Recent posts

#1

The Diner / Re: Pictures I like

Last post by Pohjolas Daughter - Today at 08:49:31 AM

Got over to see Ole Bolle, one of ~120 large troll statues by Danish recycle artist Thomas Dambo.  Statues are currently displayed on five continents.  The Emerald City has five, so next time I mosey on up that way, I might stop to see one or two. 

Oh, nice!  Did you go inside the house?

I remember reading about Dambo and his creations a while ago.  Really cool!  Here's some more information about it for those who are curious.  https://www.pinesnvines.com/adventures/portlands-giant-troll

PD

#2

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

Last post by Roasted Swan - Today at 08:42:46 AM

Well, that has knocked me back! Previn's recording of the 1st I love with a passion. Good image of Rachmaninov on cover of vinyl.

Sorry to do that!  For me it really is one of the very few Previn recordings of just about anything that I don't love.  You've got me doubting myself now - I'll need to go and relisten!

#3

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

Last post by Brian - Today at 08:42:02 AM

(cross-post from New Music Log)



If there is music with a funnier backstory, or an album with a funnier booklet note, someone please tell me about it. This album focuses on, yes, music composed to celebrate the Eurostar train from London to Paris and Brussels, and the completion of the Channel Tunnel. There is a fanfare for the first train to Brussels, a fanfare for the Queen's first departure to Paris, and an extra fanfare composed because the composer was notified that actually the Queen would be coming from Paris to London. (And then the plan got switched again, so this one was not performed in the actual train station.)

The main piece, Royal Eurostar by Paul Patterson, is a 12-minute brass and percussion work (to which organ was added for the CD, played by Wayne Marshall) that was meant to be played as the Queen and her entourage boarded the first train through the Chunnel, in the hope that it would reach its climax right as the train left the station. You can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, it's very grand, with brass writing influenced by Gabrieli, the English baroque sackbutts, Respighi, Hindemith, Persichetti, etc. alike. There are sets of timpani to both the left and right, and distant rafters trumpet fanfares. The studio recording sound picture had to be conceived to replicate the real-life performance with musicians on various train platforms. I hope you like fanfares, because there are a LOT of fanfares. Le Marseillaise gets quoted, of course. The climax is definitely grandiose enough that I can tell when the train is leaving the station (around 10') - pity the Queen didn't get to hear the best part. After the climax, the organ and dueling timpani provide a dramatic outro. This is a very silly piece, with lots of huffing and puffing, but I found it endearing and entertaining.

The fanfares are short - a couple minutes each - and generally blend a mix of "national" melodies together (plenty more Marseillaise) in a baroque-sounding musical language of intertwined counterpoint, glittering brightness, and ascending scales.

Also on the disc: a neobaroque suite by Derek Bourgeois commemorating the 300th anniversary of the arrival of William & Mary to the UK; the very dutiful solemn Elgar piece "Sursum corda"; Richard Strauss' fanfare written for the Knights of St. John; and the one well-known piece on the disc, Hindemith's Konzertmusik. (The Hindemith and Elgar works borrow the Philharmonia orchestra.) I quite like the Bourgeois piece but must point out that the melody for "The Death of Mary" sounds a lot like the jazz standard "Someday My Prince Will Come." The Strauss is suitably solemn and grandiose. The Hindemith performance is rather slow (15% shorter than Steinberg at 18:30), but features bold and blazing brass playing.

But let's be honest: all 3 of us who have ever heard this album listened to it because of the Eurostar music. Whatever. It's kinda fun! I'll probably never play it again, but I liked it this time. This is the kind of fun we can have now that Hyperion is on streaming!

#4

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

Last post by Brian - Today at 08:41:05 AM

If there is music with a funnier backstory, or an album with a funnier booklet note, someone please tell me about it. This album focuses on, yes, music composed to celebrate the Eurostar train from London to Paris and Brussels, and the completion of the Channel Tunnel. There is a fanfare for the first train to Brussels, a fanfare for the Queen's first departure to Paris, and an extra fanfare composed because the composer was notified that actually the Queen would be coming from Paris to London. (And then the plan got switched again, so this one was not performed in the actual train station.)

