(western) classical music discussion

[Minimalist]

The first few seconds was all I could listen to.  The rest was just "painful."

[Rev. Rye]

Well, maybe it might be better with these visuals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdzrAuoQ45E

[Rev. Rye]

Found the identity of the mystery piece. For the record, I work at a candy store. One of the perks I get is, since I control the computer/cash register, I also get to chromecast music. At the store, it's pretty much classical, usually the most famous works by a given composer, and I decided to use it to search for that elusive piece. First I'd start with Chopin, then Liszt.

I had almost finished with the Etudes when I heard this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJMIIxm1bGo

Well, that was easy. Maybe not as easy as I thought it should have been, but it was pretty good. I'll still finish my Chopin and Liszt queues, though. I guess I should have been patient enough to listen to all the minor key pieces all the way through and not just give up after the first few seconds.

[Alex K]

The hell, I thought I had specifically listened to all of op 10 and 25!!! I don't know how I missed that, very good! But yeah, maybe I gave up too quickly

[Minimalist]

Today is Mozart's birthday....

[Alex K]

I can't watch this in Ger, so I'll post a different one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9FtBzUypvA

[Alex K]

Since I'm such a counterpoint aficionado, I'll leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSSZut2W4cE

My favourite work is of course the Requiem, but that's no music for a birthday...

[Rev. Rye]

In the wake of Pierre Boulez's passing, I discovered he recently did a recording of Mozart's Gran Partita serenade. You know, the one that impressed Salieri on his first meeting in Amadeus, despite his flirtation with Stanzi appalling him. I did some research, and the consensus is, while Boulez is clearly out of his element conducting something so conventional, he doesn't get anything wrong (well, maybe replacing the double bass with a contrabasoon, but he's not the only person to do that)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-_DRTw7EY0

I also found another, better recieved, if more obscure, recording with Niksa Bareza. It's not on Youtube.

[Minimalist]

With the earlier discussion of "Finding Rothko" in this thread this seems like an ideal spot for this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...othko.html

New York gallery settles law suit over fake Rothko

Court case revealed details of forgeries in a scandal that brought down one of Manhattan's oldest and most respected galleries

One wonders how one would tell a fake Rothko from a real Rothko?  And why would anyone care?

[Rev. Rye]

I recently rediscovered Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique."

There are a great number of exemplary performances (from Charles Munch's classic to Colin Davis' perfection to Dudamel's bombast to Ticciati's period practice), but I decided to post one by hometown heroes The Chicago Symphony Orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Kky5BC9Uk

I also discovered Berlioz' original program for the symphony:

The composer’s intention has been to develop various episodes in the life of an artist, in so far as they lend themselves to musical treatment. As the work cannot rely on the assistance of speech, the plan of the instrumental drama needs to be set out in advance. The following programme* must therefore be considered as the spoken text of an opera, which serves to introduce musical movements and to motivate their character and expression.

*This programme should be distributed to the audience at concerts where this symphony is included, as it is indispensable for a complete understanding of the dramatic plan of the work. [HB]

Part one
Daydreams, passions

The author imagines that a young musician, afflicted by the sickness of spirit which a famous writer has called the vagueness of passions (le vague des passions), sees for the first time a woman who unites all the charms of the ideal person his imagination was dreaming of, and falls desperately in love with her. By a strange anomaly, the beloved image never presents itself to the artist’s mind without being associated with a musical idea, in which he recognises a certain quality of passion, but endowed with the nobility and shyness which he credits to the object of his love.

This melodic image and its model keep haunting him ceaselessly like a double idée fixe. This explains the constant recurrence in all the movements of the symphony of the melody which launches the first allegro. The transitions from this state of dreamy melancholy, interrupted by occasional upsurges of aimless joy, to delirious passion, with its outbursts of fury and jealousy, its returns of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations – all this forms the subject of the first movement.

Part two
A ball

The artist finds himself in the most diverse situations in life, in the tumult of a festive party, in the peaceful contemplation of the beautiful sights of nature, yet everywhere, whether in town or in the countryside, the beloved image keeps haunting him and throws his spirit into confusion.

Part three
Scene in the countryside

One evening in the countryside he hears two shepherds in the distance dialoguing with their ‘ranz des vaches’; this pastoral duet, the setting, the gentle rustling of the trees in the wind, some causes for hope that he has recently conceived, all conspire to restore to his heart an unaccustomed feeling of calm and to give to his thoughts a happier colouring. He broods on his loneliness, and hopes that soon he will no longer be on his own… But what if she betrayed him!… This mingled hope and fear, these ideas of happiness, disturbed by dark premonitions, form the subject of the adagio. At the end one of the shepherds resumes his ‘ranz des vaches’; the other one no longer answers. Distant sound of thunder… solitude… silence…

Part four
March to the scaffold

Convinced that his love is spurned, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of narcotic, while too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest of visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his own execution. The procession advances to the sound of a march that is sometimes sombre and wild, and sometimes brilliant and solemn, in which a dull sound of heavy footsteps follows without transition the loudest outbursts. At the end of the march, the first four bars of the idée fixe reappear like a final thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.

Part five
Dream of a witches’ sabbath

He sees himself at a witches’ sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath… Roar of delight at her arrival… She joins the diabolical orgy… The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae,** the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae.

**A hymn sung in funeral ceremonies in the Catholic Church. [HB]

And now, I seriously wonder what a filmed version of this program and this music would be like. I get the feeling F.W. Murnau would have been perfect for such a project (especially given he strongly preferred silent film, even when the talkies made it redundant, and lived in an era when he could get away with making a film a few minutes' shy of an hour long), especially with this in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flnxq2HMOqA

Then again, odds are, most film theatres might not have had the forces necessary to pull off Berlioz's massive orchestration (Liszt's piano reduction aside).

Although maybe Part 5 would benefit from more influence of something like the ending of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acrZGc3rfg0