The Classical Chat Thread

Started by DavidW, July 14, 2009, 08:39:17 AM

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Papy Oli

For those who can access the BBC I-player, there's a running documentary series on 20th Century Classical Music on BBC4, called "The Sound and the Fury: A Century of Music".

Part 1

The first episode looks at the shift in the language and sound of music from the beautiful melodies and harmonies of the giants of classical music such as Mozart, Haydn and Brahms into the fragmented, abstract, discordant sound of the most radical composers of the new century - Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky and beyond.

It examines how this new music, which can perplex and upset even the most contemporary of audiences, was a response to the huge upheaval in the world at the start of the 20th century - with its developments in technology, science, modern art and the tumult of the First World War.

Featuring specially-shot performances of some of the key works of the period, performed by the London Sinfonietta, members of the Aurora Orchestra and the American composer and pianist Timothy Andres, the story of this radical episode in music history is brought to life through the contributions of some of the biggest names in modern classical music, among them Steve Reich, John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas, Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin and Alex Ross, music critic of the New Yorker.

From the atonal experiments of Vienna to the jazz-infused sounds coming from New York in the 1920s, the film travels the world to place this music in context and to uncover the incredible personalities and lives of the composers whose single-minded visions changed the course of classical music for ever.



Part 2

The second episode looks at how the freewheeling modernism that had shocked, scandalised and titillated audiences in the first two decades of the 20th century comes under state control. Initially, many practitioners thought the totalitarian regimes would be good for music and the arts. What followed in Germany was a ban on music written by Jews, African-Americans and communists, while in the Soviet Union there was a prohibition on music the workers were unable to hum. In the USA, many composers voluntarily embraced music for the masses.

After the cataclysm of the 1940s, a new generation of 20-something composers - Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Nono, Ligeti - turned their back on what they saw as the discredited music of the past and decided to try and reinvent it from scratch. Or, at least, from serialism, which became, as the 1950s wore on, as much of a straitjacket as the strictures of totalitarianism had been before. But from this period of avant-garde experimentation, which many listeners found baffling and even terrifying, came some of the most influential and radical musical innovations of the century.

The story is told by a musical cast list including Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Peter Maxwell-Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and John Adams.



The 3rd part will focus on the USA with Steve Reich, etc...

Interesting and educational, although excepting Shostakovitch/Stravinsky/Gershwin/Copeland and a bit of Schönberg, the rest of the contents isn't doing much for me (Webern, Berg, Boulez, Ives, Maxwell Davies,  Birtwistle, Stockhausen, Nono, Ligeti, Xenakis...).

there's a concert as well if that's your thing.

Performances by the London Sinfonietta and cellist Oliver Coates of works by Oliver Messiaen, Gyorg Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis and Harrison Birtwistle recorded in 2012 for BBC Four's The Sound and the Fury: A Century of Music. Performances include the 1st and 5th Movements of Oliver Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time', the 1st Movement of Gyorg Ligeti's 'Chamber Concerto', Oliver Coates performing Iannis Xenakis's 'Kottos' plus 'Antistrophe' and 'Strasimon' from Harrison Birtwistle's 'Trageodea'.
Olivier

jlaurson





Dip Your Ears, No. 129 (Viols and Organ)

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/03/dip-your-ears-no-129-viols-and-organ.html

"Consorts to the Organ" confusingly means exactly what it says: a consort – of viols – to accompany a – chamber – organ. The consort makes the majority of the merry noise of the musicke of Billy Lawes (1602 – 1645)...





jlaurson

t'is up now:


A Survey of Dvorák Symphony Cycles



OK... inspired myself, of sorts, and put together a "Dvorak Survey", much like the

Bruckner Survey http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-survey-of-bruckner-cycles.html and the
Sibelius Survey http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2009/05/survey-of-sibelius-cycles.html. (Will go live tomorrow (9AM, EST) here: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/search/label/Discography) With about 15 3/4 + 1/2 cycles that I found (one of them mix&match), it's only half the size than either Bruckner or Sibelius... not surprising, really... given the popularity-discrepancy between 7-9 and cumbersome (though in their own way very appealing) 1-4. And thanks to awesome Qobuz, I can listen in on several sets I don't have. (Qobuz is a bit like Spotify and iTunes combined (streaming and downloading), but for specifically classical music audiophiles and, for the the time being, only in French. (Not that that keeps me.) Between that, the NML, and Spotify, I can sample pretty much anything that's out there, now.

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-survey-of-dvorak-symphony-cycles.html

Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

North Star

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Karl Henning

Am I seeing double, or do we really have two Norman Norman dello dello Joio Joio threads threads now?
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Lawd, there's three of him, now!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

TheGSMoeller

Quote from: karlhenning on March 31, 2013, 04:19:20 AM
Lawd, there's three of him, now!

A thread for each one of his names?


Karl Henning

April is What the heck, listen to anything month....
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

North Star

Quote from: karlhenning on April 01, 2013, 02:44:12 AM
April is What the heck, listen to anything month....
Not going to listen to that hoity-toity French stuff, or 2nd Viennese school, then?
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

North Star

Yes, I guess 'anything' covers those, too. :)
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

jlaurson




Dip Your Ears, No. 132 (Gál's Marionettes)


http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/04/dip-your-ears-no-132-gals-marionettes.html
Don't let the amateurish graphic design of this release (strictly speaking re-release from an earlier Olympia recording), or the performer's shiny turquoise waistcoat fool you: These are quality piano duos...

jlaurson

#1018
...Christoph Biller, the 16th Thomanercantor since Bach, says that God can't be known (hence faith), but he can be felt—in Bach. Bach—and I agree wholehearted, although "without invisible means of support" myself—is next to Godliness. Part of what makes Bach stand apart is that deep, quasi-spiritual sense one gets from his music... a feeling Romain Rolland might have described as "oceanic": A sense of rightness, universal like a mathematical proof...


Bach is Next to Godliness, the Flute Not

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/04/bach-is-next-to-godliness-flute-not_8.html

jlaurson



Parsifal and the Tree of Life

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/04/parsifal-and-tree-of-life.html


Konwitschny zooms in on the individual as such and pain—and puts Amfortas front and center of his all-white papier-mâché stage to illustrate this point...