Classical music - what makes you listen?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jul 23 - 10:36 PM

It's summertime in the New England region, which means
Tanglewood in Massachusetts and
the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.
Both based on classical music.

Although, the most popular event at Tanglewood appears to be
Film [music] Night with John Williams, always sold out.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Apr 20 - 10:24 AM

Here's a score video of the Renié piece - fascinating to see what the harpist has to cope with. I think there are something like 2 pedal shifts per second for the whole 11 minutes. It would help to read Poe's story first.

https://youtu.be/o9gSWXvwqug

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Apr 20 - 06:51 AM

Harp music can be stereotypically bland. For an antidote, try Henriette Renié's Ballade Fantastique, sometimes described as the most difficult harp music of all time - it's a tone poem on Poe's The Telltale Heart

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 30 Mar 20 - 05:12 PM

Thanks for the heads (plural) up. I didn't look at that other thread and I'm listening to the harp piece now.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 30 Mar 20 - 04:15 PM

Hey Helen, Did you check out a recent thread titled "Who Can I Turn To?" where some folks are putting up classical numbers?

At this moment I'm listening to a beautiful Einaudi piece,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaAu8gUPzSwDivenire being played by harpist Lavinia Meijer.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Mar 20 - 04:02 PM

If I were forced to select a single "balm to the soul" piece, it would be the "adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile" of Beethoven's quartet in E flat, op 127. If I were forced to select a single universally life-affirming piece full of optimism, it would be the finale of Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony. To round off a full half-hour of music to feel good to, I'd end with Here Comes The Sun, in m'humble the greatest Beatles track of all.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Mar 20 - 03:51 PM

"The opening notes of Beethoven 5?"

The very first "note" of Beethoven 5 is a rest. Check it out!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 29 Mar 20 - 04:38 PM

Refreshing this thread for inspirational music to listen to in the current pandemic.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Dec 18 - 11:20 AM

I'm practicing Polvestian dances this holiday season.

Its not a seasonal favorite but it is lovely.

There are some Mozart Choral works I seem to rediscover every holiday season. I haven't found them yet this year.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: mayomick
Date: 09 Oct 18 - 09:41 AM

the hiss of the steam iron always does it for me.......dashing away with the classics

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Oct 18 - 12:15 AM

Are you referring to "The Lark Ascending"?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Oct 18 - 10:10 PM

What is that trilling bird like violin/orchestra piece by Ralph vaughan Williams ?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 10:08 PM

edit


* tabla
* Pathetique #6









*

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 10:04 PM

The Borodin string quartet #2 is pure crisp fresh air where ever you hear it.

Call and answer between sitar and table (Indian Classical Music) is ostensibly the sexiest organic music I have ever heard. The slight departure from rhythmic patterns creates an anticipation that you will never forget and can add to your sensual library. It works like an ancient wisdom come to light.


Barbers Adagio for Orchestra was the only time I saw the cello section split into six parts, likewise the violins had 12 separate parts. The effect is an impenetrable wall of sound.


Do you know the trick of Tchaikovsky's Pathetque' first 13 note theme? It is a clever audio illusion. The tune you hear is not played by anyone but is a composite blending into what you think you hear.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Charmion
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 11:22 AM

I am years too late in coming to this thread.

I listen to classical music for the TUNES, and what the composers do with them. Some appeal to me more than others, but Bach can always bring me to a dead halt with the perfect, yet always surprising, works he wrote for church musicians. "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, or his "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis", likewise stop time for me.

Grieg's Holberg Suite is the best breakfast music ever, and fine-dining restaurants are not wrong to load their sound systems with Vivaldi.

Modern recordings are so fine, and the musicianship of today's classically trained players so great, that we are living in the Golden Age of classical music performance, both in one's own sitting room and in a concert hall near you.

But I can't have it on the radio in the car. It's either too absorbing or too relaxing, both just totally wrong for driving.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 09:26 AM

That's what I get for carrying a Samsung.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 08:20 AM

It's the Nokia ringtone! Part of a waltz (Gran Vals) by Tarrega.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 08:10 AM

Or perhaps Ride of the Valkyries.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 08:01 AM

The opening notes of Beethoven 5?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Oct 18 - 03:46 AM

The last quartets by Beethoven are wonderful. I also adore Bartok's string quartets, which I think are wonderful as well.

