_Owen


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 21, 2018, 05:47:33 AM
Yesterday marked the death 61 years ago of Jean Sibelius. The majestic Tapiola was one of his last and greatest works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZdQqCjszsU

 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 08, 2018, 05:35:20 AM
It's that time of year again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUcdKa3wkHo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Oratorio


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 14, 2019, 02:10:37 PM
Today I heard this magical movement from a magical work by a musical magician, Hector Berlioz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgG9YtrYU4Q

http://www.hberlioz.com/Scores/sharold.htm (http://www.hberlioz.com/Scores/sharold.htm)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 24, 2019, 02:14:28 PM
I keep hearing individual movments of Sibelius's Sixth Symphony on the radio these days. Most gratifying as it happens, as this particular symphony is generally overlooked. Here is the fourth movement in the version I know best, by the LSO under Anthony Collins:   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67VhT1QZIM0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._6_(Sibelius) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._6_(Sibelius))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: gruelingpace on January 24, 2019, 11:35:12 PM
Sibelius is on my list. (I've never listened to Sibelius. )


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: gruelingpace on January 24, 2019, 11:42:24 PM
Sibelius: Symphony No.5 - Vänskä/LPO(2010Live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RwOxQBpVyg

I'm trying this.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: gruelingpace on January 24, 2019, 11:56:00 PM
Nope.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 27, 2019, 03:59:28 AM
Nope.

You can't win 'em all, gh. Try this instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjyLWoJvtME

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swan_of_Tuonela


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: gruelingpace on February 01, 2019, 09:41:27 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS8pVaQVJuY




Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 01, 2019, 10:09:29 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS8pVaQVJuY

Wow, Erich Kleiber! Great choice there, gh. Better than Sibelius, eh? :lol

Listening to it now. Thanks for sharing! ;)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: gruelingpace on February 01, 2019, 06:45:26 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS8pVaQVJuY

Wow, Erich Kleiber! Great choice there, gh. Better than Sibelius, eh? :lol


My preferences tend towards perfection of the warhorse .


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 02, 2019, 05:19:21 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS8pVaQVJuY

Wow, Erich Kleiber! Great choice there, gh. Better than Sibelius, eh? :lol


My preferences tend towards perfection of the warhorse .

Aha. Are you familiar with the nine Beethoven symphonies under René Leibowitz? Fantastic!

You'll find them here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=leibowitz+beethoven


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 11, 2019, 01:07:05 PM
Heard this today as the background music to a scene from Mr. Robot. Holst's The Planets suite has always afforded rich pickings for makers of films and TV programmes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-G272M77N0

https://songsfromsodeep.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/space-music-holsts-neptune-the-mystic/


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 17, 2019, 11:56:59 AM
The soprano whom I used to help with her parts (she sings in a semi-professional choir) has resumed singing again after a bout of illness. One of the pieces I helped her with today was this incredibly moving Requiem by Herbert Howells:

Another work on that programme is Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater. (Not to be confused with the one written by his father Allessandro.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmmM-sgvXQk

https://www.stabatmater.info/componist/scarlatti-2/


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 22, 2019, 03:42:58 PM
This spectacular sequence is from part two of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible. Prokofiev supplies the equally spectacular music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tcPBx3O_H4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_(1944_film)#Part_2


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 27, 2019, 02:12:32 PM
Michael Nyman's Music After a While narrowly avoided being unceremoniously dumped in the ambient thread. It was the association with Henry Purcell's Music For a While that saved the day (see details in link):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiQFJhvukVs

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8546907--if-michael-nyman-henry-purcell


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 05, 2019, 05:20:01 AM
This is for you, zosobird. You know why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cd3Mt2SDCw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 10, 2019, 05:21:15 AM
My last major project at the Endless Harmony forum was a seven-post rundown of Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets.

That mini-series was prompted by the unexpected inclusion of the final movement, "Neptune, the Mystic", as background music in a TV show, where it represented alienation rather than the hush of concentration Holst intended. You'll need to crank up the volume considerably as I believe the loudest it gets is mezzo-piano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26tYwaTFOzA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planets


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 19, 2019, 10:35:30 AM
It's that day again. This rendition of Wagner's "Good Friday Music" is for halblaineisgood aka Treatzapiza, who I hope is doing well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb9sx5G3YZw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb9sx5G3YZw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 21, 2019, 01:16:48 AM
It's that other day again, folks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQoGMgA3wR0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Easter_Festival_Overture


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 15, 2019, 03:08:35 AM
Last week we attended a concert for string quartet. Normally I'm not a chamber music fan at all but this programme was special. Aside from Steve Reich's Different Trains for string quartet and tape (see today's ambient topic), what attracted us was a work by John Luther Adams, The Wind in High Places. We'd been bowled over by Adams's recent orchestral masterpiece Becoming Desert a while back and this older work didn't disappoint (read the linked wiki page for essential details). Here's part two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxYnROT9QUI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_in_High_Places


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 16, 2019, 09:24:05 AM
I'm no fan of Bach (unless Glenn Gould is playing it) but this motet I heard at the funeral service of a local choral conductor was very moving indeed. Maybe the occasion had something to do with it. That said, the deceased was only the most fleeting of acquaintances. (The music starts about half a minute in.) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFbTZ9T7ogc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Jesu_Christ,_meins_Lebens_Licht,_BWV_118


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 20, 2019, 04:15:12 AM
It was the use of music from The Planets (part of "Neptune" and a snippet from "Mars") in an episode, posted elsewhere by my blogger friend, of Mr. Robot that gave me the idea of tackling each of the seven movements of Holst's orchestral suite chronologically, accompanied by a potted description off the top of my head (this will explain any errors). This Smiley version has been slightly abridged and reduced to a single post. With thanks to CB for unwittingly instigating it! :) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planets

The work opens with "Mars, the Bringer of War". Begun, I believe, before WWI broke out, it is prophetic of the mechanized warfare to come. The 5/4 rhythm batters its way inexorably through the movement, with a brief lull about halfway and a cry of pain towards the end.

"Mars" has been used in a modified form by King Crimson in "The Devil's Triangle" from their second album In the Wake of Poseidon.

The version of The Planets I'll be linking is by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis. A brief anecdote (while I'm on a roll): Davis and I actually attended the same grammar school, although he was my senior by two or three years. When I was fourteen I took him a piece of music I'd written--just some derivative fluff. He played through it with all the care and attention worthy of a masterpiece, and then played (and sang) a big chunk of a cantata he had been working on. And now he's a world-famous conductor.

You should turn the volume up reasonably high to catch the hushed opening rhythm on the strings but you may find yourself turning it down later on! :P

Mars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuG8qxkcsdw

The second movement, "Venus, the Bringer of Peace", is the one that contrasts most with its predecessor in the suite. That rising horn figure, answered by cool flutes, ushers in a picture of serenity. Later a solo oboe rises to the occasion. After a gentle climax, a rippling celesta brings the movement to a close. Holst was a troubled man but nothing of it shows in these almost nine minutes of bliss.

Venus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs1zKUUNjOA

"Mercury, the Winged Messenger" is mercurial in both name and nature. This last-named is expressed musically in two ways:

First, the key furthest away from C is F#, positioned midway between one C and the C an octave above (or below). This interval is called the tritone and it can be made great use of in the hands of a capable composer, as here. (I could probably do better to describe it as a sophisticated use of bitonality.)

Second, the rhythm alternates between bars of 3/4 and 6/8; these are sometimes heard simultaneously.

The effect of these two devices makes "Mercury" feel as light as air. It's also the shortest of the seven movements--indeed, it's more like an interlude or perhaps a scherzo.

Mercury: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ucD-sGXUhY

"Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" (lovely word, that) is the one you're most likely to hear on the radio. It simply brims over with great tunes.

Understandably in this light, it is the most plundered movement of the seven. Manfred Mann's Earthband even took one of the tunes (first heard at 1:05) into the charts as "Joybringer". And Frank Zappa introduced his "Ritual Dance Of The Giant Pumpkin" on Absolutely Free with another (first heard at 1:46).

The big tune at 3:15 was given lyrics and sung as a patriotic hymn ("I Vow to Thee, My Country") during WWI. I can't remember whether Holst sanctioned this move but it's totally out of keeping with the carefree nature of "Jupiter". (Regrettably, the video makes mention of this misuse in the title.) My favourite passage is the swirling, almost psychedelic treatment of this very tune just before the coda.

Jupiter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0GHYeAJ5LM

When I first heard "Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age" I was in my mid teens. More than half a century later, it is still one of my favourite Holst pieces. (The title is somewhat more telling now, of course.)

It begins with two alternating chords representing the inexorable march of the years. Later, we get one of Holst's "sad processions"--he was haunted by these all his life--in the brass at first. Four flutes introduce a new, more urgent element that builds until the bells clang out an alarm. Panic briefly ensues before acceptance takes over and the movement ends in serene, widely spaced chords underpinned by low notes on the organ pedals.

Saturn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQoQ7bVHjrc

"Uranus, the Magician" has much in common with Dukas' Sorceror's Apprentice, except that this sorceror is in control from the get-go. The opening four-note incantation on the brass recurs throughout the movement, which builds until a shattering glissando on the organ transports us to a serene realm devoid of all hocus-pocus.

