Classical Music Thread

Emerson's Bartok is really, really superb, absolute precision and searing emotion, all the more amazing because they recorded the cycle in concert. Yet sometimes I'd prefer the more lyrical interpretation of the ABQ.

 
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Just took advantage of JPC's blowout sale (3 euros per CD) to complete my 8-CD set of orchestral works by the Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik. This set, released by JPC's house label CPO, has won huge acclaims. I checked against Panufnik's official page and it seems almost all of the orchestral works are there in this set -- the major exception is the 40-minute Arbor Cosmica, 12 Evocations for 12 Strings. Fortunately I already have the composer's own interpretation:


For the background of this piece I direct you to the composer's own notes.

Panufnik's reception in the West is a curious matter. He was an acclaimed conductor and was knighted for his contribution to classical music, but unlike his compatriots Lutoslawski and Penderecki, no major record label took him up, and until the CPO set his presence from independent labels has been spotty at best. The notes on my CD of Arbor Cosmica attributes this neglect to the "mystical" quality of his music, but such mysticism did no harm to composers ranging from Scriabin to Messiaen to Tavener. My suspicion is that Panufnik's style falls uneasily between the tonal-harmonic conservative and the sonic-cluster avant-garde. Not pleasant enough to please the crowds, yet not outrageous enough to shock. The absent of protegees with a strong personality (like Boulez for Messiaen) also counted against him.
 
Mister Qwerty said:

Glenn Gould - How Mozart Became a Bad Composer​



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Gould's autistic and dry sensibilities poisoned him against a lot of composers, and most famously Mozart, whose sweet Rococo delicacy is something Gould could have no hope of playing. However Gould felt about Mozart, the fact is that he couldn't play him properly. Gould could barely manage French Baroque, and Bach used to ape French music all the time. He was amazing at German Baroque, but the music of sweeter, more sensualistic cultures like France and Austria always eluded him.

Speaking of France, here's an absolute knockout of a soprano singing French peasant music.
 
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Nikos Skalkottas's Concerto for Two Violins was left unorchestrated at the time of his death in 1949, at the age of 44. Skalkottas apparently had second thoughts about this pungently dissonant music so he shelved it. But even the version as its stands, for two pianos and two violins, is an extremely impactful musical statement.

Indeed, having it orchestrated seems (to me at least) to lessen its impact:
 
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James Levine just died at the age of 77, pretty young by conductor standards. It is a pity that the last pages of his life involved a really really sordid gay #MeToo scandal.

While usually known as an over-emotional, almost gaudy conductor of opera, Levine had a little-known passion for new music, and did what I'm sure is the only recording of Milton Babbitt's work on a big label:

 
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New to thread, figured I'd share probably my favourite composition, Schnittke's Piano Quintet. I guess this might sound kinda cringey, but this piece really speaks to me on a very deep level that few things have before. Both listening to it and performing, it's something else.


Not my favourite recording, but the only decent one on youtube. If you have spotify, the recording by the Vermeer Quartet is probably my favourite
 
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Positron said:
James Levine just died at the age of 77, pretty young by conductor standards. It is a pity that the last pages of his life involved a really really sordid gay #MeToo scandal.

While usually known as an over-emotional, almost gaudy conductor of opera, Levine had a little-known passion for new music, and did what I'm sure is the only recording of Milton Babbitt's work on a big label:

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Have you read Babbitt's essays (not to imply you haven't, I have a decent inkling that you have)? Particularly his one's on Bartok are incredibly insightful, and I'd highly recommend them to anyone. That and his essay "Who Cares if You Listen" is also great.
 
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Anstiv said:
Have you read Babbitt's essays (not to imply you haven't, I have a decent inkling that you have)? Particularly his one's on Bartok are incredibly insightful, and I'd highly recommend them to anyone. That and his essay "Who Cares if You Listen" is also great.
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Babbitt has a positivist streak -- every statement about music must be empirically provable, or else is nonsense -- that doesn't endear him to me (and is self-defeating anyway, for how can you empirically prove the statement between the dashes?). Still, I see his analysis as a corrective to the everything-goes "musical criticism" of today. As feminist "critics" raged at his Philomel crying rape rape rape rape rape, Babbitt, coolheadedly, demanded, "point out the evidence to me; show me your work".

Babbitt's position in "Who Cares" is in common to many very logical and very cloistered people -- particle physicists and SETI researchers, for example. They demand support because they see their fields as autonomous and unreservedly good for, if not the public, at least the nebulous notion of "civilization" and "humanity", yet I feel they have not sufficiently examined these assumptions. I think his deliberately setting himself (and his few peers) apart from the masses has also cost him potential audiences. Today it is easy to find recordings of very uncompromising compositions, such as those by Helmut Lachenmann or Olga Neuwirth, but recordings of Babbitt remain rare. If you don't care if anyone listens, those who actually want to listen to you will end up being deprived.

