Classical music - what makes you listen?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 02:50 PM

If I were forced by some malevolent power to choose a single piece of 20th century music as my very favourite I'd choose Rhapsody In Blue

Probably Bartok's Dance Suite for me.

He's tried to get me going on the Second Viennese School. No bloody danger

A lot of their stuff is intensely emotional if you let yourself hear it - the dignified farewell to life in Schoenberg's String Trio (one of the last things he wrote, after nearly dying of a heart attack), the wacky ragtime-ish-ness of Webern's Piano Variations and Concerto for Nine Instruments, the nature poetry in a lot of Webern's music (it's not so far from Schubert).

Something got me listening to Ingram Marshall again yesterday - something like America's Arvo Part but without the heavy-handed religiosity. And I can see myself listening to more of Giya Kancheli. That sort of seriousness is what we need right now.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 03:59 PM

I'd probably wind up with my brains splattered on the wall because I'd find it hard to pick between Vaughn William's Fantasy on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Ravel's Le Tombeau De Couperin (the orchestral arrangement).

Helen, are they hiring at your place of business?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 04:29 PM

Good picks, though the "Tallis" has been done to death by Classic FM. I love everything Ravel did. Tombeau and Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, his string quartet, the G piano concerto... he was a mate of Gershwin, by the way! Love Samuel Barber and Bernstein too. Copland leaves me cold for some reason. Won't go on!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 05:29 PM

As for Aaron Copland, I am partial -- I would be, with my training -- to his settings of Emily Dickinson for voice and piano. Easy, mostly, on the ear; really bleeping difficult to sing, even the mighty Phyllis Curtin (recently deceased) was afraid of what they would do to her voice.

Although it isn't my favorite from the Dickinson cycle, some people, like composer Ned Rorem, adore Copland's setting of:

The world feels dusty when we stop to die
We want the dew then honors taste dry
Flags vex a dying face but the least fan
Stirred by a friend's hand cools like the rain

Mine be the ministry when thy thirst comes
Dews of thyself to fetch and holy balms

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 06:02 PM

gillymor, they are currently hiring if you are thinking of taking a sea-change and moving to the beautiful Hunter Valley NSW (or Central Coast in in a couple of years).

You may not like the work so much but you'd get paid to listen to music.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 06:29 PM

One favorite would be impossible to name, because what I want to listen to is usually dictated by my mood or circumstances at the moment. Rodrigo, Soler, Faure, Satie, Ravel, Bernstein, Beethoven, Chopin, Saint Saens, so many more names to post, bringing a memory of something wonderful with each name. I'm glad I don't have to choose.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 08:13 PM

"G piano concerto... he was a mate of Gershwin, by the way!" Right Steve and Ravel's Concerto does sound Gershwinesque in places.
Also in the running for me would be Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe Suite #2".

Helen, considering the results of our recent presidential election I might just load up my kayak and shove off.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 17 - 08:52 PM

Just get the whole ballet, gillymor! Gorgeous. And Mother Goose while you're at it.

I like Renaissance too, Helen. Go back a bit further still and try Hildegarde of Bingen, or any of the medieval composers who evolved music away from plainchant. Years ago I bought a treasurable CD of Spanish medieval music called Cantigas de Amigo, performed by Ensemble Alcatraz with the Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble. The Cantigas are seven songs by Martin Codax but there's lots more on the album besides. The arrangements and harmonies are very much the products of modern imagination but it's all so beautifully done.

I have a bit of a blind spot about quite a lot of baroque music. It's just me but I've never grasped what Vivaldi's all about and much of Handel passes me by. The glorious exception is Bach. In fact I listened to the B minor Mass this afternoon. I love his concertos and cantatas and treasure the Goldberg Variations. The Passions are a bit too stop-start for me in spite of their glories and I have to wait until Mrs Steve's out of the house before I can put on anything with organ or harpsichord. One thing I can't countenance is Glenn Gould and those Goldbergs. The whole world may disagree with me but I think he just completely gets in the way of the music. Shoot!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 04:53 AM

Steve,

Somewhere, tucked away in a nice safe place, is my Hildegarde von Bingen 2 CD set.

(Rule #1: never pack up your whole household of stuff in a hurry and throw it into boxes without making proper labels for the boxes or ensuring that like goes with like, e.g. CD's all together instead of tossed in with unrelated stuff. I used to know ezactly where that CD set was, but not any more.)