Uranus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzTk2ut6Ef0

"Neptune, the Mystic" is one of the quietest pieces ever written. (I don't believe it rises above mezzo-piano.) I remember the LP liner notes going on to describe this low volume as "the hush of concentration" rather than of despair or anything negative. The high G (here at 3:51) takes a while to impress itself on the senses. It is sung by female voices located in a room offstage. Dividing into six (?) parts, they carry the work to its conclusion. To sneakily quote an old Smiley post of mine, the door of the room closes slowly on the female choir with the final bar "repeated until the sound is lost in the distance".

Neptune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26tYwaTFOzA

PS: Anyone bold enough to investigate the full score can find it here (https://archive.org/details/Holst_ThePlanets). I remember gawping at its graphic qualities as a young child. Before then I'd heard The Planets only once on the radio, at night, drifting up the stairs to my bedroom where it conjured up multi-coloured visions of outer space.

EGDON HEATH

The CD that I've used to illustrate each planet concludes with my favourite among Holst's compositions, the orchestral miniature Egdon Heath. Written in 1927, the composer considered it his most perfectly realized work. (Not being a part of the series, I took the liberty of looking some things up at this point!)

The version linked here (recorded in 1961 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult) is the one I've always known and loved. The YouTube blurb is pretty well complete in itself, with the wiki page providing some additional background information:

"A place perfectly accordant with man's nature--neither ghastly, hateful nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning nor tame; but like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony." This quotation from Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel The Return of the Native appears on the score of Gustav Holst's tone poem Egdon Heath, dedicated to Hardy (who, at age 87, had one more year of life remaining), and long regarded by the composer as his finest work. It was commissioned by the New York Symphony Orchestra, which premiered it under the direction of Walter Damrosch at New York's Mecca Auditorium on 12 February 1928. The next day Holst led the City of Birmingham Symphony in the British premiere at Cheltenham, where the first major festival of Holst's music had taken place the previous year. Those initial performances went well, but another in London a few days later was greeted poorly by a noisy and unreceptive audience. This seems to have made Holst a bit anxious about the work, and may have led to his desire that the above Hardy quotation should always appear in any explanatory programme notes.

In her book on her father's music, Holst's daughter Imogen evokes the Hardy quotation in referring to the "mysterious monotony" of the tone poem, which begins with a sombre melody heard first in the double basses, then taken up by the rest of the strings. A nostalgic theme in the brass and woodwinds, and a scurrying theme in the strings and oboe, work their way into the texture as well, leading to moody, twilit music and what has been described as a "strange, ghostly dance". This dark, evocative work finishes the same way it started: quietly, and somewhat mysteriously. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msIL7eavgk4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egdon_Heath

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BDR4VdqsBWM/VfytiRKrtAI/AAAAAAAAC5M/jbIQoYOtdsU/s1600/Gustav-Holst.jpg)

Gustav Holst (21 September 1874--25 May 1934)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on June 21, 2019, 02:40:56 AM
Some of the streets in my area are named after composers, most of them big international names but also a few Dutch men and women, many of whom have slipped into obscurity. One street is named after the Dutchman Willem Landré (1874-1948). I remember a late composer friend not being particularly impressed with him (I must look it up). This "romantic piano concerto" from 1936 is pleasant enough. His son Guillaume (1905-1968) was also a composer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0ZIJwrVQG4


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 01, 2019, 01:54:09 AM
It's time to do the topic title justice and get lost in a symphony (I find symphonies and landscape paintings are great places to lose oneself).

There's this Dutch TV presenter, a Bach fanatic, who once said that his mother used to say if you don't know who the composer is of the work you're listening to, it's probably Dvořák. :lol  I heard the third movement of his Symphony No. 8 (my favourite Dvořák symphony) this morning on Dutch radio, in this version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ps_Pprg-ro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Dvořák) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Dvořák))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: NOLA BB Fan on July 01, 2019, 08:00:38 AM
Just a note to thank you for posting about The Planets, one of my favorite symphonies.
And I can't get enough Dvorak!
Thanks again.

E

PS wish I could figure out how to put accent marks in on my tablet.

Update: the tablet doesn't have the accent for the r, but has for the a - á. Not easy to work with it though. Miss my old PC at work - could do all the accents, different alphabets etc.
Accents are important . One of our Residents was preparing a slide presentation he was going to give in México. One of the slides was concerning a 5 year old child. This was in the old days before programs such as Powerpoint, so our audiovisual department had to make the slides. The text in the slides was in Spanish. The Resident freaked when he saw the slide about the child. It was supposed to have the word " año, " for "year." Instead it read " ano", er , not right!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 01, 2019, 10:54:05 AM
Just a note to thank you for posting about The Planets, one of my favorite symphonies.
And I can't get enough Dvorak!
Thanks again.

E

Thank you, Lizzie. That means a lot. Just a few words of thanks makes it all worthwhile. Same goes for rab, who thanked me for my ambient stuff and my non-BB music posts in general. I don't believe anyone "liked" those Holst posts at EH--at least I didn't see any likes when I sneaked in there to copy it--not even the dedicatee. ::)

Curiously, Holst didn't consider The Planets among his best works and was bewildered by its success. All the same, this work and its composer are pretty synonymous in the public consciousness. I suspect most fans of The Planets would be hard put to name another work by Gustav H. ;D   

Quote
PS wish I could figure out how to put accent marks in on my tablet.

Couldn't you do what I do and cut and paste names like Dvořák from the first correctly accented mention online?   

Quote
Update: the tablet doesn't have the accent for the r, but has for the a - á. Not easy to work with it though. Miss my old PC at work - could do all the accents, different alphabets etc.
Accents are important . One of our Residents was preparing a slide presentation he was going to give in México. One of the slides was concerning a 5 year old child. This was in the old days before programs such as Powerpoint, so our audiovisual department had to make the slides. The text in the slides was in Spanish. The Resident freaked when he saw the slide about the child. It was supposed to have the word " año, " for "year." Instead it read " ano", er , not right!

 :lol


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 02, 2019, 05:02:56 AM
I can't get enough Dvorak!

No sooner said than done. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXsdubp5kFs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Spinning_Wheel_(Dvořák) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Spinning_Wheel_(Dvořák))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on July 11, 2019, 05:32:44 AM
I'm no fan of concertos as a rule--the idea of one instrument pitted against the rest simply doesn't appeal to me. The one I heard this morning is an exception (there are others). Here the two "parties" can be heard warmly working "in concert". A great start to the day then.  ;)   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nslGLvCVc_Q

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_(Barber) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_(Barber))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 02, 2019, 02:41:15 AM
Christer Danielsson is a name that means nothing to me. Yet the fourth movement ("Alla Marcia") of his Concertant Suite for tuba and four horns, which I heard yesterday on the radio, is so familiar. Was it a theme tune from some past radio or TV programme? All I can find out about Danielsson is that he was Swedish and lived from 1942 to 1989. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9mDiM4pk3I


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 04, 2019, 03:03:28 AM
"Stunning, stunning, stunning. Have just heard the BBC proms concert and want to hear it again and again. The dissonances are uplifting. I find the whole thing inspiring. (I am a writer.) Thanks for uploading it."

Thus YT commenter Nick Ashton-Jones earlier this morning. He was describing the early (1915) version of Sibelius's Symphony No. 5 as performed at last night's Proms. I heard it too. I've never warmed to this work in its final (1919) version and now I know why. It had been sanitized, admittedly by its composer, but such operations are not always for the good. (Think of Zappa's later meddlings with albums that were fine as they were.) This is indeed stunning. Long may it be performed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4XuOPgHC9Y

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._5_(Sibelius) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._5_(Sibelius))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 03, 2019, 10:58:19 AM
We're a month further down the line and now I'm listening to another symphony, Carl Nielsen's third, subtitled Sinfonia Expansiva, under Leonard Bernstein. Funny how I used to pooh-pooh Lenny as just another brash American. But since learning of his involvement with Brian (however tenuous) I've come to love the man. I also learned that when Serge Koussevitsky was taken ill and couldn't conduct Oliver Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie, a large-scale work he had commissioned from the Frenchman, the 31-year-old Bernstein took over the formidable task.

I've said before that it's wonderful to lose yourself in a symphony or a landscape and this work fits the bill perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E_yy28_4A4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Nielsen) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Nielsen))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 17, 2019, 10:48:51 AM
No end of symphonies on Dutch radio today. This was the first, in another version but when I saw Lenny had recorded it (in 1953!) how could I resist? Just the first movement, mind, as that's what I heard this morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tiLyokFdaY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Schumann) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Schumann))

Now for an interesting aside (from the wiki): The year of 1845 was important for Schumann because it signaled a shift in his compositional strategy. He began to compose away from the piano, as he noted in his writing:

"Not until the year 1845, when I began to conceive and work out everything in my head, did an entirely different manner of composition begin to develop."   

