Pieces that you enjoyed on first listening and still enjoy

[Mark G. Simon]

Hm. This is pretty close to how I assess pieces instantly, except that the category 2 pieces almost never move up, and the category 1 pieces sometimes do. If I have a recording that falls into category 1, I tend to leave it a year or so, try again, leave it another year, try it again, then give up on it if it's not moved into 3 or 4.

There's something to be said for that. Any piece that strikes such a strong impression on you to produce an active "yuck!" actually has more going for it than one which only inspires a passive "ho hum, whatever..."

[johnshade]

... a few that come to mind (some of my first recordings)
Brahms: Symphony No 1
Beethoven: Symphony No 3
Bartok: Sonata for 2 pianos and percussion; Music for strings, percussion and celesta
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben; Der Rosenkavalier
Rachmaninoff: music for solo piano
Bach: Goldberg Variations

[m_gigena]

Paganini Variations ( )

My first idea while listening to this was: "this sounds like the Liszt Etude, after taking acids... both pianists".

[m_gigena]

Mahler's Titan symphony of course

Isn't Titan a tone poem, and the 1st symphony, a symphony itself?

[Solitary Wanderer]

  These three operas are a good place to start.....either one of the 3 will do but you might as well start at the beginning with The Flying Dutchman.  These operas are relatively short (well shorter than Wagner's mature operas) and touch upon recurring themes (love, death, redemption) used in all of Wagner's other works, except for, or to a lesser extent Meistersingers von Nurnberg, which should ease the transition into these later masterpieces.


  Good Luck and enjoy.......
   PS.: What do you mean you still haven't opened the MET Ring???  What are you waiting for  ?

  marvin 

Good question!

Seriously we always have lots of things backed up to view and its about picking the right moment to sit down with it. We'll watch the whole thing over about two weeks I'd guess. Also I want my wife to read some more about the Ring before we start.

I'm greatly looking forward to it, especially after seeing the Mets Lucia..., so I'll keep you posted as to my progress.

Yeah, I was thinking of starting with Dutchman as far as audio performances go. It does seem a bit more 'accessible'.

[mahlertitan]

Isn't Titan a tone poem, and the 1st symphony, a symphony itself?

i don't know what you are talking about, i am only aware of a "Titan" symphony. The so called title of "Tone Poem" was scratched by Mahler personally, if you think you know better than Mahler, i guess you can say that he wrote another piece by the name of "Titan a symphonic poem" with the Blumine movement still attached.

[Mark]

Thought of another piece that for me answers the brief set by the title of this thread: Saint-Saens' First Cello Concerto. Just listening to a recording of it with Yo-Yo Ma and Orchestre National de France under Lorin Maazel on CBS. Reminded me how much I still enjoy it.

[m_gigena]

i don't know what you are talking about, i am only aware of a "Titan" symphony. The so called title of "Tone Poem" was scratched by Mahler personally, if you think you know better than Mahler, i guess you can say that he wrote another piece by the name of "Titan a symphonic poem" with the Blumine movement still attached.

The symphonic poem is "Titan - eine Tondichtung in Symphonieform" and there's a recording by Wakasugi, made in 1989. That's the one I have, more may exist.
I once read that calling the first symphony "Titan" is a mistake, as Titan was the symphonic poem and not the symphony written from it. The first symphony is just "Symphony Nº 1".

[mahlertitan]

The symphonic poem is "Titan - eine Tondichtung in Symphonieform" and there's a recording by Wakasugi, made in 1989. That's the one I have, more may exist.
I once read that calling the first symphony "Titan" is a mistake, as Titan was the symphonic poem and not the symphony written from it. The first symphony is just "Symphony Nº 1".

"Titan" is just a nickname, heck, some people even refer Bruckner's 1st as the "Saucy maid".... for one reason or another, the title "Titan" has stayed with the symphony, so rather it's pointless to say that it was a mistake or not.

also, Titan the symphonic poem is almost the same as the first symphony ( minus the blumine movement), so you see, calling it "titan" is still very appropriate. 