The main problem with the CD was that it was so beautiful, peaceful, meditative, soothing, and half way through one of the CD's a man suddenly starts yelling loudly. Probably to wake the nuns up from their meditative state during the church services. It used to almost give me a heart attack every time.

gillymor, just admit it. Your kayak wouldn't last the journey from the Yew-Ess-of-Ay to the lovely Oz.

Helen

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: JennieG
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 05:34 AM

Fifteen years or so ago I was working on the front desk of a small company and one day had reason to listen to their "on hold" music. To my surprise it was all music by baroque composers and it wasn't played Muzak style, thank goodness. When I mentioned how much I enjoyed it to the technical bloke responsible he told me that several studies had shown if people put "on hold" listened to baroque music, they were less likely to be annoyed and stressed when their call went through.

I enjoy many different forms of classical music, love early music.....lute music is gorgeous.....Hildegard von Bingen is beautifully ethereal. A current favourite is Ozzie guitarist Slava Grigoryan playing the first three Bach cello suites on baritone guitar. Those low notes, ooohhhh.....

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 07:12 AM

Something just plucks at my heart - the playing, like Dinu Lipatti's feather-gentle Chopin waltzes; the melody, like the hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck darkness of Prokofiev's Knights' March from Romeo and Juliet; the scent of spring or summer or snow or autumn, like the Maytime Pastorale by Beethoven with its cuckoo echoes…

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 07:55 AM

Dinu Lipatti definitely had a way with Chopin, I have an all-Chopin LP of his which includes the loveliest playing of the Barcarolle I've heard.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 08:46 AM

Helen mentioned that she's not exactly an audiophile, well I used to be but I've gotten over it. Nowadays I've got a 10 buck a month Spotify subscription (I used to spend 10X that on a monthly basis for CD's ) which has a musical library that's a million times the size of mine in all styles, genres and traditions, several blue tooth speakers situated around our place that put out surprisingly good audio and I and carry the controller (a smartphone) in my pocket which also interfaces with the stereo in my truck so my massive music collection is highly portable. I've loaded up my own playlists so I'm not constantly pounded with the 1812 Overture or Bolero (not bad pieces if you don't have to listen to them several times a week) or Sunshine of Your Love. Considering all the other crap that's going down in the world right now it's good to have this.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 03:20 PM

I'll have what JennieG's having.

"Those low notes, ooohhhh..... "

Settle, petal, settle! :-)

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: JennieG
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 05:13 PM

I wish that post had a "like" button, Helen!

Have you heard it? Here's a sample.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 06:58 PM

Ok, I get it now!

"Those low notes, ooohhhh..... "

:-D

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 07:02 PM

What a fat, gorgeous sound!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: kendall
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 07:10 PM

The function of music is to free the mind from the tyranny of conscious thought.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Jan 17 - 09:00 PM

I prefer Nobuko Imai on the viola to Grigoryan's guitar. It's an octave higher but to me it has a richer and more expressive sound.

For sexy low notes I rather fancy a sehrud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v57V2gj8plw

It's an Ottoman instrument of he 18th century recently revived by the early music group Bezmara. No Bach on it yet, but I bet somebody's thinking about it.

Some way outside "classical" music as generally understood, the ultimate low booming beast is Mark Deutsch's "bazantar" - I think there is only one in the world. Google for it.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 02:26 AM

This pianist is BLIND...doing an encore performance. ABSOLUTELY worth listening and WATCHING!!

Liszt - La Campanella performed by Nobuyuki Tsujii as an encore piece at his BBC

Here's another SUPERB performance by him....

Nobuyuki Tsujii - Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor, Op 18

ENJOY!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 02:30 AM

This pianist is BLIND...doing an encore performance. ABSOLUTELY worth listening and WATCHING!!

Liszt - La Campanella performed by Nobuyuki Tsujii as an encore piece at his BBC

Here's another SUPERB performance by him....


Nobuyuki Tsujii - Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor, Op 18

ENJOY!!!

GfS

P.S. Sorry, I posted and forgot to sign in....

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Thompson
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 05:43 AM

Is Spotify a good deal for musicians? Is it better to sell records/CDs or Spotify listens?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 09:45 AM

Thompson, I've been purposefully avoiding investigating the ethics of patronizing Spotify because I love it so much (I'm currently listening to Vol. One of the Bach Cello Suites played on baritone guitar by Slava Grigoryan mentioned below on it) but here's an article from NPR that might provide some information.Click here.
I can tell you though that I donate to and buy products from a young duo based in New England that play traditional tunes from all over. They tell me that after they put their one CD on Spotify they got a noticeable bump in interest on their website.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 02:57 PM

Thank you so much, Guest, for the link to Nobuyuki Tsujii playing Liszt's La Campanella based on Paganini's work. The Liszt piano version has been one of my absolute favourite pieces of music for some decades. I first heard the violin Paganini version and loved it and then later heard the Liszt version and loved it even more.