The French composer Hector Berlioz couldn't play the piano, so that "an entirely different manner of composition" had always been his way of doing things--and it shows. More on him later... ;)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 19, 2019, 05:05:03 AM
I recently attended a stunning performance of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust, an astonishingly opulent patchwork quilt of music and drama. The definitive full-length recording I'm told is that conducted by Berlioz champion Colin Davis. However, one commentator enthused about the more "feminine" treatment given to Part One, Scene One under Seiji Ozawa. So I shall link that instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jVOAp_kibg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_damnation_de_Faust 


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on September 27, 2019, 02:59:28 AM
I have this ancient tape of stuff by the Austrian composer Hanns Eisler. The musical heavyweights on it are the Lenin Requiem (1935, written before he emigrated to the US) and Die Teppichweber von Kujan-Bulak for soprano and orchestra (1957). This is the moving "Vorspiel" from Winterschlacht-Suite, a purely instrumental work written in exile in 1954:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D25oRGu8TOk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Eisler


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 26, 2019, 03:35:50 AM
I didn't envisage posting anything much before Haydn in this topic but here I am linking overtures and sinfonias (my early morning/later night listening project right now) by the late Baroque composer George Frideric Handel.

My evenings spent accompanying an amateur choir at rehearsals for a decade or two some years back opened my ears to the wonders of older choral music. And it was Cool Cool Water at my "hobby' forum (and an occasional visitor here) who first fuelled my interest in earlier instrumental music with his Renaissance and Baroque music topics (the Medieval one is just a little too early for my liking). So thank you that man!

And now aeijtzsche's love of Handel has inadvertently pointed me at what is a pretty specific musical area. Who would have thought it? What message boards are good for! Thank you, JH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgx5FRSJDFk


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on October 30, 2019, 06:25:14 PM
Talking about Buxtehude now, the great north-German organist, composer, and church musician;

I read a sensationally interesting book about him last year: Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck (http://"https://www.amazon.com/Dieterich-Buxtehude-Organist-Eastman-Studies/dp/1580462537")

What a great book.  Such an interesting cultural milieu to be a part of.  Unlike Bach and his churches, Buxtehude didn't get to compose a ton of music for Marienkirche; he was just the organist.  Nevertheless, what a great treasure of early-mid Baroque music he left us.  His vocal and choral music I find to be especially moving.

My favorite of his is a cantata called "Jesu meines lebens leben".


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 31, 2019, 04:34:24 AM
Talking about Buxtehude now, the great north-German organist, composer, and church musician;

I read a sensationally interesting book about him last year: Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck (http://"https://www.amazon.com/Dieterich-Buxtehude-Organist-Eastman-Studies/dp/1580462537")

What a great book.  Such an interesting cultural milieu to be a part of.  Unlike Bach and his churches, Buxtehude didn't get to compose a ton of music for Marienkirche; he was just the organist.  Nevertheless, what a great treasure of early-mid Baroque music he left us.  His vocal and choral music I find to be especially moving.

My favorite of his is a cantata called "Jesu meines lebens leben".

Your link didn't work for me so I found a new one:

https://books.google.nl/books/about/Dieterich_Buxtehude.html?id=qSXGOoambNcC&redir_esc=y (https://books.google.nl/books/about/Dieterich_Buxtehude.html?id=qSXGOoambNcC&redir_esc=y)

Thanks for the tip, JH. It looks fascinating. I wonder if my local university library could get hold of it? They're usually pretty good.*

My wife was in Lübeck a few years back and visited St. Mary's. A young Thomas Mann lived just across from the church (she's a huge fan) and Buddenbrooks is about a Lübeck family based on his own.

I've bookmarked the cantata you mention (YT video with score). What an adventure this has turned out to be!

Right now though, I'm listening to Bach's Musical Offering under Sir Neville Marriner. (I know the "Ricercar a 6" from Webern's Klangfarbenmelodie-style orchestration of it.) I don't know if it's because this version is particularly colourful in its instrumentation but it's a wonderful listen. I see the same CD includes The Art of Fugue so that's up next.

All listening suggestions (Bach or Buxtehude) gratefully accepted!

[A couple of hours later]

* Ordered! (Unless I screwed up somewhere.) It's only available as a hardback these days (thus far) and too expensive for me to buy. To say nothing of the 1987 original on Amazon!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on November 01, 2019, 09:36:36 PM
My favourite part about the Buxtehude book is the insight into the musical life of a community.  Specifically Lübeck, but it is so fascinating to imagine what European musical life was like then.  Municipal musicians, trumpet guild members who served in martial and sacred contexts, traveling showmen virtuosi, church as the center of it all, etc, etc...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 02, 2019, 03:44:40 AM
My favourite part about the Buxtehude book is the insight into the musical life of a community.  Specifically Lübeck, but it is so fascinating to imagine what European musical life was like then.  Municipal musicians, trumpet guild members who served in martial and sacred contexts, traveling showmen virtuosi, church as the center of it all, etc, etc...

I'm clearly in for a treat! Loved the Buxtehude cantata, by the way. It packs quite a punch! I like the way the two violin parts share the top line, so to speak.

On the Bach front, I've since moved on to the Art of Fugue, also under Sir Neville. I'm a sucker for orchestral colour, which may be why his interpretations of this and the Musical Offering really appeal to me. (My damascene moment in "classical" music was hearing Rimsky's incredibly colourful Capriccio Espagnol as a teenager.)

Next up? Probably more Buxtehude. No doubt the book will help me decide what. Of course, if you have any further recommendations...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on November 02, 2019, 11:10:44 AM

Next up? Probably more Buxtehude. No doubt the book will help me decide what. Of course, if you have any further recommendations...

Well, it's a bit early to be in the Christmas spirit, I suppose but two of Buxtehude's more adventy numbers are among my most treasured:

Das Neugeborne Kindelein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI)


In Dulci Jubilo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw)



And then more Lenty:

Herzlich tut mich verlangen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw)



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 02, 2019, 03:34:12 PM

Next up? Probably more Buxtehude. No doubt the book will help me decide what. Of course, if you have any further recommendations...

Well, it's a bit early to be in the Christmas spirit, I suppose but two of Buxtehude's more adventy numbers are among my most treasured:

Das Neugeborne Kindelein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI)


In Dulci Jubilo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw)



And then more Lenty:

Herzlich tut mich verlangen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw)

Much appreciated! I'll throw caution to the wind and give them a listen out of season. :smokin


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 03, 2019, 03:45:34 AM
Right now I'm listening to the final part of Bach's Art of Fugue. The purists may object to the colourful (but not Stokowskian!) instrumentation wielded by Neville Marriner but for me it's absolutely perfect. And a riveting listen--right up to the moment it breaks off, for whatever reason. (Theories abound, judging from the wiki page.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbUAxZi-_pI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Fugue


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 03, 2019, 02:22:36 PM
Well, it's a bit early to be in the Christmas spirit, I suppose but two of Buxtehude's more adventy numbers are among my most treasured:
Das Neugeborne Kindelein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI)
In Dulci Jubilo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw)
And then more Lenty:
Herzlich tut mich verlangen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw)

At the risk of flooding the forum (again):

I listened to these three this evening. "Das Neugeborne Kindelein" failed to register for some reason. Then there were things happening in "In Dulci Jubilo" that made my ears prick up. And lastly, "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" held my attention from start to finish.

They're all short, so I'll give them another spin tomorrow. I should imagine that like a lot of music they need more than one hearing to sink in, especially for someone new to the genre. I see CarolusGustavusRex (https://www.youtube.com/user/CarolusGustavusRex/videos) has a lot of Buxtehude things on board so I'll look in there too.

I was much taken by the Vivaldi mandolin concerto. A nicely understated work! I'm sure it helped to have heard your Handel ouvertures first. Before now my experience of the mandolin in "classical" music was limited to its use as "local colour" in Mahler's Seventh Symphony:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlImU0EAE2A


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on November 03, 2019, 03:33:46 PM
Well, it's a bit early to be in the Christmas spirit, I suppose but two of Buxtehude's more adventy numbers are among my most treasured:
Das Neugeborne Kindelein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI)
In Dulci Jubilo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw)
And then more Lenty:
Herzlich tut mich verlangen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih2yfB48cw)

At the risk of flooding the forum (again):

I listened to these three this evening. "Das Neugeborne Kindelein" failed to register for some reason. Then there were things happening in "In Dulci Jubilo" that made my ears prick up. And lastly, "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" held my attention from start to finish.

They're all short, so I'll give them another spin tomorrow. I should imagine that like a lot of music they need more than one hearing to sink in, especially for someone new to the genre. I see CarolusGustavusRex (https://www.youtube.com/user/CarolusGustavusRex/videos) has a lot of Buxtehude things on board so I'll look in there too.

I was much taken by the Vivaldi mandolin concerto. A nicely understated work! I'm sure it helped to have heard your Handel ouvertures first. Before now my experience of the mandolin in "classical" music was limited to its use as "local colour" in Mahler's Seventh Symphony:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlImU0EAE2A

My dream is to get called (by whom I have no idea) to play one of the very few orchestral mandolin parts with an orchestra, or even better, an opera orchestra.  Mahler has several, Verdi has the nice mandolin part in Otello, Stravinsky wrote for it in Agon, Prokofiev in Romeo & Juliet, Mozart in Don Giovanni...  There are some others.  I'm available, major symphony and opera orchestras of the world.  I'll do it for free.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 04, 2019, 04:20:34 AM
My dream is to get called (by whom I have no idea) to play one of the very few orchestral mandolin parts with an orchestra, or even better, an opera orchestra.  Mahler has several, Verdi has the nice mandolin part in Otello, Stravinsky wrote for it in Agon, Prokofiev in Romeo & Juliet, Mozart in Don Giovanni...  There are some others.  I'm available, major symphony and opera orchestras of the world.  I'll do it for free.

