What is the last piece of classical music you listened to?

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Beethoven 3 and 1, Karajan 80s. 3 is surprisingly good and doesn't feel like a pointless addition. 1 is nice and cosy, but a little slow. Damn DG for not issuing the 70s 1 on an album that meets my über-strict buying policy.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Like all Moross, his Flute Concerto is just sunny and delightful.  One of the most distinct voices in American music.

 

 

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

3 hours ago, Stu said:

Like all Moross, his Flute Concerto is just sunny and delightful.  One of the most distinct voices in American music.

 

 

Lovely! Might have to get this one, although annoyingly only seems to be available via Amazon.

[Glóin the Dark 1,219]

James Dillon's The Book of Elements.

 

 

[bruce marshall 1,315]

" Jupiter" from THE PLANETS.

 

Probably my favorite piece of all- time!

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Tchaikovsky 5, Karajan 80s. Nothing needed to be added to his breathtaking 70s performance of this fantastic work, and certainly not overbearing loud trumpets that are out of sync in half of the final movement.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Excerpts of symphonie fantastique (brass theme) conducted by Zubin Mehta. I NEED to check out this conductor. What a sound.

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

Christus Apollo (Jerry) - As part of my Jerry listening to remember his untimely passing far too many years ago, I thought I should give this another spin. Having found it rather hard work years ago when it originally came out, I was pleased to discover that my tastes have evolved since then and found much to enjoy. The title work definitely hints towards The Omen in the choral writing but with the structure of a formal concert work. Anthony Hopkins' narration is actually very effective - not something I'm usually a huge fan of. Music for Orchestra is fairly thorny 8 minutes that is like a broader, more traditionally symphonic work that most strongly associates with Planet of the Apes. Probably the best known work is Fireworks which is full on 90s Jerry, totally different to the other pieces and almost disconcertingly different. It might actually have been better programmed as a curtain raiser to the companion album he did of his film music at the same time as tonally it would fit better. Might have to try that...

 

The performance by the LSO is terrific (more energised than on the film music album, they really get stuck in here) and the sound is excellent, if mixed a little quietly. I'll have to try it on SACD - I think both albums were released partly as showcases for the format.

 

It's a shame he didn't feel motivated to write more concert works as these are fine efforts that are somewhat challenging (save for Fireworks of course) but no more so than some of his film scores. It's interesting that JW's concert music (by which I mean the concertos etc., rather than the Olympic/ceremonial works) is often quite distinctly different from his film music whereas Jerry wrote concert music in an idiom that was contemporary and challenging but also not dissimilar to his film music.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

6 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

The performance by the LSO is terrific (more energised than on the film music album, they really get stuck in here) and the sound is excellent, if mixed a little quietly. I'll have to try it on SACD - I think both albums were released partly as showcases for the format.

 

Yes, Goldsmith even made a little promotional speech during the 2001 concert and/or pre-concert talk. I think at least the film music album was used as a sort of official demo disc.

[Loert 2,510]

Khachaturian's "Dance of the Mountaineers". It's a good one for annoying your neighbours!

 

 

In seriousness, I love the chromatic passage starting betwee 0:34 and 0:40. Feels like that moment in a rollercoaster ride where you've reached the top of the initial climb and are just about to roll over the edge.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

I just started Don Giovanni. I'm obviously enjoying the music immensely and will check out Gardiner and Norrington after Karajan. But: Isn't most of the music inappropriately cheerful? Since this is essentially about a vile predator, shouldn't it be more dramatic? Or does opera not allow for that sort of approach?

[Loert 2,510]

8 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

I just started Don Giovanni. I'm obviously enjoying the music immensely and will check out Gardiner and Norrington after Karajan. But: Isn't most of the music inappropriately cheerful? Since this is essentially about a vile predator, shouldn't it be more dramatic? Or does opera not allow for that sort of approach?

 

I think the point is is that the subject matter contains opportunities for a wide array of characters and emotions touched by Don Giovanni's ruthless desires, which results in a variety of musical possibilities. Mozart categorised it as a comic opera (i.e. a comedy as opposed to a tragedy). Also, don't forget that, whilst e.g. the love duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina sounds "happy" on its surface, there is a sinister subtext to the whole thing, since it's merely Don Giovanni trying to trick Zerlina for his own gains. So Mozart's music is reflecting the "surface level" seduction, and leaves it to the audience to deduce the subtext. Whereas a more, let's say, "modern" composer would probably focus on bringing out the subtext more in the music, or would focus more on the psychologies of the persons involved, with occassional rumblings of the double basses/timpanis or whatever...

