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message 51:
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Ruth
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Feb 02, 2017 09:02AM
Mesmerizing. Love Stravinsky. Just fascinating.
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Ruth wrote: "Mesmerizing. Love Stravinsky. Just fascinating."I thought it was mesmerizing, also. Interesting to know that the different shapes represent different instruments and watching the score be full of different shapes and colors is fascinating all the while enjoying the music.
Heather wrote: "Ruth wrote: "Mesmerizing. Love Stravinsky. Just fascinating."I thought it was mesmerizing, also. Interesting to know that the different shapes represent different instruments and watching the sco..."
And it really drove home now complicates it is to write for a full orchestra. I've listened to classical music all my life and I am beyond impressed.
Sergei Rachmaninoff ‒ Piano Concerto No.1, Op.1 Check out this music score!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7a9K...
As a pianist since age 5, I admit Rachmaninoff intimidates me. If we have any pianists or other musicians in the group, I invite you to introduce yourself and say a bit about what you do!
Lobstergirl wrote: "Today is Brahms's birthday. Why not listen to the incredible Piano Quartet Op. 25, with Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, and Jaime Laredo. It takes a while to hear the whole thing but is worth ev..."A kickin piece of music! I've had the good fortune to hear it done live by semi-professionals twice! - )
I was just making a list the other day, and titled it Classical Music Sampler. I had two restrictions: only my Big Four composers, and only two works apiece. Of course I had to cheat a little. Anyway!Bach
Trio Sonata in c-minor from A Musical Offering, BWV 1079.
Keyboard Concerto #1, in d-minor, BWV 1052.
Beethoven
Overture, Leonore #3
Bagatelles for Piano, Op.33, Op.119, Op.126.
Brahms
Piano Quartet in g-minor, Op. 25.
Clarinet Quintet in b-minor Op.115.
Shostakovich
Piano Quintet in g-minor, Op. 57.
Violin Concerto in a-minor, Op.99.
I also used to make mixed CDs. This is the line-up for my most recent one. I call it love's bitter mystery after the Yeats phrase.Bach
Prelude in c-minor from Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier.
Corelli
Courante from the Trio Sonata in Bb, Op.4, #9.
Handel
Allemande from the Suite #5 in E.
Porpora
Allegro from the Sinfonia de Camera in Bb, Op.2, #6.
Chopin
Prelude in Db (Raindrop), Op.28, #15.
Brahms
Adagio from the Clarinet Quintet in b-minor, Op.115.
Shostakovich
Allegro molto from the String Quartet #8 in c-minor, Op.110.
Brahms
Adagio from the Piano Concerto #1 in b-minor, Op.15.
Shostakovich
Burlesque from the Violin Concerto #1 in a-minor, Op.99.
Shostakovich
Fugue in C from the Preludes & Fugues, Op.87.
Mark wrote: "I also used to make mixed CDs. This is the line-up for my most recent one. I call it love's bitter mystery after the Yeats phrase.Bach
Prelude in c-minor from Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier...."
I noticed the majority of yours are in the minor key. I, too, prefer the almost mysterious minor.
It's funny that you mentioned that because as I typed it out it sort of dawned on me, I wonder if anyone will notice. Yes. Mysterious is a good word for it. - )
After browsing all the threads i the group for more than a month I finally arrived here. A lot of good music has already been mentioned but I still have some favorites. So I hope no one will mind if I post some names and links.First one is Domenico Scarlatti (1685 - 1757) an Italian composer who lived for 25 years in Spain where he taught Maria Magdalena Barbara, later queen of Spain. He wrote 555 keyboard sonates for her.
They were written for harpsichord but I prefer them on piano.
I have not heard them all, but still have a couple of hundred in my iTunes library. They range from 1 an a half minutes to more than 12 minutes.
All the ones I have heard are pretty good and a lot are wonderful: try this one for instance:
https://youtu.be/yHAPV9BxkqY
or this one:
https://youtu.be/Kui5OuWDy_Y
And 553 more like this ;-)
Dirk wrote: "After browsing all the threads i the group for more than a month I finally arrived here. A lot of good music has already been mentioned but I still have some favorites. So I hope no one will mind i..."Those are so relaxing! I really like them, I have never heard of him before.
I'm glad you opened up this thread again. I happen to like the classical thread and music in general the best. I have been introduced to so much good music!
I hope more people will introduce and share their favorites, too!
My pleasure Heather! I love all kinds of music and after collecting for more than 40 years, I have quit a big library.And I love introducing good music to other people!
So I'll immediately post the next one:
Next up in my favourites is Bach.
