Classical music

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  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    rhubarb wrote: »
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?

    My priest has a plaque in his office that reads "When the Angels play for God, they play Bach. When they play for themselves, they play Mozart."
  • Gould's 1981 recording of The Goldberg Variations will be my exit music (assuming that I have the opportunity to choose). The way he inhabits every tone is so possessing, so intimate. I'll include Bach's cello suites if I have the time.

    As a child I was quite musical, but I also benefited by a very good music teacher in Grades 3 and 4 - a young man who took his job seriously, and thought it was a good idea to introduce the children in my remote part of creation to classical music. He used Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain. (I wonder if that's part of the reason that Boris Godunov is one of my favourite operas.) His successor was an older woman with the voice of a heavy smoker, and who had a cartoonishly heavy way of playing piano despite being spindly. She was nice enough, but I can't say that she did much for my musical enthusiasms.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    rhubarb wrote: »
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?

    That's a bit of a silly question!
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    When the angels praise God in heaven I am sure they play Bach. But they play Mozart en famille and then God is especially delighted to listen to them. Karl Barth.
  • rhubarb wrote: »
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?

    Of course!
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited January 4
    I am interested in the definition of classical music. Our minister is a philistine, loves Hellsong and despises what he calls classical, i.e. old music - anything much more than around five years old. My argument is that 'classical' means enduring, meaning it can be centuries old or it can have been written last week. If it is good, it will endure. Much of the noise that passes for music in church now is instantly forgettable; disposable. Outside the church, my own favourites keep shifting, but Stravinsky's ballets will always be near the top of the list, with his glorious light, colour and images radiating from his music.

    I'm afraid that etymology is not meaning.

    The way we use 'classical' now is not quite the same as when it became a popular term around mid-to-late 19th century either. And of course we have narrower and wider meanings of it now (just as 'pop'/'popular' has narrower and wider meanings).

    But this thread is about the Western art music tradition, arguments about the origin of the word "classic" notwithstanding.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    rhubarb wrote: »
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?

    He's generally better known as a composer than a player...
  • orfeo wrote: »
    rhubarb wrote: »
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?

    He's generally better known as a composer than a player...

    You'd think they'd give him a rest, right?
  • Yeh, get Bach to move over and let Bruckner a go on the mighty celestial organ. He was a whizz at extemporisation.
  • So was Handel.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Beethoven was also an extraordinary extemporiser. My favourite quote on this subject is that Beethoven strives towards heaven but Mozart comes from heaven. Not sure who originally said it, but I've seen it quoted by Barenboim.

    I got to hear Barenboim playing Beethoven about 10 years ago, when he played/conducted the complete concertos in Paris with the Berlin Staatskapelle. I heard numbers 1 and 4. I've never forgotten the sight of him playing some monstrously difficult bit of the concerto with one hand, and conducting the orchestra with the other. :astonished:
  • This is perhaps the right place to repost Ken's lovely description of various composers from the old Ship:
    On the other hand I find most pre-jazz piano music boring (except for the huge show-off concertos - talking of which the final of the Leeds Piano competition is on RIGHT NOW and the poor bloke played a distinct wrong note within a few bars of coming in - but other than that is doing pretty well) and I can easily get fed up with the dominant high-pitched violin-and-clarinet sound of a lot of late 18th & early 19th century music and I've had it up to HERE with boring songs with rambling tedious melody lines with some dull tinkly piano accompaniment and lyrics about depressed lost Germans wandering in the wintry wilderness trying to get up enough passion to top themselves and THAT BLOODY TROUT. I mean it's a nice enough tune but did Schooperson really have to make the song three weeks long? If Berlioz had orchestrated it it would have been over with in three minutes forty five and involved a horn section the size of a planet, a number of distinct explosions, and ended up with the composer eating the fish on stage after it had been fried in a kettle drum.

    OK, the Schupeople aren't always that bad, but they are that best when at their most populist and flashy. The serious intense stuff is boring. Out of the immediate contemporaries or successors of Beethoven - say the composers between Haydn and Wagner - or work written before 1848 - I prefer Rossini and especially Mendelsohn to Chopin or Schubert. And Brahms can be good when he is being sentimental, Berlioz when he is being pompous, and Liszt when he is showing off. Which I suppose is nearly always for all three of them.

    And so I don't really like Mozart that much. He's all right, but too cool and too tricksy and too glib. The best bits are the operas and the religious pieces. When he lets some emotion in. (Or else fakes it well)

    And why do foolish people say Bach is emotionless or mathematical? He's a screaming world of stuff compared to Mozart's mild-mannered slightly snooty uber-cool not-quite-frivolity.

