The Classical Music Recommendation Thread

[nightscape94 965]

Dutilleux - Métaboles, Mystère de l'instant, either of his symphonies, Tout un monde lointain...

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Métaboles is an odd piece. It's 60s but sounds like it could've been written in the 20s or 30s by someone like Varèse, Honegger or even Carl Ruggles.

Timbres, espace, mouvement is one of my favourites, along with the Cello Concerto.

[karelm 2,913]

Images/Preludes, From Me Flows What You Call Time, Ainsi la nuit

Since it's a top 10 list, what work in his list would you suggest should be dropped to make room for these? To me, he has too much weight on second Viennese school resulting in some redundancies.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I wouldn't be too torn up about dropping the Varèse, Berio, and his own piece in their favor. But of course if I'm rewriting his list that much, I'd just start from scratch. The dude likes what he likes. No surprise he goes for the thornier Germanic stuff whereas I'm a smooth Frenchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uATlfSBzekM

[karelm 2,913]

Incredible. Just discovered this. I have tears welling up.

Nice work I haven't been exposed to before. Reminds me somewhat of Chris Theofanidis's Rainbow Body:

[Marian Schedenig 8,192]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uATlfSBzekM

I've had the pleasure of hearing Mathis (the opera) live twice, once in a concert setting and once as a stage production.

The Holberg suite is a favourite of mine.

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

Breathtaking.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

And just in time for Holy Week!

[Jilal 569]

The colourful, vigorous, poignant template of Korngold's 1938 film score for The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Reminiscent of Ravel's sonata for violin and piano in G major - the middle three movements are very illusory and soothing. Love the use of quartal harmony.

[Omen II 1,235]

You gotta love this performance of Danzon No. 2 by Arturo Marquez, played by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas under the baton of Alondra de la Parra. Gustavo Dudamel, eat your heart out!

[publicist 4,643]

A most-cherished classical work. Thanks to Goldsmith for getting me on Ravel's track via SECRET OF NIMH and LEGEND (not coincidentally two of his more sublime creations)

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I have a love hate relationship with Pärt. Sometimes he writes gorgeous music...other times it grates on my nerves. I'm not sure why.

That one that he wrote that James Horner ripped off for Sneakers for example...I want to stab my ears with pencils when I hear it. Even the Horner version.

[karelm 2,913]

A few shout outs. I purchased the complete symphonies of John Harbison today and am really enjoying listening to it. So far, he is up to No.6. Anyone else like his music? These are available on the Boston Symphony Orchestra's in home label for just a few bucks with exceptional quality under Jim Levine.

Also quite enchanting is Havergal Brian's opera, "The Tigers" which I just got today. This works well if you like manic Richard Strauss and megalomaniacal music (Scriabin). Opinions?

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I have a love hate relationship with Pärt. Sometimes he writes gorgeous music...other times it grates on my nerves. I'm not sure why.

That one that he wrote that James Horner ripped off for Sneakers for example...I want to stab my ears with pencils when I hear it. Even the Horner version.

Which one is that?

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Fratres I think...not sure which Sneakers track correlates. don't have the soundtrack handy. Cosmo old friend maybe?

Yup it's Fratres. Make sure you listen to it with Percussion. I think it's because the whole track is this constant build up of repetitive tension that never really resolves.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Like life?

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Only if you have OCD.

[Bespin 8,480]

An Easter classic.

Happy Easter to all of you, whether you are religious or not. The most important is to love music!

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

 

Not much to do with Easter Friday, but God, this is amazing.

[nightscape94 965]

I'm seeing Bach's St. Matthew Passion tomorrow. Can't wait.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Philadelphia Orchestra?

[nightscape94 965]

Yup. They did it during last year's concert series too, but I didn't go.

[Marian Schedenig 8,192]

Not much to do with Easter Friday, but God, this is amazing.

Speaking of Shakespeare songs, be sure to check out Mäntyjärvi's set:

[KK 3,307]

Just feeling nostalgic. Remember performing this back in my high school concert band. Those rehearsals were fun.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

 

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

This old tune is one of my favorite melodies, top 5 material. VW loved it too, setting it here, and also adapting it as the gorgeous hymn tune Kingsfold, which has been paired with a few different texts.

 

[Omen II 1,235]

This old tune is one of my favorite melodies, top 5 material. VW loved it too, setting it here, and also adapting it as the gorgeous hymn tune Kingsfold, which has been paired with a few different texts.

Have you ever seen the short film, The Dim Little Island, TGP? Not only did RVW score the film using this very tune, but you can also hear his voice as one of the narrators. This is worth ten minutes of anyone's time.

England hasn't changed a bit!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Ha, I'd not seen that. Thanks for sharing.

Starting, say, a week or so of only pre-1800 music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ANf2LVdQs

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Good God, that's awful (out of tune soprano, hammy operetta-style tenor, no blending with the congregation). Leave it to LA to butcher VW!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Like most American choirs that don't follow the Anglican or "traditional" Roman Catholic stylings, it suffers from that weepy operatic vibrato that I absolutely can not stand in, well, any choral or vocal music that isn't opera.

