Recent posts

#1

The Diner / Re: Astronomy

Last post by krummholz - Today at 07:11:27 AM

You're right.  Those are prominences.  When I wrote that post and saw them, I thought prominences were solar flares but have since learned they're not. 

I think the most important thing was to have experienced the eclipse, not necessarily to photograph it.  The photographer I was next to stopped taking pictures entirely during totality to just experience it and I don't think he was wrong though I managed to do both, I'm glad I took it all in and took some pictures too even if others got way better shots than me, these are a part of me and my experience and I love them not because they are flawless but because it was deeply linked to my personal experience of that unique event and what it meant to me. 

Yes, that's another reason I didn't make any huge effort to take anything with me: it was my first total eclipse, and I just wanted mostly to take it all in, including the twilit ambiance on the ground and the 360º sunset effect.

BTW I can see assuming that the naked-eye prominences were solar flares - there were plenty of prominences visible elsewhere on the Sun's limb through the Sun and H-alpha filters, but they were NOT visible during totality because (evidently) they didn't reach up to the altitude of the ones you photographed. The fact that this one extended well above the Moon does support the idea that they might have been solar flares. But they didn't reach high into the corona, and their strong H-alpha coloring (the pinkish color is from the H-alpha emission line of hydrogen) suggests that they were lower altitude, less violent prominences (though they might have been surge prominences).

Your photo shows something I didn't notice during the eclipse: the corona appears to be missing just to the left of the brightest prominence. A coronal hole, would be my guess - a window through which the solar wind streams out.

#2

Composer Discussion / Re: Mozart

Last post by DavidW - Today at 07:10:16 AM

Yes, that's a point often made.

I don't even see the relevance of that point.  Are Madiel and Brian saying that PI recordings shouldn't even exist because they're sure that the composers would have preferred modern instruments?? 

Okay if Beethoven magically travels forward in time, I'll let him hear Kempff play his music.  But until that time, nobody is taking Badura-Skoda away from me.  Hell Beethoven himself could not take Badura-Skoda away from me!

#3

Composer Discussion / Re: Mozart

Last post by San Antone - Today at 07:01:18 AM

One point that creates some philosophical wiggle room is that the exact nature of performances in that era does not mean that the composers were satisfied with that nature. It is hard to imagine someone like Beethoven or Mozart accepting sloppy playing, amateurs, etc. except as the cost of doing business. I think if they were given a choice, they'd choose better players.

For example, Haydn left clarinets out of so much of his work because he didn't know any good clarinetists. What if he had?

This point has also been made about composers who were dissatisfied with the instruments available and might well have been delighted by the manufacturing innovations of later generations.

Speculating about these kinds of issues can be an interesting exercise. However, the bottomline is (and this is true for all music, any period, any performance philosophy) a performer, or ensemble, approaches the music with the intent to make the best of it using their collective talent, experience, and scholarship.

The authenticity dilemma is that because we can't truly know what a composer from 200-300 years ago might have intended, all we are left with are the scores, the documented performance practice, the specific instruments of the period, and the good faith of the performers.

The PI/HIP movement is a "post-modern" aesthetic endeavor. While musicians have a lot of information on which to base a PI/HIP performance, ultimately they are making the kind of sound according to their taste, which is formed by modern values.  I doubt any musician today (and for some time) has made a claim of authenticity since everyone is aware of the delusional nature of such a claim.  But their intention is to make a good performance using the known correct instruments of the period.

Generally, I prefer the sound of PI over modern ones, but that doesn't mean I only listen to those recordings. I love Schiff's ECM Bach and Beethoven recordings. And some PI recordings do not strike me as especially good or better.  As always everything depends on the specific performer(s) and our own personal preferences.

#4

General Classical Music Discussion / Re: BIS Records taken over by ...

Last post by Todd - Today at 07:00:57 AM

Based on the email he wrote announcing the sale of Apple, he remains involved.

Unless someone here directly works with BIS or the subdivision of Apple Music that manages what used to be BIS, no one knows what the involvement entails.  Typically, gigantic corporations like Apple keep people like Robert von Bahr on for high level activities and remove them from day-to-day operations immediately.  The companies then entirely phase such people out quickly.  Apple may be different, but that seems unlikely.  (It is not Berkshire Hathaway.)  I base this on my experience having worked at smaller companies that were bought by large companies, as well as hundreds of similar stories published in the business press over the decades. 

#5

Composer Discussion / Re: Mozart

Last post by Spotted Horses - Today at 06:58:34 AM

Yes, that's a point often made. But those composers didn't have a crystal ball to predict what the exact characteristics of those "improved" instruments would be like. They only knew what they knew, and that is what they wrote for.

Yes, and they would have written differently for instruments unknown to them.

I'm a PI enthusiast, not a purist. I enjoy a lot of modern instrument performances (I almost always listen to Bach keyboard music on modern piano) but PI performances have a leg up.

#6

Composer Discussion / Re: Mozart

Last post by Que - Today at 06:53:45 AM

This point has also been made about composers who were dissatisfied with the instruments available and might well have been delighted by the manufacturing innovations of later generations.

Yes, that's a point often made. Although the only example I usually hear and gets used over and over again, is Beethoven. But those composers didn't have a crystal ball to predict what the exact characteristics of those "improved" instruments would be like. They only knew what they knew, and that is what they wrote for. Maybe Beethoven would have absolutely hated a modern Steinway D? Just a thought...

#7

General Classical Music Discussion / Re: BIS Records taken over by ...

Last post by Spotted Horses - Today at 06:48:06 AM

Well, Didn't RvB retire? Do you expect him to write these emails from his grave too?

Based on the email he wrote announcing the sale of Apple, he remains involved.

However, it is clear that BIS won't be BIS when RvB is no longer there, Apple or no Apple.

#8

Great Recordings and Reviews / Re: "New" Music Log

Last post by Todd - Today at 06:47:37 AM

For no good reason, I've never listened to either Dvořák's Mass in D or his Te Deum.  I've heard his Stabat Mater (under Kubelik) and Requiem (under Ancerl), but not these.  Well, now was the time, I thought.  That no less than Antoni Wit conducts all but guaranteed success.  And a success it is.  The Mass, evidently scaled up from the original, smacks of 19th Century grandeur, but having flowed from the pen of Dvořák, the tunes are simply gorgeous, and even with the scale, it sounds like a slightly beefier, definitely sunnier approach to liturgical music that Fauré later mimicked-ish, at least in the quieter sections.  Sure, one can hear whiffs of Wagner in the brass in some places, but it's tasteful, restrained Richie.  It really sounds just splendid, celebratory, and lovely.  The Te Deum sounds more identifiably Dvořákian, and it is entirely extroverted and often most showy, though never garish, even in the most over the top moments. 

#9

General Classical Music Discussion / Re: BIS Records taken over by ...

Last post by 71 dB - Today at 06:44:35 AM

That has changed.

Well, Didn't RvB retire? Do you expect him to write these emails from his grave too?

#10

General Classical Music Discussion / Re: What are you listening 2 n...

Last post by AnotherSpin - Today at 06:41:43 AM