 

You've reminded me of one of my favourite pieces for piano, Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan. It starts with the graveyard scene, then the love duet (and variations on it), and ends with the Champagne aria. It's undeniably an "optimistic" piece, even though the aforementioned love duet takes up most of the running time!

 

 

(It's also a bloody nightmare to learn.....)

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

13 hours ago, Loert said:

Also, don't forget that, whilst e.g. the love duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina sounds "happy" on its surface, there is a sinister subtext to the whole thing, since it's merely Don Giovanni trying to trick Zerlina for his own gains. So Mozart's music is reflecting the "surface level" seduction, and leaves it to the audience to deduce the subtext.

 

In a way, it's the Starship Troopers of its time.

[Score 770]

22 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

I just started Don Giovanni. I'm obviously enjoying the music immensely and will check out Gardiner and Norrington after Karajan. But: Isn't most of the music inappropriately cheerful? Since this is essentially about a vile predator, shouldn't it be more dramatic? Or does opera not allow for that sort of approach?

 

It's labeled as a "dramma giocoso" (= "playful drama"), see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramma_giocoso . The point of this kind of operas was to treat a dramatic subject in a light and at points cheerful way (see the character of Leporello). To us, it may indeed seem less dramatic than it should be, but that's because we come after Romanticism (19th century) and the full 20th century, which redefined the ways music can express emotions - in large part due to the evolution of the musical language, but also to a general change in sensibility. Even the climax of the opera, the scene where Don Giovanni is carried down to hell by the demons, is not frightening at all by today's standards, although it was almost an avant-garde piece at that time. And it is followed by a major-key finale, which is surely not what a Romantic composer would have done. It was the spirit of the time, and while some aspects of it may seem strange to us, it was a masterpiece which had a huge influence on all the opera composers who came afterwards. 

 

 

 

[bollemanneke 3,337]

So... are you saying that Mozart and co found Don Giovanni's behaviour not disconcerting at all? I read the summary before listening and was genuinely uneasy.

[Score 770]

1 minute ago, bollemanneke said:

So... are you saying that Mozart and co found Don Giovanni's behaviour not disconcerting at all? I read the summary before listening and was genuinely uneasy.

 

No, I'm not saying this. Mozart and Da Ponte's judgement on Don Giovanni is very clear from the fact that the character is carried to hell at the end, and from the final ensemble piece "Questo è il fin di chi fa mal..." (= "This is the end of the wrongdoers..."). The point is about the way the authors chose to tell the story, by means of a "dramma giocoso" rather than just a "dramma". And the idea that you could treat such a topic in a (mostly) cheerful way is typical of the century when Don Giovanni was composed. 

 

Think of another opera of the 19th century featuring another vile predator: Rigoletto, by Verdi (composed 1851). The character of the Duke of Mantua has many traits in common with Don Giovanni (it is also said that Verdi had thoroughly studied the score of Don Giovanni before composing Rigoletto). The consequences of his (and not only his) actions on the main character are quite terrible, and the opera ends tragically. And there are no real moments of comical relief during that opera, although the main character is a court jester - the point, in that case, is to show the tragedy in the life of that man. A very different mindset with respect to Don Giovanni: Don Giovanni is a product of the Classical period of music, while Rigoletto fully belongs to Romanticism.     

 

 

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

6 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

So... are you saying that Mozart and co found Don Giovanni's behaviour not disconcerting at all? I read the summary before listening and was genuinely uneasy.

 

I think what they're saying is that he (or Da Ponte) did deliberately work that uneasiness into the plot and the music. And his final descent into hell is clearly depicted as just punishment, at the very least because Giovanni, given several chances, refuses to repent. The final tableau (a device found in all three of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas) gives the whole affair a happy moral end because the "hero" was rightfully punished.

 

I disagree that it's not dramatic, by the way. Despite the overall buffo styling, there's certainly a lot of darkness in it (just listen to the overture), and the finale can be staged pretty dramatically (although I've seen ridiculous versions like one where Giovanni, aged dramatically (why?) goes into a plexiglas cage for his final descent and bursts into a splash of blood… problem is, because the cage is soundproof, he has to be microphoned and played via speakers for his final lines…)

 

…nevertheless, his behaviour is certainly even more appalling from our current POV than it was for Mozart, Da Ponte & Co. But then that's true of pretty much every narrative piece of art older than (at most) a couple of decades and based on such types of conflict. I just re-watched Hitchcock's Rebecca the other day and didn't find the first half easy to watch, because it wasn't at all clear to me how much of it is deliberate in portraying a toxic relationship and how much, at the time, was merely "romantic drama".

