Art Lovers discussion


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-dYNt...
I think the name of this song, Spring is definitely expressed in this particular piece. Right now, in mid November, I am wishing for Spring!

There are many pieces that take me back to childhood and my parents home. Polovetsian Dances, other pieces mostly by several Russian composers can do that, but now I sometimes want to be taken back, even though I still find it melancholy. (Especially if it's raining, like it is today.)

A dear friend introduced me to Pucchini's Turandot.
I love listening to Pavarotti sing Nessun Dorma--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovcNw...
It is currently playing in San Francisco featuring very modern sets designed by DAVID HOCKNEY: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgPbg...
talk on Hockney and the opera
Turandot Synopsis --
http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/op...
more -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOJb8F...
Ping Pang Pong in Turandot interview - San Francisco Opera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn5AI7...
Children's Chorus, Turandot - San Francisco Opera. Check out the saturated colors of the set.

Literature, art and classical music are just part of Mercedes and Ali Helnwein's DNA
...These days, Mercedes, 31, and Ali, 29, are drawing on that background in their own artistic endeavors: Mercedes as a novelist and visual artist and Ali as a composer and musician, with an emphasis on classical music. They bring a fresh, somewhat ironic playfulness to their chosen mediums that has attracted a raucous group of young fans not typically associated with traditional galleries or classical music concerts. In this way, they stand at a colorful intersection of L.A.'s literary, pop culture, visual art and music scene. And they are rarely at rest, working on several projects at once and often collaborating with each other on videos or performances.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/...

This song is powerful. For me, not only does it invoke the feeling of an actual storm, but I creates a 'storm-like' feeling inside myself, too.
Listen to it with the speakers way up! This isn't one I can just have as background music. Feel the power inside you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKxOWv...
Storm Antonio Vivaldi
And another which one needs to experience with the volume up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=...
Winter Antonio Vivaldi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk44Es...

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


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIoygw..."
beautiful! Yes, it does sound like Bach

I haven't heard that, in fact, I can't find it on youtube. It would be great to hear, though. I am enjoying everyone's contributions in this thread!

This one is the most famous of his motets, Nuper rosarum flores. It was commissioned for the consecration of the Florence cathedral after the dome by Brunelleschi was completed.

My favourites in opera are
Händel
Teseo
Lascia Ch'io Pianga (Rinaldo) <3(this version is from Lars Von triers Antichrist)
Mozart
Mozarts Requiem
Le Nozze Di Figaro
Berg
Wozzeck
Lulu
Verdi
La Traviata
of classical music, I especially like Ravel, Tjaikovskij, Erik Satie, Philip Glass, Beethoven, Debussy and Stravinskij..

I just watched Das Rheingold on dvd. I'm trying to become more familiar with opera, but watching it is kind of taxing for me, much more so than just listening to a CD would be. I don't really get the combining of music and drama. I've never liked plays, which feel completely artificial. And the "acting" part of opera feels the same way. I've always disliked musicals and Broadway.
Here Said addresses something of what I feel, but I wish he had continued on and explored this more fully.
The social framework, and what fifty years ago Adorno called the regression of hearing, operate to sever music from drama and language: we tend to think of opera as a series of arias or tunes connected to one another by a generally stupid or melodramatic or unreal kind of story, in which we listen to the music in spite of the ridiculous and probably irrelevant goings-on on the stage. Some composers, Wagner most prominently, carry with them an aura of profundity or at least significance of the kind that Wagner himself took great pains in his prose works to elaborate and to ascribe to his operas. But not even many Wagnerites carry his ideas in their mind when they see a performance of Lohengrin or Tristan at the opera house: those performances are part of what is called “opera,” a not quite rational, emotive form that is less serious than drama and of somewhat more consequence than musical comedy. What seems to me the one absolutely central and radical question about opera is the question “Why do these people sing?” Yet in the conditions under which operas are given today – as hugely expensive, lumbering projects curatorially rendered as pertaining to a distant, largely irrecoverable past and to an eccentric, privileged, and unserious present – the question can scarcely be posed, much less answered. (p. 59, On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Bm2l...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y59q7H...

Egon Petri plays Beethoven Sonata Pathétique I Tempo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erYay3...
Of course, Petri plays it a little bit better than I do!

Here is something to calm you down after the "pounding" ;-).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlMHjo...