Watching Nobuyuki Tsujii playing it just made me cry - literally. Seriously.

It's beautiful.

Helen

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 03:16 PM

Helen: "Watching Nobuyuki Tsujii playing it just made me cry - literally. Seriously."

You are not alone...I've showed that video to several REAL musicians, who all had the same re-actions. He is truly a consummate musician...by the way, here is Tsujii playing a piece that he composed, for the victims of the Fukishima nuclear disaster in Japan....you will notice that as he is playing, he is also crying....

Pianist in tears!!!. Most moving piano performance.

Enjoy and Highest Regards,

Guest from Sanity

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: kendall
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 03:43 PM

If everyone liked the same thing, we would run out of chocolate ice cream in a day.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 04:03 PM

Sorta like politics, eh?

GfS

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 07:21 PM

I like all sorts, from very early up to some contemporary, assuming we're not talking about the more closely defined "classical period". As an ex-timpanist/percussionist, I like music that features these instruments and complex time signatures to best advantage, e.g. "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", Stravinksy's "Rite of Spring".
I also have a penchant for beautiful brass, e.g. the Nocturne in Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Suite, "The Trumpet Shall Sound" from Handel's Messiah, and THAT bit in Sibelius's 5th Symphony.
Oboe also does it for me, e.g. the slow bit in Rossini's "William Tell Overture", oh, and yes, the various cello concerti (Elgar's, Dvorak's, Rachmaninov's) or "The Swan" in Saint-Saens' "Carnival of Animals".
I also love Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique", especially the "March to the Scaffold" - which was used as the theme tune for BBC TV's "Rugby Special" for a a few seasons back in the late 1960s. I would have had it as our wedding march, but might not have looked too good in the order of service!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 17 - 08:32 PM

My this week's listenings so far have been Beethoven's Quartet in E flat Op. 127, his second-last piano sonata, the one in A flat Op. 110, Bach's B minor Mass and his amazing Magnificat which I caught by accident on Radio 3 this morning. Think I'll have a Wolfgang week next week!

I don't get on at all with Elgar's Cello Concerto. I find it choppy, whiny and lugubrious. Over-exposure on Classic FM probably hasn't helped. On the other hand, piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven apart, I think that the Dvorak Cello Concerto is one of the greatest of all concertos, up there with Beethoven's Violin Concerto. If you can, listen to Slava Rostropovich playing the Dvorak on August 21 1968 in a Prom concert in London. The USSR State Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov. That was the very day that Russian tanks rolled into Prague. There were anti-Soviet protests both outside and inside the Albert Hall but the concert went ahead. The tension in the performance between Svetlanov's orchestra and Slava, who bitterly opposed the invasion, was palpable. It might not be the greatest technical performance of the Concerto ever, but it made for a very poignant historical document. I think you can hear it online.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 07:36 AM

Oh my goodness, how did I miss this thread the first time around? I have been In Cognito for a long while, but my usual haunt of Facebook has become so anxiety-inducing that I thought I'd pop in for a visit- and there's some great threads, good old friends, and well, I'm back.

Classical music is my very first auditory memory. It was the main soundtrack of my childhood. In my early teens I discovered Robert J. Lurtsema on WGBH radio, Boston, and he formed my taste and the basis of my music education. Thus I studied classical music at Boston University, became a music teacher, and I'm so grateful for that foundation.
JS Bach sits on the right hand of the divine. My second (sophomore) year at university, basically all we did in my music theory class was analyze Bach chorales. I had always enjoyed listening- but to begin to grasp the complexity, elegance and intricate beauty of his music was a major epiphany in my life. Now, on a daily basis I turn to his organ works, chorales, cello suites, Goldberg variations, etc- there's always something new to learn.

I primarily prefer tonal music, so, up to the late 19th c., but I don't have much patience with the Romantics. I guess that's why I'm a folkie- I like clear tonal harmonies, discernible melody, and clarity of thought and feeling in my music as in my life.

