Classical Music Thread

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Poway synagogue shooter John T. Earnest plays Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66.

 

[Ventrue]

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata

 

[themanwhowalks]

Very intimate performance of Bach's Chaconne in Dm. Just a man and his instrument

 

[themanwhowalks]

 

[Disdainer of the Plebs]

I’ve always been fond of Holst’s The Planets, so I’ll post two of the less-played movements.

Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age

Neptune, The Mystic

 

[GunCar Gary]

classical music to bury your dead child after a poor harvest and hard winter to

Rachmaninov - Prelude in C Sharp Minor

Modest Mussorgsky - Leaves rustled sadly

Alexander Scriabin - Poème-Nocturne Op. 61

 

[GunCar Gary]

some guitar

Spoiler: Heitor Villa-Lobos - Choros No. 1

Spoiler: Francisco Tarrega - Capricho arabe

Spoiler: Dionisio Aguado - Introduction and Rondo no. 2 Op. 2

 

[Rotter]

Tandernaken (P. Hofhaimer/F. Sicher Orgelbuch). In Cytharis: The Harp-and-Lute Duo of the XV century

 

[JJLiautaud]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3zoajhuZF0&list=PLfhYweWCHjSyPnEVzrcueLxtCGatbb6k2

music from the first printed non-plainchant book.

 

[GunCar Gary]

Bach - Cello suite No. 1 in G Major, played on a portative organ

 

[GunCar Gary]

Erwin Schulhoff - Symphony No 2: III. Scherzo alla jazz. a more contemporary piece, but i think it still counts. it includes a banjo and saxophone which i think is pretty neat

 

[Positron]

There has been a steady flow of Schulhoff recordings in the past 10 years, most notably the huge variety of chamber music. Fun fact, Schulhoff composed a piano piece, entitled "In Futurum". that consists entirely of rests, predating John Cage's 4' 33" by 30-odd years. And he is hardly the first person who did that.

 

[JJLiautaud]

There has been a steady flow of Schulhoff recordings in the past 10 years, most notably the huge variety of chamber music. Fun fact, Schulhoff composed a piano piece, entitled "In Futurum". that consists entirely of rests, predating John Cage's 4' 33" by 30-odd years. And he is hardly the first person who did that.

My loathing for John Cage only grows the more I learn about Classical Music. 4'33" is the sort of thing that can only be done once and "In Futurum" does "it" far better than John Cage could ever dream of.

 

[x10r4]

My favorite movements of Zelenka's trio sonatas (ZWV 181) + the order in which I most enjoy listening to them.
Oboe: Olivier Stankiewicz, Armand Djikoloum; Bassoon: Theo Plath; Bass: Jordi Carrasco Hjelm; Harpsichord: Satoko Doi-Luck. 2024 release.
Sonata No. 2 in G minor, II. Allegro

Sonata No. 6 in C minor, IV. Allegro

Sonata No. 4 in F major, II. Allegro

Sonata No. 4 in F major, IV. Allegro ma non troppo

My favorite movements of the cantata I have been listening to most: Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4. Oxford Bach Soloists, 2024 release.
II. Versus No. 1, Christ lag in Todesbanden: Allegro

IV. Versus No. 3, Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn

V. Versus No. 4, Es war ein wunderlicher Krieg

 

[Positron]

I'm devouring the biography of Nicholai Myaskovsky by Patrick Zuk. I have a box set of his complete symphonies, 16 CDs and only 3 pages of sleeve notes, so I was not able to grapple with them. I'm sure this book will change that. In addition of dealing with the composer's life and professional development, Zuk gave a vivid account of Russian music culture at the beginning of the 20th century. Myaskovsky brushed shoulder with many eminent musicians, some very famous. He was the classmate at the St. Petersberg conservatory with the wiz-kid Sergei Prokofiev, and despite the 10 year age gap and Myaskovsky's reserved personality, the two developed a mutual respect: Prokofiev was fascinated by the young lieutenant who always came to class in uniform (Myaskovsky had yet to finalize his resignation from the military), and doubly fascinated when he noticed that music was the only thing that Myaskovsky ever talked about. Prokofiev admitted that discussions with Myaskovsky was more valuable to him than any teaching in the ultra-conservative conservatory.

