Classical Music Thread

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Polish Businessman]

Based lolcow, with Mozart even more so.

I'm surprised there's no mention of Bruckner, the autistic incel hillbilly composer. His music is extremely controversial. Decide for yourself whether it's God speaking through the simpleton or just some long, inept, boring symphonic boa constrictors, as Brahms called them.

Here's Bruckner's 8th conducted by Günter Wand, perhaps his biggest fan:

 

[Positron]

Josef Suk is known for his fatalistic orchestral works, the most famous being the Asrael Symphony, written to commemorate the deaths of his wife Otilie and his father-in-law Antonin Dvořák. A Summer Tale, written two years after Asrael and with it shares thematic material, continues the dark and turbulent mental journey. The death-haunted protagonist attempts to find solace in the natural world. To some extent he succeeds, as long as the sun shines (Movement II) while the playing of blind folk musicians (Movement III: Intermezzo) soothes his soul. But when night falls (Movement IV), nature takes up a phantasmagoria not that much different from the Witch's Sabbath in Berlioz's opium-fueled nightmare. Still, at long last the nightmare recedes and he is able to achieve some repose.

 

[Positron]

As noted by The Elgar Society, posteriority has not been kind to Elgar's early oratorio The Black Knight. But listening to a committed performance, such as Richard Hickox's, you'll be impress by how much of the mature Elgar is already in full bloom, in particular the rousing "nationalistic" mood and the sumptuous, lapidary orchestration. What especially strikes me in this work is its insistent drive: the music keeps pushing forward, even in the lyrical dance scene in the Third Movement. The later Elgar would give his music more and more space for reflection.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Fetish Roulette]

I found a very fun playlist of some of Bach's songs adapted in a Brazilian fashion. Here's one of my favorites.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Positron]

Peter Maxwell Davies's chamber opera The Lighthouse is about the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse watchmen. Trapped in a storm and with supplies running short, they let their respective inner demons overcome them. Each watchman sings of his past and his fatal obsession in a solo song. Blaze, the ruthless gangster, starts off with a happy-sounding ditty that tells of the harrowing abuse he has suffered as a child, and the blood-curdling detail of how he murdered an old woman upstairs for her savings.

Sandy, the romantic, follows with a clichés-riddled pastoral romance:

Oh my love, I dream of you​

Your hair of gold, your eyes so blue.​

Oh that you held me in your arms!​

I am transported by your charms.​

​

In a meadow sweet, in a secret valley,​

Resting on my staff, I muse and tarry.​

Fast I come to where my love doth lie,​

And all my senses sense defy.​

​

From my sleep, so deep, so long,​

By the cock, crowing loud, I am aroused --​

My dream is flown​

Which his two colleagues rearrange to bring out the double entendre:

Your hair of gold...in a secret valley... so deep, so deep...​

Your eyes of blue... resting on my staff... so long...​

Oh you have held me... fast... by the cock...​

I come...crowing loud, crowing loud...I am aroused.​

Later we will discover that Sandy's love interest was actually his own sister.

Finally, Arthur the Bible thumper sings approvingly of God's bloodthirsty punishment to the worshiper of the Golden Calf. The Calf might be destroyed and God's bloodlust slaked, but sin remains in the world, and the Calf will eventually return as a raging bull.

 

[Positron]

Just a little ditty to celebrate the Red Sun delivered Kiwi Farms out of the Dark Web -- if only just for a while.

In another piece of sad news, pianist Lars Vogt has died at the age of 51. Vogt was diagnosed metastatic cancer of the throat since last year, and during his struggle with his illness has continued to record and give concerts. His frank interviews in several music magazines, in which he told of his coming to terms with his morality, makes difficult readings.

I have some affection to Vogt because he was one of the young pianists that I've kept track of since he went big. He repertoire was small and mainstream -- Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms -- but he done them with impeccable care.

 

[Positron]

Kiwi Farms is BACK in the light. I think the only music appropriate for this occasion is the Overture to Haydn's The Creation, which starts with one of the most powerful C-major chord ever written.

If Richard Strauss depicted sunrise, then Haydn's depicted the Big Bang.

 

[JJLiautaud]

A Lark Ascending to a Realm Without Troons.

 

[Positron]

I can't get Gnossienne 5 out of my head. Satie's most famous pieces are such earworms.

I'm imagining a Bach pianist playing this piece. Will Angela Hewitt do us a favor some day?

 

[Sithis]

I guess I'm a fairly vanilla classical fan because my favorite composer remains Beethoven to this day. There is just something raw and emotional about every piece he composed, every note is loaded with feeling. All time favorites are Moonlight Sonata and the 5th Symphony, but Fur Elise is a classic as well.

Also like Mozart but feel he suffered a bit from too much ego, which is understandable given he was a prodigy. Recently I've been trying to expand my horizons and have been enjoying Offenbach in particular.

 

[Positron]

Offenbach wrote an absolutely massive cello concerto. Fun fact.

 

[Airbrushed Van Art]

Offenbach wrote an absolutely massive cello concerto. Fun fact.

I had no idea. Cello concertoes (Vivaldi’s) were what got me into Classical music (well, Baroque, specifically, at first). I need to listen to this. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[TVB]