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Finished. Isn't DG supposed to shout in pain at the end? This was kind of weak. You could have done more, Karajan!

[Naïve Old Fart 9,499]

I'm  SCHEHERAZADE, in BBC Radio 3. Lovely stuff.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

2 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Finished. Isn't DG supposed to shout in pain at the end? This was kind of weak. You could have done more, Karajan!

 

Which version?

 

Do I have to recommend Jacobs again? Is that enough of a scream?

 

If not, switch to Solit's recording of Strauss's Elektra:

 

[bollemanneke 3,337]

The DG one. Okay, Jacobs sounds good, but when I sampled his Abduction from the Serail, it sounded awfully dull, like a Giacchino score, so I blacklisted him.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

1 hour ago, bollemanneke said:

The DG one. Okay, Jacobs sounds good, but when I sampled his Abduction from the Serail, it sounded awfully dull, like a Giacchino score, so I blacklisted him.

 

I haven't heard that one, but if you're skipping a brilliant set of Da Ponte/Mozart recordings because he may have made a less good one elsewhere, that's your loss I guess.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

The thing is, the amount of available recordings is so insane that I have to be radical. I'll reconsider this one.

[michael_grig 464]

1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

 

 

Do I have to recommend Jacobs again? Is that enough of a scream?

 

The Freiburger Barockorchester version is my absolute favorite performance of Don Giovanni! It has so much power!

[Schilkeman 955]

Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra: Vaughan-Williams Symphonie 3&4. I still have not found a better cycle than this one from the late 60's/early70's. The recording quality is still outstanding, and the LSO is unparalleled. I thinks it's great that he essentially wrote two symphonies on the same subject, and had two drastically different results. Now if only Maurice Murphy had been principle before 1977...

[Naïve Old Fart 9,499]

@Schilkeman, Have you tried the Norrington/London Philharmonic Orchestra?

I've not heard the Andrew Preview versions, but his LSO recording of THE PLANETS from 1974(?), is my equal-favourite, with the Dutoit/Montreal, and it sounds even better, in 5.1.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Beethoven 9, Zander, Philharmonia. I can do anything. Anything.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Water music, Roger Norrington. Conservative, but very well played. Loving the oboes.

[Loert 2,510]

 

[Omen II 1,235]

I went to a great BBC Proms concert yesterday in which every piece pertained to the sea.  The undoubted highlight was Ralph Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony in the second half, but the first half also featured two works by British female composers which deserve to be heard more often.  Before Grace Williams's Sea Sketches, the concert opened with Doreen Carwithen's Bishop Rock.  Carwithen would later marry film composer William Alwyn following a lengthy clandestine affair.

 

The concert will be broadcast on BBC TV tomorrow evening (Friday) for anyone interested.

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I suppose it'd be leaning too heavily on the established big names to have RVW and Britten on the program, but man I do love the Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,499]

@Omen II, I love RVW's A SEA SYMPHONY, but, for me, it doesn't quite attain the heights of his A LONDON SYMPHONY.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

14 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

@Omen II, I love RVW's A SEA SYMPHONY, but, for me, it doesn't quite attain the heights of his A LONDON SYMPHONY.

 

Other way round for me. But I'm still waiting for my chance to hear either of them live.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

On 25/7/2022 at 7:24 PM, Schilkeman said:

Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra: Vaughan-Williams Symphonie 3&4. I still have not found a better cycle than this one from the late 60's/early70's. The recording quality is still outstanding, and the LSO is unparalleled. I thinks it's great that he essentially wrote two symphonies on the same subject, and had two drastically different results. Now if only Maurice Murphy had been principle before 1977...

Have that!

[Schilkeman 955]

On 26/07/2022 at 8:21 AM, Naïve Old Fart said:

@Schilkeman, Have you tried the Norrington/London Philharmonic Orchestra?

I've not heard the Andrew Preview versions, but his LSO recording of THE PLANETS from 1974(?), is my equal-favourite, with the Dutoit/Montreal, and it sounds even better, in 5.1.

I have. It's a fine cycle, but the London Phil just isn't as precise as the LSO, they just have an effortless type of virtuosity that I find more appealing,  also the recording quality isn't as good. Norrington is just a little brisk at times, which I don't necessarily mind, I love almost everything Gardiner does, but I find no sense of discovery there that I do with Previn.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Anybody have a recording of the Mahler 4 they particularly love?

 

I'm trying again.