Myaskovsky's First Symphony, however, caused the falling off of the two friends. The two had made a pact to each write a symphony and present them together to Glazunov. But Myaskovsky was short of money and was desperatly in need of scholarship, so he went to Glazunov himself without telling Prokofiev. He was successful obtaining a fee wavier and a stipend (posteriority has not been kind to Glazunov, thinking him as a drunk who required students to bribe him with vodka, and his drunken conducting has ruined the premier of Rachmaninov's First Symphony, plunging the latter into deep depression. But Glazunov was also a generous soul who set up scholarships out of his own money. Shostakovich would later be another beneficiary of his), but his friend felt betrayed.

The First Symphony is, of course, an inexperienced student work, but Myaskovsky's personal style was already emergent: a sombre, solemn tone, a preference for slow tempo, privileging thematic organization over sensuous appeal. Myaskovsky seemed to pick his themes based on how he could work them into counterpoints and fugues, rather than how inherently pleasing or expressive they are. Prokofiev was frank and perceptive. Regarding the third movement's conterpoint, Prokofiev said, "Your writing made me see red. Who are you writing this for? (The ultra-conservative, closed-minded) Liadov? I guarantee you that it has detracted fatally from the beauty of each theme on its own, which is much more important than the four bars that nobody would notice or appreciate."

 

[Positron]

Pianist Alfred Brendel just died at the age of 94. He was of course most famous for the core Austro-German repertoire of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and Liszt, while his 4-CD set of Haydn Sonatas (released under Philips) was also famous, and outside the Classical-Romantic period, he recorded the Schoenberg Concerto conducted by Michael Gielen. In recent years, after he retired from concert stage and studio, he allowed a huge amount of his old concert footages and recordings to be released. Here is his playing the Liszt Sonata in Japan.

 

[OrangeManeXTinyHatGVNG]

HRsinfonieorchester does some great concert recordings on the german taxpayers dime so enjoy em! All of Schuberts Sinfonien f.e. and many others. Schubert 2.Sinfonie. Listen to III. Menuetto. Allegro vivace – Trio – Menuetto:

Stunning. Great Dirigent as well. Andrés Orozco-Estrada

 

[Positron]

Myaskovsky's tone poem Silence, Op. 9 is an important work in his early career. This is the first of his orchestral works that got repeated performances shortly after it was written. The scenario is based on Edgar Allan Poe's Silence: A Fable and the music follows quite closely what is depicted in Poe's story. Scored for a large orchestra, the idiom, as Patrick Zuk observed, is post-Wagnerian. Compared to the First Symphony, written a mere year ago, one can discern Myaskovsky's tremendous growth in expressive abilities. Themes are not merely serve as elements in a combinational exercise, but for genuine depiction of scenes and emotions. The existential silence that follows the ffff tutti (16:10 in the video) is effective and as dreadful as in the Poe's tale, but I wish the coda would last longer.

Still on existential dread, Myaskovsky's Second Piano Sonata is one of the many Dies Irae pieces that turn up regularly in the chronicles of Classical Music ever since Berlioz and up to the present day. Myaskovsky will go on to use the plainchant theme in several of his symphonies.

Speaking of Dies Irae pieces, in a bygone age I tried to add Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Musique pour les soupers du roi Ubu and Dallapiccola's Canti di prigionia to the Wikipedia's article on the list of music that quote the theme. My edit was rejected because I cannot provide citation, and somehow "I heard the music on the radio" wasn't good enough. Their lost, I thought. Today I check the article and the two entries are restored, again without citations. Wikipedos are very strange creatures.

 

[x10r4]

Strong, energetic, or ethereal oboe da caccia recordings? Maybe there is something on redacted.sh? I know only of Johann Friedrich Fasch's Concerto for 2 Oboes da caccia, FaWV L:G11 but I have yet to find good a good recording for it.
(May be loud.)

