The Classical Music Recommendation Thread

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I like Schuman

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

1 hour ago, Jerry said:

Some of my favourite Schumann compositions: Kinderszenen (scenes from childhood). So gentle and relxaing. I almost fell asleep to this the other day, in a good way.

 

Schumann's great - here's my favorite recording of his 4th symphony:

 

 

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

Traumerei is his greatest work IMO.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I attended the Music Faculty Recital at my university last night.  It's an annual concert to kick off the new academic year and let the new students especially see the faculty in a performance setting.

 

It was a lovely and varied evening.  Spanning works from a comic Mozart aria to a raucous samba for two pianos.  Best of all, I was unfamiliar with all of them.

 

Here are the two pieces that stood out to me the most.

 

This beautiful little French chamber piece, "Fantaisie for Clarinet and Piano" by Philippe Gaubert.

 

 

 

And this jaw-droppingly gorgeous piece from Arvo Pärt.

 

In general, I can't say I'm usually a fan of modern works that seem more like music theory exercises, but this one manages to be soulful.  During a live performance, it almost feels out-of-body.  You become aware of your own breathing, if you know what i mean.

 

 

15 hours ago, Jerry said:

Traumerei is his greatest work IMO.

 

I got to a play a transcription with my community wind band last year.

[SteveMc 2,674]

Part is in his own way one of the greats.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

I still don't know too much Pärt, but he's done some excellent choir stuff.

 

We did this piece in June, and are going to do another performance in a couple of weeks (can't wait):

*) not our recording

[_deleted_ 203]

Shostakovich  Me Likey 😋

[Loert 2,511]

 

An emotional rollercoaster of a piece. Must learn it some day!

[Will 2,215]

Wildly addictive:

 

 

 

(this is just one great movement; the work has four)

 

It was a little challenging on first listen a couple weeks ago (particularly the very opening of the 1st movement) but since then I've grown to adore it. Reich's gradual harmonic shifts with subtle bass resonance are glorious as always. 

[publicist 4,643]

[karelm 2,911]

Born the same year as our Johnny, Per Norgard, is 86 year old and probably the most famous Danish composer today.  His health is quite bad but he is "formulating" a 9th Symphony.  I hop he makes it long enough to complete it.

 

Norgard uses the infinity series for melody, harmony, rhythm, etc., which is somewhat similar to a fractal geometry set that keeps repeating.  This work's structure is based entirely on this series.

[SteveMc 2,674]

Will have to listen more to this guy.  I like what I'm hearing.

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

Thanks @karelm. You make me aware of many great composers who are otherwise in the shadows to me.

[_deleted_ 203]

Do we have a John Williams Concert Works recommendation thread here at jwfan? I feel like there’s a need for a that... esp for new/younger jwfans who might not be familiar with JW’s more classical side.  

“Whenever I fanboy it's like I go into a trance and I block off everything around me.”

 

 

Okay I just want a dedicated thread for fanboying helping the world to better appreciate the architectural beauty of John Williams’s concert works and fanboying promote his unique musical voice to all nations fanboying !

 

thanks👻

[Bespin 8,480]

The best of Concert works? It's here!

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,511]

No TRAINING MONTAGE. Shit.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

On 8/23/2018 at 10:05 PM, Richard said:

No TRAINING MONTAGE. Shit.

 

Like this?

 

 

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Yo what up, any Peter Lieberson fans in the house? I've linked a piece by him before, but here's a new one.

 

He wrote this song cycle for his then wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who passed away just a year after its premiere. Fortunately, she was able to record her husband's gift to her beforehand, which really adds a certain personal dimension that tends to be overlooked if not dismissed in the concert world. 

 

The girl I'm interested in is an opera singer, and she's really helped open my mind to this type of music.

 

 

[karelm 2,911]

10 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Like this?

 

 

No, this:

 

[Bespin 8,480]

Mozart - Symphonic Testament (conducted by Lenny)

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

Lenny's Mozart is great fun! Have you heard his super-slow take on the Requiem?

