Pieces that have blown you away recently

Started by arpeggio, September 09, 2016, 02:36:58 PM

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Capeditiea

Guillame Lakeu's Cello Sonata in F Minor.

i was looking up strange classical facts the other day and ended up at this page with strange deaths and such. Turn's out this dude died at the age of 24 from a contanimated Sorbet. So i was inclined to listen.

I was pleased. I want to hear more of his works. :D

but such a young age... and for a strange reason too. :O

SymphonicAddict



Le Buisson ardent

What an original and oniric composition. It captured my attention from the very beginning with its dissonant strings passage. This is a music that has mystery and some chaotic parts, but it's meditative most of the time. I also think it shares some ideas with The Jungle Book.

Being a first hearing I'm very satisfied with what I listened to.

vandermolen

Quote from: SymphonicAddict on September 08, 2018, 06:01:15 PM


Le Buisson ardent

What an original and oniric composition. It captured my attention from the very beginning with its dissonant strings passage. This is a music that has mystery and some chaotic parts, but it's meditative most of the time. I also think it shares some ideas with The Jungle Book.

Being a first hearing I'm very satisfied with what I listened to.

Koechlin is a composer whose work I have come to appreciate in recent years.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

SymphonicAddict

Quote from: vandermolen on September 08, 2018, 11:13:24 PM
Koechlin is a composer whose work I have come to appreciate in recent years.

Me too, I'm realizing how appealing his works are, with a quite personal voice.

vandermolen

#624
Once again I can't thank Cesar and Kyle enough for this. I know that I have been enthusing about Ruth Gipps but I had heard recordings of both her works before - in the case of Bax's Piano Quintet it had completely passed me by. I have both recordings on Chandos and Naxos now and love them both (the Chandos is about 5 minutes longer).

As I've mentioned before this has not been a good couple of weeks for me with the death of, an admittedly very elderly, aunt (90) whom I was very fond of but also a close friend from my student-teacher days in Exeter (a fine artist and teacher) and this work has meant a great deal to me over this period. One of my most important discoveries in recent years. One of the best things about the GMG Forum:
[asin]B0043XCKSU[/asin]
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

SymphonicAddict

Quote from: vandermolen on September 12, 2018, 07:18:40 AM
Once again I can't thank Cesar and Kyle enough for this. I know that I have been enthusing about Ruth Gipps but I had heard recordings of both her works before - in the case of Bax's Piano Quintet it had completely passed me by. I have both recordings on Chandos and Naxos now and love them both (the Chandos is about 5 minutes longer).

As I've mentioned before this has not been a good couple of weeks for me with the death of, an admittedly very elderly, aunt (90) whom I was very fond of but also a close friend from my student-teacher days in Exeter (a fine artist and teacher) and this work has meant a great deal to me over this period. One of my most important discoveries in recent years. One of the best things about the GMG Forum:
[asin]B0043XCKSU[/asin]

My pleasure, Jeffrey!

Music is a kind of comfort in difficult times, it has also helped me lately. It's gratifying to know you are enjoying or getting relief with the Bax because you appear a great human being, and one very kind. I hope things will get better for you in every sense.  :)

Jaakko Keskinen

Quote from: vandermolen on September 12, 2018, 07:18:40 AM
Once again I can't thank Cesar and Kyle enough for this. I know that I have been enthusing about Ruth Gipps but I had heard recordings of both her works before - in the case of Bax's Piano Quintet it had completely passed me by. I have both recordings on Chandos and Naxos now and love them both (the Chandos is about 5 minutes longer).

As I've mentioned before this has not been a good couple of weeks for me with the death of, an admittedly very elderly, aunt (90) whom I was very fond of but also a close friend from my student-teacher days in Exeter (a fine artist and teacher) and this work has meant a great deal to me over this period. One of my most important discoveries in recent years. One of the best things about the GMG Forum:
[asin]B0043XCKSU[/asin]

Very sorry to hear about death of your aunt, Jeffrey! But I'm glad that music helps you!
"Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand."

- Victor Hugo

Jaakko Keskinen

Quote from: SymphonicAddict on September 12, 2018, 09:01:26 PM
My pleasure, Jeffrey!

Music is a kind of comfort in difficult times, it has also helped me lately. It's gratifying to know you are enjoying or getting relief with the Bax because you appear a great human being, and one very kind. I hope things will get better for you in every sense.  :)

+1
"Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand."

- Victor Hugo

Florestan

#628
Quote from: Alberich on September 13, 2018, 05:04:45 AM
+1

+ 2.

TD

Today while driving I overheard on the Romanian classical music radio station a piece written for wind ensemble, of which I heard only the Scherzo and the finale. I swear I thought it was a 20-th century work written as a nod to the Harmoniemusik of yore. It was great fun and almost jazzy. I educated-guessed Friedrich Gulda. Surprise, surprise, it turned out to be the Octet from this recording:



Back at home I looked in my music library and found I have it in this incarnation:



so I know what I'll be listening to tonight.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

vandermolen

Quote from: SymphonicAddict on September 12, 2018, 09:01:26 PM
My pleasure, Jeffrey!

Music is a kind of comfort in difficult times, it has also helped me lately. It's gratifying to know you are enjoying or getting relief with the Bax because you appear a great human being, and one very kind. I hope things will get better for you in every sense.  :)

How kind of you Cesar! Thank you very much and thank you to Alberich and Andrei (F) as well.

I think I've become rather addicted to that Bax Piano Quintet!

Thanks again.

:)
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Florestan

Quote from: schnittkease on September 13, 2018, 09:08:54 PM
+1

An underrated composer -- did you know that he was friends with Schubert?