Ricercar a 6, BWV 1079

I don't know anything about Mr. Heinichen's music, but dammit, he knew how to write for the oboe.

Johann David Heinichen: Concerto in G minor for Oboe, Strings & B.c Seibel 237.

Heinichen is still under-recorded. The only easily available (and much acclaimed) recordings are the two 2-CD sets, of concertos and sacred music respectively, performed by Musica Antiqua Köln and directed by Reinhard Goebel.

J. S. Bach's contemporaries, however famous and musically creative they were in life, were invariably eclipsed in our times by our veneration of Bach himself. We've been gradually discovering the treasure of Telemann, yet someone like Christoph Graupner, chapel master of the Hesse-Darmstart court, still languish in obscurity. Graupner's duty of writing for the royal church has produced 1418 sacred cantatas (compared with Bach's 200-something and 1043 by Telemann), all are preserved in the royal library but few are available in modern editions. The cantatas that are published and performed today are, however, absolutely revelatory, such as "Ach Gott und Herr" (Ah, My God and Master), GWV 1144/11.

Here I present the solo soprano aria "Sigh and Weep, My Weary Eyes". Note the repeated string figure first appearing at 0:16. It almost sounds like a strike of thunder that the sinner feels of God, or perhaps the sound of her heart breaking. Bach would never aspire to such explicit tone painting.

>J. S. Bach's contemporaries
Christoph Graupner and Johann David Heinichen seem to have some excellent contrapuntal works. I remember especially enjoying Heinichen's 11th Mass. Johann Christian Schickhardt's recorder counterpoint is very good. I have not yet found any contrapuntal pieces of Johann Melchior Molter though I still enjoy his music.
Harmonie Universelle (Recorded Basilika St. Ursula, Köln (Cologne), Germany 12-15 September 2022)
Graupner: Concerto for 2 Violins in E-Flat Major, GWV 319 II. Allegro

Magdalene Harer (soprano), Hannes Rux (trumpet)
Graupner: Das Licht des Lebens gehet auf, GWV 1107/44 I. Das Licht des Lebens gehet auf

Graupner: Das Licht des Lebens gehet auf, GWV 1107/44 III. Komm, o Jesu, Glanz des Lebens

Graupner: Das Licht des Lebens gehet auf, GWV 1107/44 VII. Die ihr schwebt in großem Leiden

Postscript: Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 Arrangement for 4 Harpsichords (Cembali) by Bertrand Cuiller
1st: Jean-Luc Ho, 2nd: Violaine Cochard, 3rd: Bertrand Cuiller, 4th: Olivier Fortin; Recorded Jezuïetenkerk, Heverlee, Belgium 19-22 February 2024

 

[x10r4]

Johann David Heinichen: Mass No. 9 in D Major Seibel 5
Dresdner Kammerchor, Dresdner Barockorchester
Gloria - IIa. Gloria in excelsis

Gloria - IIe. Concertino

VI. Osanna in excelsis

Johann David Heinichen: Mass No. 11 in D Major Seibel 6
Dresdner Kammerchor, Dresdner Barockorchester
I. Kyrie

Gloria - IIa. Gloria in excelsis

Gloria - IId. Cum Sancto Spiritu

Credo - IIIb. Et resurrexit

Sanctus - IVb. Pleni sunt coeli

Johann David Heinichen: Mass No. 12 in D Major Seibel 7
Dresdner Kammerchor, Dresdner Barockorchester
Kyrie - Ic. Kyrie eleison II

Gloria - IIa. Gloria in excelsis

Credo - IIIe. Et vitam

pipeorganmap.com:

Already in 1732, Augustus the Strong ordered an organ with pipes and bells made of Meissen porcelain. However, it was only in the year 2000 that the State Porcelain Manufactory Meissen, in collaboration with Jehmlich Orgelbau Dresden, succeeded in creating the first organ with sounding porcelain pipes.

Porcelain organ in Meissen. (May be loud.)