Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

[BachQ]

mvt 2

http://www.youtube.com/v/TARA7Jf3UK0

[BachQ]

Grimaud LvB PS 30 part III

http://www.youtube.com/v/fIvxFUOxVxI

[BachQ]

Beethoven was heavily influenced by Mozart's 20th Piano Concerto, ergo, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/v/3dkK1iw2SMk

Uchida performs and conducts Mozart's Piano Concerto #20 - Allegro I

(note: this is no doubt infringing on someone's copyrights, so get it while it lasts)

[BachQ]

Rondo

http://www.youtube.com/v/7ZGVtgDQjdM

[BachQ]

Myra Hess Appassionata

http://www.youtube.com/v/_zHbpLg9_bo

[Renfield]

With apologies for being off-topic, the last video above reminded me something:

Am I the only one to whom Myra Hess looks like Oliver Hardy with a wig? A great pianist, of course; but I'm having trouble "shaking" that connection, whenever I see her.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

With apologies for being off-topic, the last video above reminded me something:

Am I the only one to whom Myra Hess looks like Oliver Hardy with a wig? A great pianist, of course; but I'm having trouble "shaking" that connection, whenever I see her.

Close your eyes if you must. Don't let great playing like that pass you by...

[BachQ]

The "Emperor" Concerto is usually thought to be as bold and heroic as its nickname. By taking a different, introspective approach, Grimaud sheds new light on this classic.

[BachQ]

Classical music as antidepressant

This study comes out of Alzahra University, in Tehran, where a group of researchers, noting that music therapy has already been shown to reduce pain, improve sleep quality, and improve mood in cancer patients underoing therapy and multiple sclerosis patients, wondered if music might alleviate depression as well. It does. They took 56 depressed subjects, had them listen to Beethoven's 3d and 5th piano sonatas for 15 minutes twice a week in a clean, otherwise quiet room -- and saw their depression scores on the standard Beck Depression Scale [improve] signficantly. No side effects! And music is cheap -- a lifetime of Beethoven for the price of a couple weeks of Prozac.

This obviously needs further work, but as a music lover I find it damn encouraging. The resesarchers plan on doing another study using EEGs instruments to monitor brain changes, and I'd love to see some imaging work on this. ... If classical music publishers could match the drug industry's marketing budgets, we'd be listening to a lot of Beethoven sonatas. Which you can do, briefly, by (going here for a mood-improving listen.

[BachQ]

http://www.youtube.com/v/_Vmhw49baEI

Isaac Stern, violin
Eugene Istomin, piano
Leonard Rose, cello (1918-1984)
'Allegro con brio' (quasi tranquillo) from "Trio in C minor, Op.1, No.3"
Music by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
(CBC telecast of June 23, 1965)

[BachQ]

3rd Movement of Beethoven PC 3 played with Alexei Volodin and conducted by Kocsis.

http://www.youtube.com/v/VMqzw5zuM6U

[c#minor]

Classical music as antidepressant

This study comes out of Alzahra University, in Tehran, where a group of researchers, noting that music therapy has already been shown to reduce pain, improve sleep quality, and improve mood in cancer patients underoing therapy and multiple sclerosis patients, wondered if music might alleviate depression as well. It does. They took 56 depressed subjects, had them listen to Beethoven's 3d and 5th piano sonatas for 15 minutes twice a week in a clean, otherwise quiet room -- and saw their depression scores on the standard Beck Depression Scale [improve] signficantly. No side effects! And music is cheap -- a lifetime of Beethoven for the price of a couple weeks of Prozac.

This obviously needs further work, but as a music lover I find it damn encouraging. The resesarchers plan on doing another study using EEGs instruments to monitor brain changes, and I'd love to see some imaging work on this. ... If classical music publishers could match the drug industry's marketing budgets, we'd be listening to a lot of Beethoven sonatas. Which you can do, briefly, by (going here for a mood-improving listen.

is this new news???

It has always been understood the classical music, and other music improves mood. But i can guess that if those same people listened to Tchaikovsky's 6th some might become suicidal. Music is an emotional medium, thats why we love it.

[Mark]

The "Emperor" Concerto is usually thought to be as bold and heroic as its nickname. By taking a different, introspective approach, Grimaud sheds new light on this classic.

I can't decide whether or not to take the plunge with this disc. Not normally one to be swayed by reviews, I've nonetheless got cold feet after having read less than inspiring things about the performances.

[Renfield]

I can't decide whether or not to take the plunge with this disc. Not normally one to be swayed by reviews, I've nonetheless got cold feet after having read less than inspiring things about the performances.

I find Gramophone to be dead-on, for this one. But I still don't regret buying it: it's an interesting and rather unique performance.

[Mark]

I find Gramophone to be dead-on, for this one. But I still don't regret buying it: it's an interesting and rather unique performance.

Can't recall: were they particularly in favour or against?

[Renfield]

Can't recall: were they particularly in favour or against?

They said it could be subtitled: "A Tale of Two Emperors", with regard to the fact that the performance is very much of two minds. And I definitely agree that the soloist and the orchestra are playing in parallel, on occasion, rather than in tandem (if you know what I mean).

So overall, it's a well-played piano part with a well-player orchestra part, if not necessarily a well-played concerto.

But it is well-played, with a particularly colourful response from all concerned. And as I said above, I'm happy that I bought it.

[Mark]

They said it could be subtitled: "A Tale of Two Emperors", with regard to the fact that the performance is very much of two minds. And I definitely agree that the soloist and the orchestra are playing in parallel, on occasion, rather than in tandem (if you know what I mean).

Yes, of course. I remember now.

[BachQ]

FROM: NYT
November 12, 2007
Music Review | Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra

A Young Orchestra Led by a Youthful Major Player
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
When Gustavo Dudamel walked on the stage at Carnegie Hall yesterday afternoon to conduct the first of two programs with the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, it looked for a moment as if his much-touted unflappability were going to desert him. With his unkempt mane of curly hair and slight build, he looked a little ashen-faced and shy.

You could hardly blame him for being nervous. This was his first appearance in New York, and few musicians have ever faced such pressure. Mr. Dudamel, a 26-year-old Venezuelan, is one of the most talked-about performers in classical music, "the most astonishingly gifted conductor I have ever come across," in the words of Simon Rattle. In April, in a breathtaking decision, the Los Angeles Philharmonic appointed Mr. Dudamel to succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen as its music director in 2009.

But once Mr. Dudamel took the podium and began Berlioz's "Roman Carnival," he exuded command and excitement. He drew sweeping, urgent, often brilliant playing from the young musicians.

Over the last 30 years, Venezuela has developed the "sistema," arguably the most ambitious program of music education and orchestra training in the world. Some 250,000 young people take part. The 200 best of them, ranging in age from 15 to 25, are members of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, based in Caracas. Mr. Dudamel, who emerged from the sistema, has conducted the ensemble for almost nine years. There is a palpably intense bond between them.

So for Dudamel watchers, this concert was a special case. Those in the audience hoping to find out what the buzz is about may have to wait until he makes his debut with the New York Philharmonic, on Nov. 29. Still, this youth orchestra was very impressive, and the general qualities of its conductor's communicative artistry and immense skills came through.

Mr. Dudamel is a passionate and intuitive musician. Every phrase of the Berlioz had an expressive idea behind it, a compelling character. When the carnival of the title perks up, the music turns boisterous, and the playing here had almost intimidating energy and brassy power.

In Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, the young players were joined by a master soloist, Emanuel Ax. For a youth orchestra trying to make an impression on tour, this concerto is not an ideal choice. Chopin was rather hapless at orchestration. In whole stretches the orchestra has little to do but prolong sustained harmonies that back up the continually inventive piano part.

In the long orchestral exposition, Mr. Dudamel and his players really tried to make something happen. They projected the main theme with urgency, taking every opportunity to highlight an inner voice or a restless bass line. In the genial second theme, the playing was oddly cool, almost metronomic. But there was reason to the approach: Later, when Mr. Ax took over that theme, the lyrical freedom he introduced was all the more affecting for what had come before.

Mr. Ax, playing with his customary refinement and integrity, seemed inspired by these young players. In the mazurkalike finale, he and the orchestra might have been dance partners.

After intermission came a go-for-broke and exuberantly Romantic account of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. For all the sheer excitement, this was not a particularly distinctive or probing interpretation. Again, Mr. Dudamel came across as an instinctive rather than an analytic musician. Still, there were thrilling compensations: slicing attacks on fortissimo chords; ominous crescendos that swelled to the breaking point.

The concert ended with a frenzied fiesta. The players donned jackets based on the Venezuelan flag and played a selection of Latin American works, though one of them was "Mambo" from "West Side Story," and the inclusion would have delighted Bernstein. During the performance the players leapt off their seats, shouted and shimmied. Cellists twirled their instruments as if they were spinning their dates during the dance at the gym.

For all his charisma, I don't think Mr. Dudamel will be able to get the players of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to leap off their seats and dance. But who knows?

[BachQ]

BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61; PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63 - Berl Senofsky, violin/Boston Symphony Orchestra/ Pierre Monteux (Beethoven)/American Symphony Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski (Prokofiev) - Cembal d'amour
An important document of a major violin talent - among the Best of the Year.



BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61; PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto
No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63 - Berl Senofsky, violin/Boston Symphony Orchestra/ Pierre Monteux (Beethoven)/American Symphony Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski (Prokofiev)

Cembal d'amour Historic Series CD 126,  70:57 (Distrib. Qualiton) *****:

Cembal d'amour brings out the third of its recorded celebrations of the art of American violinist Berl Senofsky (1926-2002), the only American-born violinist to have won Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium. His teaching at the Peabody Conservatory of Music 1965-1996 possesses all the force of legend. I have lamented prior that aside from Cembal d'amour, no label (including RCA and Philips) has resurrected the few commercial records Senofsky made, especially his gripping Brahms Concerto with Rudolf Moralt, done for an Epic LP.

Here, Senofsky collaborates with two titans of the orchestral palette, and I will start with the Prokofiev (10 January 1966) from Carnegie Hall under Leopold Stokowski. Long a sponsor of Prokofiev's music, Stokowski (1882-1977) made no inscriptions of Prokofiev's concertos, although documents exist of the G Minor Piano Concerto and the Cello Concertino. Sporting a hugely gracious tone--albeit in somewhat distant sonics--Senofsky exults in this lyrical and metrically demonic work, effecting a long line that rivals the esteemed Heifetz/Koussevitzky interpretation that set the standard for everyone else. The tenderness Senofsky instills in the slow movement complements the demonic virtuosity marking his grasp of this work, which he swallows whole. The last movement, which likes to exploit Iberian impulses in its rather exotic division of the bar line into unorthodox modes of four, has Senofsky rasping and singing alternately in rapturous swoops, even when his instrument wants to sound like a demented banshee. The last page elicits howls of praise from a mesmerized audience.

It is a rare delight to hear veteran conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) in the Beethoven Concerto from Tanglewood (9 August 1958), a collaboration to complement his fine inscription for RCA of the Brahms Concerto with the Boston Symphony and soloist Henryk Szeryng. Monteux establishes a broad canvas for the opening exposition, and Senofsky enters with half steps and soft diminuendi in the manner and drive of Nathan Milstein. The two proceed to the mingled measures--in bright sound--alternately stately and lyrically exalted, with an undeviating sense of architecture. Senofsky affectionately and passionately realizes the cadenzas by Fritz Kreisler, who was himself an honored attendee at the concert. Senofsky luscious tone and fluent style carry the first movement by leaps and bounds, the pedal points from the orchestra breaking out, tutti, into energetic waves of exquisitely balanced sound.  Applause erupts after the first movement, only a taste of the cataclysm that follows a timeless Larghetto and volcanic Rondo, whose each repetition of the jovial, bouncy tune gains both momentum and esprit. An important document of a major violin talent - among the Best of the Year.

-- Gary Lemco

[BachQ]

Missa Solemnis -- Stratford-upon-Avon Choral Society

Stratford-upon-Avon choral society's Autumn concert is the magnificent Missa Solemnis by Beethoven on Saturday November 17th 2007 in Holy Trinity Church, Old Town, Stratford at 7.30pm.