Classical Music Thread

[Positron]

Hungarian composer and music educator Leó Weiner was an exact contemporary with Bela Bartok (same years of birth and death), and for a time they were collegues at the Liszt Academy of Budapest. So it might be tempting to put Weiner's three string quartets with Bartok's six. Turns out it isn't a good idea at all: Weiner's style is completely opposite to Bartok's. Let's check out Weiner's last string quartet "Pastorale, Fantasy, and Fugue", written in 1938, one year before Bartok's grave and harrowing final string quartet.

Right from the start you'll sense Weiner is a very lyrical composer, somewhat like Vaughan Williams but with higher degree of dissonance.

The middle movement, "Fantasy", evoke a peaceful and somewhat sultry nightscape, more akin to Debussy's Ibéria than to any examples of Bartok's mysterious, portentous "night music".

The Fugue that ends the quartet is its weakest, least inspired movement, but the simple, peasanty fun is quite charming.

My CD booklet (Praga PRD/DSD 250228 ) claims Weiner and Bartok were childhood friends, yet Weiner only get one passing mention in Kenneth Clamber's biography of Bartok. The two men must have had very different temperament as adults and have gone separate artistic ways.

 

[DaddyCowboy]

I've been listening to a lot of Mahler's symphonies again after reading seeing a documentary about his life, and I can now honestly say that Mahler is one of my favorite composers now, due to how raw, emotional, and personal his music felt. Also, he can make Wagner look like a bitch with how loud/big his orchestra needs to be.

 

[Lee Crabb]

French Impressionism is the last real movement in classical music that I adore.

 

[Realistic Elephant]

Holst: The Planets, Op.32 - 7. Neptune, The Mystic

Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupHolst: The Planets, Op.32 - 7. Neptune, The Mystic · Chicago Symphony Orchestra · James Levine · Chicago Symphony...

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Gustav Holst's The Planets , No.7 Neptune: The Mystic has always been one of those compositions that has really struck me. It's got such an ethereal. vast, spiritual feel to it....the dissonance throughout it builds up a kind of tension, not in an uneasy or frightening way but more like you're on the edge of some great discovery, transcendence, not really sure how to describe it.

Then the chorus begins building towards the end of the piece and slowly fades away to silence. It just makes me think of those space probes like the Voyagers drifting further and further into the unknown.

 

[Positron]

Dusting off some old Wergo CDs I found a beautiful set of piano pieces by German composer Detlev Glanert (b. 1960). Four Fantasies, Op. 15.

Think Debussy's Preludes meet Morton Feldman. The four Fantasies each bear a title: "In Silence", "Sea of Marbles", "On the Road" and "The Occident" (which ends indecisively)

 

[Positron]

Jehan Alain was the chaddest of composers. He died in action during WWI, as a dispatch rider. He was ambushed and was killed by the Germans, but not before he gunned down 16 of them. Alain was from a family of organists -- his younger sister Marie-Claire was very famous -- and most of his works are for solo organ. I, however, wants to draw attention to a work that Alain wrote specifically for churches without an organ, The Septet Modal Mass for two voices, flute, and string quartet.

It is a very gentle, even chaste, composition. The string quartet evokes the rich harmony that recalls the long-held notes of the organ, while the flute is air-bound.

 

[Lee Crabb]

A "new" discovery of mine on the car ride to work. Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances Suite no. 1 (1917)

What's interesting is that Respighi wasn't just a composer but a music historian and that this piece consists of a compilation of late Italian renaissance lute songs (one was composed by Galileo's dad) transcribed for 20th century full orchestra. As a result you have this song that sounds both really old AND modern in parts.

 

[Positron]

Another example of Respighi's 20th century update of old music is the middle movement of Trittico Botticelliano, "The Adoration of the Magi"

 

[Anstiv]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lZLRm7GgBit5lMtceRdhf5GWCQlnGa9co

Some really nice violin concertos written by Tor Aulin, recorded by Ulf Wallin and the Helsingborg Symphony. In general I really like Wallin's stylistic choices as well.

@Lee Crabb One of my favourite things to bring up that Satie wrote was his daily schedule, which is quite funny to read.

U B U W E B :: Erik Satie -- "A Day in the Life of a Musician"

If you're interested in reading more about Satie and art from the time, "The Banquet Years" by Roger Shattuck is a classic.

 

[Positron]

Some really nice violin concertos written by Tor Aulin, recorded by Ulf Wallin and the Helsingborg Symphony.

Oh I need this one! Just waiting for JPC to offer it at 2.99 Euros.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Positron]

There are far, far more to Joaquin Rodrigo than his famous Concierto de Aranjuez. For the last month or so I've been listening to the 2CD collection of his complete piano music played by Sara Marianovich. The pieces are very intriguing; and I've meant to post something on here, but I couldn't quite gather my thoughts about them (especially since the booklet is in Japanese only). So today let me present his Música para un códice salmantino ("Music on a Salmancan Codex", 1953), a song written for orchestra, Bass soloist, and chorus:

The interweaving counterpoint of the long prelude speaks of ancient music, but the harmonies are late romantic or early 20th-century. The song proper is more conventional late-romantic; Rodrigo is able to bring out amazing orchestral lushness with just 11 instruments. The soloist is supposed to be a bass, but all versions I can find on Youtube are sung by baritones (The version on the Naxos disc I have seems to be sung by a low tenor). I think a low bass would work better.

