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The Classical Music Recommendation Thread


Muad'Dib

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Takemitsu Viola Concerto. My favorite bit currently, with the low strings entering under the soaring viola: 

 

 

This whole piece shimmers and sparkles. Wonderful stuff, and the parallels w/ JW's Tree Song (and other work) are very clear. 

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  • 2 months later...
On 6/24/2020 at 11:44 AM, Albus Percival Wulfric said:

A symphonic poem composed in 1977. It's among the most beautiful music I've ever heard.

 

I loved this album!  Full of excellent and exciting modern music!  Well worth exploring.

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Cheers to the Dutch for this! :) 

 

Today I’m listening to Rhapsody in Navy Blue a new release from the Netherlands Marine Band.  To judge the potential worth of the performances, I skipped straight to their rendition of Aaron Copland’s “Emblems”, a personal favorite and the only extended piece he wrote originally for wind band.  I was really pleased!

 

With this lineup of great American classical composers, this is grade A certified fresh Stubait

 

139078F6-1F7E-43B2-BB10-23EAE7F2349B.jpeg

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11 hours ago, Albus Percival Wulfric said:

Yes, it certainly is. And I find it interesting how an entire mini-genre sprang out of Addinsell's "Warsaw Concerto". There were at the very least the Spellbound Concerto by Miklós Rózsa, Assault on Krasnaya Gorka by Dmitri Shostakovich, one piece I can't remember now by the British composer Hubert Bath, and then finally this one by Badalbeyli.

 

Possibly more.

Don't forget Herrmann's Concerto Macabre!

 

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I love how Copland orchestrated his setting of “The Dodger”  so so much.  His orchestrations for all of the Old American Songs set (originally for piano and voice) are just incredibly well done.

 

The way he brings in the flutes and clarinets just for the second “Yes we’re alllll dodgin’” is *chef’s kiss*.

 

And how he invokes his Appalachian Springesque solemn strings just for the “he’ll preach you the gospel” section

 

 

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Last weekend I attended my first live music event for seven months, a concert of a cappella singing by the wonderful vocal group VOCES8.  They sing everything from Elizabethan madrigals to modern choral works by Eriks Esenvalds, Eric Whitacre, Kate Rusby and others.  It was so nice to be able to hear live music after such a long time.

 

I highly recommend their recent double album After Silence.  It includes this stunning performance of Bach's Cantata 150 with the Academy of Ancient Music, amongst many other treasures ancient and modern.

 

 

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Did they sing with masks on ?

On 10/3/2020 at 2:07 AM, GerateWohl said:

When it comes to chamber music I love the classical arrangements of Astor Piazzolla's "tangoesque" pieces.

 

I only know his music from TWELVE MONKEYS!

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2 hours ago, bruce marshall said:

I only know his music from TWELVE MONKEYS!

One of his most famous pieces, Oblivion, was also written for a movie, I think. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQvfIsLQmY

It is really music worth exploring. The piece in 12 Monkeys and the way it is used in the opening is really brillant. 

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I really like the sound of the two sample tracks from this upcoming album by young contemporary composer Scott Lee.

 

https://scottleemusic.bandcamp.com/album/through-the-mangrove-tunnels

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4 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

My love and lust for Villa-Lobos has coursed with no delay.


I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I have an illness and I don’t even attempt to control myself, but....

 

Quote

All your letters, pictures, programs, your old pocket watch—the camera—all this I keep as souvenirs of the happiest days of my life.

Heitor Villa-Lobos writing to Aaron Copland, 1947

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5 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

My love and lust for Villa-Lobos has coursed with no delay. My current stop in the land of this prolific composer: Floresta do Amazon, a symphonic tone poem.

 

Fans of adventure scoring from the likes of Williams and Goldsmith might get a kick out of some of this!

 


Having enjoyed a lot of Villa-Lobos’ work I had it in my head that I’d not enjoyed this one so much but having given it another listen (the BIS recording) I thoroughly enjoyed it. Terrific stuff. If you like VL, I recommend his kind-of successor, Camarago Guarnieri. A bit more spiky but no less enjoyable. His six symphonies are on BIS (same forces as the VL album). 

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2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:
6 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

My love and lust for Villa-Lobos has coursed with no delay.


I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I have an illness and I don’t even attempt to control myself, but....

 

Quote

All your letters, pictures, programs, your old pocket watch—the camera—all this I keep as souvenirs of the happiest days of my life.

Heitor Villa-Lobos writing to Aaron Copland, 1947


Perhaps unfortunately @Nick Parker, here is Copland writing about Villa-Lobos

 

Quote

"As I see it, the Villa-Lobos music has one outstanding quality: its abundance," ... The United States, [Copland] further argued, had its own Villa-Lobos in Charles Ives; both composers shared "the main drawback of an overabundant imagination: the inability to translate the many images that crowd their minds into scores of a single and unified vision."

 

In terms of South American music, Ginastera is the one that Copland championed the most.

 

 

As for Villa-Lobos, somehow Uirapuru is the only piece I've ever really listened to, but I did enjoy it pretty well.  The beginning sounds like Herrmann scoring Citizen Kane or something.

 

 

What I sampled of the suite you posted above did sound pretty cool!

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2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

The United States, [Copland] further argued, had its own Villa-Lobos in Charles Ives;

 

Oh, fuck off, Aaron!

3 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

you like VL, I recommend his kind-of successor, Camarago Guarnieri. A bit more spiky but no less enjoyable. His six symphonies are on BIS (same forces as the VL album). 

 

Thanks! I've been on a huge Brazilian kick and have been on the lookout for more contemporary musicians beyond Hermeto Pascoal and Kassin!

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17 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Were these guys lovers by any chance?

 

Unknown.  Villa-Lobos married a woman, but who knows..  Copland went on several official State Department sponsored tours of South America.  Part of the anti-communism effort.

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17 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Unknown.  Villa-Lobos married a woman, but who knows..  Copland went on several official State Department sponsored tours of South America.  Part of the anti-communism effort.

 

He would have been too delicate for Brazil! They would have fucked his dainty ass up!

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1 hour ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Oh, fuck off, Aaron!

 

Thanks! I've been on a huge Brazilian kick and have been on the lookout for more contemporary musicians beyond Hermeto Pascoal and Kassin!

 

I have to admit that I've not heard of either of them. Any works you could recommend as a starting point?

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8 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Unknown.  Villa-Lobos married a woman, but who knows..  Copland went on several official State Department sponsored tours of South America.  Part of the anti-communism effort.

So did Bernstein.  That was the time that gayness should be prayed out of you so practically every gay person married someone believing it was a phase they would outgrow.  Bernstein's wife was very accommodating to his liaisons which was a big part of the curse wives had during this time that their suffering at the hands of a husband's infidelity was a price of happy marriage.  I think "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Rami Malek playing Freddie Mercury) did a great job of also highlighting the confusion they had at the time as well as his wife who knew he was bi (or gay) before he did).  I think Bernstein falls into this category.  He might not have fully known.  All society says it's wrong, it isn't that clear regardless of what people say.  History is full of examples like this. 

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Exhibit A in why Slatkin's recording of Rodeo with Detroit is my preferred recording:

 

Just compare the section at the climax of "Buckaroo Holiday" here

 

(7:15-7:28)

 

To Leonard Bernstein's:

(6:32-6:43)

 

 

Why did Lenny take it so fast???   Slatkin's recording has a much better feel for the personality of the music IMO.  Cowboy music, even when building to a big climax like that, should have at least somewhat of a "loping" quality to it.

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I've recently been listening to Albert Roussel's 4 symphonies. 1 and 2 are my current favourites. I really like this buildup in the 1st movement of 2 (from 5:39):

 

 

That high D in the cello at 6:00 is positively terrifying!

 

15 hours ago, InTheCity said:

wrote a new piece:
 

 

 

Fantastic!

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Happy 97th Birthday to Ned Rorem! :happybday:

 

I've always been most partial to his chamber works of the 1980s and 1990s.  Bright Music for flute, piano, two violins, and cello is so imaginative and ravishing.  I love it!!

 

 

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I obviosuly have, but you can't hear half of the complexities.

 

EDIT: Now here is a recommendation: Bach's cantata cycle performed by the Bach Collegium Japan. I'll never ever listen to baroque music on new instruments again. This is so good. Loving the total lack of vibrato.

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