Wish I had strings to pull, JH, but I'm just a member of the music-loving public. As a classical musician you must have contacts in the orchestral world, surely, so one thing could easily lead to another, the way things do. And of course life is full of surprises.

"Das Neugeborne Kindelein" sounded great this morning (perhaps evenings are just a bad time to listen critically to stuff). I was aware of many more details this time--old DB is definitely getting under my skin.

On a completely different tack, on Saturday we gave a listen to a massive Russian symphony (spanning two LPs) by Reinhold Glière, his third, subtitled "Ilya Muromets". I see it was a favourite of Stokowski (him again). Our version is by (wait for it) "The Large Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Radio And Television" under Nathan Rakhlin (aka Natan Rachlin). Regrettably I screwed up and followed side one with side four and then played the second LP. :P (I hadn't the heart to tell my wife.) It did mean that the hero was depetrified (side four sees Ilya turned to stone) so it ended on a happier note. This is the not-so-happy ending as Glière intended:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdVXInnaVBs

https://www.discogs.com/Gliere-The-Large-Symphony-Orchestra-Moscow-Radio-And-Television-Nathan-Rakhlin-Symphony-No-3-In-B-M/release/4211101


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 05, 2019, 03:00:31 AM
Still on the subject of Russian music: one of our party on the trip to St. Petersburg has found the balalaika he used to have but lost sight of until yesterday. (How you can lose sight of a balalaika is a mystery to me.) I was wondering, JH: how does a mandolinist like yourself regard that instrument?

Mahler has several, Verdi has the nice mandolin part in Otello, Stravinsky wrote for it in Agon, Prokofiev in Romeo & Juliet, Mozart in Don Giovanni...  There are some others.

I've been looking around for "classical" orchestral pieces which include a part for a balalaika. It seems there aren't any (yet):

"Just as the mandolin and even banjo have found a secure place on classical music stages in recent years, perhaps it may be the balalaika and domra’s moment. 'On the one hand, the balalaika is a symbol of Russia, and you can never confuse it with any other instrument,' [balalaika player Ivan] Kuznetsov reflects. 'The sound and tremolo are very particular and allow creating powerful and diverse tunes of any complexity. On the other hand, it is not that often that we hear balalaika or domra performances in leading world concert halls.' The modern version of the instrument is barely 130 years old, Kuznetsov notes. 'That is why the balalaika and domra have not won worldwide recognition—they are not seen on stage like the violin and other symphonic strings, or even an American banjo, so they are not so popular. Yet I believe that balalaika can do it.'" [Source (https://www.musicalamerica.com/news/newsstory.cfm?archived=0&storyid=39919&categoryid=2)]


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on November 10, 2019, 06:39:37 PM
Still on the subject of Russian music: one of our party on the trip to St. Petersburg has found the balalaika he used to have but lost sight of until yesterday. (How you can lose sight of a balalaika is a mystery to me.) I was wondering, JH: how does a mandolinist like yourself regard that instrument?

Mahler has several, Verdi has the nice mandolin part in Otello, Stravinsky wrote for it in Agon, Prokofiev in Romeo & Juliet, Mozart in Don Giovanni...  There are some others.

I've been looking around for "classical" orchestral pieces which include a part for a balalaika. It seems there aren't any (yet):

"Just as the mandolin and even banjo have found a secure place on classical music stages in recent years, perhaps it may be the balalaika and domra’s moment. 'On the one hand, the balalaika is a symbol of Russia, and you can never confuse it with any other instrument,' [balalaika player Ivan] Kuznetsov reflects. 'The sound and tremolo are very particular and allow creating powerful and diverse tunes of any complexity. On the other hand, it is not that often that we hear balalaika or domra performances in leading world concert halls.' The modern version of the instrument is barely 130 years old, Kuznetsov notes. 'That is why the balalaika and domra have not won worldwide recognition—they are not seen on stage like the violin and other symphonic strings, or even an American banjo, so they are not so popular. Yet I believe that balalaika can do it.'" [Source (https://www.musicalamerica.com/news/newsstory.cfm?archived=0&storyid=39919&categoryid=2)]

A balalaika is one of the very few instruments I've never played! 

Just gotta get composers to write for it.  Hard to get "serious" composers on board with new (ie, invented after 1800) instruments.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 11, 2019, 03:32:51 AM
A balalaika is one of the very few instruments I've never played! 

Just gotta get composers to write for it.  Hard to get "serious" composers on board with new (ie, invented after 1800) instruments.

If Khachaturian could write a part for a "flexatone" (musical saw) in his Piano Concerto (and he wasn't the first "serious" composer to do so), it may happen yet! Maybe something for you if ever you're bored. ;) 

My favourite post-1800 musical invention that's still seen in concerts is the ondes Martenot, as used by Messiaen in, among other things, his massive Turangalîla-Symphonie. We attended a performance of this mind-numbing work two years ago with Valérie Hartmann Claverie on ondes. We were on one of the balconies (if that's what they're called) and had a great view of the "keyboard park" (insanely virtuosic piano, keyed glockenspiel and ondes). One of my favourite concerts ever. Here's Ms Hartmann Claverie getting the thing set up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6LhwVQnfgA


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 11, 2019, 04:14:32 AM
EGDON HEATH

The CD [that I've used to illustrate each planet--see previous page] concludes with my favourite among Holst's compositions, the orchestral miniature Egdon Heath. Written in 1927, the composer considered it his most perfectly realized work.

The version linked here (recorded in 1961 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult) is the one I've always known and loved. The YouTube blurb is pretty well complete in itself, with the wiki page providing some additional background information:

"A place perfectly accordant with man's nature--neither ghastly, hateful nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning nor tame; but like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony." This quotation from Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel The Return of the Native appears on the score of Gustav Holst's tone poem Egdon Heath, dedicated to Hardy (who, at age 87, had one more year of life remaining), and long regarded by the composer as his finest work. It was commissioned by the New York Symphony Orchestra, which premiered it under the direction of Walter Damrosch at New York's Mecca Auditorium on 12 February 1928. The next day Holst led the City of Birmingham Symphony in the British premiere at Cheltenham, where the first major festival of Holst's music had taken place the previous year. Those initial performances went well, but another in London a few days later was greeted poorly by a noisy and unreceptive audience. This seems to have made Holst a bit anxious about the work, and may have led to his desire that the above Hardy quotation should always appear in any explanatory programme notes.

In her book on her father's music, Holst's daughter Imogen evokes the Hardy quotation in referring to the "mysterious monotony" of the tone poem, which begins with a sombre melody heard first in the double basses, then taken up by the rest of the strings. A nostalgic theme in the brass and woodwinds, and a scurrying theme in the strings and oboe, work their way into the texture as well, leading to moody, twilit music and what has been described as a "strange, ghostly dance". This dark, evocative work finishes the same way it started: quietly, and somewhat mysteriously. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msIL7eavgk4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egdon_Heath

JH, on the subject of Holst, Egdon Heath is my favourite work of his, especially in the version I've linked.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 15, 2019, 03:31:08 AM
Talking about Buxtehude now, the great north-German organist, composer, and church musician;

I read a sensationally interesting book about him last year: Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck.

What a great book.  Such an interesting cultural milieu to be a part of.

I'd never been much of a fan of the harpsichord--the Baroque stuff, that is. (Brian and other pop artists did nice things with it and so did a handful of modern "classical" composers, notably Poulenc and Martin.) My new-found friend Buxtehude seems to have changed all that (helped by the super book Kerala J. Snyder has written about him--thanks again!). Last week I listened to (and thoroughly enjoyed) the first of these two CDs of Herr B's works for that instrument. The performer is Dutch Baroque music champion Ton Koopman, whom I was dragged to see in concert many years ago. I'd go willingly now--on foot if necessary: :P   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_j62i63OdQ

(https://www.boeijengamusic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/2/image/650x650/c02b730cab454942d65375f640b056d1/c/c/cc_72245.jpg)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 17, 2019, 04:28:43 AM
I've moved this here from the long-suffering opera thread. :P   

I would heartily recommend seeking out recordings by the sensational French harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï.  He gets the baroque thing without going over the top, and is a very sensitive, methodical player.  I love his interpretations of Couperin, but he is also an excellent Bachist.

His Couperin sounds wonderful! I'll give his Bach a listen tonight (I have a concerto under Jordi Savall lined up).   

