The Classical Chat Thread

[Sergeant Rock]

This one should do it:
http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2015/06/ionarts-at-large-heinz-holliger-haydn.html

Fixed!

Thanks, guys.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

For the starting time of a concert? You are all nuts. 

Concert?  There's an audience will go to a concert at 10:30??!!   

[Brian]

I'm in occasional correspondence with a member of the Alexander String Quartet, which is cool, but boy is it disheartening, too. They want to record more stuff for Foghorn Classics (which they own - the CD storage is one of their closets, I think), but raising the money is a serious challenge, and their resources dwindle year by year. Apparently they "never saw a cent" of profit from the Arte Nova Beethoven quartet cycle, either.

It's a hard life for artists out there, even truly great ones. A good reminder, this. We all take them for granted, "they should record this next," but a lot of the times they're not in a position to choose what they record, or to record at all.

[Karl Henning]

I'm in occasional correspondence with a member of the Alexander String Quartet, which is cool, but boy is it disheartening, too. They want to record more stuff for Foghorn Classics (which they own - the CD storage is one of their closets, I think), but raising the money is a serious challenge, and their resources dwindle year by year. Apparently they "never saw a cent" of profit from the Arte Nova Beethoven quartet cycle, either.

It's a hard life for artists out there, even truly great ones. A good reminder, this. We all take them for granted, "they should record this next," but a lot of the times they're not in a position to choose what they record, or to record at all.

This composer/clarinetist knows that it is no bed of roses, even for artists who have much more of a name than he does.  The whole publication/recording environment has changed, and cataclysmically, and I just don't see any drivers to alter it so that artists receive much compensation.

[jlaurson]

... They want to record more stuff for Foghorn Classics (which they own - the CD storage is one of their closets, I think), but raising the money is a serious challenge...

And this surprises you... why? The Takacs had to raise money to record their Beethoven for Decca; Riccardo Chailly has to raise money when he wants to record something dear to his heart, but not the Decca execs. (Which you can tell, because it appears on Decca Italy... which is a glorified "Avie", of sorts.)

[Ken B]

And this surprises you... why? The Takacs had to raise money to record their Beethoven for Decca; Riccardo Chailly has to raise money when he wants to record something dear to his heart, but not the Decca execs. (Which you can tell, because it appears on Decca Italy... which is a glorified "Avie", of sorts.)

I think even Karajan had to waive his fee once, to get something recorded.

[jlaurson]

JUN 22, 2015 @ 10:23 AM
Kirill Petrenko New Chief Conductor Of The Berlin Philharmonic

Radio Berlin-Brandenburg reports that the Berlin Philharmonic has elected Kirill Petrenko
as their new music director and successor to Simon Rattle. An inquiry by that station was
neither confirmed nor denied, but there will be a press conference later today. (The press
conference will be transmitted live via Digital Concert Hall at 1PM CET / 12PM GMT / 7AM
EST.) The news is suggestive of Petrenko not renewing his contract in Munich, where he
is currently music director of the Bavarian State Opera, worshiped by the orchestra and
adored by the audience which he managed to galvanize like few conductors in the past....

[jlaurson]

Meanwhile I've been busy at work with the 11th (!) installment of the Beethoven Survey!




Beethoven Sonatas - A Survey of Complete Cycles
The Great Incomplete Cycles


http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2015/07/beethoven-sonatas-survey-of-complete.html

Which ones have I missed? What data did I get wrong?

[Ken B]

Lorin Maazel interviewed.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/227913/maazel-world-jay-nordlinger

[Moonfish]

Lorin Maazel interviewed.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/227913/maazel-world-jay-nordlinger

Thanks for that, Ken! Interesting to read his views on music! 

[Florestan]

Thanks for that, Ken! Interesting to read his views on music! 

+ 1.

[Florestan]

"If you have something to say, the idiom in which you choose to say it is irrelevant." - Lorin Maazel

[Florestan]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/227913/maazel-world-jay-nordlinger

I ask, "Why do people sneer at Puccini, and at Tchaikovsky, for that matter?" Maazel replies with complete, perfect dismissiveness, "Envy."

[Florestan]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/227913/maazel-world-jay-nordlinger

I bring up a pet peeve of mine — talking from the concert stage. These days, many concerts are concert-lectures, as musicians insist on talking. Administrators want them to do so, and so do some critics. They call it "outreach." Maazel says, "You're not popularizing anything, you're denigrating it. Music has its place because it's a language" all its own. Thoughts in music "cannot be verbalized. The moment you verbalize anything," you're finished. "It's like a guided tour through a picture gallery. I've seen the greatest pictures destroyed in three minutes of description. The point is taking something you cannot express in words."

Amen!

[North Star]

"If you have something to say, the idiom in which you choose to say it is irrelevant." - Lorin Maazel

Beautiful words perhaps, but what does it mean in the end? Plenty of composers have said that if they could express themselves in words, they would do that instead.
I certainly agree in the sense that an artist can create something of value in any artistic medium, but that doesn't mean that I might as well write a novel or a sonata instead of a poem or a photograph, or that one can communicate the same thing using different media.

[Florestan]

Beautiful words perhaps, but what does it mean in the end? Plenty of composers have said that if they could express themselves in words, they would do that instead.
I certainly agree in the sense that an artist can create something of value in any artistic medium, but that doesn't mean that I might as well write a novel or a sonata instead of a poem or a photograph, or that one can communicate the same thing using different media.

I shoud have thought it was pretty obvious that Maazel refered to music. 

[Pat B]

I ask, "Why do people sneer at Puccini, and at Tchaikovsky, for that matter?" Maazel replies with complete, perfect dismissiveness, "Envy."

A lazy answer to an uninteresting question.

[Ken B]

A lazy answer to an uninteresting question.

So you're saying that from Maazel's taste in classical music (a liking for Tchaikovsky and Puccini) we can deduce something about his character (he's intellectually lazy)?

*runs for exit, cackling*

[starrynight]

Maazel didn't ask the uninteresting question though.  Maybe such questions are best given a no comment answer.

When he said the idiom is irrelevant maybe he just meant that things can be expressed equally validly in many different forms, and not that the medium itself doesn't affect what is expressed?  It's a vague statement anyway and so too meaningless.

[Florestan]

When he said the idiom is irrelevant maybe he just meant that things can be expressed equally validly in many different forms, and not that the medium itself doesn't affect what is expressed?  It's a vague statement anyway and so too meaningless.

If you read the whole thing you´d see both the context and its meaning.