Classical Music Thread

As the barely educated numbskull that I am, I've never head of Gustave Holst till recently. By the sound of his compositions, John Williams and Danny Elfman owe his work a lot for their career:

 
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ShittyRecolor said:
As the barely educated numbskull that I am, I've never head of Gustave Holst till recently. By the sound of his compositions, John Williams and Danny Elfman owe his work a lot for their career:
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John Williams is an inveterate "borrower": the pulsating strings in Jaws theme is lifted from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Star Wars is pretty much Wagner in space, and Tchaikovsky is always peering whenever the music gets sentimental. He is certainly a effective and well-loved composer, but he sure wears his influence on his sleeve.
 
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More Francis Poulenc.

The song cycle La Travail du peintre (The Painter's Work) consists of seven poems by Paul Eluard, each describing the style of a modernist painter. They are: Picasso ("A hand why not a second hand?"), Chagail ("A couple drenched in their springtime"), Georges Braque ("A man with light weight eyes describes the sky of love"), Juan Gris ("Newspaper neglected its half"), Klee ("Knives are signs and bullets tears"), Miro ("Remove the hill, remove the forest/ The sky is more beautiful than ever") and Jacques Villon ("Life ever to be cherished / in spite of scourges"). Poulenc had requested an extra poem about Matisse but it did not happen.

 
I'll probably get docked points for listening to what is nominally children's music, but I've enjoyed The Composer is Dead, an introduction to the orchestra composed by Nathaniel Stookey, following a story by Lemony Snicket.

 
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Penderecki's Sixth Symphony has just received its world premier in Guangzhou. This is apparently the last symphony he would ever write (he has already completed a 7th and 8th, skipping the 6th because it was intended to be his "Pastoral Symphony". In a lecture 4 years ago he stated an intention to write a 9th before calling it quits). Descriptions from reviewers were intriguing, if somewhat confused. The Sixth, instead of being a "Pastoral", is a song cycle like Das Lied von der Erde set to German translations of Tang Dynasty poetry (the work is a joint Chinese-German commission). There was supposed to be a erhu solo in the printed score which did not appear in the premier. The sound was described as Mahlerian, which is not out of the line with Penderecki's late works.

Before the symphony inevitably makes its way to Youtube, let's listen to his Eighth Symphony "Songs of Transience", which is written in a idiom slightly more modernist than Mahler's but is still very Romantic for a late 20th century work.

 
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Today, I remembered for the first time in an embarrassingly long while that Ricky Ian Gordon exists and finally committed to getting a few of his song books. He dances on this happy little edge between classical music and musical theater. Most of the pieces I like from him are a bit contemplative, but "Joy" is fun.

 
I have to expose myself as the uncouth, half-educated peasant that I am, but there's this piece of music in a game called Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich that heavily lifts from a very well known opera piece I used to know the title of, but to my overbearing shame can't recall for the life of me. It's a very obvious one too, I'm positive you Kiwis that are a lot more cultured than I am will recognize it in a heartbeat:

 

I don't even care about anyone's opinion on this, or the opinions people have about Glenn Gould being a complete asshole or whatever.

This is just a fuck-you perfect performance. Glenn Gould is a fucking god.
 
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AnOminous said:

I don't even care about anyone's opinion on this, or the opinions people have about Glenn Gould being a complete asshole or whatever.

This is just a fuck-you perfect performance. Glenn Gould is a fucking god.
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It is perfect because it is a re-creation with Yamaha's Disklavier, so you don't hear Gould's grunting (I don't think he grunts on the 1955 recording but he sure does on the 1981 one).

Gould isn't an asshole in my opinion, just very very asocial (autistic?). I imagine if he lived longer, his insight about what a music recording should be would have catapulted the technology at least ten years.

@ShittyRecolor, Can't help you with that clip sorry.
 
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Positron said:
It is perfect because it is a re-creation with Yamaha's Disklavier, so you don't hear Gould's grunting (I don't think he grunts on the 1955 recording but he sure does on the 1981 one).

Gould isn't an asshole in my opinion, just very very asocial (autistic?). I imagine if he lived longer, his insight about what a music recording should be would have catapulted the technology at least ten years.

@ShittyRecolor, Can't help you with that clip sorry.
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No problem my friend, thanks for checking it out anyways!
 
AnOminous said:
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not picking the superior 81 version
but other then that totally agree glenn gould was great he also did a version of Beethoven 5th symphony that will knock your socks off but i can't find a youtube version of it sadly
 
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Positron said:
It is perfect because it is a re-creation with Yamaha's Disklavier, so you don't hear Gould's grunting (I don't think he grunts on the 1955 recording but he sure does on the 1981 one).
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Agreed, the grunt removal is definitely an improvement. It's rather shocking that someone with such an excellent grasp of the actual music didn't get that his vile noises were defiling his recordings. But whatever.

geekboy400 said:
not picking the superior 81 version
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It may be technically superior but the 1955 one is the first I heard and fell in love with, and so I love that one inordinately. I don't care which one is objectively better. I have a tendency to fall in love with the first of something I hear and then just never can switch my affection on and off.

This sentimentality means my opinions on classical music are probably bad. I base them on feels rather than reals.

Also I went back and looked at the accordion dude doing Gnossiennes.


Holy shit this is fucking good.
 
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Also while I'm speaking about sentimentality, this.


And yes, I somewhat worship Neville Marriner as an conductor and arranger. Also a completely trite opinion as virtually everyone also does.

ETA: fixing the appalling lack of auto-embed.
 
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