Classical Music Thread

[Positron]

This recording of Bartok's Divertimento For String Orchestra, with Heinz Holliger conducting the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, is absolutely stunning

First Movement:

(The Second Movement is unfortunately not available on Youtube)

Third Movement

Every melodic line is finely focused, as if etched in steel. Holliger employer a slightly wider dynamic than usual to bring out the contrast; this is especially effective in the Second Movement: the patient, gradual build-up of slate-gray shades, the typical Bartokian "nightmusic", is pierced by harrowing violin outbusts, redolent of (and perhaps presaging) the music of Luigi Nono. The sound quality is absolutely top rate, quite beyond what is typically achieved in CDs.

In short, this is a recording to have if you want your Bartok modernist. If however you prefer a more folksy, nationalist Bartok, Holliger might disappoint. Indeed, in the most folk-inspired Third Movement, Holliger emits a jazzy "cool" rather than rustic joy.

 

[Captain Hastings Official]

I came to the western art music tradition from a background in prog rock, so I have a particular fondness for chamber ensembles: string quartets, piano trios, woodwind trios, etc. They can be listened to in the same way that I was already listening to Yes and King Crimson, focusing on the "voices" of individual instruments and their interactions with each other, the patterns and dialogues they create. With orchestras (especially the huge orchestras of the late romantic period and beyond), there's so much going on that you have to take it all in as a gestalt. And that's fine, it's nice sometimes to be carried away into some wonderfully textured imaginary landscape by a piece by Vaughan Williams or Sibelius, but it's just not the natural way I listen to music.

That's all a rather lengthy way of getting to the point, which is that I'm now almost annoyed at having wasted so many years listening to prog rock, when Shostakovich's chamber repertoire was already out there. Listen to his second Piano Trio, and tell me that this isn't a better King Crimson album than even Red:

And while this is a deadly serious work, commemorating the death of one of Shostakovich's close friends in the middle of the global tragedy that was the Second World War, it's got its moments of celebration and happy remembrance, as well. Not so with some of his last pieces. In the prog rock message boards I used to frequent, the Belgian band Univers Zéro was occasionally hailed as the ne plus ultra of depressing music, their early, synth-free albums recommended with the caveat that "you shouldn't listen to this if you're feeling suicidal." They're very good albums, to be fair, full of lovely Gothic atmosphere, but they're really not all that grim. Shostakovich's 15th and final string quartet, though...it's the real deal. Six movements, all of them slow. All of them bleak. All of them sparse. All of them haunting. It's one of the very few pieces of music that I'll always remember the first time I listened to it.

The first movement especially. It starts out funereal enough, but then that first dissonance, 50 seconds in, hits and your stomach just drops and flips. It's quite a ride. I can't recommend enough listening to it alone on a winter's night.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Rotter]

Can you chaps recommend some baroque tunes to me if you look at my Spotify playlist?

 

[Positron]

Can you chaps recommend some baroque tunes to me if you look at my Spotify playlist?

View attachment 2844623

For violin music, try Locatelli (e.g) and Tartini (e.g.). If your taste is towards something more introspective, go for Biber's Rosary Sonatas.
For overtures in the style of "Queen of Sheba", try any number of "Sinfonia" that open Baroque operas or Oratorios, such as this. Some of the interludes in Baroque operas are also pleasing.
For Harpsicord sonatas, try Scarlatti, in particular D380. I must admit few Harpsicord pieces register on me.
There are unfortunately no famous examples of Baroque music featuring the Bassoon outside Vivaldi, who was idiosyncratic for having written so many Bassoon Concertos.

 

[Rotter]

@Positron thank you so very much. I'll screenshot your post and do some investigating. I don't know anyone who shares my musical tastes, so your input is absolutely invaluble. Thanks again.

 

[An Sionnach Seang]

George Antheil's "Ballet Mécanique" (1925/6) - it's basically Futurism in musical form, and nothing quite like it has ever been made before or since
it's a concerto for a mechanical piano, human-operated pianos, xylophones, bass drums, electric bells, wind-up sirens, propellors and a gong
it was meant as a soundtrack for this film, but it was never actually used as such (this video is a reconstruction)

 

[Positron]

At long last I picked up Solti's classic recording of Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten ("The Woman Without A Shadow") in used stores. I must have been looking for almost a decade. Now the only important Strauss opera I still need are Intermezzo and Capriccio.

Die Frau has a reputation of being impenetrable; I find it no more impenetrable than Mozart's Magic Flute -- and like Magic Flute, it involves forced separation and a trial of love. Indeed Die Frau is more relatable because it is more "grounded": we are clear about the motivation of the characters and their psychologies. The Dyer's Wife, frustrated by what she takes as the complacency and lack of ambition of her husband Barek, is persuaded to sell her shadow (a metaphor of fertility) to two supernatural entities, the Empress and her Nurse, in exchange of wealth, comfort, and young admirers. The Empress needs a shadow in order to keep her own husband, the Emperor, alive, but when she sees how her selfish decision threatens to destroy a family and wreck two lives, she repents and renounces the shadow. This is the trial of love set out for her: her love of humanity redeems herself -- who grows a shadow -- and her husband.