Yes, I knew that. The liner notes for the Consortium Classicum recording quote in full a letter he send to Bauernfeld when they were both in their 80s and in which he spoke warmly about their long deceased friend.

Even more remarkable, his brothers Ignaz and Vinzenz were also composers; the former wrote some superb trios for the unusual combo piano, violin and viola, highly recommended for Schubertians and Mendelssohnians.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

#631
Not a piece but a performance. Again while driving I overheard on the Romanian classical music radio station Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto, starting with the 2nd movement. Live recording. Slow, slow, slow --- made me think of Pogorelich. Lots of rubato, almost Chopinesque at times. Caressing, velvety, lyrical, poetic and above all warm, all warmth --- never heard it played like that, honestly; I just loved it but for purists it might have been a nightmare. Then the finale: a contest between jovial jocularity and aggressive martiality, won by the former by a wide margin. A very idiosyncratic but imo splendid rendition.

Guess who?

Well, exactly: Mihaela Ursuleasa, Horia Andreescu and the Bucharest Radio Chamber Orchestra.  :)

Hands down the best version of this warhorse I've ever heard. Fortunately, on CD



coupled with Mozart's KV 466 and Paul Constantinescu's Toccata as encore. Note to self: buy it first thing Monday morning.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

SymphonicAddict

Two riveting works:



Cornelis Dopper - Symphony No. 7 Zuiderzee

An absolutely startling piece with an engaging melodic content. Did I say it is thrilling? Well, it is!


Ludomir Rózycki - Anhelli (Symphonic poem)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu86V9HQeOI&t=402s

I already knew his two hyper-romantic piano concertos (on Hyperion), and this work is on the same league, even more full-blooded impassionate. The recording is decent and it cries for a professional performance/recording.

arpeggio

#633
I am going to violate one my rules an express a highly opinionated opinion like those who trash all the modern music they do not like.

I am a band junkie and I am going to commit sacrilege.  I am not impressed with the marches of Sousa.  They are extremely formulaic (As far as I am concerned he wrote the same march a hundred times), they are heavily scored and they are not the difficult to play.

One of the reasons they are formulaic that along with being marches they are also dance tunes.  A type of dance that was becoming popular in the late 19th century was the two-step.  One could perform the two-step with a march.  The Sousa band would frequently perform for balls where people would dance waltzes and two-step to his marches.  As a result all of their tempos were about the same.

As far a scoring is concerned they lack transparency.  This is a technical term we snotty musicians like to use.  I can best explain by giving an example.  When Mahler would orchestrate one of his symphonies one will notice during a performance that very rarely would the whole orchestra would be playing at the same time.  Most episodes would be performed by alternating groups of instruments.  I played the Mahler Fourth and it was like playing chamber music.  A Sousa march is scored by producing mass blocks of sound.  Occasionally there would be an impressive solo like the piccolos in Stars and Stripe.  The bassoon parts are very boring and covered up by the trombones and baritones.  His marches are scored so even if one maybe missing some of the voices in their band, they can still perform the march.  I know normally a band can perform one of Sousa's marches if they are missing double reeds.  I know some of the real musicians around here can do a better job of explaining is than I do. 

Even though the Sousa band was a virtuosic group their marches are difficult to play.  They can be handled by most high school groups.

Before you Sousa people jump on me for being an elitist pseudo intellectual snob I will state that I have just played a Sousa work that blew this snob away.  At our next concert we will performing real concert work by Sousa and it is excellent.  The more I listen to it the more it grows on me.  It is nothing like his marches and reminds me of Offenbach.  It is a three movement work called the Looking Upward Suite.  There is much more variety than one finds in one of his marches.  There is some really nice music in the second movement.  There is some interesting scoring including some duets between the bassoon and the oboe.  That would be unheard of in a Sousa march.  And finally it is extremely challenging to play.  The trumpets are having hernias trying to play their parts.  No wonder it is rarely performed it is a hard piece to play with many difficult passages.  Stars and Stripes is a walk in the park compared to this monster.

I have found links to a performance of the Marine Band.  Do not be fooled.  They make it sound easy.  I hope you guys find it as a fastening as I do.  The City for Fairfax Band will be performing it on October 20th at Fairfax High School at 7:30.  We will also be doing Holst's transcription for band of the "Mars" movement from The Planets,  Hopefully we will work out the glitches with the Sousa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBheV3mX70Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hj00O5acos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1peF9TZjdqw

I love the second movement.  I am listening to it as I am writing this and I am freaking out.

woofer


SymphonicAddict


woofer

yes in some respects but the 14th sets poems by several poets and is for soprano and bass, the Michelangelo verses are single author and solo bass only with stripped down orchestra along the lines of the 15th.  I believe there are more recordings of the version for piano and bass rather than the orchestrated version.

woofer

correction - it is a full orchestra but used more sparingly than in the non choral symphonic workd

SymphonicAddict

Quote from: woofer on September 20, 2018, 05:49:16 PM
yes in some respects but the 14th sets poems by several poets and is for soprano and bass, the Michelangelo verses are single author and solo bass only with stripped down orchestra along the lines of the 15th.  I believe there are more recordings of the version for piano and bass rather than the orchestrated version.

Quote from: woofer on September 20, 2018, 05:55:01 PM
correction - it is a full orchestra but used more sparingly than in the non choral symphonic workd

Thanks for your kind replies. I will investigate this. Somehow I expect the extreme bleakness of Dmitry's last compositive period, which I find quite moving.

Jaakko Keskinen

BWV 31 Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret, in particular the aria for soprano near the end, "Letzte Stunde, brich herein".
"Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand."

- Victor Hugo