[Bespin 8,480]

I'm very difficult on the Requiem, it takes a boys choir.  If not, we can't appreciate the three different matury of a man's voice (the vanity of our existence), like it is intended.

 

Beethoven - Academy of May 7th 1824

 

 

[Bespin 8,480]

Bach in Excelsis

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

2 hours ago, Bespin said:

I'm very difficult on the Requiem, it takes a boys choir.  If not, we can't appreciate the three different matury of a man's voice (the vanity of our existence), like it is intended.

 

I'm not saying it's the best, but definitely worth checking out:

 

 

1 hour ago, Bespin said:

Bach in Excel

 

Does Bach also occur in Word?

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

6 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I'm not saying it's the best, but definitely worth checking out:

 

 

Super-slow? Try Celibidache:

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

28 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Super-slow? Try Celibidache:

 

Bernstein's Lacrimosa is an epic 5:38 in duration, with a constant feeling that it's coming to a halt. Even the slowburner Celibidache can't compete with that. It's like Bernstein got paid per recorded minute!

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

36 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Bernstein's Lacrimosa is an epic 5:38 in duration, with a constant feeling that it's coming to a halt. Even the slowburner Celibidache can't compete with that. It's like Bernstein got paid per recorded minute!

 

From the bit I can hear without having a Spotify account, that's indeed a strong effect (though it would take a lot of convincing to make me consider it "right" for the work, no matter the effect). His "Kyrie", "Dies Irae", and "Quam olim Abrahae" on the other hand have quite normal pace. With Celibidache, everything is tiringly slow (he needs nearly 50% more time for the whole thing than Gardiner does). Not one of his best hours.

 

Also, I'm again reminded that I'd really like to sing it again.

[karelm 2,911]

Not to be confused with Per Norgard, whom I previously posted the Symphony No. 3, this is Pehr Nordgren's Symphony No. 3 which is also very fine in a different way.  This one is more directly expressive and dark (well with movement titles like "lamentations" and "defiance" you get a sense of the sound) plus he is Finnish (Norgard is Danish).  I just love how it goes through so much tumult to circle back at the delicious b flat minor that finishes the symphony. 

 

This work from 1993 is scored for a standard orchestra but with a very large percussion section and concertante piano (there is a piano cadenza or two in the symphony). 

 

I have come to realize that for some reason, a composer's third symphony seems to be a moment of breakthrough or significant directional change.  For example, Beethoven's monumental symphony No. 3 "Eroica" (voted the greatest symphony of all time by BBC Magazine in 2016), Mahler's epic 3rd, Vaughan Williams' reconciliatory Symphony No. 3 which marked a major transition in style from his Standford/Victorian roots to his mature style in the form of subtle and tragic homage to The Great War, Atterberg's 3rd (my favorite of his 9), Sibelius's 3rd, Per Norgard's, Pehr Nordgren's, Prokofiev's most violent is no. 3, Raatavaura's grandest is his 3rd, Gliere's monumental 3rd, Copeland's greatest is the 3rd, etc. It seems to be a point where the composer thinks to themselves they either better put up or shut up musically.  It's like the Fermi paradox's great wall.  But more realistically, it is probably just an irrelevant coincidence where equal number of contrary examples can be found. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

8 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

though it would take a lot of convincing to make me consider it "right" for the work, no matter the effect

 

I consider the approach definitely wrong, although I do find Bernstein's experimentations with tempo fascinating and it can at times lead to quite interesting results (alongside the many boring ones). Another example is the super-energized final movement of Schubert's 9th. It's obviously way too fast, but never has it sounded this fun:

 

 

[publicist 4,643]

For RVW's birthday, belated:

 

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

12 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I consider the approach definitely wrong, although I do find Bernstein's experimentations with tempo fascinating

 

That reminds me that I still haven't picked up his final concert. I remember hearing the slow movement of Beethoven's 7th from that and finding its slow tempo very gripping.