It might have been the Vesper Voluntaries (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aybq6pnWF7k) that you heard at church last Sunday. One track on the Donald Hunt CD of all Elgar's organ music is a version of "Nimrod" from Elgar's orchestral Enigma Variations, which lends itself very well to the organ (I've no idea whether Elgar made the transcription himself):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwAxldeOmLw

Now this is most encouraging:

https://www.harrisonparrott.com/news/2019-11-14/angela-hewitt-to-receive-the-city-of-leipzig-bach-medal

I'm no expert but she seems to have a very delicate touch. Next time you drop in, JH, I'd be curious to know how piano versions of music by Bach, Scarlatti etc. square with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyhTI7vUbNI


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 27, 2019, 10:43:37 AM
I've said before that symphonies are great for getting lost in. My first such symphony (in 1962) was Beethoven's Fifth. The first and third movements have some wonderful moments (the finale is, well, the finale) but it's the slow movement that has always captivated me. It's like making your way through a dense forest shot through with shafts of sunlight. But nothing surpasses the magical passage about six minutes in, with those churning low cellos and the single notes in the oboe. The nocturnes in Mahler's Seventh Symphony are but a few steps away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQIVWhKhwPA


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on November 27, 2019, 12:31:22 PM
I've said before that symphonies are great for getting lost in. My first such symphony (in 1962) was Beethoven's Fifth. The first and third movements have some wonderful moments (the finale is, well, the finale) but it's the slow movement that has always captivated me. It's like making your way through a dense forest shot through with shafts of sunlight. But nothing surpasses the magical passage about six minutes in, with those churning low cellos and the single notes in the oboe. The nocturnes in Mahler's Seventh Symphony are but a few steps away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQIVWhKhwPA

Here's a revelation for you:  I'm ambivalent about Beethoven in all genres he wrote for.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 27, 2019, 01:37:41 PM
Here's a revelation for you:  I'm ambivalent about Beethoven in all genres he wrote for.

Oooff! That's quite something, JH. I'm not the biggest Beethoven fan myself, basically just the overtures and symphonies (I'm still out on #9).

H'mm. Right now I couldn't name one composer I'm ambivalent about in all genres. It's something to ponder while I'm out walking the dog...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 28, 2019, 02:35:00 AM
Right now I couldn't name one composer I'm ambivalent about in all genres. It's something to ponder while I'm out walking the dog...

Nope, not one. I just got soaking wet--that may or may not be significant. ;D

Well that's Beethoven out of the way! :lol The next candidate beginning with a B might as well be Brahms. My favourite Brahms symphony is the autumnal #3, with #1 breathing heavily down its neck. Combine it with the Double Concerto and the Tragic Overture (linked below) and you have, to my mind, a perfect Brahms programme. (You might substitute the Alto Rhapsody for the concerto.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ixfKBIkz1U

JH, if you see this (and assuming you don't hate Brahms), perhaps you have a favourite interpreter of his Alto Rhapsody...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 30, 2019, 06:59:55 AM
These are my three B's these days. Brahms used to be one of them until Buxtehude muscled in on the scene:

(https://i.postimg.cc/8cm0QwV0/IMG-2958.jpg)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on November 30, 2019, 07:13:08 AM
I don't hate Brahms, but he's another fellow I feel less than ardent feelings about.

Berg, I like.  Berlioz I usually very much enjoy.  Buxtehude and pretty much all the Bachs I love.  Byrd is glorious.  Bellini, yes.  Milton Babbitt: interesting to listen to once.  Bernstein: like him more as a conductor than a composer.  Sam Barber: yes please.

So many Bs!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 30, 2019, 10:22:29 AM
I don't hate Brahms, but he's another fellow I feel less than ardent feelings about.

Berg, I like.  Berlioz I usually very much enjoy.  Buxtehude and pretty much all the Bachs I love.  Byrd is glorious.  Bellini, yes.  Milton Babbitt: interesting to listen to once.  Bernstein: like him more as a conductor than a composer.  Sam Barber: yes please.

So many Bs!

There are indeed. I agree about Byrd. I've tried Babbitt--that's about the best I can say about him. :smokin

I don't know Bernstein that well as a composer. I love the overture to Candide and West Side Story is full of exciting music. But he's one of my favourite conductors. As for Barber, I recently heard a wonderful Violin Concerto and was delighted to find out it was his. Maybe you have some ideas about what else of his I should hear.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 30, 2019, 02:44:26 PM
I don't hate Brahms, but he's another fellow I feel less than ardent feelings about.

In fact all the B's are fellows! That will never do.

Luckily there is at least one great lady composer whose name fits the bill: Lilli Boulanger, who died tragically young at age 24.

This is D'un soir triste, a sumptuous if brooding work composed in the last year of her life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OERJAjoHRY

(https://collaboration.vialma.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Lili-Boulanger-feature-image.png)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Boulanger


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 01, 2019, 04:15:56 AM
Well, it's a bit early to be in the Christmas spirit, I suppose but two of Buxtehude's more adventy numbers are among my most treasured:

Das Neugeborne Kindelein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI)


In Dulci Jubilo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw)

Well, they're not out of season now. ;)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on December 01, 2019, 10:20:05 AM
I don't hate Brahms, but he's another fellow I feel less than ardent feelings about.

In fact all the B's are fellows! That will never do.

Luckily there is at least one great lady composer whose name fits the bill: Lilli Boulanger, who died tragically young at age 24.

This is D'un soir triste, a sumptuous if brooding work composed in the last year of her life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OERJAjoHRY

(https://collaboration.vialma.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Lili-Boulanger-feature-image.png)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Boulanger




Amy Beach!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on December 01, 2019, 10:22:25 AM
Well, it's a bit early to be in the Christmas spirit, I suppose but two of Buxtehude's more adventy numbers are among my most treasured:

Das Neugeborne Kindelein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRi8c1FO_PI)


In Dulci Jubilo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZBpKwUfKw)

Well, they're not out of season now. ;)


Yes, and a blessed Advent to all who await.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 01, 2019, 02:51:36 PM
I don't hate Brahms, but he's another fellow I feel less than ardent feelings about.

In fact all the B's are fellows! That will never do.

Luckily there is at least one great lady composer whose name fits the bill: Lilli Boulanger, who died tragically young at age 24.

Amy Beach!

Oh dear. Ms Beach is an American composer I'm even less familiar with than Mr. Barber. JH, I'd be most grateful if you could suggest a work (or two) of hers I should hear. Until then I'll stick with my European candidate.

More B's came to mind today...

You've mentioned Boulez as a conductor (I think I prefer him that way too). I own a couple of his compositions on vinyl from the days when I was into Messiaen's "difficult" work (e.g. Chronochromie, Sept haïkaï), namely Le Soleil des eaux and Le Marteau sans maître, which you're probably familiar with (I remember enjoying the explosion of gongs in the last movement).

Then there's Alexander Borodin, whose colourful orchestral work includes the exquisite miniature In the Steppes of Central Asia.

I finally "got" Benjamin Britten when "my" choir worked on his Hymn to St Cecilia. That paved the way for an appreciation of his stunning War Requiem.

Anton Bruckner wrote some great cathedral-like symphonies (I'm a big fan of the unfinished Ninth) as well as some gorgeous motets, such as this "Os Justi":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov-OAmpcRfw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 03, 2019, 07:40:09 AM
Here's the man of the moment, Nicolai Gedda, singing Britten's hallucinatory Serenade. I've posted it here in the wake of all those B's rather than in the opera or choral music threads.

JH, if you should see this: As a singer and as a Gedda fan, what do you make of the longer YouTube comment and more particularly the reply to it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxNqo4QcIu4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenade_for_Tenor,_Horn_and_Strings


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on December 04, 2019, 01:10:32 PM
Here's the man of the moment, Nicolai Gedda, singing Britten's hallucinatory Serenade. I've posted it here in the wake of all those B's rather than in the opera or choral music threads.

JH, if you should see this: As a singer and as a Gedda fan, what do you make of the longer YouTube comment and more particularly the reply to it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxNqo4QcIu4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenade_for_Tenor,_Horn_and_Strings

Interesting.  I guess, English can be a tricky language to sing in even for English speakers.  I really don't love opera in English in general; my mother tongue just seems to much of a big, clumsy hippo for song. 

I think Gedda does pretty much fine!  But I understand the comment-replier's sense of something ineffable lacking from his reading.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 05, 2019, 12:46:21 PM
Interesting.  I guess, English can be a tricky language to sing in even for English speakers.  I really don't love opera in English in general; my mother tongue just seems too much of a big, clumsy hippo for song. 

I've been laughing about that last remark of yours all day. I'm not sure if I agree, but I am sure I'm no fan of operas being translated into languages other than the one they were written in.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'd say Britten and Purcell are the main British operatic composers that use English libretti, unless you count the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan. Peter Grimes is pretty gripping, what I've heard of it, but I've ventured no further into Britten's operas.

Quote
I think Gedda does pretty much fine!  But I understand the comment-replier's sense of something ineffable lacking from his reading.

I dug out this interview with Gedda about Italian technique...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-xJpWOzF0A

...in which he speaks of a Russian singer, Paola Novikova, who as a very young girl worked with the Italian baritone Mattia Battistini, here singing a Bellini aria you can probably dream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFDk21a7gmw

Strange--I never thought I'd ever find myself in this part of the musical world. Ironically, my father had a keen interest in singers of a bygone age...


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 09, 2019, 04:48:15 AM
Still with the B's...

This is my latest Bach discovery, The Well-Tempered Clavier (book one) played by Pierre Hantaï, a harpsichordist recommended to me by JH, for which many thanks!

It's probably a combination of PH's touch and the instrument he's playing but the sheer sound of this recording is stunning. And I find myself actually listening to what Bach is doing!! I couldn't have envisaged that happening a month ago. :smokin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0ufknMW0FI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 10, 2019, 01:43:21 AM
[Buxtehude and] pretty much all the Bachs I love.