The main piece, Royal Eurostar by Paul Patterson, is a 12-minute brass and percussion work (to which organ was added for the CD, played by Wayne Marshall) that was meant to be played as the Queen and her entourage boarded the first train through the Chunnel, in the hope that it would reach its climax right as the train left the station. You can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, it's very grand, with brass writing influenced by Gabrieli, the English baroque sackbutts, Respighi, Hindemith, Persichetti, etc. alike. There are sets of timpani to both the left and right, and distant rafters trumpet fanfares. The studio recording sound picture had to be conceived to replicate the real-life performance with musicians on various train platforms. I hope you like fanfares, because there are a LOT of fanfares. Le Marseillaise gets quoted, of course. The climax is definitely grandiose enough that I can tell when the train is leaving the station (around 10') - pity the Queen didn't get to hear the best part. After the climax, the organ and dueling timpani provide a dramatic outro. This is a very silly piece, with lots of huffing and puffing, but I found it endearing and entertaining.

The fanfares are short - a couple minutes each - and generally blend a mix of "national" melodies together (plenty more Marseillaise) in a baroque-sounding musical language of intertwined counterpoint, glittering brightness, and ascending scales.

Also on the disc: a neobaroque suite by Derek Bourgeois commemorating the 300th anniversary of the arrival of William & Mary to the UK; the very dutiful solemn Elgar piece "Sursum corda"; Richard Strauss' fanfare written for the Knights of St. John; and the one well-known piece on the disc, Hindemith's Konzertmusik. (The Hindemith and Elgar works borrow the Philharmonia orchestra.) I quite like the Bourgeois piece but must point out that the melody for "The Death of Mary" sounds a lot like the jazz standard "Someday My Prince Will Come." The Strauss is suitably solemn and grandiose. The Hindemith performance is rather slow (15% shorter than Steinberg at 18:30), but features bold and blazing brass playing.

But let's be honest: all 3 of us who have ever heard this album listened to it because of the Eurostar music. Whatever. It's kinda fun! I'll probably never play it again, but I liked it this time.

#5

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

Last post by Pohjolas Daughter - Today at 08:39:00 AM

Well, that has knocked me back! Previn's recording of the 1st I love with a passion. Good image of Rachmaninov on cover of vinyl.

Looks like he might actually be smiling there? 

Soggy day here...not certain what to put on--particularly as I'm wishing that I was off in sunny Rome watching tennis right now.

PD

[Beethoven - Op. 40 - Romance for violin and orchestra No. 1 in G major (1801)]

#6

Classical YouTube Video Library / Beethoven - Op. 40 - Romance f...

Last post by W.A. Mozart - Today at 08:28:24 AM

Beethoven composed this piece in 1801, when he was 30 years old.

Performers:
Violin: Pinchas Zuckerman
Orchestra: St. Paul Chamber Orchestra

Beethoven - Op. 40 - Romance for violin and orchestra No. 1 in G major (1801)

#7

The Diner / Re: What TV series are you cur...

Last post by Pohjolas Daughter - Today at 08:27:12 AM

My sister read it with her Library Book Club, and found it a rough go. If I understand/recall aright from our @Cato, the book is a fictionalization, and I cannot help feeling that the facts of the extermination camps are sufficiently dramatic of themselves.

I watched about half of the first episode last night then decided that I wasn't in the right mood for it.  Will see how long I last.

PD

#8

The Diner / Re: The unimportant news threa...

Last post by Karl Henning - Today at 08:25:02 AM

Mass. Overdose deaths dropped 11% in 2023, according to the CDC.

[and I cannot help feeling that the facts of the extermination camps are sufficiently dramatic of themselves]

#9

The Diner / Re: What TV series are you cur...

Last post by Cato - Today at 08:19:19 AM

My sister read it with her Library Book Club, and found it a rough go. If I understand/recall aright from our @Cato, the book is a fictionalization, and I cannot help feeling that the facts of the extermination camps are sufficiently dramatic of themselves.

True!

Mrs. Cato and I listened to the "audio-book."  Here is an excerpt of my thoughts on the book:

"...Joseph Mengele appears as a cartoonish villain, as do the commandant and another character who helps to run things.

One thing learned from the verbatim transcripts of Nazi meetings and the writings of Albert Speer is the great hum-drum mediocrity of Nazi bureaucrats and officers.  There was no Colin-Clive mania in them, nor any smooth, James-Mason villainy, which is what you find in this novel.  Mengele almost curls his moustache in this book!

Plus, there are several anachronisms and downright mistakes: in one scene, in 1943, a small American reconnaissance airplane buzzes Auschwitz!  No, that did not and could not have happened!  Where would or could it have been based?  And why would Americans want reconnaissance of eastern Poland?!  Worse, when the main character makes it to Vienna in 1945, he describes it as being something from a "John Le Carre' novel."

John le Carre's first book came out in 1961: he was a teenager during World War II !