    Mozart's music so often says "aren't I clever? Isn't the Kaiser a nice bloke? Aren't we all rather clever together for liking Me? Would anyone like to commission a quartet? What are you doing after the party? Oh, no-one goes there anymore Darling! Yes, tedious, isn't it?"


    On the other hand Bach's music typically says: "Glory to God in the Highest! And Peace to his people on Earth! And Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory and honour and power! And isn't creation wonderful! And there is all this stuff going on in my head! Talking of which I've been up all night and could do with a coffee. No, make that a beer. In fact I want a double coffee AND a pint of lager. And shoot that bloody piano player. AND WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PAY ME YOU TIGHT SAXON BASTARDS????"

    Trust me, it's all in there somewhere.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    We generally prefer earlier rather than later music, but since Boxing Day I've been listening to accounts of Strauss's Four Last Songs (and driving Madame mad by hearing so much) - the last great work of the Romantic era . Flagstadt's has great value, she having been Strauss's preferred singer, but so far the recordings I've found have been of poor quality. Overall my favourite is Jessye Norman, but Schwarzkopf is not far behind.

    @Gee D I also have both the Norman and Schwarzkopf recordings and definitely prefer the Norman. I have found it difficult to warm to the Schwarzkopf voice over the years, as I also did with Sutherland. I prefer the richer tones of Flagstad and Norman. There is a live recording, from original radio masters, of Flagstad singing 3 of the Four Last Songs in Berlin on the German Audite label, but the riverine warehouse wants a king's ransom for them. Since the demise of Fish Fine Music, it is almost impossible to obtain such rarities.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Those Flagstad records would be for serious collectors of records rather than those wanting a good recording as well as an outstanding voice.

    Sorry, but can't agree about Sutherland. Are you reliant upon recordings? We saw every opera production she was in in Sydney from the late 70s onwards, and are glad that we did. Such a range of repertoire. Did you see and hear her in Tales of Hoffman? In our experience, no better Olympia live or on recording. Dlet may have such luck, but no-one comparable on the horizon here at the moment (that's not to say no very good singers, just none at that superlative level).
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    This is perhaps the right place to repost Ken's lovely description of various composers from the old Ship:
    On the other hand I find most pre-jazz piano music boring (except for the huge show-off concertos - talking of which the final of the Leeds Piano competition is on RIGHT NOW and the poor bloke played a distinct wrong note within a few bars of coming in - but other than that is doing pretty well) and I can easily get fed up with the dominant high-pitched violin-and-clarinet sound of a lot of late 18th & early 19th century music and I've had it up to HERE with boring songs with rambling tedious melody lines with some dull tinkly piano accompaniment and lyrics about depressed lost Germans wandering in the wintry wilderness trying to get up enough passion to top themselves and THAT BLOODY TROUT. I mean it's a nice enough tune but did Schooperson really have to make the song three weeks long? If Berlioz had orchestrated it it would have been over with in three minutes forty five and involved a horn section the size of a planet, a number of distinct explosions, and ended up with the composer eating the fish on stage after it had been fried in a kettle drum.

    OK, the Schupeople aren't always that bad, but they are that best when at their most populist and flashy. The serious intense stuff is boring. Out of the immediate contemporaries or successors of Beethoven - say the composers between Haydn and Wagner - or work written before 1848 - I prefer Rossini and especially Mendelsohn to Chopin or Schubert. And Brahms can be good when he is being sentimental, Berlioz when he is being pompous, and Liszt when he is showing off. Which I suppose is nearly always for all three of them.

    And so I don't really like Mozart that much. He's all right, but too cool and too tricksy and too glib. The best bits are the operas and the religious pieces. When he lets some emotion in. (Or else fakes it well)

    And why do foolish people say Bach is emotionless or mathematical? He's a screaming world of stuff compared to Mozart's mild-mannered slightly snooty uber-cool not-quite-frivolity.

    Mozart's music so often says "aren't I clever? Isn't the Kaiser a nice bloke? Aren't we all rather clever together for liking Me? Would anyone like to commission a quartet? What are you doing after the party? Oh, no-one goes there anymore Darling! Yes, tedious, isn't it?"


    On the other hand Bach's music typically says: "Glory to God in the Highest! And Peace to his people on Earth! And Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory and honour and power! And isn't creation wonderful! And there is all this stuff going on in my head! Talking of which I've been up all night and could do with a coffee. No, make that a beer. In fact I want a double coffee AND a pint of lager. And shoot that bloody piano player. AND WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PAY ME YOU TIGHT SAXON BASTARDS????"

    Trust me, it's all in there somewhere.

    Well that was fun. And frequently accurate.

    I generally prefer both Haydn and Beethoven to Mozart and Schubert, though the latter 2 have their moments as well. Haydn doesn't get nearly enough love compared to his wunderkind friend.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Those Flagstad records would be for serious collectors of records rather than those wanting a good recording as well as an outstanding voice.

