Classical snobs - let's do it again

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by wormcycle, Nov 17, 2021.

  1. Metro

    Metro Friend

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    In imgur, right-click on the image and select "Copy Image Address", and use that for inserting the image.
     
  2. gotflute

    gotflute New

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    @Metro : thanks! Worked.
    Edited and fixed.

    (now, back to the music)
     
  3. gotflute

    gotflute New

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    Going through some favorites, this one is great for an evening with a glass of your chosen poison:

    [​IMG]

    Sawallisch was relatively new to the orchestra when this was recorded.


    I suggest it in Redbook: the recording, while not as good as some of the "post-stike" Philly recordings where they demanded more radio play time and better recordings (including lots of hi res recordings), is quite good. On lesser systems, you will think there is silence for the first 20 secs... nope. That is just the strings, preparing the sonic canvas for the horn solo (and the theme that you will live with for the next hour).

    There seems to be two types of people when they are young: Mahler people and Bruckner people. Age has allowed me to appreciate both as different apex composers of the symphonic form. One just reacts to the even numbered symphonies of Beethoven, the other the odd.

    Bruckner was an organist, so many European orchestras seem to do the "orchestra as an organ" thing well. However, there is something to hear in the "American Exceptionalism" represented by that 90's philly woodwind section. And the brass... And those Philly strings.

    All under the control of a man who was an expert in both Bruckner and how to shape the oversound of the orchestra.

    ... bit of a dream team if you ask me.

    Here it is on youtube... but, again, get it in something uncompressed. ... And buckle up for an hour long exploration of how far the symphonic form can be taken.


    (the photo is not from his time in philly, but the youtube audio is from this recording--> just listen to the woodwinds :)

    Just realized both my recommendations so far have been Bruckner... that was by accident. The next will be something else from a different century :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2022
  4. nithhoggr

    nithhoggr Author of the best selling novel Digital Jesus

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    Was poking around on Qobuz and thought I'd listen to Lully's Te Deum.

    [​IMG]

    Definitely not the best recording of Lully's Te Deum I've heard (though not a bad one by any means), but I think it gets the award for the most enthusiastic timpani. Actually, all of the loud parts are...extremely enthusiastic. The sheer energy is actually pretty notable, even if it's probably not the way I'd want to listen to this consistently...it doesn't have the dance-like bounciness of, say, the Niquet recording of this piece, opting instead for a powerful and operatic approach. The quiet parts keep up the operatic approach, being more dramatic than sweet. It's certainly a different approach than I've heard before, and I'll keep this recording on my radar, even if it's not going to be my reference recording for the Te Deum anytime soon.

    Incidentally, the Te Deum was the piece that killed Lully. He was beating time with a staff when he got too caught up in the music and stabbed himself through the foot, resulting in gangrene. He refused to have his leg amputated so he could still dance, resulting in the gangrene spreading and his ultimate death. So perhaps an overenthusiastic approach is warranted.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2022
  5. nithhoggr

    nithhoggr Author of the best selling novel Digital Jesus

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    Listening to an old favorite I'd only previously ever known from one recording:

    [​IMG]

    In particular, I'm listening to Heut triumphieret Gottes Sohn, BuxWV 43, a (to my knowledge) not especially notable Easter cantata that I happen to have a particular fondness of. I'd previously only known this from being the makeweight track for Rene Jacobs's recording of Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri, and I'd probably listened to that single track more than the rest of that CD. Tonight, I'd decided to see if I could track down any other recordings of it, and lo and behold Qobuz has Ton Koopman's recording, as part of his complete Buxtehude. Koopman's kind of interesting...I have very fundamental disagreements with his approach to Bach (I'm a big one-voice-per-part guy, and Koopman was the main musicological opponent of OVPP for a while there), but I've always enjoyed his recordings nonetheless (even of Bach), and he's definitely considered a Buxtehude expert, so I had high hopes for this going in.

    And it most certainly didn't disappoint. I was a little worried about the initial instrumental section, which was a bit slower than the Jacobs recording, until the timpani came in, and Koopman's very effective use of the timpani suddenly made me realize why he'd chosen that tempo. The repeated exclamations of "Victoria!" and "Victoria rufet mit macht" are just as joyful and impactful as they ought to be, and the solo sections have just a touch of operatic drama, a very nice touch. I'm not sure if this'll replace the Jacobs as a reference recording, but it's certainly one I'll enjoy for quite a while to come.
     