The catalog of Bach compositions (BWV) starts with the 200 cantatas Bach wrote when he was Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig.
It must have been a very demanding schedule: performing on Sunday then on Monday starting to compose the following cantata for the next Sunday. Wednesday copying the scores, Thursday, Friday and Saturday rehearsals and Sunday performing again.
In 1999 Pieter Jan Leusink started recording all vocal works of Bach including the cantatas. It took them 2 years. The CD’s were put out in boxes of 5. One box every couple of months. They were sharply prized so you can imagine I bought every box the moment it came out.
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performe...
After 15 years in my iTunes library most of the Cantates have been played 50 times or more. That is ten times more than most other classical works.
Probably the most famous of all is BWV 147:
https://youtu.be/WUo7tQOvapE
But my favourite is BWV82
https://youtu.be/3rUsCB16lw4
And this one from BWV 140 is my second favorite
https://youtu.be/Id0GLfrVk0E
Also from BWV 140 is this duet, very lovely:
https://youtu.be/PrxLttEc8do
Or this one: BWV 84:
https://youtu.be/iTQDDLqk2qA
and still another: BWV 66:
https://youtu.be/2TboQAyxDaU
I could go on and on...
Dirk wrote: "My pleasure Heather! I love all kinds of music and after collecting for more than 40 years, I have quit a big library.And I love introducing good music to other people!
So I'll immediately post t..."
I really like Bach. My favorites are his fugues on the organ. I didn't know all that information about him, though, very interesting! In fact, I don't know a lot about the individual lives of composers, only some of their music.
Of course his Fugue in D minor is famous, but I don't know if that is the reason, it is not one of my favorites, though I do like it. I can play it on the piano but it definitely does not do it justice like the organ! I took some organ lessons and did learn that on the organ minus the foot petals (which are pretty much essential).
I can play some of his inventions on the piano. I like to listen and play them because they are fast and lively.
I am listening to the one above that you listed as your favorite right at this moment as I type this. It is nice. As for my preferences, I like the ones without vocals the best. And it depends on my mood whether I want to listen to the more mellow, relaxing ones (of any composer) or the more lively such as Mozart's sonatas.
I commented above responding to a post of Mark's. I prefer the music in the minor keys the best.
My favorites to play are Brahms and Bach but to listen to, I love Vivaldi (especially the violin).
This is one of my favorites."Bach, Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1atQF...
Heather wrote: "Dirk wrote: "My pleasure Heather! I love all kinds of music and after collecting for more than 40 years, I have quit a big library.And I love introducing good music to other people!
So I'll immed..."
Heather, I envy you! Being able to play the piano and organ!
It's always been a bit of a regret for me that I had to choose between learning to play an instrument or learning to draw when I was young.
I always thought that I would have time when older, maybe early retirement. But that is still a couple of years…
In the mean time I keep on listening to good music and searching for things I don’t know.
A pretty recent discovery (4 -5 years) is:
Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) Born in Grottkau near Breslau
composed mostly for the lute. He wrote more than 1000 pieces for lute, about 850 attributed pieces survived.
The London manuscript refers to an old manuscript that was kept in the British Library in London. Michel Cardin is Canadian and has released up to date 12 CD's with works from this manuscript.
https://youtu.be/LgCcv9HkY0s
https://soundcloud.com/michel-cardin/...
Well it goes both ways, I guess. I really want to learn to play the violin and I would love to be able to do any sort of art! I never had any lessons but I don’t have much of a creative mind. I am in awe of people like you with your portrait that you posted, Ruth and her original, intriguing poems, Ed with his very creative, unique, individualistic painting and I’ve seen one of Geoffrey’s photographs and he has a good eye. And the many authors and other artists here in the group!
Though this is a classical thread, my taste in music is very eclectic and varied. One of my all-time favorite things to do is sit at my PC with someone, a friend, a date, my brother, and watch YouTube videos and have them introduce me to new music. I love to see my music repertoire expand with new tunes.
Heather wrote: "Well it goes both ways, I guess. I really want to learn to play the violin and I would love to be able to do any sort of art! I never had any lessons but I don’t have much of a creative mind. I am..."
Talking about Weiss made me think of this concerto and since Vivaldi is one of your favorite composers... do you know this one?
https://youtu.be/qyY5pB2a0cU
Ed wrote: "This is one of my favorites."Bach, Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1atQF..."
Really beautiful!