 

[Hlao-roo 389]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/arts/music/review-larpeggiata-opens-before-bach-festival-at-carnegie-hall.html

In some ways, L’Arpeggiata represents the state of the art in early-music practice today. During a period of experimentation in the 1950s and ’60s, centering largely on very early music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the need for conjecture to fill out the barest of sources was recognized and reveled in by the likes of Noah Greenberg. When Baroque music came to the forefront in the 1970s, with ostensibly complete performing materials more readily available, a certain literalism set in. Scores that had often been hastily and sketchily produced were widely considered sufficient, definitive, even sacrosanct.

The most compelling performers today have come to realize how much was left unsaid by composers in scores prepared on the run for use by performing colleagues who were, if not immediately at hand, at least immersed in the style of the period and locale. These performers see conjecture not as a worrisome chore but as an opportunity; improvisation as a matter of course; invention as a necessity.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

They're an incredible group.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

[KK 3,307]

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Never been a big 'opera person', but I love Doctor Faust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85lW-96RhY8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x9A6tNqyDc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9wma4rIn1A

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

It's interesting how many of us say we're not really into opera, considering its obvious ancestry to film and film music.

But nope. I'm not all that into it. I like a nice Italian aria or climactic scene every now and then. I like Gounod's Faust, Debussy's Pelléas, Strauss' Salome (mostly for that chord), and sometimes I have a craving for an Adams production. Parsifal is nice around Easter. But otherwise... it's overtures or stuff like The Ring Without Words. I really do wonder why.

Got me listening to this now.

My father used to play this recording on vinyl back when I was 5 or 6. I remember running around the house conducting it.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

I really want to get into Italian opera, but I only really know Tosca and bits Madame Butterfly.

The big turn off for me is operatic voices, especially tenors and altos. I have no problem with unison choruses or choir though.

[nightscape94 965]

The only operas I've been able to digest are mainly Strauss' (whilst not forgetting Enescu's Oedipe, and Wagner). Can't stand what I've heard from Italian composers.

[Hlao-roo 389]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/arts/music/anna-clyne-a-composer-who-creates-with-images.html

When Anna Clyne was working on her first big orchestral piece, she invited one of her composition teachers, Julia Wolfe, to look at her drafts. But when Ms. Wolfe arrived at Ms. Clyne’s studio in Chicago, where she had just begun a residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Wolfe found no sketches written out on music manuscript paper or drafted with any of the software programs commonly used by composers. Instead, “The wall had a painting across it,” Ms. Wolfe remembers. “It was done in a series of panels that went across her studio, and she said, ‘This is my piece.’ ”

Ms. Clyne, 35, the subject of the Miller Theater’s final Composers Portrait of the season on Thursday, is a composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods. That series of paintings — actually mixed-media collages — has since been translated into music with the resulting tenebrous, roiling piece “Night Ferry,” recorded by the Chicago Symphony under the direction of Riccardo Muti.

Ms. Clyne is at work on a chamber opera about the poet Emily Dickinson, parts of which will be performed at Miller by the Ensemble Signal under the direction of Brad Lubman. This time, Ms. Clyne used facsimiles of letters by Dickinson to jump-start the creative process, projecting her handwriting onto a wall and retracing the magnified letters with an indelible marker. The end product — fastidiously constructed compositions that typically carry a potent emotional charge — bears no traces of these playful beginnings, although Ms. Wolfe remembers Ms. Clyne turning in scores that were beautifully lettered and bound by hand. But there is a distinct sense of shape and momentum to her music that grows out of a creative process rooted in image and movement.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Oh wow, Anna Clyne in the NYT. That's really cool!

[karelm 2,913]

ms. Clyne's Night Ferry is a very nice piece. Not cutting new ground but very engaging and exciting. There is some really wonderful young composers around and nice to see she's getting her due.

[publicist 4,643]

TGP, you might like the stuff from track 4 on.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Very interesting stuff, all of it. I can't find anything on it - is this the same Christopher Gordon of Master and Commander? Oh yes now I see - these are taken from short films, same guy. I'll have to look into his work more.

 

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

First research is very promising.  Thanks for that recommendation.

[KK 3,307]

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Here he vividly captures the feeling of winter.

 

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

[Marcus 390]

Glad to see so much appreciation for -and interest in- Anna Clyne's work! We were classmates at MSM 10-12 years ago, and she was always very strikingly gifted, with a very unusual, very singular artistic voice, even in those early days.

Anna was in Julia Wolfe's studio, while I was in Richard Danielpour's. Among our fellow students, but some years younger than us, were Joe Trapanese (now a successful Hollywood composer) and Chris Cerrone, a fantastically talented young composer (his "Invisible Cities" is one of the most remarkable operas I've heard written by a composer still in his twenties). Looking forward to Anna Clyne's Emily Dickinson opera!