[karelm 2,911]

5 hours ago, publicist said:

For RVW's birthday, belated:

 

 

One of my favorite composers.  Thanks for posting a wonderful piece I've never heard from him!

[KK 3,307]

It's a cool, rainy afternoon here. In a very Glass-ian mood:

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

On 8/23/2018 at 9:55 AM, karelm said:

Born the same year as our Johnny, Per Norgard, is 86 year old and probably the most famous Danish composer today.  His health is quite bad but he is "formulating" a 9th Symphony.  I hop he makes it long enough to complete it.

 

Norgard uses the infinity series for melody, harmony, rhythm, etc., which is somewhat similar to a fractal geometry set that keeps repeating.  This work's structure is based entirely on this series.

 

Love his 2nd. 

 

 

[publicist 4,643]

Yeah, JWFan sold me on a few scandinavian composers i never heard of before and they always have these fascinating textures.

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

The wonderful secondary theme of the 2nd movement 

 

(14:15 - 16:20)

 

I particularly love the development introduced at 15:10.

 

This is an early sketch of the melody.  Simply beautiful and beautifully simple in that trademark Copland style.

 

[Loert 2,511]

 

 

One of my favourite symphonies from the (early) Soviet period. Myaskovsky's setting of the Russian Orthodox burial hymn "Shto mui vidyeli?" in the 4th movement is truly remarkable, and the ending is one of the most beautiful and emotional I know of, with the violins floating all the way up to a pianissimo Bb7 (that's the top Bb on a piano keyboard). I just love this guy!

[SteveMc 2,674]

That is quite a way to close things out.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Why did Yo-Yo Ma feel the need to record the Bach cello suites yet again?

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

This is on my check-out list on Spotify. I love his second outing in the suites, excited to see if this new recording is even better. Is that even possible?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I read the liner notes explanation for why he recorded them again.  It involved Mr. Rogers and didn't actually make a lot of sense.  I mean, it's fine if he had said "because I felt like it."

Quote

Now that I’m in my sixties, I realize that my sense of time has changed, both in life and in music, at once expanded and compressed. I am conscious of the fact that my grandson Teddy - my daughter Emily’s firstborn - will be 83 in the year 2100, and that, as I write this, we are just months away from the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the Great War that was meant to end all wars. My son, Nicholas, recently reminded me that when Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was asked where he turned in times of crisis, he repeated his mother’s advice to “look for the helpers.” Casals, my father and I, and countless others found a helper in Bach. Music, like all of culture, helps us to understand our environment, each other, and ourselves. Culture helps us to imagine a better future. Culture helps turn “them” into “us.” And these things have never been more important.

 

...ok?

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

3 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

I read the liner notes explanation for why he recorded them again.  It involved Mr. Rogers and didn't actually make a lot of sense.  I mean, it's fine if he had said "because I felt like it."

 

But that would make the liner notes too short!

 

Anyway, I'm sure he only did it only for the money. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

But that would make the liner notes too short!

 

Anyway, I'm sure he only did it only for the money. 

 

I added the actual liner notes explanation to my post.  Go back and read it.  See if it makes any sense to you.

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

19 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

I added the actual liner notes explanation to my post.  Go back and read it.  See if it makes any sense to you.

 

I'm shocked to learn that Casals was in fact Ma's father. No wonder Ma's such a good cellist then!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Just now, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I'm shocked to learn that Casals was in fact Ma's father. No wonder Ma's such a good cellist then!

 

Oxford commas!  They're important!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I really like the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, a real first-rate ensemble.  I've loved every recording I've heard from them.  Especially their recording of the New World Symphony.

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,051]

The Nordic orchestras are generally of high quality.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I wanna go to Sweden to go to that restaurant that got a Netflix documentary.  The one that's supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the world.

[Bespin 8,480]

6 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

I wanna go to Sweden to go to that restaurant that got a Netflix documentary.  The one that's supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the world.

 

Then, realize you have 3 kids... 😀