So it was interesting from the point of view of "how did this get published" !

Anyway, it could make a decent movie, following Alfred Hitchcock's rule that mediocre books can be improved for the big screen.


So, perhaps Hitchcock's rule is being proven correct!

#10

Great Recordings and Reviews / Re: CPO diaries

Last post by Brian - Today at 07:34:22 AM

Peterson-Berger's backward musical journey continues, as the Symphony No. 4 combines elements of neoclassicism as expressed in the early 20th century with elements of romantic light music (especially in the glittering orchestration) and a certain pre-Wagner Germanic tunefulness. The symphony, in A, has a bright happy demeanor. The three shortish movements (23 minutes total) flow naturally into each other, and the finale really plays up the light music / folk qualities, with tambourine and triangle in the percussion section. The ending is scored like, and melodized like, some sort of national anthem.

Next up is the 21-minute Sleeping Beauty suite. It's lovely mid-romantic incidental music, similar to several of the other suites in this series. The last suite, another 20-minute chunk called Frosoblomster, is even lighter and fluffier, with a smaller orchestra and lesser ambitions.



The title "Solitudo," and the B minor key, suggest a work of great emotional depth, maybe something like Sibelius 6. But the result, as you might expect by now, is another light, folksy, ear-friendly symphony. Two of the movements are marked "Tranquillo," separated by a wispy "scherzando." The slow movement does create room for an expansive theme with, maybe, a little bit of longing in it. After the first three movements, the finale packs a surprise: glittering orchestration, percussion (including piano and bass drum), big themes, and a folksy Hollywoody language that strongly resembles Kurt Atterberg. The development section has a fun, low tuba solo. It's like Peterson-Berger finally decided to free himself again. There is a soft, quiet, rather lovely ending. It's my favorite individual symphonic movement of his since the huge epic middle movement from No. 2.

The Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor is a 34-minute piece, more than half of which is in the first movement. There is a definite heroic and Nordic quality to the themes of the first movement, not quite as folk-colorful as the violin concertos by Tor Aulin (for example), but also less Bruch-derived than Sinding. The movement ends quietly, leading into an andante. This also leads into the finale, through a crescendo leading to some pounding tutti chords. Then the violinist introduces a finale theme that's a lot more relaxed than you'd expect from the preceding drama. There is some chinoiserie in here, especially around 2' - even what sounds like doubled piano and celesta.

All told, the Violin Concerto may in some ways be one of the most conservative pieces in the Peterson-Berger series, but I ultimately found it one of the most enjoyable. It has more memorable material than many of the suites and incidental works. Still, the composer's overall trajectory is odd to me, from the wild visions of the first two symphonies to the gradually smaller, more domestic lives of the late works.



Albert Dietrich was a close friend of Brahms, close enough that Brahms traveled to visit him and play music with him. This kinship is clear in the Cello Sonata, which uses a Brahmsian language to map Brahmsian emotional territory: calm/wise serenity, inner doubts and turmoil, wistful melancholy, and ultimately a hard-won joyful finale - not carefree but thankful, you could say.

The short Introduction & Romance is just eight minutes of more late-Brahms-like lyricism and soft melody. I quite like all this cello music; though you could certainly say it's derivative, it derives from the best, and if you wish there was more Brahms chamber music, this should be in your library.

After that, the cello departs the program and we go to two sets of earlier piano works, Op. 6 and Op. 2. They're both collections of Klavierstücke, ten total pieces and a half-hour of listening. These are less memorable, and although you sometimes get a whiff of Brahms or Schumann, more often they are fairly generic. In a pleasant way, but not exactly an unforgettable one.



It's not just how easily influenced by @kyjo I am (though that is true!), it's also that I love the super-clean, elegant sound Howard Griffiths always gets from his Swiss orchestra. If the Franz Krommer symphony series sounds like big, beefy, quirky sequels to the final Haydn symphonies, the Franz Danzi series sounds like companions to the first three or four Franz Schubert symphonies. This is a high compliment! They are modest in scope - the longest is just 23 minutes - and absolutely bursting with colorful ideas and late-classical delights. He's learned from Haydn very, very well. Danzi is most famous now for his wind quintet/sextet music, so it is a given that his woodwind writing here is full of character. In other words, I love all of this. There isn't one wasted second.

The advocacy of Griffiths - who prefers a HIP-influenced modern instrument approach with fleet tempi and hard-stick timpani - is exactly what Danzi needs. This is extremely my thing. The only possible demerit is that occasionally I can hear the conductor vocalizing.