I remember going to a concert conducted by Paul Zukofsky, a violinist-conductor strongly associated with John Cage. Babbitt's Woodwind Quartet was on the program. The organizers have prepared a severe, lengthy analysis on this work -- until Zukofsky came along and told them to dispense with it: no, that will get in the way of the music. If the audience wants to learn the nitty-gritty of music structure they can browse the internet.

Anstiv said:
the recording by the Vermeer Quartet is probably my favourite
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Naxos. Boris Berman. Great one.
 
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Schubert's song "Am Bach im Frühlin" ("By The Brook in Spring"), D361. Spring has broken the icy crust over the brook, and the land is clothed with flowers, yet the poet is still unhappy. You can guess why.

Not a very distinguished verse, at least according to Graham Johnson, but who can resist this melody?

 
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Negrate me if this is the wrong place to do so, but I am a newfag when it comes to classical music. I recently discovered that I enjoy listening to it when reading/studying over music like lofi, since I tend to focus more on the assignment when there isn't a beat.

I am tired of listening to Claire de Lune on repeat when I study, can anyone recommend other soft/relaxing piano songs for me to listen to? If you want, PM me or post on my profile so I don't shit up the thread with my request.
 
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Mal.0 said:
I am tired of listening to Claire de Lune on repeat when I study, can anyone recommend other soft/relaxing piano songs for me to listen to? If you want, PM me or post on my profile so I don't shit up the thread with my request.
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Assuming you've already gone through Debussy's Preludes and Chopin's nocturnes, you may want to try:
Mendelssohn's Song Without Words.
Janácek's On an Overgrown Path
Mompou's Musica Callada.

Many people like Arvo Part's Für Alina, I don't particularly do. For music that is, for lack of a better word, "atmospheric", I prefer Howard Skempton.
 
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Very rich and enjoyable thread. I will add a few pieces I like.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) La Damnation de Faust, Op.24 / Part 1 - Marche hongroise

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) Faust, CG 4, Act 4 Scene 4: No. 22, Choeur des soldats "Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux" (Soldiers' choir - "Immortal glory of our forefathers")



And now a few from Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921).

A lesser-known piece he composed to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

Perhaps his most famous piece.

This is also pretty well-known.

And a few more.
 
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Here's a wonderful orchestration by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937).

Composed between 1914 and 1917, the piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin comprises six pieces, Prélude, Fugue, Forlane, Rigaudon, Minuet and Toccata, dedicated to the memory of fallen friends during the First World War. Ravel subsequently orchestrated four of these pieces, heard for the first time in this form in February 1920 and played in the following order: Prélude, Forlane, Menuet and Rigaudon.

Almost 80 years later, the Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis set out to orchestrate the two remaining pieces, the Fugue and the Toccata. It is this full orchestral version that can be heard here, performed by the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Kocsis (the image on the video is a partial view of a drawing by Ravel adorning the original score).

(Translated from the description of the video.)


Kornula said:
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Masterpiece, thank you, it's been a while since I last listened to it.
 
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Ultima Ratio Regum said:
Here's a wonderful orchestration by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937).

Composed between 1914 and 1917, the piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin comprises six pieces, Prélude, Fugue, Forlane, Rigaudon, Minuet and Toccata, dedicated to the memory of fallen friends during the First World War. Ravel subsequently orchestrated four of these pieces, heard for the first time in this form in February 1920 and played in the following order: Prélude, Forlane, Menuet and Rigaudon.

Almost 80 years later, the Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis set out to orchestrate the two remaining pieces, the Fugue and the Toccata. It is this full orchestral version that can be heard here, performed by the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Kocsis (the image on the video is a partial view of a drawing by Ravel adorning the original score).

(Translated from the description of the video.)



Masterpiece, thank you, it's been a while since I last listened to it.
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I love this piece espically since my first exposure to it was from an odd movie made back in 1983: "Liquid Sky"
 
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Ultima Ratio Regum said:
Here's a wonderful orchestration by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937).

Composed between 1914 and 1917, the piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin comprises six pieces, Prélude, Fugue, Forlane, Rigaudon, Minuet and Toccata, dedicated to the memory of fallen friends during the First World War. Ravel subsequently orchestrated four of these pieces, heard for the first time in this form in February 1920 and played in the following order: Prélude, Forlane, Menuet and Rigaudon.

Almost 80 years later, the Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis set out to orchestrate the two remaining pieces, the Fugue and the Toccata. It is this full orchestral version that can be heard here, performed by the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Kocsis (the image on the video is a partial view of a drawing by Ravel adorning the original score).

(Translated from the description of the video.)



Masterpiece, thank you, it's been a while since I last listened to it.
Click to expand...

Thank you for posting it. I'm not aware of his orchestrations.
Kocsis is very underappreciated outside Bartok, although his Debussy won some acclaims too.
 
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