Incidentally, can anyone guess what is the most played classical music phrase played on the planet - hundreds of thousands of plays every day?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 04:58 PM

The last night of the Proms in 2001 occurred four days after 9-11. The usually rumpus-ridden second half was completely rejigged into a sombre affair with Barber's Adagio at its heart. Towards the end there was a defiant performance of the finale of Beethoven's Choral Symphony (conducted by Leonard Slatkin). The previous evening featured Verdi's Requiem, dedicated to the victims. I remember well the rather rumbustious performance of the Choral conducted by Lenny Bernstein in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the Ode To Joy finale he directed the choir to sing “Freiheit” (freedom) instead of “Freude” (joy). There's a great photo of Lenny, fag in mouth, hammer in hand, chipping away at that wall. I think I've already mentioned Slava Rostropovich's angry and tearful rendering of Dvorak's Cello Concerto in London on the day the Russian tanks rolled into Prague. Music adding to history!

Leonard Slatkin's dad, Felix, was a member of the Hollywood String Quartet, a bunch of musicians used to playing film music. But that quartet got together and made one of the most memorable set of recordings of Beethoven's late string quartets ever. To me, that's the greatest music of all.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 04 Oct 18 - 04:23 PM

Just reading this article:

Classical music is undergoing a revolution — and you're probably a fan without realising it

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 07:22 PM

I can't hear Barber's Adagio for Strings
without thinking of JFK and his funeral.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 18 - 06:59 PM

Great sex music:

Samual Barber - Adagio for strings

Howard Hanson - Romantic Symphony

Enigma Variations by some British dude.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Sep 18 - 01:02 PM

PUT New Age music to shame give Jeux d'eau Water Games/park by Raval a listen. Water games

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: JMB
Date: 24 Sep 18 - 06:32 PM

I have several CDs of classical music with sounds of nature in the background. There is one with pieces such as Asante by Mozart and a piece from Swan Lake that is played on guitar.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Sep 18 - 04:09 PM

Our local library is a center where they discard books, paintings and CDs and sell them. I have even found classified stuff and formidable historic signatures there. Anyway I have amassed quite a classical collection. I would be happy to look for CDs and collections if I knew what you are seeking since they are super cheap.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Sep 18 - 05:03 PM

If you go for a Fall foliage drive, might I suggest The Pines of Rome at the peak of your trip.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 08:52 AM

Speaking of NOVELTY there is this performance of Argh in D minus

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 08:41 PM

Enough! I'd sooner hack off my Gounods with a rusty machete than continue with this line of enquiry. Let's Tippett into touch here and now!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 04:50 PM

Please, no mouret!
Now, time to start supper, I'm getting honegger pangs.
(okay, I'm done.)

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 04:50 PM

I'm assuming Mrs Steve will be Bach in a Minuette.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 04:32 PM

It's all right. I can Handel a Fauré into puns.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 12:50 PM

What a lot of Bizet bees...

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 12:11 PM

Steve, it sounds like your coming unRaveled. Maybe you need some time offenbach.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 11:44 AM

Er... I just need a fugue minuets to think that one through...can't ask Mrs Steve either...she's out Chopin with a long Liszt, taken the Allegro...she's gone with her uncle andante...


Sorry, Helen! It's that Dave.   I'll get serious again soon!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 10:27 AM

If someone could not play the paritas on harpsichord but could play them on computer keyboard could you say his Bach is worse than his byte?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 05:17 PM

Will you are a god damn music historian :^)
You are positioned well. Stealing from folk repertoire for classical treatment is ubiquitous and normal. Stealing the other way around is a rare novelty.

A novelty of mine is taking some of the hundreds of 'baritone duets' Haydn wrote for his King to play BUT I change the instruments to folk instruments and make them as fast as a bat outta hell. Add some syncopation and boom- its folk music.