Now I'm going to go back and catch up with what y'all have had to say. It's nice to be back in the fold!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 08:42 AM

I listened to the Berlioz linked above and realised that I knew it but didn't know until now what it was. The strange thing is that it always seemed, in my mind, to be associated with historical Paris. I supoose I may have seen a period film with the piece used as soundtrack.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 09:56 AM

I know what you mean about the so-called Romantic period. A lot of big noise, heavy orchestration and heart-on-sleeve, and above all, Wagner, the biggest charlatan dead-ender of the lot. But delve a bit deeper and you find some lovely solo piano music by Schumann and late Brahms (Chopin leaves me cold but that's just me), delights-sans-lugubriousness from Mendelssohn and some sheerly beautiful orchestral music by Tchaikovsky. And his sublime Serenade for Strings. And I hope you're not counting my hero Beethoven as "Romantic." There's a clarity of vision and inventiveness, as well as wit and humour, in Beethoven that I find lacking in Berlioz, Liszt, Bruckner, Elgar, Mahler and a lot of Brahms (though his fourth symphony is a gem).

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 01:53 PM

Steve Shaw is correct about the music that Brahms wrote late in life. Brahms had a great gift, a tormented personality, and was a self-hating perfectionist. He wrote string quartets, but we will never know what they were like because he burned them. It seems, judging from the intense and imperfect music of his younger years, that Brahms just had a lot of crap to get out of his system.
One of the areas where Brahms does good work, and not known enough, is music for a-cappella voices, or choruses with minimal accompaniment. Here, Brahms immersed himself in Bach scholarship and looked closely at the polyphony and counterpoint of Bach's choral works.
Lieder is another place to look. Yes, Brahms had stuff to get out of his system as far as voice-and-piano music; his early songs have some imitation Mendelssohn in them. It is interesting, though, to watch Brahms mature as he goes on composing Lieder for solo voice. Something about being truthful to the poetry and the lyrics that he sets, causes Brahms to curb that tendency to wallow and go to excess that spoils some of his instrumental pieces.
By the time Brahms is old, and gradually ailing (he had a lingering dying process, as his cancer was misdiagnosed at first), he is writing solo piano pieces, and art-songs for voice and piano, that are almost twentieth-century in their incisiveness and brevity. There are fewer places to hide in this music, for the performer, the excess has been trimmed away and there are no "vamp-'til-ready" fillers. The late Intermezzi take my breath away, for example.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 02:32 PM

Brahms did have a golden autumn. The late piano works are on a par with late Beethoven's, though Brahms tended to avoid larger multi-movement structures and there are no amazing late sonatas or sets of variations like the Diabelli. The clarinet quintet is a treasure. I don't go for his big orchestral works much, feeling that he was too much under Beethoven's shadow and that the strain of that shows through in places. I love the fourth symphony, though the other three leave me cold. The Variations on the St Anthony Chorale are also very uplifting. None of his concertos do it for me at all. One of my very favourite Brahms pieces is the set of piano variations on a theme by Handel. Such life-affirming drive! As you say, he wrote beautifully for the voice. I have to admit to a severe language barrier when it comes to lieder!

Having said all that, if Brahms comes on the wireless I'll not turn it off, ever!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 02:50 PM

It's lovely to see you here, AllisonA(Animaterra)!

I'm happy that a thread I started over 10 years ago has drawn you back into the fold.

I have to confess that I know nothing about the technicalities of cm. I envy the in depth knowledge some of you have shown in this thread. I fall in the category of "I don't know much about classical music, but I know what I like".

I have a book of cartoons by an Australian called Patrick Cook. One of my favourites shows an arty looking French man and a typical Aussie bloke looking at a painting. The French man says, "It has a certain je ne sais quois", and the Aussie bloke says, "I dunno".

That's me.

LOL
Helen

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: JHW
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 03:00 PM

I haven't read all these many posts but my answer is The Melody, same as Folk and whatever else.
The melody grabs me first and entices me to listen to the rest of it.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 03:11 PM

There's plenty of folk around who can't read music but who have a far deeper understanding and appreciation of classical music than many a professor of music, Helen. The only two things to remember are that it isn't meant to be the exclusive territory of some in-crowd or other and that it isn't meant to be hard!

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 04:24 PM

Thanks Steve.

I'm blessed (or cursed) with loving an extremely broad range of music, but I have to say that it is certain classical pieces which can stop me in my tracks due to the complexity of the arrangements.

A confession: my other enduring musical love is a UK electronica duo called Leftfield. They can also incorporate that sort of complexity into some of their music. They started out as percussionists so the rhythms are the core of what they do.