[m_gigena]

"Titan" is just a nickname, heck, some people even refer Bruckner's 1st as the "Saucy maid".... for one reason or another, the title "Titan" has stayed with the symphony, so rather it's pointless to say that it was a mistake or not.

also, Titan the symphonic poem is almost the same as the first symphony ( minus the blumine movement), so you see, calling it "titan" is still very appropriate. 

There is an earlier version of this work with slightly different orchestration and an extra movement - a short, lyrical piece called "Blumine" - that Mahler discarded when he submitted the whole work to revision. The earlier version also had a title, approximately "Titan, tone poem in symphonic form". The title was also discarded with the extra movement so there is no real justification in record companies or concert promoters using the title "Titan" now when playing the revised version which is the one herd in concert halls and on record. To do so is to swim against Mahler's wishes, as also is the occasional practice of "restoring" the discarded "Blumine" movement in its old place in the final version of the symphony. To do all this creates a bit of a hybrid. You can hear the discarded movement still as it is sometimes included on recordings as a fill-up. Listen to it by all means but as a "standalone" piece of early Mahler. There is, however, a recording of that early version of the symphony where the inclusion of "Blumine" makes textural sense. It is conducted by Ole Kristian Ruud with the Norrkoping Symphony orchestra. (Simax PSC 1150 purchase). The precise history of the score need not detain us since it's a complex and by no means completely solved puzzle, but suffice it to say that what we have on this release presents broadly the penultimate stage in the work's development heard in Hamburg in 1893 where it carried the title "Titan, Symphonic poem in the form of a symphony. There are even more questions raised by this recording, though. Not least the accuracy of the published orchestral parts that would have been used and their relationship to the manuscript at Yale University to which provenance is claimed. The latter is itself by no means a clean set of documents either, a fact the notes fail to mention. But discussion of all these fine points are beyond the scope of this survey. Having made these caveats clear I think we can rely on this recording taking us close to what Mahler presented in Hamburg in 1893, though it cannot be said with confidence to be exactly what he conducted. The differences between the First Symphony we are familiar with and this 1893 Hamburg version may not seem all that great on first hearing, but they are significant.

[mahlertitan]

so? what's your point? Symphony in D major "Titan", what's wrong with that? Don't you know that the tone poem wasn't even published, so it doesn't really exist. What exist now, today is what we know as the "Titan" symphony in D major.

[PSmith08]

so? what's your point? Symphony in D major "Titan", what's wrong with that? Don't you know that the tone poem wasn't even published, so it doesn't really exist. What exist now, today is what we know as the "Titan" symphony in D major.

If Mahler didn't give it a title, or later withdrew his title, then it doesn't have one. We popularly call the 2nd "Auferstehung," but that's incorrect (but it's still the title of the Klopstock ode), just as with the 6th, 7th, and 8th.

It might be a nickname, but it isn't Mahler's nickname.

[m_gigena]

so? what's your point? Symphony in D major "Titan", what's wrong with that? Don't you know that the tone poem wasn't even published, so it doesn't really exist.

Doesn't exist! So what I have on that Wakasugi cd is...

It might be a nickname, but it isn't Mahler's nickname.

Exactly.

What exist now, today is what we know as the "Titan" symphony in D major.

And that's wrong.

[gomro]

The first time I ever heard Honegger's Pacific 231 was on a Vanguard disc, conducted by Abravanel, and it immediately hit home. (The other two pieces on that album - Varese's Ameriques and Milhaud's L'homme et son desir - took some time to take in.) I still really enjoy the piece; I've even sought out Jean Mitry's film version, probably the earliest "music video".  And I don't completely buy Honegger's own story about the thing in Je Suis compositeur; maybe he wrote it without the locomotive in mind, and named it as an afterthought, but one doesn't get that idea from his many earlier remarks, and I think part of his dismissal of the work was sour grapes. It had overtaken everything else he ever wrote...