This is where I'm completely at sea. To me they've always just been the sons of... that fellow. :lol

Next time you look in, JH, perhaps you can point me at a son or two (and maybe a work or two). I'd be most grateful, as I have absolutely no idea where to start!!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: Joshilyn Hoisington on December 10, 2019, 12:11:22 PM
[Buxtehude and] pretty much all the Bachs I love.

This is where I'm completely at sea. To me they've always just been the sons of... that fellow. :lol

Next time you look in, JH, perhaps you can point me at a son or two (and maybe a work or two). I'd be most grateful, as I have absolutely no idea where to start!!

Well I'll tell you what my gateway to C.P.E. was:

The third movement of his Cello ( slash flute slash keyboard ) Concerto in A major:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1r3HQmi4Kw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1r3HQmi4Kw)

Twas that very recording, too.  The "head" is so playful!  I heard it on some sort of radio situation and immediately had to have it forever.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 10, 2019, 01:12:08 PM
Well I'll tell you what my gateway to C.P.E. was:

The third movement of his Cello ( slash flute slash keyboard ) Concerto in A major:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1r3HQmi4Kw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1r3HQmi4Kw)

Twas that very recording, too.  The "head" is so playful!  I heard it on some sort of radio situation and immediately had to have it forever.

Thank you! That movement was a theme tune on Dutch TV! I've located the two previous movements of that recording and will play all three in succession.

(That is, once my head has settled down after what I've just heard in the "General On-Topic Discussions"--chills-down-the-spinesville!)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 12, 2019, 04:06:05 AM
Well I'll tell you what my gateway to C.P.E. was:

The third movement of his Cello ( slash flute slash keyboard ) Concerto in A major:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1r3HQmi4Kw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1r3HQmi4Kw)

Twas that very recording, too.  The "head" is so playful!  I heard it on some sort of radio situation and immediately had to have it forever.

It's a lovely work all the way through! And reading up on young CPE I noticed that he arguably wrote the very first symphonies--arguably, as there is only one middle movement. Would you agree?

These are his four Orchester-Sinfonien mit zwölf obligaten Stimmen (and wonderful they are too): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPOehmUtbbk

And... I checked out Amy Beach and noted she'd written a Gaelic Symphony. Aha! I'm big on symphonies (largely because they're great to get lost in, probably not the best of criteria for liking them) but I get the impression you're not a fan (thinking of poor Beethoven and Brahms!). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-o2eciYbpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Symphony (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Symphony)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 16, 2019, 01:52:30 AM
Berg, I like.  Berlioz I usually very much enjoy.  Buxtehude and pretty much all the Bachs I love.  Byrd is glorious.  Bellini, yes.  Milton Babbitt: interesting to listen to once.  Bernstein: like him more as a conductor than a composer.  Sam Barber: yes please.

So many Bs!

And here's one more B who somehow got lost in the shuffle. I became familiar with Bartók's pantomime/ballet The Miraculous Mandarin through the Suite conducted by Antal Dorati back in '53 (I bought it in '66). Here's another big B conducting it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhr_QJGzLjg
 
The lurid plot suits Bartók's most barbaric score perfectly (see the wiki page). The quarter-tone passage in the solo cello at 22:27 represents the mandarin poking his head out from under the cushion with which the villains desperately try to smother him. (Like Rasputin, the mandarin refuses to die!) Another dramatic moment is at 26:46 when the choir joins in wordlessly. The mandarin has been hanged (in vain!) and starts to glow eerily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miraculous_Mandarin


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 18, 2019, 02:15:52 PM
How I never got to hear this suite years ago I do not know--unless I was put off by the opera connection.

This is super! Strauss could write magnificently for the French horn. (Ah, I see his father was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yXvoJEOpCc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Rosenkavalier


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 20, 2019, 10:03:17 AM
Elgar originally intended Sospiri to be a companion piece for the lightweight Salut d'Amour. As it happened, the new piece for string orchestra, harp (with piano as an option) and harmonium (with organ as an option, although neither seem to have been used in recordings) was simply too dark and brooding. And this was 1914. The dedicatee was Elgar's great friend W.H. "Billy" Reed.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ5-jyoBX2I

(https://d27t0qkxhe4r68.cloudfront.net/sm/ft/orig/7333253_2.jpg?1559584198)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Reed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Reed)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 27, 2019, 02:12:05 PM
This aria, "Tief gebückt und voller Reue", from Bach's cantata Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, is the most recent in a long line of wonderful musical discoveries I've made (with much help) over the past couple of months. It is sung here by Magdalena Kožena:     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gke8B778jA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Herze_schwimmt_im_Blut,_BWV_199


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 30, 2019, 12:28:27 PM
Yesterday they telecast a compilation of the best from this year's performances on a cool Dutch classical TV show. To my great joy it included a version sung by Dutch counter-tenor Maarten Engeltjes of Dieterich Buxtehude's Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfarth (Departure enriched by Peace and Joy), BuxWV 76.

The irony is that at the time of the original telecast in October I must have thought "Oh no! Not more xoxoxoxox Baroque!!"  :lol

This is for JH, who has so much to answer for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3rX1kH3d5U0


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 01, 2020, 04:36:09 AM
I see harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï played a concert in NL in September. I only learned of his existence two months ago, at a time when my musical landscape changed totally. He's my main man now where JSB's keyboard music is concerned. Here he is performing (in two parts) Bach's English Suite No.2 (BWV 807). I see he has just one Paris gig lined up for now--hopefully he'll get back to the land of tulips, windmills and wooden shoes before too long. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw3PNMJo3BM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw7x4Te1bJY


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 03, 2020, 06:16:22 AM
The British soprano Lucy Crowe will be starring in Handel's Rodelinda shortly in my neck of the woods. I won't be going, awful stick-in-the-mud that I am.

Instead, I'll link this video of her singing (with Elizabeth Watts) "Jerusalem" from the third of Couperin's three Leçons de ténèbres pour le mercredi saint for two high voices and basso continuo. The three "readings" together take something like three quarters of an hour to perform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azn6AASjX1c

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leçons_de_ténèbres_(Couperin) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leçons_de_ténèbres_(Couperin))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 04, 2020, 05:00:07 AM
Back in the mid '70s I used to work in the Amsterdam docks (this was before I learnt Dutch and could get something better). Of course it meant I was fit for nothing in the evenings. I remember being taken one evening to a harpsichord concert by Jaap Spigt. All I can recall is seeing his cherubic face as he bowed after each piece--the rest of the time I was asleep. :lol

This home video was probably made not long before his death in 1999. May he rest in peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz-T_9v_gUU

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DijB_T2X0AAbzDK.jpg)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 09, 2020, 03:22:56 AM
Back to Buxtehude. One of my colleagues at the "hobby" forum has a travel channel on YouTube, where he documents his visits to English stately homes, churches, castles and the like (see link below). The background music to his latest trip was the Trio Sonata Op.2 No.3 in G minor (BuxWV 261). I'm sure this was inspired by my spate of Buxtehude posts over there--and now it's come full circle (with grateful thanks). ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1iU96KG9eA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9PblF7mBGISk5B_XvZq6Bw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 13, 2020, 02:08:22 AM
I'd known the name Henriëtte Bosmans from numerous streets named after her but wasn't familiar with the music of this 20th-century Dutch composer. Yesterday I heard the searching slow movement from her String Quartet (1927), which was quite a revelation. Here is the entire work:   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCAUrauoDLc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henriëtte_Bosmans


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 17, 2020, 01:35:00 PM
I heard this work for double bass and orchestra earlier today on Dutch radio, more specifically this finale with Domenic Seldis as soloist.

I've always been fascinated by instruments whose range descends lower than that of the cello or bassoon. And of course it was once rare to hear double basses or a double bassoon not doubling the cellos or bassoons. Berlioz changed all that, maybe even Beethoven before him.

This is dedicated to JH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=307iTnePRoU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_Dun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_Dun)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 19, 2020, 02:27:12 AM
For the cornettist among us, these are Le Concert Brisé playing Buxtehude's Sonata in A Minor, BuxWV 272 (solo cornett by William Dongois). Listen out for the thunderous organ at 5:15! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wXBHSm3bk0

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81gOKmrqV9L._SX425_.jpg)

https://www.historicbrass.org/21-features/recordings/229-le-concert-brise-cantatas-and-sonatas-by-buxtehude


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 07, 2020, 04:56:56 AM
About a third of the way though this 123-video channel of sterling stuff performed by Le Concert Brise. And this is where we come across the unfairly obscure likes of G.B. Fontana.* Fascinating instrumentation they had in those days: here violin and cornett share solo duties with an occasionally busy bassoon line burbling underneath: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5r9bXAUT0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Fontana_(composer) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Fontana_(composer))

* Wasn't he Elvis's drummer?