In the booklet essay, Barry Millington claims the opera was written under the shadow of nascent Feminism, about which many men felt threatened. Their response was at one hand to reassert the value and joy of marriage and motherhood, at the other to denounce and ridicule women who dared to aspire to greater things. Millington claims the "hysterical" character of the Dyer's Wife is one such caricatures. Maybe my 21st century sensibility has been more tainted by Feminism than I care to admit, but I find the Dyer's Wife completely human and relatable (even I don't necessary approve of her actions). Instead I would posit that the Feminist in the story is the Nurse, an amoral, manipulative entity, who takes advantage of the ignorance of common woman for her selfish ends, promising great things -- including "sexual freedom" -- that she cannot cash in.

Enough moai-head soliloquies. I find this marvelous production on Youtube, and I cue up the part when the Nurse (which you can identify by her buxom appearance) first come to the Dyer's Wife, heaping her with fake praises and offering herself and the Empress as her servants.

 

[Positron]

J. S. Bach's Toccata in C minor, BWV 911, has a fugal subject that I can only describe as breezy and "cool". Here are two interpretations: Kenneth Broberg carries the piece with an almost romantic delicacy, very pleasing sound, although his lack of assertion makes the fugue less "cool" than it can be. Ivo Janssen (I'm currently polishing off his 20-CD Bach box) is more angular and in-your-face; everything rings clear like as a bell.

 

[Positron]

I can't think of a piece of classical music about the tiger for the Chinese New Year, and I don't want to post another William Blake settings; the closest I could come up with is "Tora! Tora! Tora!" from George Crumb's Makrocosmos II.

So I cheated and ask Google:

And here is a whole page of mostly modern music for you to explore.

 

[Andrew Neiman]

I enjoy Brahms' third symphony. Where do I go next with Brahms?

 

[Positron]

I enjoy Brahms' third symphony. Where do I go next with Brahms?

The third is Brahms in a somewhat uncharacteristic elevated, "heroic" mood. If you don't have the Academic Festival Overture already, this is what you should listen next. Also try out the mighty First Piano Concerto, Op. 15.

The Adagio movement always bought to my mind the slow movements of Beethoven 7 and Tchaikovsky 4.

A work that is one generation post-date Brahms but in a similar mood is Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben.

 

[Andrew Neiman]

The third is Brahms in a somewhat uncharacteristic elevated, "heroic" mood. If you don't have the Academic Festival Overture already, this is what you should listen next. Also try out the mighty First Piano Concerto, Op. 15.

The Adagio movement always bought to my mind the slow movements of Beethoven 7 and Tchaikovsky 4.

A work that is one generation post-date Brahms but in a similar mood is Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben.

Thanks! I always get good music recommendations from this neo-Nazi transgender suicide website.

 

[Lowlife Adventures]

I enjoy Brahms' third symphony. Where do I go next with Brahms?

Brahms 3 is my favorite, followed by Brahms 2. Also do check out Brahms' chamber music (his clarinet quintet seems to be recommended the most).

 

[Captain Hastings Official]

I enjoy Brahms' third symphony. Where do I go next with Brahms?

His horn trio is a fairly unusual piece of music that's also more moving than it sounds like it has any right to be. A horn in a very small chamber ensemble seems like it should be a gimmick, but instead it brings a feeling of misty distance to the piece.

 

[Positron]

Brahms 3 is my favorite, followed by Brahms 2. Also do check out Brahms' chamber music (his clarinet quintet seems to be recommended the most).

Yup the Clarinet Quintet is probably the summation of Brahms's work. I'm also partial to the Violin Sonata No. 1: leisurely and sunny, it is almost like a watercolor landscape painting in sound.

(I prefer Spivakov's former recording with Mikhail Rudy, under RCA Victor)

The Third Violin Sonata is characteristic late Brahms, especially the introverted yet tumultuous piano part. To accentuate the contrast between this and the First Violin Sonata, I pick a more modernist interpretation:

A slightly less familiar side of Brahms are his small-scale choral music. Marcus Creed has two CDs of his secular choral music which are just sublime.

 

[Positron]

American composer George Crumb died on 6 February 2022. Strange I thought he died a while ago.

Crumb is noted for his use of extended instrumental techniques, novel sonorities, and last but not least his unusual layouts of his scores, such as this: "Spiral Galaxy" from Makrokosmos I for piano.


I don't have too many recordings by Crumb. Bridge Records is recording his complete works, but so far only one volume has reached my hands. Outside this, his representation is spotty and mostly in specialist modern-music labels like Kairos and Col Legno. Crumb favors the piano and the chamber ensemble, with very few of his works calling for the orchestra, which should encourage concert performances and recordings. Yet I suspect not many musicians (or listeners) are tuned to his wavelength -- an exuberant hippy-ish panthesism, and a poetic and comico-tragic commemoration of childhood.

Ancient Voices of Children might be his most famous work:

 

[Lucky Jim]

Really loving Beethoven's Eight Sonata, second movement. A scene from A Boy Named Charlie Brown in 1969 provided stunning visuals

 

[Exuvia]

In honor of the holiday, one of my favorite Purcell pieces.

 

[Positron]

This is even more appropriate for Valentine Day: