Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

[Bogey]

Actually, in a parallel universe somewhere, Iago hosts a Mozart thread, Gurn hosts a Wagner thread, and I host an Elgar thread ......... 

Post of the year....easily.

[Haffner]

Post of the year....easily.

I'll start an Andrew Lloyd Webber thread. Wheeee!

[George]

...and I'll start a Star Trek thread.

not.

[Gurn Blanston]

Actually, in a parallel universe somewhere, Iago hosts a Mozart thread, Gurn hosts a Wagner thread, and I host an Elgar thread ......... 

"Wagner is an overrated buffoon - Discuss"



----------------
Now playing:
Vienna Philharmonic / Schmidt-Isserstedt - Beethoven Op 125 Symphony #9 in d 3rd mvmt - Adagio molto e cantabile

[BachQ]

"Wagner [the man] is an overrated buffoon - Discuss"

But what about Wagner's music?

(((BTW, in this parallel universe, you actually enjoy and embrace Wagner's music to such a degree that you're willing to start a thread on the topic ......... maybe we didn't make this clear       )))

[Bogey]

But what about Wagner's music?

(((BTW, in this parallel universe, you actually enjoy and embrace Wagner's music to such a degree that you're willing to start a thread on the topic ......... maybe we didn't make this clear       )))

Unless Gurn is making Shatner say the line in an over-acted/shocked manner....then it works. Would need a question mark at the end though.

[BachQ]

Unless Gurn is making Shatner say the line in an over-acted/shocked manner....then it works. Would need a question mark at the end though.

I was looking for a question mark ....... and didn't see one ........ Perhaps an oversight on Gurn's part 

[Haffner]

"Wagner is an overrated buffoon - Discuss"



----------------
Now playing:
Vienna Philharmonic / Schmidt-Isserstedt - Beethoven Op 125 Symphony #9 in d 3rd mvmt - Adagio molto e cantabile

Richard...Wag-ner...over....RAted...buf-OON........QUES-tions?

[BachQ]

March 22, 2008
New York Times Music Review
Attracting Audiences With Intricacy
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI



When the brilliant French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard signed a solo recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon last year, the first project he proposed was a complete account of Bach's "Art of Fugue." This rigorous work, which preoccupied its composer in his final years, explores every dimension of the contrapuntal technique in a set of 14 fugues (the last left incomplete) and four canons. Bach adapted the subjects for each piece from the same elemental theme. "The Art of Fugue" would hardly seem popular mainstream repertory.

Yet Mr. Aimard's producers at Deutsche Grammophon were smart to trust the instincts of this intellectually probing artist. Improbably, on the day of its release, March 11, his "Art of Fugue" recording went to the top of the classical music charts of both Billboard and iTunes. It was featured on the iTunes home page, along with Snoop Dogg and U2. What better proof that the availability of classical music on the Internet is attracting curious new listeners?

On Thursday night Mr. Aimard opened his Carnegie Hall recital with the first 11 pieces from "The Art of Fugue" (Contrapuncti I through XI, Bach called them, using an antique term for fugue): nearly 50 minutes of complex polyphonic music. After intermission Mr. Aimard played two formidable works that also explore polyphonic technique: Schoenberg's Five Pieces (Op. 23) and Beethoven's late-period Sonata No. 31 in A flat. In yet another encouraging sign for classical music, this brainy program attracted a large, attentive and enthusiastic audience.

In the liner notes for his recording, Mr. Aimard is quoted as saying that "The Art of Fugue" was long taken to be "the height of abstraction." Indeed, Bach notated the individual voices of the fugues on separate staffs, leaving no indication of the instrument (or instruments) for which he intended them. For a pianist, projecting the awkwardly intricate voices of the fugues with clarity requires a subtle kind of virtuosity.

A listener can try to follow the ingenious ways Bach takes the somber original theme and reinvents it, transforms it, gives it a dotted-note rhythmic twist, uses it as a starting point to evoke a filigreed French Baroque dance in the form of a fugue, and so on. But as played by Mr. Aimard with such lovely shadings, textural clarity, rhythmic integrity and calm authority, the music had a severe and wondrous beauty.

As he noted in comments to the audience, the last of the fugues, thick with chromatic harmony, point to Schoenberg's atonal Five Pieces, completed in 1923. The concluding piece, an impressionistic evocation of a Viennese waltz, is the first official 12-tone work Schoenberg wrote. But while projecting the pungently atonal language of the music, Mr. Aimard also conveyed its rich textures and colorings.

Coming after the Bach and the Schoenberg, the Beethoven sonata, in which a stately opening theme is cushioned by milky arpeggios and shimmering runs, sounded almost as lush as Ravel. In a nod to Bach, this work culminates in an exhilarating fugue.

Context is everything. For his first encore, Mr. Aimard played Elliott Carter's "Caténaires," from 2006, and for all its complexity, this onrushing, virtuosic roller coaster of a piece came across like an audience-wowing toccata. For symmetry, Mr. Aimard's final encore was Contrapunctus XII of "The Art of Fugue," Bach's homage to the spare polyphonic writing of Renaissance masters.

[BachQ]

Beethoven lands in Vancouver, via Germany
For this production of Fidelio, director Dejan Miladinovic moves the opera from 19th-century Spain to the era of the Berlin Wall
MARSHA LEDERMAN

March 22, 2008

VANCOUVER -- For fans of theatre and opera who have sat through one too many modern-day Macbeths that didn't quite translate, one too many contemporary Carmens that didn't ring true, the concept of setting Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, during the fall of the Berlin Wall might not be enticing.

But the Vancouver Opera production of Fidelio, opening tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, should not be mistaken as one thrown together with a modern-day twist simply to fill seats. Director Dejan Miladinovic knows firsthand the challenges of creating art in the shadow of political oppression, and the decision to relocate Fidelio from a prison in Spain to a Stasi jail in East Berlin came after long deliberation.

Miladinovic, 59, grew up in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). The son of a mezzo-soprano mother and a conductor father, he was born into the opera - quite literally, with his mother going into labour as she waited backstage while his father conducted a rehearsal of Aida. He was also born into political turmoil in post-Second World War Yugoslavia. But as an adult, when he watched the televised pictures of the Berlin Wall coming down, he believed his life, his country and his own opportunities for artistic creativity were about to change. It was a huge moment in his life.

"That's why I'm doing this," Miladinovic says, referring to the decision to set the opera in November, 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell.

[CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE ! ! !]          

[Bogey]

March 22, 2008
New York Times Music Review
Attracting Audiences With Intricacy
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI



When the brilliant French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard signed a solo recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon last year, the first project he proposed was a complete account of Bach's "Art of Fugue." This rigorous work, which preoccupied its composer in his final years, explores every dimension of the contrapuntal technique in a set of 14 fugues (the last left incomplete) and four canons. Bach adapted the subjects for each piece from the same elemental theme. "The Art of Fugue" would hardly seem popular mainstream repertory.

Yet Mr. Aimard's producers at Deutsche Grammophon were smart to trust the instincts of this intellectually probing artist. Improbably, on the day of its release, March 11, his "Art of Fugue" recording went to the top of the classical music charts of both Billboard and iTunes. It was featured on the iTunes home page, along with Snoop Dogg and U2. What better proof that the availability of classical music on the Internet is attracting curious new listeners?

On Thursday night Mr. Aimard opened his Carnegie Hall recital with the first 11 pieces from "The Art of Fugue" (Contrapuncti I through XI, Bach called them, using an antique term for fugue): nearly 50 minutes of complex polyphonic music. After intermission Mr. Aimard played two formidable works that also explore polyphonic technique: Schoenberg's Five Pieces (Op. 23) and Beethoven's late-period Sonata No. 31 in A flat. In yet another encouraging sign for classical music, this brainy program attracted a large, attentive and enthusiastic audience.

In the liner notes for his recording, Mr. Aimard is quoted as saying that "The Art of Fugue" was long taken to be "the height of abstraction." Indeed, Bach notated the individual voices of the fugues on separate staffs, leaving no indication of the instrument (or instruments) for which he intended them. For a pianist, projecting the awkwardly intricate voices of the fugues with clarity requires a subtle kind of virtuosity.

A listener can try to follow the ingenious ways Bach takes the somber original theme and reinvents it, transforms it, gives it a dotted-note rhythmic twist, uses it as a starting point to evoke a filigreed French Baroque dance in the form of a fugue, and so on. But as played by Mr. Aimard with such lovely shadings, textural clarity, rhythmic integrity and calm authority, the music had a severe and wondrous beauty.

As he noted in comments to the audience, the last of the fugues, thick with chromatic harmony, point to Schoenberg's atonal Five Pieces, completed in 1923. The concluding piece, an impressionistic evocation of a Viennese waltz, is the first official 12-tone work Schoenberg wrote. But while projecting the pungently atonal language of the music, Mr. Aimard also conveyed its rich textures and colorings.

Coming after the Bach and the Schoenberg, the Beethoven sonata, in which a stately opening theme is cushioned by milky arpeggios and shimmering runs, sounded almost as lush as Ravel. In a nod to Bach, this work culminates in an exhilarating fugue.

Context is everything. For his first encore, Mr. Aimard played Elliott Carter's "Caténaires," from 2006, and for all its complexity, this onrushing, virtuosic roller coaster of a piece came across like an audience-wowing toccata. For symmetry, Mr. Aimard's final encore was Contrapunctus XII of "The Art of Fugue," Bach's homage to the spare polyphonic writing of Renaissance masters.

I wonder how much LvB Mr. Aimard will record for DG?  Another great article Dm.  Thank you.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

...If I may steal a moment from Dm to slip in a along with a euphoric wow!!!!! for the sixth and ninth symphonies from this Jaap Van Zweden Beethoven symphony cycle on Philips....

Van Zweden's Beethoven is HIP influenced as far as overall approach though performed on modern instruments. Tempos are fresh, lively, and buoyant, though minus anything that approaches the furious. Textures are crystal clear and warm, with sweeping gestures full of felicities streamed our way. 

This is 'lights spectacular' Beethoven with every phrase aglow and every bar crackling. So good, in fact, it's as if the music were freshly minted.

Haven't gotten around to the rest of the cycle yet but if it keeps this up I've got my new favorite Beethoven cycle.

[BachQ]

...If I may steal a moment from Dm to slip in a along with a euphoric wow!!!!! for the sixth and ninth symphonies from this Jaap Van Zweden Beethoven symphony cycle on Philips....

Van Zweden's Beethoven is HIP influenced as far as overall approach though performed on modern instruments. Tempos are fresh, lively, and buoyant, though minus anything that approaches the furious. Textures are crystal clear and warm, with sweeping gestures full of felicities streamed our way. 

This is 'lights spectacular' Beethoven with every phrase aglow and every bar crackling. So good, in fact, it's as if the music were freshly minted.

Haven't gotten around to the rest of the cycle yet but if it keeps this up I've got my new favorite Beethoven cycle.

Awesome writeup ......... U da man!  Please share your final thoughts once you've heard the full batch ........  0:)

[BachQ]

From March 28th to April 7th, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will celebrate the life of Ludwig van Beethoven 

[Haffner]

Glenn Gould says some great things about Beethoven. 
http://www.youtube.com/v/cSdFeFv09H8

Paraphrase: "The banality of the (Beethoven) Violin Concerto" Hilarious. This I rank with the hilarious comments he made on Mozart being a "poor composer". He was smoking something really good (or bad, I should say).

Kind of like Glenn Gould's attempt at a publicity stunt, these comments can't be taken seriously, in my opinion.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Awesome writeup ......... U da man!  Please share your final thoughts once you've heard the full batch ........  0:)

Sure will, Dm! And thanks!

[Guido]

Thought this was a rather poor article on Wkipedia, regarding the late quartets, considering their importance. I'm sure people here know enough and care enough to change this!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quartets_Nos._12_-_16_and_Grosse_Fuge%2C_Opus_127%2C_130_-_135_%28Beethoven%29

[BachQ]

Music Review from New York Times


April 1, 2008
Music Review
Beethoven With Period Flavor and a Steely Edge
By STEVE SMITH

Does the world need any more Beethoven recordings? That question has been raised time and again to indicate the folly of companies that continue to record his works. Our digitized Toscaninis, Szells and Karajans, after all, should last a lifetime. But in the '90s recordings by period-instrument ensembles provided new insight into how revolutionary Beethoven's music might have sounded in his day. Lately, conductors like Osmo Vanska and Paavo Jarvi have been applying lessons learned from those performances to important discs made with modern orchestras.

Similarly, the charismatic Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard is recording Beethoven's complete orchestral works with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, with nine volumes now available on Simax, a Norwegian label. Those discs are expensive and hard to find here (though iTunes sells each volume for $9.99). On Sunday evening Mr. Dausgaard and his 37-member band offered a sample of what most of us have been missing with an all-Beethoven program at the Rose Theater, presented by the Great Performers series of Lincoln Center.

Apart from natural trumpets and squat timpani with hand-cranked tuning mechanisms, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra plays on modern instruments. The ensemble approaches Beethoven with the reduced forces, limited vibrato and driven tempos favored by proponents of historically informed performance, in the current jargon.  But the orchestra brings to this music a textural clarity and steely edge unattainable by most period-instrument groups. And in Mr. Dausgaard it has a conductor who molds its performances for maximum impact. In the "Coriolan" Overture, which opened the concert, the ensemble's playing crackled with fierce electricity and dramatic urgency.

Beethoven's debt to Mozart is evident in the Piano Concerto No. 1, a point not missed by Mr. Dausgaard or his soloist, Piotr Anderszewski, a stylish, idiosyncratic young Polish-Hungarian pianist. Mr. Anderszewski's playing had a tasteful elasticity, and a genial sparkle well matched by his collaborators. But Mr. Dausgaard and Mr. Anderszewski also underscored the peppery jolts and unsettling dissonances that set Beethoven apart from his model. Mr. Dausgaard's flair for drama was especially keen in the Symphony No. 7. In the first movement he lingered ever so slightly in the transition between the slow introduction and the Vivace section, rightly emphasizing its strangeness. The Presto had a saucy bite, and the Finale was a dizzying flurry.  The orchestra provided two encores: Sibelius's "Valse Triste," stretched and squished like Silly Putty, and Hugo Alfven's rustically clucking "Vallflickans Dans."

[FideLeo]

Music Review from New York Times




Apart from natural trumpets and squat timpani with hand-cranked tuning mechanisms, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra plays on modern instruments. The ensemble approaches Beethoven with the reduced forces, limited vibrato and driven tempos favored by proponents of historically informed performance, in the current jargon.  But the orchestra brings to this music a textural clarity and steely edge unattainable by most period-instrument groups. And in Mr. Dausgaard it has a conductor who molds its performances for maximum impact.

Maximal impact?  I have Daugsand's Beethoven 7 recording on Simax and found it suffering from a lack of dynamism... To me his modified HIP style looked good in description but fell flat in actual listening experience and it certainly does not have the colour palette of a real period instrument orchestra. (Try Bruggen? Hogwood?)

[lisa needs braces]

Does anyone else find the Choral symphony creepy and bone chilling?