  6. caute

    caute Lana Del Gayer than you

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    What if Schoenbergs project of the "emancipation of dissonance" did not presage the liberatory pulse of the late 20th century, as was his intention, but the horror and atrocity, the cognitive dissonance of the early half of the XX?

    “As the ear becomes acclimatized to a sonority within a particular context, the sonority will gradually become 'emancipated' from that context and seek a new one.” can we not read this in relation to the sonorous inter-period between the 1880s up to the First World War (bookended by the last gasps of Romanticism on one side and the birth of modernism on the other)? The next, yet also similar tonal movement (is not the modern essentially a de-enchanted Romantic?), only in a new context—the ears constantly seek out novelty as they grow accustomed, disillusioned by the old. Somewhere Walter Benjamin is still troubled by arts place alongside the film camera.

    Schoenberg—rather than being “born in its cradle” as was said of him, was certainly forged in the apocalyptic crucible of the Große Fuge, one piece which is fugitive from the Romantic, in flight toward proto-modernism in 15 astonishing minutes (we must pause to say a nasty prayer for Herr Wagner, who purloined his way into the opera with Beethovens sheets) which was meant, some believe, i myself one of them, to be Beethovens final statement on music. most of his audience at the time and even Schubert missed its prescient import, the composer infamously, after hearing the dauntingly innovative fugue was not demanded for an encore like the rest of the 13th quartet, grumbled at the “cattle! Asses!” —And Schubert, after he heard a performance of the later 14th string quartet—which to be fair was Beethovens favorite of his late works—said “after this, what else is there for us to write?” Herr Wagner of the same, “the dance of the whole world itself”. (Yeah bro, it’s great, but have you ever cried through the entirety of the Cavatina?)

    Yet nothing said about the grand, complex, and yes dissonant architecture that is the protean fugue. So controversial to contemporary ears that Beethoven’s publisher strongly advised he write a alternate movement to end his opus 130, whether for the extra cash or because of the hysteric critical response (“Incompressible, like Chinese!” screamed one critic, one can easily imagine Herr Hegel nodding along with the choice of simile) did, but the new, lighter finale (much like the second movement of the his most well-known sonata, is like a “flower” in relation to the fugue’s “chasm”) summons no new chimeras, invents no new muthos, exercises no dexterous hold of emotional acuity and new excesses, in short, celebrates no new futures.

    But Schoenberg knew exactly what it contained; a visionary, he watched the seeds of atonality it planted sprout before his eyes. perhaps because he had heard it with new ears.

    But for all the promise of his beyond-just-music metanarrative (you should hear Duke Ellington talk about dissonance), was he yet another modernist, who revolutionized music for musicians, like theologians who write only for other theologians, a cold priest of the Academy sermonizing the virtues of the 12 tone system, w adorno as eager and willing supplicant (who also infamously de-acolytized himself toward the project of the dissonant's parallel development: jazz), or the only street preacher who could see the Storm coming, of so many Ezra pounds?
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2023
  7. nithhoggr

    nithhoggr Author of the best selling novel Digital Jesus

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    Fabrice Fitch, Gramaphone, 9/1996

    [​IMG]

    Pretty much anything you can get by David Munrow is worth listening to, if you're even remotely into Early Music...the energy and life he brings to these sorts of pieces is one-of-a-kind, and unlike a lot of older Early Music recordings that can feel ponderous and antiquated in the light of modern scholarship, Munrow's tend to hold up very well musically, even if the historical understanding of performance practice has greatly advanced since his time.

    I'm not sure if it's Munrow's own flair or simply the style of the early 70s, but in Munrow's recordings pieces that are preserved only in vocals (such as the tituar Ecco la Primavera) are presented with instrumental accompaniment, which is wonderfully engaging and quite an interesting contrast to more modern approaches which would simply present the piece a capella.
     
  8. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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  9. gotflute

    gotflute New

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    Very interesting and enjoyable post. Thumbs up!