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 15, 2020, 02:42:35 AM
The Dutch conductor, pianist and composer Reinbert de Leeuw died yesterday aged 81. He dominated the modern music scene in the Netherlands mainly as a pianist (his acclaimed albums of Satie's piano music introduced the Frenchman to an international audience) and a conductor, not least of music by the 20th-century Russians Sofia Gubaidulina and the even more radical Galina Ustvolskaya, the second of which is featured in the video. Slaap zacht, maestro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnZ0UBC07Ow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinbert_de_Leeuw


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 16, 2020, 04:00:34 AM
Gottfried Finger is a Baroque composer I'd never heard of (one of so very many!) until this morning, when BBC classical radio played his Violin Sonata no. 53 in E Major:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSjf2HUV3ro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Finger


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 19, 2020, 02:45:02 AM
My conversion to Bach, Buxtehude and the Baroque has had the additional effect of getting me into chamber music. So much Baroque music is small-scale and intimate, so maybe it's a logical next step. Life's path is a thing of wonder...

After studiously avoiding Beethoven's string quartets for decades, I now have them all lined up for my early morning-late night listening pleasure. Wonderful so far:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRgtzQUY-YkhGbRTEQZ3-mBbQnSqm323v

https://wiki.ccarh.org/wiki/Beethoven_String_Quartets (https://wiki.ccarh.org/wiki/Beethoven_String_Quartets)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on February 29, 2020, 03:48:16 AM
Here's a work by an American composer whom I only knew by name until now. I heard John Alden Carpenter's Carmel Concerto on a US classical music station last night.

This is Stokowski's original recording from 1949. It's more for devotees of old records but the music still manages to shine through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB6SjMopmFc

The version I heard yesterday was a recent (2105) release by the BBC Concert Orchestra under Keith Lockhart. You can hear a snippet from it here:

https://www.amazon.de/Carpenter-Krazy-BBC-Concert-Orchestra/dp/B012Z4SO7E (https://www.amazon.de/Carpenter-Krazy-BBC-Concert-Orchestra/dp/B012Z4SO7E)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alden_Carpenter


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 05, 2020, 07:13:36 AM
Today I was treated for the first time (by that same music station) to music by the English composer Anthony Hedges, who died last June. Here he is conducting 17 of his own works, all brief and, if today's listen was anything to go by, most pleasing on the ear:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mA69RVYT2WDtHcP1r51UtuFwvmyCBxkK8

I see he also wrote two symphonies, much for choir and orchestra and... a set of Variations on a Theme of Rameau. I must investigate!

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hedges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hedges)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 07, 2020, 07:43:15 AM
Today it was the turn of Debussy's Danse sacrée et danse profane for harp (played here by Lisa Wellbaum) and orchestra (the Cleveland under Pierre Boulez):

Danse sacrée: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q0fNxAtlVE

Danse profane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkkEURQo1Rw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 10, 2020, 04:17:58 AM
I heard this rare gem (in this version) on Dutch classical radio yesterday. Sam Barber (as aeijtzsche calls him) is generally known for one work and one work only, the Adagio for Strings. 

His powerful Music for a Scene from Shelley may be an early work (he wrote it when he was about 23) but it shows all the signs of greatness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouu2kmtE6Ug

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Barber (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Barber)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 13, 2020, 06:08:19 AM
And to do this thread's title justice, here is a symphony by a Dutch composer I'd never heard of until this morning, Richard Hol (see the YouTube blurb).

My Dutch classical radio station played the third movement from his Symphony No. 4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04aCB0rSRic


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 29, 2020, 02:46:12 AM
Here's a splendid work by a female composer I'd never heard of until a few days ago. Dorothy Howell wrote the symphonic poem Lamia in 1918:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAbPwIRy7B8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Howell_(composer) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Howell_(composer))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 31, 2020, 02:29:21 AM
More soothing orchestral sounds, this time from Antonín Dvorák. His In Nature's Realm is literally a breath of fresh air in these suffocating times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIkNUQ0BaEY

https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/ProgramNotes_Dvorak_NaturesRealm.pdf (https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/ProgramNotes_Dvorak_NaturesRealm.pdf)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 01, 2020, 01:48:19 PM
This is for my friend JH, who I hope is holding her own in all this insanity. The combination of George Frideric Handel and Pierre Hantaï should help to keep her spirits up. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVNBMltRlew

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_suite_in_D_minor_(HWV_437) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_suite_in_D_minor_(HWV_437))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 04, 2020, 05:27:39 AM
Today I was treated for the first time (by that same music station) to music by the English composer Anthony Hedges, who died last June. Here he is conducting 17 of his own works, all brief and, if today's listen was anything to go by, most pleasing on the ear:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mA69RVYT2WDtHcP1r51UtuFwvmyCBxkK8

I see he also wrote two symphonies, much for choir and orchestra and... a set of Variations on a Theme of Rameau. I must investigate!

And I did. His Variations are much tougher meat than my previous helping of Hedges but most engaging all the same!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMfbT6yNvxk

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hedges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hedges)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 11, 2020, 03:49:24 AM
Back in the mid '60s I bought this album on the Czech Supraphon label (see image) for side one, which paired Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune with Ravel's second Daphnis et Chloé ballet suite. On the flip was something called Ondráš by someone called Hurník. I assumed it was just filler--or giving some loser a chance--until I gave it a spin. After that, Ondráš got as many plays as the Debussy and Ravel pieces. This incredibly colourful ballet music, performed here by the Czech Philharmonic under Karel Ančerl, deserves a much wider audience and thanks to YouTube (and a bit of promotion, such as here) it looks like it may get it.

Regrettably, YT breaks it down into its six parts but don't be discouraged--these are all short and all well worth hearing. 

1. Dance With Whoops:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1R2krJe8QU

2. Maiden's Wedding Dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB4Bfwb_TLw

3. Brigand Dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD83YcHXvM0

4. Oracular Dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUvKi7iXh8g

5. Dance At the Sviadnov Pub:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cY11JXslBs

6. Ondráš's Death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFL2B4c0XA4

(https://img.discogs.com/t0aFClyhLQSB_v7qGXQQZqi464c=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6899939-1429084674-8783.jpeg.jpg)

https://www.musicbase.cz/composers/323-hurnik-ilja/ (https://www.musicbase.cz/composers/323-hurnik-ilja/)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on April 12, 2020, 06:44:30 PM
Lately I've been liking the symphonies of Franz Schmidt.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: JK on April 13, 2020, 03:42:25 AM
Lately I've been liking the symphonies of Franz Schmidt.

Hi, S-a. Which one would you recommend I start with? Always up for a new (to me) symphonist!

As for me, I've been exploring Bach cantatas--who would have thought that even six months ago?! This is "Ich bin deine" from his Cantata BWV 213, Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuNh3K08IpE

"Hercules and Virtue join in a duet 'Ich bin deine, du bist meine' ('I am yours, you are mine'). Two solo violas (the upper string parts are silent here) lend the movement fervour and warmth." [Source (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV213-D.htm)]

(https://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/kunst/annibale_carracci//Hercules-at-the-Crossroads.jpg)

Annibale Carracci, Hercules at the Crossroads (c. 1596, with Virtue on our left)

Dedicated to the person who helped propel me down this unexpected path.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 15, 2020, 02:25:39 AM
It's but a short step from Bach to Handel. This morning they broadcast an aria from his opera Serse (Xerxes), sung by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. "Sì, la voglio e l'otterrò" from Act 2 wasn't the one (and it wasn't Jaroussky's own Artaserse Ensemble) but it's close enough. PJ sings the role of Arsamene, Serse's brother:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1o2bXzk_78

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serse)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on April 17, 2020, 05:31:22 PM
Lately I've been liking the symphonies of Franz Schmidt.

Hi, S-a. Which one would you recommend I start with? Always up for a new (to me) symphonist!
Well, I've only listened to them a couple times or so each, plus he only wrote I think 4 or 5. They're pretty similar so you might as well start off with #1 and go in sequence.

The main appeal I had of them was that they seemed to be nice symphonies to listen to as you're driving through the countryside looking at the scenery. That sort of ambiance.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: JK on April 18, 2020, 02:04:38 PM
Well, I've only listened to them a couple times or so each, plus he only wrote I think 4 or 5. They're pretty similar so you might as well start off with #1 and go in sequence.

The main appeal I had of them was that they seemed to be nice symphonies to listen to as you're driving through the countryside looking at the scenery. That sort of ambiance.

S-a, I disobeyed your orders and chose this highly recommended version of #4 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst:

I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpMf22vcH5U

II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaK_ZjCWhjo

III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-2sy6oNv98

IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4pQmOpjdI4

(https://shop.new-art.nl/assets/image.php?width=360&image=/content/img/new_artists/1498226585.jpg)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Schmidt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Schmidt)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: JK on April 19, 2020, 05:57:57 AM
Lately I've been liking the symphonies of Franz Schmidt.

Thank you so much for the tip, S-a.  ;)

Schmidt's Symphony no. 4 is a beauty, certainly in the version I've been listening to. It seems to be regarded as his masterpiece, even as one of the great symphonies of the 20th century. He wrote it in tragic circumstances (see this article (https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.572118&catNum=572118&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English)).


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on April 19, 2020, 05:25:52 PM
Glad I can be of help!