There, that should start a riot on this thread!

Helen

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 17 - 06:08 PM

Well, Helen, I hadn't listened to anything other than classical since the demise of the Beatles - until our local dance teacher got me editing popular music tracks for her mostly young classes. Over the years I must have worked on at least four or five hundred tracks for her. Editing them, involving cutting, splicing and combining tracks, meant that I was listening closely to the music that was alien to me, especially the critical bits at the joins. After a while I began to realise just how bloody good a lot of pop music was! The production standards of the best of it are incredibly high. Can't say I'm going to be putting much of it on my playlists exactly, but I got to love several tracks by the likes of Rihanna, for example. And Defying Gravity and Hold Back the River...

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 28 Jan 17 - 07:45 AM

Steve, fear not, I'm not throwing all the Romantic babies out with the bath water. It's the over-blown, hyper emotional stuff that makes me think, "Oh, give me a break!". I feel the same about some modern "folk" interpretations as well (High Kings, I'm talking to you).
Some Brahms, some Schumann, even some Wagner. And no, I don't lump the great Beethoven in with the bunch- he stands alone.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 28 Jan 17 - 07:47 AM

Also- Hi Helen! *waves*

It's a great gift to be able to appreciate and enjoy any music without technical understanding. In fact, in some ways I sometimes wish I could just let the music wash over me without the touch of critical analysis that wants to get in the way. I'm getting better at just being in the moment when I listen.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 28 Jan 17 - 10:56 AM

The great jazz guitarist George Van Eps said in an interview that he sometimes wished he could turn off his capacity for harmonic analysis and just enjoy music on a visceral level, so I guess I'm lucky that my understanding of theory and form is pretty basic. :^)
I'm also not a big fan of the romantic composers generally (except for Chopin who had Classical leanings) but do appreciate individual pieces. I recently discovered Swedish composer Franz Berwald's (1796-1868) 3rd symphony which I kind of like.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 28 Jan 17 - 01:33 PM

As an ex-timpanist/percussionist, I like music that features these instruments and complex time signatures to best advantage

Do you know Brian Ferneyhough's "Bone Alphabet"? The (spectacularly weird) score is freely downloadable and there is a YouTube video of Ferneyhough explaining it to a percussionist. The percussionist manages to follow the polyrhythms Ferneyhough has in his head, I certainly can't.

This is more accessible:

Tona Scherchen: Shen

I've seen it live, it makes a terrific impact - the shouts and sighs are done directly into the drumskins, the timpani act as macho sexiness resonators. A bit like the Kodo drummers. Scherchen-Hsiao has been rather unfairly neglected:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tona_Scherchen

There isn't anybody else like her, writing Chinese-influenced Western-idiom music which is both emotionally forceful and completely free of gush.

I heard that an audition for the percussion section of the Berlin Philharmonic involved being asked to clap seven in a bar and stamp four in a bar simultaneously. (Someday I must learn to do 3+3+2 against 4/4 on the washboard, since that's what the klezmer bulgar rhythm does).

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 08 Feb 17 - 12:59 AM

Article on Composer Ludovico Einaudi on Oz ABC news.

He is currently in Oz.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 08 Feb 17 - 12:01 PM

I love that picture of Einaudi playing among the icebergs in Norway.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 03 Sep 18 - 03:38 PM

Because there is a current thread on a performance of J.S. Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, Book II, I have decided to refresh an old favourite thread I started 12 years ago.

JS Bach on BBC4 tonight

Helen

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 04:52 AM

The link didn't work for me here in the USA, Helen. Is there a particular program you had in mind?

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: gillymor
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 05:20 AM

I did find this.

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: GUEST,Crook-Finger'd Jack
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 06:36 AM

Slightly gobsmacked that, in 198 posts, Claude Debussy is only mentioned twice.

I came to Debussy in my late teens after hearing Isao Tomita's "Snowflakes are Dancing". Back then it was the melodies (specifically Girl with the Flaxen Hair, Reverie and Arabesque No 1) that grabbed me.

Now, 40+ years on, it's his genius. Hard to imagine just how revolutionary he was.

This, achingly slow, is exquisite:

Ezio Bosso - La Fille Aux Cheveux De Lin

Subject: RE: Classical music - what makes you listen?
From: Helen
Date: 04 Sep 18 - 06:49 AM

That, gillymor, might be because I appear to have stuffed up the link. Here it is:

JS Bach on BBC4 tonight