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#1
Richard Wagner
Parsifal

Hans Knappertsbusch & Bayreuth Festival Orchestra


#2
General Classical Music Discussion / Re: Purchases Today
Last post by JBS - Today at 04:54:03 AM
Via Amazon MP
From Movie Mars

From Amazon Japan


The Warner Lars Vogt set is also finally available via Amazon US but I decided to hold off until the next billing cycle: the Haydn is more tempting.

[Alert @Brian ]
#4
Good morning y'all.

From the Copland Conducts Copland box.
In this case, Copland is the conductee: he's the piano soloist in the concerto.
#5
General Classical Music Discussion / Re: David Hurwitz
Last post by 71 dB - Today at 04:28:21 AM
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on March 28, 2024, 08:36:53 PMMy main problem is Mäkelä is the difficulty in finding those Finnish diacritics to spell his last name.

I don't find it that difficult to find various diacritics of other languages. On Mac I use Edit/Emoji & Symbols. Then I search for the "root" symbol (e.g. seaching for "a" gives á, à, ä, â, ã, ă, ǎ,...) It is basically just knowing how to do it in the system you are using. One can even make a text file listing these symbols for copy-pasting. Or you can use https://finnish.typeit.org

What's more difficult is knowing how to pronounce a word/name. In this regards Finnish language is pretty easy and systematic (compared to English). Finnish vowel sounds are like the vowels in these english words:

A = car
E = even
I = even
O = dog
U = thousand
Y = symbol
Ä = cat
Ö = bird

We also have Å, the Swedish "o" for Swedish names which are common in Finland (e.g. the first president of Finland K. J. Stålberg). It is pronounce like O.

The letter Y is always a vowel in Finnish language: Yogurt is "jogurtti" and Yemen is "Jemen" in Finnish. Finnish language doesn't have silent letters, because we are silent people anyway.  :D Consonants are very similar to other languages and there are only a few exceptions such as the "ng" combination having its own sound for ease of pronunciation. In Finnish language the emphasis is always on the first syllable. Finnish language uses vowel harmony: A, O and U don't exist in the same words as Ä, Ö and Y do. Compound words are exception (e.g. jääkaappi meaning refrigerator is the combination of jää meaning ice and kaappi meaning cabinet).

Pronuncing Finnish is pretty simple and systematic if you know the rules, but non-native speakers tend to struggle a lot with double consonants such as "tt" in "jogurtti." You need to "stop" for a short moment between the two consonants (jogurt...ti) and this takes some time and practise to get used to in order to make the pronunciation rhythmically correct.

In english words are pronunced differently from how they are written. As we have seen above, Finnish language doesn't really have this, but we have two versions of the language: Written (formal) Finnish and spoken (informal) Finnish. When you apply for a job, you use written Finnish, but when you are chatting with your friends in a bar you use spoken Finnish. Here is an example of the difference of written and spoken Finnish:

Is Matti planning to go fishing next weekend:
Written: Aikooko Matti mennä kalastamaan ensi viikonloppuna?
Spoken: Meneeks Matti kalaan viikonloppuna?

Spoken language cuts corners: Aikooko (is --- planning) and mennä (go) are combined into the spoken word meneeks (is --- planning to go). Kalastamaan (fishing) is shortened. Ensi (next) is implied (has to be the next weekend if not specified) and unnecessary in spoken version.

Learning written Finnish can be really difficult (the grammar!) for foreigners and then there is spoken Finnish as a bonus!  ??? Compared to all this linguistic horror just spelling Finnish last names is actually nothing.  ;)

#6
Great Recordings and Reviews / Re: New Releases
Last post by Todd - Today at 04:18:52 AM


Pletnev doing Rach live?  Yeah, should be good.



A little nepotism never hurt no one.

















I'll take bizarre pairings for $1000, Ken.
#7
Quote from: Que on March 27, 2024, 11:47:28 PMMorning listening:



Easter is early this year!
Trying to make a modest dent in my collection of music for the Holy Week.

Gosh, this is beautiful! Thanks for posting.
Made me realise I do most of my Renaissance listening with smaller ensembles these days, but when a choir and music are as good as this the results are astoundingly lovely.
#8
General Classical Music Discussion / Re: David Hurwitz
Last post by Herman - Today at 04:10:51 AM
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on March 28, 2024, 08:36:53 PMAgreed. There was a scathing review of Klaus Mäkelä's Sibelius cycle, but when one listens to the recordings one finds that Mäkelä's versions hardly have the faults Hurwitz ascribes to them. My main problem is Mäkelä is the difficulty in finding those Finnish diacritics to spell his last name.

Mäkelä  -  like this? I haven't listened to KM's Sibelius recordings (yet) but from the online responses it's pretty clear to me that a conductor so young, slim and apparently liked by the orchestras he's working with, breeds huge resentment in boomers, who generally like their conductors old, barely able to reach the podium on foot or, even better, dead already and to be found in 100 CD boxsets as big as a baby's coffin.

A lot has changed since the 60s and 70s. Back then orchestras used to consist entirely of late middle-aged men (except of course for the harp and maybe one flute) and conductors were no spring chickens either. Maturity bred musical vision. Nowadays the best orchestras (look at Berlin PO) are stocked with young, sometimes very young musicians. At least half of them are female, not out of some equal opportunity thing, but because more girls persist and succeed in their musical education. Orchestral playing is largely a physical activity and you don't get any better over 55.

#9
Heinrich Schütz - Johannes Passion (Ars Nova Copenhagen, Paul Hillier)