But however much I like the organ, the piano, the lute, guitar or violin, no solo instrument can beat the cello for me.
https://youtu.be/mGQLXRTl3Z0
Next of my musical favorites is again a piece with vocals. (Sorry Heather, I know you prefer instrumental, but I like both so…)This one is from Richard Strauss. Not the Strauss from the Waltzes but from Also Sprach Zarathustra, famous through the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey)
In fact I learned this one from another movie I saw in the eighties: The Year Of Living Dangerously.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/...
Mel Gibson is an Australian journalist in Jakarta in 1965 during the tumultuous and bloody rise to power of dictator Suharto. Linda Hunt plays an Indonesian photographer, a role she got an Oscar for.
At one point in the movie she puts on a record and it’s this song.
Next day, after watching the movie I went to the record shop and bought the record, and it’s a favorite ever since.
In this clip the song is sung by Kiri Te Kanawa, since the movie was an Australian production it is perhaps understandable. But in later years I found that Elizabeth Schwarzkopf’s version was more to my liking.
Alas I didn’t find a good clip, so here’s Dame Kiri:
https://youtu.be/3XP2chJ6Ujc
Kiri te Kanawa is wonderful in the Chants d’Auvergne:
https://youtu.be/BlWaNu416YA
This week I’d like to introduce a piece of modern classical music.It’s composed by an Estonian composer born in 1935.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvo_P%...
I first came across Arvo Pärt through a CD I got as a present in the early 90’s.
It was the world premiere recording of the Berliner Messe.
Some years later, while browsing YouTube I saw a clip using Spiegel in Spiegel (Mirrors in Mirrors)
It was used as soundtrack with very old black and white footage of San Fransisco.
The camera was placed on a streetcar and then the film shows the trip through Market Street in 1906, days before the big earthquake. The clip combining Spiegel im Spiegel wit the footage of San Fransisco is not on Youtube anymore, I found one but the images were distorted because of a wrong aspect ratio.
This is a clip for Spiegel im Spiegel, minimalistic music, so nothing much happens but the feeling goes very deep. Originally written for violin, but you can find clips with viola or cello or even other instruments.
https://youtu.be/hV4LlCtvgwE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel...
The clip with the footage of San Fransisco has disappeared but you can find dozens with silly music, modern music or no music. This one comes close to getting it right. The music is new age, composed by Ellis Hadlock. Not bad either.
But try to imagine these images with the music from Pârt.
I thought it was heartbreaking.
https://youtu.be/pEvB_ZIWtAg
Music by Ellis Hadlock
This week another modern piece, but by a jazz pianist:Keith Jarrett
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_J...
I have almost all his records, solo as well as with trio, or the ones he made with Charles Lloyd and was still very young as well as the classical Bach, Händel or Mozart recordings he made.
But this one solo concert was the first I ever heard an it is still a favorite.
A warm fuzzy feeling inside and tears in my eyes, every time!
If you don’t know it, please give it a try I know it’s 26 minutes long, the first side of the double album the concert was first released on. But it’s certainly worth the time!
https://youtu.be/zoqscGCtlDU
My music suggestion this week is again a piece longer than 20 minutes, sorry for the people with too much on their hands (or a too short attention span ;-) But I think everyone should at least listen to this once.And it’s the shortest version: there’s a version of 60 minutes and one of 74 minutes
It”s a piece by Gavin Bryars.
I first heard about this composition while reading a biography of Brian Eno. In the early seventies a member of Roxy Music, later solo artist but much more well known for his production work with David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay. But also the man who invented Ambient Music and started Obscure Records. In this book the story behind one of the first records is told: The Sinking of the Titanic. But it’s the B-side of that record: Jesus blood Never Failed Me Yet, I’m talking about.
Gavin Bryars: “In 1971, when I lived in London, I was working with a friend, Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station. In the course of being filmed, some people broke into drunken song - sometimes bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads - and one, who in fact did not drink, sang a religious song "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet". This was not ultimately used in the film and I was given all the unused sections of tape, including this one.
When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment. I noticed, too, that the first section of the song - 13 bars in length - formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way. I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.
I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man's singing. This convinced me of the emotional power of the music and of the possibilities offered by adding a simple, though gradually evolving, orchestral accompaniment that respected the tramp's nobility and simple faith. Although he died before he could hear what I had done with his singing, the piece remains as an eloquent, but understated testimony to his spirit and optimism.
The piece was originally recorded on Brian Eno's Obscure label in 1975 and a substantially revised and extended version for Point Records in 1993. The version which is played by my ensemble was specially created in 1993 to coincided with this last recording.
Gavin Bryars.”
https://youtu.be/FmkC_leNM7M
Lubomyr Melnyk
22 December 1948, München
Continous music.