    Funny that I found myself listening to a composer who had Schoenberg and the "destruction of the scale", so to speak, as top of mind. Looking for a new esthetic that was unrelated to the way tones in western music had been related for hundreds of year, he created something that was new, and, in my mind, very beautiful.

    Joep Franssens' Harmony of the Spheres from 1955.

    Enjoy:
     
  10. Muse Wanderer

    Muse Wanderer Friend

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    The Netherlands Bach Society project to record 'All of Bach' has been a treasured find these past few years with uploaded youtube videos of pristine quality and musicality. However, this Art of Fugue is so sublime, it takes my breath away. The fuga a 3 sogetti at the end is thrilling to say the least!

    Worth a hundred listens!
     
  11. GuySmiley'sMonkey

    GuySmiley'sMonkey Almost "Made"

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    A couple of years ago I bought this recording of CPE Bach's Magnificat.



    Here's the Youtube playlist.

    Anyone else here notice similarities to JSB's setting? Maybe he was consciously writing it both to the glory of God and to honour the influence of his father.

    JS Bach - Magnificat



    BTW, Bach's setting is one of my favrouite pieces in any genre or style. A desert island choice for sure. I never tire of it.
     
  12. Claritas

    Claritas Friend

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    Chopin's Études are not amongst his most popular works. They are technically difficult and generally unpoetic. But, as a group, they've long been my favorites amongst his oeuvre.

    My favorite recording of them is Earl Wild's 1992 version on the Chesky label. But it should be noted that a great pianist—either Rosenthal or Godowsky—remarked that no one can play all of the Études well.

    This autumn, I came across a very impressive recording of them by a Russian pianist I'd never heard of before, Zlata Chochieva.



    I was impressed, as well, with Bruce Liu's playing at last year's Chopin Competition. He played with genuine feeling. But I didn't buy that CD, because I hope he will play with less restraint outside of the competition setting.

    EF7D328F-EF72-4D63-8B2C-117406784473.png

    Happy New Year my fellow Classical Snobs (and others)!
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2022
  13. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    What a voice
     
  14. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    Solti's rendition of Bizet's "Carmen" opera has so far been my only experience with that piece of music and I've enjoyed it for years.

    But today, the Karajan remastered 1963 version is opening new insights into this wonderful creation.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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  16. Claritas

    Claritas Friend

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    I tend to get a piece stuck in my head. Not when I'm listening to something, but when I'm going about my day. I hear a snippet of a tune in my mind; and, often, I have to figure out what it's from. Then I start going through different performances of the piece till I find one that sounds right to me.

    Now, it's Chopin's 1st piano concerto. I get the sense that the 2d has become more popular; maybe that was always the case. But I've always enjoyed his 1st concerto. The opening theme is grand, and reminds me of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony.

    There are versions of the piece that I enjoy. I think Krystian Zimerman's earlier live version with Giulini (1979) is the best in modern sound. The one Evgeny Kissin made when he was 12(!), also live, is good. Hofmann's (1935) is a must-hear (VAIA/IPA 1002).

    But I was looking for something that sounds very grand. So I decided to listen to the ones I own that I haven't heard before. The first one I listened to—Rosenthal's version from 1930–31(APR 7503)—is that and more. It really caught me off guard.






     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2023
  17. Claritas

    Claritas Friend

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    A Christmas Vorspeiß,* (that is) an Appetizer
    — dedicated to our fellow classical snob, who restarted this thread, @wormcycle

    Even if you've had your fill of Messiahs and Nutcrackers—I don't do that, myself, but I can't help hearing it in the back of my head, which is nice, I suppose—here are two related works to refresh your cup.

    The first is Handel's Organ Concerto Op. 7/3, played by the great American organist, E. Power Biggs. The opening movement has always been rightly considered reminiscent of the Hallelujah chorus. Crank up the organ, because Boult tried to steal the show.






    The second is Mozart's Linz Symphony, conducted in this instance by Klemperer. Here, the Handelian influence is reasonably subtle. The theme is stately, but in way that has been deliberately staged, and topped with grand decorations. The quieter moments have delicate—but never intimate—ornamentation. (Give Jochum with the Concertgebouw a listen too.)



    * Central European bourgeois Yiddish (e.g., Preßburg, c. 1905)
     

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