On 17/05/2022 at 11:07 AM, Stu said:

Mahler is someone I recognize was a genius, but his music means nothing to me.  Believe me I tried and tried, mostly because Copland was such an admirer.

 

The 4th symphony reminds me of a line Copland once wrote about Mahler: "He was never more Mahler than when he was copying Mozart"

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

The 4th, popular though it is, completely passes me by every time I try to listen to it. And I enjoy the rest of his first 6 symphonies quite a lot. (The 8th still takes more work, and 7 & 9 (and 10) I haven't yet cracked, because I've hardly ever listened to them).

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I have to admit, the second theme of the opening movement is very pretty and pleasant (Copland would have called it 'banal' though I'm sure).  I like what he does with this theme in particular later in the recapitulation.

 

(1:31)

 

 

For now, I've settled on this Marriner recording with the Stuttgart radio symphony.

[Mr. Who 919]

Mendelssohn violin concerto performed by Janine Jansen and the Gewandhausorchester. Brilliant piece and performance.

[Deacon Blues 65]

Mahler's 5th Symphony, performed by Wiener Philharmoniker. 

 

[Schilkeman 955]

On 02/08/2022 at 8:28 AM, Stu said:

Anybody have a recording of the Mahler 4 they particularly love?

 

I'm trying again.

 

The 4th symphony reminds me of a line Copland once wrote about Mahler: "He was never more Mahler than when he was copying Mozart"

I like Rattle's recording with the CBSO. He did a fine one with Berlin, but it doesn't appear to be on CD or streaming. I also enjoyed Gergiev with the Munich Philharmonic, though it didn't review well. Ivan Fischer with the Budapest Festival Orchestra is a standard for a reason, same with Bernstein. I just like Mahler and Rattle. They're both very idiosyncratic and go well together.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I'll take the most headache-inducing serialist music ever written over this nonsense

 

Quote

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is about mass and density, how different planes of sounds collide and combine

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/12/prom-34-bbcphilollikainen-review-anna-thorvaldsdottir

 

No knock on anyone who gets something out of this kind of music, but getting together dozens of the finest musicians in the world to play something like a John Luther Adams or Thorvaldsdottir piece for me is such a huge waste of everyone's time, talent, and money.  New Age-ish narcoleptic gobbledygook.

 

The Emperor ain't wearing any clothes

Quote

The immediacy of the music was certainly more graspable than anything in Thorvaldsdottir’s programme note, which talked about the “halo” of primordial energy and the idea of “an omnipresent parallel realm” providing its inspiration.

 

[Loert 2,510]

Eh, I actually like Thorvaldsdottir. But the Proms wouldn't be the Proms if they didn't offset a piece widely regarded as great with a piece conjured up from deep within the "Ivory Tower" (unless it's a Mahler symphony, which is just too long to programme alongside anything else)

[Naïve Old Fart 9,499]

What do JWfaners think of an English pianist called Bernard Roberts?

I only ask because this week, at my local thrift store, I picked up his

COMPLETE BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS for the ridiculous price of...well, frankly, I'm not too sure. I must have bought around 25 CDs, and 6 or 7 DVDs, all for £7.50.

Anyhoo...they are all on the Nimbus label, and, to these uneducated ears, they sound just fine. What do y'all think?

 

(edit) Geez Louise! I've just gone on Amazon: a new set is selling for over £42!  Zoikes!

[Schilkeman 955]

You know, I had a jazz professor in collage who, in my freshman year, on the very first day, say to us we were going to be confronted with music that we may not always like, but to ask ourselves, "do I not like this, or do I not understand this?" The two are not mutually exclusive of course, but I try not to dismiss music that I may not understand as music I don't like. I can say, for instance, with some certainty, that I do not like Wagner, but I do not have a firm enough grasp of Lutoslawski to have an opinion one way or the other.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Well, I'm about to pack for Ireland, so... Beethoven 7, Karajan & BPO, 77. They are (and I am) on fire.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,499]

Ireland?

Ireland, schmireland. Scotland is where it's at.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Have you heard John McEwen's Scottish themed works?  The Solway Symphony, the Scottish Rhapsody, and a few others.  Very much in the late Romantic Straussian style, so not my wheelhouse necessarily, but I find things to enjoy in them

 

 

[bollemanneke 3,337]

22 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Ireland?

Ireland, schmireland. Scotland is where it's at.

The Irish have a way more juicy accent. And they're still in the EU. And they have 13-20 degrees next week. And they have traditional fiddle music.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,499]

Huh!

Fiddle? Schmiddle! We have bagpipes!!!

 

Seriously, have a great time.