I. Allegro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkdwBg...
13:40
II. Intermezzo. . Allegro, ma non troppo - Trio. Animato
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV4BJk...
8:07
III. Andante con moto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyzNdQ...
10:17
IV. Rondo alla zingarese. Presto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZxwO0...
8:39

You can read about why Muti thinks this piece is so important, and important now:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/20...
Muti has made three recordings of the Requiem.
It will be streamed live online at
www.chicagotribune.com/csoverdi
www.cso.org
www.riccardomutimusic.com

Awesome, Lobstergirl. Thanks for the info. I am definitely interested...but that would be 6:30pm my time and I don't get off until 8. Will there be a rerun maybe?

This is wonderful - don't miss it!



This is the Detroit Symphony Orchestra playing Four Seasons. She is the guest violinist here playing 'Winter' where she has many solo parts that demonstrate her prowess. Wow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dRx7N...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q69JNb...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q69JNb...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFRMwg...
I just booked 2 tickets, on the previous night, for me and a close friend. Usually in this time of the season -ie Xmass- we get lost of Medieval trios/w a mezzo soprano using he voice on forgotten-lost songs. That is done for a close circuit in small Anglican-catholic churches. But so far nothing has surfaced.
How about Ya Heather, do U like Ars Nova-mediaval type of Music..?

I really like Medieval music, but I'm not familiar with any particular singer/group. I just know that I love the sound and the emotion along with it.
Exactly right now I am listening to the link that you shared above. She has a wonderful voice! I am enjoying it. Thank you for sharing!


Oouh U nailed this exactly.. in regards to m y previous musical outting. You see I was offered a ticke to go to the "gregorian Master Chant" a group of Monks, that tours the world.. offering Pop/ Rock melodies, in a completely diferent version
I think U might like them. But from my part they were dreadfull, ie in regards to their choice in songs, from OSTs Zimmer "pirates in the Carribean" Cntrl theme, Morricone "Harmonica man" but from the Rock songs they did (w the help of 2 female singers) "I am falling"(close to the song name) by Evanenescence, a piece by Ramstein ( as I was told) Led Zep's "Cashmere" ( she totally killed the song, with her voice) & perhaps the best would have to be "Live and Let die" by Paul Mc Cartney. . . that few would recognise in that audience.
< did I mention tht it was done in Herodium, a famous monument>
Perhaps I am stretching it a bit , but we had terrible seats ( due to the late arrival of a friend) and the theatrics employed by the 7 monks were clearly outdated. They also added a couple of vids, in a giant projector.. (one of the last numbers, about how they love their wives. with seperate pics from each couple )
But since I don't wanna bore U the whole orchestration/performace . had that similar taste of a Eurovision stage set-up...Still I can supply U with a few good performances on DW.. to help U learn more about them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm7GmG...
Also due to my attentionfocused in some primary sketcing *while my netConneX was "down and out" but there is a castrato singing those songs.. she is merely an interpreter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8p9ro... ;instrumental;
and here with an amazing singer-performer Stefano Landi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4liAi...
Ciaconna del Paradiso el Inferno (one of my favs that turned me to this ensemble)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ-VsK...
Regarding what U asked about Gregorian chants... one of the most classic ones ( I dunno why it is written that it is so hard to find here)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecad...
This gentleman became obsessed with Beethoven's Ninth, during a difficult period in his life, where he was comforted by it.
He went around gathering stories about it. And made a film about it.
In Japan they practice for months--in German!-- and sing the Ode To Joy at a festival every year.
One of the stories, which made me get a little choked up was how in Chile, after the military coup, masses of women would gather outside the political prisons and sing the "Ode To Joy" (a very risky act under the dictatorship) and they interviewed a man who had been imprisoned and tortured, but said it was like a beautiful butterfly that had come through the bars of his cell.
Anyway, a very interesting program!
Here's the movie site:
http://www.followingtheninth.com/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecad...
This gentleman became obsessed with Beethoven's..."
Just saved it to my Netflix list.


I'm listening to this now and I really, really like it.
Benjamin Britten
Piano Concerto No 1 in D major, Op 13
Sviatoslav Richter, piano
USSR State Symphony Orchestra
Evgeny Svetlanov, conductor
Live recording, May 1967


Camille Saint-Saëns
Danse Macabre (first performed in 1875) is the name of opus 40 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknB...
I'm not sure why, but I always seem to prefer those pieces in the minor keys. A bit macabre myself?

Why should you listen to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"? - Betsy Schwarm
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-should-...

Btw: Quite affordable from third party vendors at Amazon:
https://smile.amazon.com/Vivaldi-Conc...
Cheaper in Europe. In case you want to sample you can go to
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/deta...


Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Part 1, accompanied by a graphical score.
FAQ
Q: What do the shapes indicate?
A: Each shape corresponds to a family of instruments ...