From the composer's website:
Lubomyr Melnyk is one of the most innovative and fascinating pianists/composers of this century. During the 1970's he developed a totally new ‘language’ for the piano, called Continuous Music, and with it, a stupendous physical and mental technique that is totally unprecedented in the history of the piano. Using this remarkable technique, Lubomyr Melnyk has set 2 world records for pianistic achievements:
1. the FASTEST pianist in the world --- sustaining speeds of over 19.5 notes per second in each hand, simultaneously, and
2. the MOST NUMBER of NOTES in ONE HOUR --- in exactly 60 minutes, Melnyk sustained an average speed of over 13 notes per second in each hand, yielding a remarkable total of 93,650 INDIVIDUAL notes.
This sounds all very heroic and maybe frightening but I can assure you the music is very beautiful here some samples:
first with a short interview:
https://youtu.be/XEjEeSvOzag
https://youtu.be/9ZHY7v5Cju4
Piano and flute:
https://youtu.be/DflbRbXzKSc
Piano and guitar:
https://youtu.be/C5KTcSaMNio
My musical choice for this week is (what could be more appropriate?):https://youtu.be/N3MHeNt6Yjs
“Adagio for Strings”—a piece from Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, championed by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1938. It later became a radio standard after it was played at the funeral of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945. And used again for the funeral of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, it has become what music historian Thomas Larson calls “America’s secular hymn for grieving the dead”
After the sad music of last week, something bit more lively, what better than, a dance?https://youtu.be/GEK_QSjWpcs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johanne...
Another dance this week: a pavane, much slower than the Brahms.It is a pretty well know piece by Gabriel Fauré.
Fauré - Rattle:
This is a shortened version but it had the best sound of the dozens of video’s on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/HhiVuIRw4tM
If you want to try the full version you can watch this:
https://youtu.be/1AAXofuZ624
Don’t put the sound up too loud because at around 2:10 someone pushes over the cymbals with a loud bang and a crash. But everybody goes on as if nothing happened ;-) Real professionals!
IDAGIO app. looks like it has a great selection of classical music. You can sign up for a 14 day trial before $9.99/mos.
The dance group I was part of at Berkeley used to do a couple Elizabethan era pavanes. The one I remember I think was called "The Queen's Pavane" though nothing with that exact name pops up in youtube.But here is "Belle qui tient ma vie" by Thoinot Arbeau which also rings a bell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B10z9...
and the Earl of Salisbury Pavane (by William Byrd I beleive)
https://youtu.be/srJVyWmDqPM
Interesting! I remember seeing a dance like this in a costume drama, but don't remember which one... Sense and Sensibility perhaps...
sense and sensibility is of a later period.....(napoleonic/romantic?) but its evolutionary.... they start really loosely structured in the medici era with people moving all over the floor and more spontaneous innovation and become more tightly structured and closer to square dancing as you move towards the cromwell era....
This week (from Monday 20 to Saturday 25 of may) it’s the final of the Queen Elizabeth Competition:http://cmireb.be/cgi?lg=en&pag=1677
I’m pretty excited because this year it’s the first time in it’s 74 years of existence that a Belgian musician has a chance to win. To be honest, she is half Belgian: a Chinese father and a Belgian mother, but born in Belgian and she speaks Flemish and French, she’s a very talented young lady and also very pretty:
Sylvia Huang
She played a very good Dvorak for her final:
http://cmireb.be/cgi?lg=en&pag=16...
Nice. Thanks for the link Heather, didn't have this one in my library.I have a couple of really beautiful organ concertos from one of Bach's sons: Carl philipp Emanuel:
https://youtu.be/WGCVGM2dyB0
Dirk wrote: "Nice. Thanks for the link Heather, didn't have this one in my library.I have a couple of really beautiful organ concertos from one of Bach's sons: Carl philipp Emanuel:
https://youtu.be/WGCVGM2dyB0"
Thank you! I love organ concertos. I think classical played on the organ or with the violin are my favorites. Of course, I always love the full orchestra.
Then you certainly know one of the more famous organ with orchestra pieces: Albinoni's Adagio:https://youtu.be/XN5BFIHXs_I
Actually, I’m not familiar with that. I have to admit I’m a late bloomer with classical music and still finding things out for myself. I didn’t grow up with it and still I’m the only member of my family who listens to it. I don’t have any friends who listen to it so I can’t learn from them. I first was introduced to classical music in college in my humanities classes and I put on YouTube and Pandora and ‘like’ whatever comes on.
I have a wide variety of taste in music (I do NOT like pop rock) but my usual genre is hard rock/heavy metal and in this group I’m sure I’m in the minority!