Another of his accomplishment is the Cantico de San Francisco de Asis, for orchestra and chorus. Listen to the sinuous Andalusian theme announced by the flute at the outset, gently accompanied by ebbing strings, and then answered by the wordless chorus. It is very redolent of Gustav Holst's Rig Veda-influenced mysticism.

It is not an unqualified masterpiece, because I feel that the musical themes are not adequately developed, but it is an accomplishment.

 

[JJLiautaud]

I love Martinu and Vaughn Williams.
Martinu's Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani is a really inspired piece written at a time that must've blown the filthiest of horse cock, during the Munich Agreement and a torrid one sided love affair with a student.

And Williams Sinfonia Antartica is a favorite of mine to play during Ice Crown Citadel Raids.

​

 

[Positron]

Dutch Conductor Bernard Haitink died on 21 October at the age of 92.

Haitink should be a very familiar name for music lovers of a certain age: Haitink, at the Royal Concertgebouw, was one of the two ace conductors of Philips Classics --Neville Marriner for baroque and classical repertoire; Haitink for romantic and 20th century stuff. And Haitink is a very self-effacing man, just like Marriner.

Musically omnivorous though he is, to me Haitink is always associated with Mahler. His recording of Das Lied, with Janet Baker and James King, is a rare miracle of synergy:

 

[Positron]

Hanns Eisler's Kleine Sinfonie Op. 29 is a structurally compact work. The insouciance of jazz haunts the work, which calls for strings, flute, percussion, brass, two bass clarinets and two saxophones. Yet the tight-knit musical structure prevents the piece from being seen as frivolous. The opening movement, for example, presents a theme and 23 variations in just 5 minutes. The third movement is an "Invention", a contrapuntal form associated with Bach. The small band allows the parts to be clearly discerned, while the brass-heavy instrumentation allows some novel timbres, such as the duo saxophones that opens the second movement, less prominent in this recording than some.

 

[Fetish Roulette]

This is the best rendition of Jesu that I've ever heard. I don't know what exactly is different, but it's miles above even other organ performances.

 

[Lee Crabb]

Another "new" discovery made listening to the radio on the way to work. I really enjoy it.

Capriol Suite by Peter Warlock (1926)

Looked up the composer's wikipedia page afterwards and I think this guy could have had a thread on the farms if it was around the 1920s. Turbo occultist coomer who would have orgies and physical altercations early in the morning. Rode a motorcycle naked around town. Killed himself probably because his Catholic girlfriend refused to get an abortion.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Positron]

Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Songbook was not meant to be a formal song cycle, but rather a collection of thoughts on culture shock. The title is deeply ironic: on one side it answers to the famous "Songbooks" by Hugo Wolf, on the other it reflects the experience of people who arrived at the New World but were at odds with its crass mercantilism, the "exiles in paradise". For many Europeans displaced by WWII, Hollywood has indeed proved to be an avenue for fame and fortune, yet for hard-line communists like Eisler and Bertolt Brecht (which provided most of the texts), Hollywood meant poverty, alienation, and indeed persecution.

"Auf der Flucht" ("On The Run", text by Brecht) speaks of the abandonment of one's ideal:

Abandoning, in haste to cross the border
My books to friends. I left my poem too.
But took along my pipes, which broke the general rule
For refugees: Best have nothing with you.
Those books doesn't mean much to the man who
Grimly waits to see his torturers approaching
His leather pouch and smoking gears
Now looks like something of more use.

In "Der Schatzgräber" ("The Treasure Hunter"), Eisler expresses his communist ideal through the mouth of Goethe:

Drink to life above the surface
Search no more for false foundation
Stop your feeble incantations
Take your shovel somewhere else
Work in daytime! -- Evenings, see friends!
Five days of labor -- Joyful weekends!
Those must be your only magic spells in the future!

"Die Maske die Bösen" (The Mask of Evil, text by Brecht), reminds me of MovieBob:

Against my wall I have a Japanese carving
painted with a golden lacquer, the mask of a demon
Deeply concerned, I look at
These swollen veins in his forehead, proving
How strenuous it must be to be evil.

"Nightmare", set to Eisler's own English text, is an outcry about forced conformity in the Land Of The Free, something even truer today than in the 1940s.

The rat-men accused me of not liking stench
Of not liking garbage, of not liking their squeals
Of not liking to eat dirt. For days they argued
Considering the question from every angle
Finally they condemned me. You don't like stench
You don't like garbage. You don't like our squeals
You don't like to eat dirt.

Predictably, Eisler's stint in America was destined to be short. Despite having a host of famous defendants, including Charlie Chaplin, Eisler was deported in 1948, 10 years after he first set foot in The Land Of the Free.