I play only half of the cello suites which is a fair indication how half assed my skills are. The Bach violin partitas are so famous and thrilling at times I have to hear them 5 times in a row. The cello suites are far more meditative.

I'm still discovering 'new to me' music.
This week it was Quiet City by Arron Copland.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 12:35 PM

And, of course, the modern " discovery" of the cello suites by Pablo Casals is a great story.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 04:01 AM

What separates Bach from earlier Baroque musicians is that his musical lifetime coincided with changes to the musical temperament of instruments, as Donuel has said. Brass instruments acquired valves, and keyboards were tuned to equal temperament. The main effect of these developments was to increase the number of keys that musicians could play in without retuning/resetting instruments - and this, in turn, allowed much more sophisticated modulation and more complex adventures in melody and harmony. All of which JSB used to the full. He also drew inspiration from French and Italian music, rather than just German.

His suites for solo cello are wonderful creations; you can hear the chord sequences in the melodic progression, which seems to flow effortleslly. Great stuff!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: olddude
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 10:36 PM

His piano concertos especially

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: olddude
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 10:35 PM

Easy question mozart for this guy

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 09:51 PM

Vivaldi has some nice mandolin concertos.

BTW Vivaldi is certainly a great Baroque composer and conducter.

I 'll show you a swampy mire .

The tripe JSB's sons composed that were just vertical tripe they called music

Yes JSB himself wrote about raising and refining Baroque music with fugues and chromatic fantasias.

Shall we get into what makes different keys fit together.
It was tempering partly invented by JSB

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 02:13 AM

I'd possibly start with the things Pip/mum used to play on piano at home which would include some Chopin as well as Beethoven and Mozart sonatas.

While I couldn't name you any piece, I've enjoyed mandolin concertos I've heard on the radio and more generally speaking, probably find earlier/baroque stuff easier listening.

But it's all a bit of a wash and I'd like some material (at least if I can hear a melody...) of any era and dislike other bits and I never really follow up... Not sure that's too different to the way I am with "folk" really. Bits of either can move me, some can leave me cold (or worse) and some in between...

Favorite piece today would be the guitar arrangement of Granada by Albeniz

Performers. I'll go by Pip when she was a student. She reckoned that Alfredo Campoli gave the most amazing concert when she was a student in Brum.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 12:44 AM

Steve Shaw says: I think that Bach's crowning achievement was to pull baroque music out of a sort of mire...

Joe Offer says: Exactly.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 09:43 PM

Old time recordings may have been played faster than the tempo signature to fit on a 78 side. But today no one plays Beethoven's 5th as marked. It is blazingly fast. It has been recorded at its real tempo but I don't know how to find it. The entire first phrase goes by in under 10 seconds.
Toscanini was famous for his quick crisp tempos.

I just remembered how a conductor took the Bach concerto for 2 violins in one for the first time for performance and fooled the orchestra into playing twice as slow as marked. I let it go by for about ten seconds when I stood up and did a Jimmy Durante imitation yelling 'stop the music stop the music'. Ladies and Gentlemen lets see how fast we can really play this thing, Maestro take it away. and away we went. The accident ended up looking staged.

So many fun things happened, I should make a list.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 04:31 PM

All I can say is, it's lucky I am retiring next year because otherwise I would never have time to listen to all these musical recommendations.

So much music, so little time!

Thanks everyone.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 12:06 PM

Thank you, Donuel. By the way, try the version of the Flute and Harp Concerto conducted by Thomas Beecham with René Le Roy on Flute and Lili Laskine on harp, from the 1940s. It's on YouTube. They seem to have brightened the sound from what I remember when I bought the record over thirty years ago. It's an absolute joy.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 09:51 AM

Steve I like the way your threads allow me to hear many mental excerpts of some of the works you mention. They are better than ear worms.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 09:35 AM

The impressionism of Claire d'Lune is a masterpiece I put into a wonderfully crowded classification of an extra musicular event.

If you perform Bach with a flexible free reign on tempo it becomes music.
If you chain yourself to a metronome and organize volume on a second repetition of a phrase, it is math.

The true golden note in music is a momentary silence.