[mahlertitan]

If Mahler didn't give it a title, or later withdrew his title, then it doesn't have one. We popularly call the 2nd "Auferstehung," but that's incorrect (but it's still the title of the Klopstock ode), just as with the 6th, 7th, and 8th.

It might be a nickname, but it isn't Mahler's nickname.

so? what's the point? We all know Mahler's first symphony by the name of "Titan", like i said before, who gives if it was by Mahler or not, do you think Bruckner  gave his 8th "Apocalyptic" or "Saint Michael"?

as long as whenever i say "Titan" people immediately know that i am refering to Mahler's symphony no.1 in D major, that's all i need, end of discussion

-MT

[mahlertitan]

Doesn't exist! So what I have on that Wakasugi cd is...

Mahler didn't publish his symphonic poem, he felt that a symphony lacking the Blumine movement was better fit to be his first symphony. As for the recording that you have, people went back and found (from obscurity) for the lost Blumine movement, and it("symphonic poem Titan") was the product of their reconstruction.

And that's wrong.

no it's not, there shouldn't even be a discussion about it being "right" or "wrong", there is no right or wrongs, it's a freakin nickname, if you don't like it, fine; people like me, and (many others) do believe that the nickname "Titan" is a nice nickname, and will be calling it "Titan" symphony for as long as we live.

end of discussion

-MT

[Symphonien]

When I listen to a piece of music for the first time, I'll usually have one of the following reactions:

1) Yuck! What was this guy thinking??
2) Zzzzzzz. Boring. Nothing particularly bad, mind you, but overall why bother.
3) Hmm. Shows promise. Worth another listen.
4) Yowee zowee! This is really cool stuff!

Pieces that fall in category 1) stay there. Always.
Once in a great while a category 2) piece will jump up into category 3 or 4, but it's rare. I rarely give category 1) or 2) pieces a second hearing.
Pieces in category 3) stand a very good chance of being upgraded to category 4) upon subsequent listenings.
Pieces in category 4) will get a lot of play for a while, then I'll put them aside with warm memories of the pleasure these pieces have given me. I never hold it against the music that I inevitably want to move on.

Wow! That's pretty much the same thing that happens to me with new music.

That's why I started the thread to find out some of those rare category 4 pieces that don't get boring. Reading the thread so far, I'd definitely add Mahler's 1st. For some reason, it was the only one of his symphonies that I felt I understood after first listening, and so far it hasn't lost my interest. Although the ones that took longer to understand are now my favourites - starting off category 3. Currently, I'm exploring Bruckner's symphonies for the first time (now up to the 9th) and they mostly seem to be category 2.

[m_gigena]

no it's not, there shouldn't even be a discussion about it being "right" or "wrong", there is no right or wrongs, it's a freakin nickname, if you don't like it, fine; people like me, and (many others) do believe that the nickname "Titan" is a nice nickname, and will be calling it "Titan" symphony for as long as we live.

end of discussion

-MT

You can refer to that Symphony as Victor if you want. Or you can also call it Robert. Also, you can insist on the Titan thing. However, as I said before, Titan is the symphonic poem, with its five movements and original orchestration details. "Symphony Nº 1" is the four movement symphony.
I'm just being informative here, If you want to persist on your mistake, that's your choice. So the name Titan rings a bell for zillions of listeners? I couldn't care less.

I understand this subject affects you personally, as now your nickname doesn't come from a symphony, but from a mere symphonic poem. 

Chill out.. It isn't degrading anyway...

[marvinbrown]

Good question!

Seriously we always have lots of things backed up to view and its about picking the right moment to sit down with it. We'll watch the whole thing over about two weeks I'd guess. Also I want my wife to read some more about the Ring before we start.

  Thats an excellent idea actually, get yourselves familiar with the plot of the Ring and then dive right in  0:) .

  marvin

[Manon]

Saint-Saëns : Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, op. 33

I can't get bored of listening to it.If i go to a classical music concert, i prefer cello concerts.( I remember buying 2 different concert tickets only for this concerto)