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 23, 2020, 04:34:37 AM
In a classic example of killing two birds with one stone (if I say so myself), here is Dutch contralto Aafje Heynis singing Brahms's Alto Rhapsody for the benefit of JH, who is not too familiar with either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssje69SCqBg

(https://operanederland.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Aafje-Heynis.jpg)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alto_Rhapsody (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alto_Rhapsody)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on April 28, 2020, 02:45:09 AM
Ever bump into an extraordinarily prolific composer you'd never heard of before? I had that yesterday, thanks to JH (again), the composer in question being Christoph Graupner. Like Bach in Mendelssohn's time, the 20th century brought a revival of interest in Graupner's work that is most encouraging but still has a long way to go.

I have a lot of exploring to do. For now, this spectacular piece may whet your appetite for more. Do read the wiki page and marvel at the prodigious output of a composer who deserves a far better fate.         

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltTtafs95AY

(https://theboypoetremembers.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/johann-christoph-graupner.jpg?w=529)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Graupner


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 12, 2020, 05:19:46 AM
I love the sound of the Oboe d'amore. So it's wonderful to come across (on Dutch classical radio) a concerto for the instrument by the Italian Baroque composer Antonio Lotti. (All these new names!) This is the version that was played:

1. Allegro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVq5aIWSYQM
2. Affetuoso: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHIyF5ql8NQ
3. Allegro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j41U2nwCEM4

(https://theboypoetremembers.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/antonio-lotti.jpg?w=529)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Lotti


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on May 14, 2020, 02:56:23 PM
I love the sound of the oboe d'amore.

To say nothing of the viola d'amore--and blow me down if there isn't a flûte d'amore as well. And they're all here in this splendid little concerto by Christoph Graupner.

This is for Joshilyn H, who introduced me to Herr Graupner, as a small token of thanks for all the wonderful videos with which she has been regaling us over the past few months and particularly during the present stressful time.     

I. Largo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2XizlqURjo
II. Allegro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-3MVnAtiwk
III. Adagio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l5qE0EB2RI
IV. Allegro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSh8r8hWJ7M

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51kKR1e2D7L._SX361_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: spgass on May 16, 2020, 01:58:47 PM
I consider myself a fan of "modern" classical music. My favorite are Prokofiev, Debussy, Satie, and Philip Glass (although he's a different era). Prokofiev's Nevsky...woah!

This thread has a lot of good info and recommendations and I'm still going through it.  So far I seem to have similar taste to NickandthePassions.  Also, I have been enjoying Chopin's Nocturnes lately:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnFs85pLmj4&list=PL552450E1514256AB




Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: spgass on July 01, 2020, 02:37:20 PM
Regarding Satie, my favorites are the Gnossiennes

Link to No. 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJGDKlu39xg



Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 01, 2020, 03:13:32 PM
Regarding Satie, my favorites are the Gnossiennes

Link to No. 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJGDKlu39xg

Hi spgass.

Glad you're enjoying the thread. I'll try to look in more often. ;)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on August 27, 2020, 03:33:49 AM
This is for Silken, who celebrates her birthday today. The composer and performer are Argentinian and the venue is Dutch!

Que tengas un gran día!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6rCu2Daeyo


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 01, 2020, 12:28:38 PM
Last week I heard a work on Dutch classical radio by Florence Price, her Symphony No. 1 in E Minor (1931-32). This had the distinction of being the first symphony written by an African-American woman to be performed by a major orchestra. It has a whiff of Dvořák about it but only a whiff. I really like the mood it conveys. Its four movements are as follows:

I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZTmMmcnvHs

II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0oRsqkq0J0

III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2d_2JJBcMs

IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bLd-2icN1E

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Price (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Price)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 19, 2020, 02:36:42 AM
Violinist Jelly d'Arányi is a fascinating figure (see her wiki page). The most curious story associated with her is the one about the Schumann Violin Concerto.

Here she is performing a piece (with Ethel Hobday at the piano) by her beloved Frederick Septimus Kelly, a composer and Olympic rower who was killed in WWI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A1-ydBOlks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_d%27Arányi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_d%27Arányi)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 20, 2020, 03:41:27 AM
Right now I'm in the middle of listening to a recent (2019) recording of Monteverdi's Vespers for the Blessed Virgin by Simon-Pierre Bestion that takes a disarmingly fresh look at the work (check out the ISSUU booklet on this page (https://outhere-music.com/en/albums/vespro-alpha552)). I can imagine purists recoiling in horror, but I love it. It's a work I never could take to -- until now. See what you think:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lTmiyz5GfIGymjMOURtlXiMWmGEX87sIg

Curiously, the cover art reminds me of The Roses of Heliogabalus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roses_of_Heliogabalus), one of my favourite paintings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespro_della_Beata_Vergine


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on November 02, 2020, 12:46:02 AM
Here's one befitting the new month. Max Richter's "November" features the stunning talents of Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCsKWKbsYmM

(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSkhkyPWQXGH8kreDBR8i1WZQkS8ItO06CuUQ&usqp=CAU)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on December 10, 2020, 05:36:40 AM
"[In] the second movement of Autumn I asked the harpsichordist Raphael Alpermann to play in what is rather an old-fashioned way, very regularly, rather like a ticking clock. That was partly because I didn't want the harpsichord part to be attention-seeking, but also because that style connects to various pop records from the 1970s where the harpsichord or Clavinet was featured, including various Beach Boys albums and the Beatles' Abbey Road." (From the CD booklet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsLoqknbwYU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recomposed_by_Max_Richter:_Vivaldi_–_The_Four_Seasons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recomposed_by_Max_Richter:_Vivaldi_–_The_Four_Seasons)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 04, 2021, 02:27:30 PM
I never used to have any time for the Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925–2003). I always thought he was taking the p!ss -- until I heard the central movement of an orchestral work called Rendering. The wiki page linked below has all the information you need about this fascinating composition:

1. Allegro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmNCEkVW004

2. Andante: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt0qKnwfauo

3. Scherzo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b_khW8y1jY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_(Berio) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_(Berio))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 11, 2021, 03:15:12 AM
For decades now I've been getting this recurring image in my mind, very colourful in a barbaric way and somehow related to mortality in general and the death of Socrates in particular. I could never place it, until I inadvertently found the probable source on YouTube. It's very likely I borrowed this LP of Erik Satie's enigmatic composition Socrate (1918) years ago and then forgot about it. The uploader has seen fit to divide the recording in question into three equalish parts. If one part is enough for you, you'd do well to make it part three:

I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OqXrbTi0Yo

II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TaUC7LVMjA

III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqmrbEE1b0I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrate)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: SMiLE-addict on January 11, 2021, 06:11:54 PM
Lately I've been listening to Ralph Vaughn Williams' symphonies.


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A
Post by: JK on January 12, 2021, 05:44:39 AM
Lately I've been listening to Ralph Vaughn Williams' symphonies.

I'm most familiar with the first two, both stunning works. I've heard many of the others but they haven't grabbed me as firmly as the London and Sea symphonies.

RVW has written other amazing things for orchestra, such as the Thomas Tallis variations and this one, The Lark Ascending, in my recording of choice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzONNtE_WqM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lark_Ascending_(Vaughan_Williams) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lark_Ascending_(Vaughan_Williams))


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 27, 2021, 03:12:10 AM
Looking for a non-vocal album of music from Wagner's Ring, I instead discovered this fabulous three-hour collection of the great man's orchestral music conducted by Otto Klemperer, supplemented by his Wesendonck Lieder sung by Christa Ludwig. It doesn't get much better than this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNTmpISEBWA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesendonck_Lieder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesendonck_Lieder)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 24, 2021, 11:58:21 AM
This is for aeijtzsche, a long-absent visitor to the SS "classical" threads but very important to them all the same. This is the sixth part, "Ad cor", of Dieterich Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU8DvkUnvgY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membra_Jesu_Nostri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membra_Jesu_Nostri)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on January 28, 2022, 07:55:23 AM
This is best listened to in the dark. It's the second movement, "Apollo", from Symphony No. 2 "Ad Astra" (2019) by the Peruvian composer Jimmy López Bellido (born 1978), played live by the Houston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2a_wDDgTEs

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c9d7f7bab1a6237adb4d8fb/t/5d69b239f37f2400016313f7/1567207997755/Ad+Astra_Program+Notes.pdf (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c9d7f7bab1a6237adb4d8fb/t/5d69b239f37f2400016313f7/1567207997755/Ad+Astra_Program+Notes.pdf)


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on March 03, 2022, 01:23:27 AM
This heart-breaking lockdown video of Troparian to the Blessed Virgin by Ukrainian composer Hanna Havrylets rings just as true, if not truer, today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2nH2C0ONdI


Title: Re: I Hear A Symphony: A \
Post by: JK on October 12, 2022, 01:14:03 PM
I've been fascinated by René Leibowitz as a conductor ever since buying his luminous rendition of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem. And then discovering I already owned a version (on a 78 rpm record bought in a junk shop) of Alban Berg's Four Songs, Op. 2 that he had orchestrated and conducted.

A couple of days ago, this wonderful album of music by Albert Roussel conducted by Leibowitz was brought to my notice. Both Le Festin de l’araignée (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spider%27s_Feast) and Le Marchand de Sable qui passe (https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/en/product/roussel-albert-17/) are magical listens: 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nqjb2yqFOdVFp-TGjIdUcBYIzY9NVAea0 (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nqjb2yqFOdVFp-TGjIdUcBYIzY9NVAea0)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Leibowitz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Leibowitz)