    Sorry, but can't agree about Sutherland. Are you reliant upon recordings? We saw every opera production she was in in Sydney from the late 70s onwards, and are glad that we did. Such a range of repertoire. Did you see and hear her in Tales of Hoffman? In our experience, no better Olympia live or on recording. Dlet may have such luck, but no-one comparable on the horizon here at the moment (that's not to say no very good singers, just none at that superlative level).

    @Gee D never lucky enough to see her live [too young for Sutherland-Williamson and living in the country with a young family when she regularly returned], so dependent upon audio and videorecordings. I don't deny the talent. Indeed, the more I think about it the more I realise it is possibly the repertoire.

    Bel canto opera doesn't really appeal to our taste. Even when, as a young bachelor, I was a regular subscriber to AO, I preferred the Romantic and verismo productions and Mrs BA has a similar preference. We have several complete bel canto recordings starring Sutherland, but they are not often played.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    A naughty friend once defined: "bel canto=can belto"...having heard Our Joan in the (considerable) flesh he certainly had a point
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Yes, putting it politely, she could project her voice throughout any theatre around. But even when she was doing it, she had such beauty and purity of tone that we did not find it unpleasant.
  • I've just been out on some errands, and while driving heard the relief announcer on Classic Drive announce an item by the soprano Maria CALAIS, and then the Spanish composer Antonio SOALER, all in the space of five minutes. Believe it or not, according to his online CV, he's an honours music graduate.
  • I've just been out on some errands, and while driving heard the relief announcer on Classic Drive announce an item by the soprano Maria CALAIS, and then the Spanish composer Antonio SOALER, all in the space of five minutes. Believe it or not, according to his online CV, he's an honours music graduate.

    By correspondence? Or at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I've just been out on some errands, and while driving heard the relief announcer on Classic Drive announce an item by the soprano Maria CALAIS, and then the Spanish composer Antonio SOALER, all in the space of five minutes. Believe it or not, according to his online CV, he's an honours music graduate.

    Can I ask where his degree is from.
  • Melbourne, with further study in Graz. And a Master's in Communication from Swinburne.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    How could he!
  • Perhaps she could have been Maria CALLOUS, although that might be rather painful on the feet.

    I never saw her, but my parents did. She wasn't, I don't think, the greatest singer (and probably should have been a mezzo), but she had charisma in buckets, it seems.
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    Another life-long chorister here, feeling lost without a choir for the first time in several decades. I have mostly sung alto, but often tenor over the last ten years (I sing in a small early music choir where the parts don’t always neatly divide into SATB anyway). We have managed to meet and sing twice in a park over the last six months, but have been so spread out that it’s been rather below our normal standards.

    I’ve been playing the piano most days after work, with the vague goal of improving my sight-reading and not avoiding pieces in scary keys. So over the course of many months I’ve played* through all Chopin’s mazurkas, followed by nearly all Bach’s 48 preludes and fugues, followed by all Haydn’s piano sonatas (need to go and try out no.36 in a minute). The Haydn has been least interesting and I’ve interspersed those with other composers. The second half of Bach was the most interesting; as far as I can see he was trying to write fugues that sounded like something else but technically met the criteria for a fugue?

    *Not at all expertly
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    edited January 8
    Aravis wrote: »
    Another life-long chorister here, feeling lost without a choir for the first time in several decades. I have mostly sung alto, but often tenor over the last ten years (I sing in a small early music choir where the parts don’t always neatly divide into SATB anyway). We have managed to meet and sing twice in a park over the last six months, but have been so spread out that it’s been rather below our normal standards.

    I haven’t sung at all since March - we did have a quartet going for a few months over the summer and early fall, but socially distanced one on a part is a bridge too far for me so I left it to the stronger singers in our choir.

    I ordered a CD of Smetana’s string quartets a while ago which showed up in the mail earlier this week. Still getting my head around the music, but it’s growing on me. Pricklier than Dvorak, but not as prickly as Janacek whose chamber music for strings I never got my head around (much as I like his solo piano music).

  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    I bought 23 different CDs or sets just after Christmas. Most of them will take a long time to get here from Europe, but one of them only had to travel from Orange, New South Wales so it's arrived.

    Magdalena Kozena singing songs by Dvorak, Janacek and Martinu (with apologies to anyone who speaks Czech as I've completely ignored all the diacritics those names actually need).
  • Pangolin GuerrePangolin Guerre Shipmate
    edited January 8
    @Marsupial @Orfeo Your mention of Janáček brought to mind the Canadian Opera Company's great production of Jenůfa in February 2003 ( a friend brought me for my birthday). Stunning. I recall a review criticising the stage design as too dark and monochrome, but it had a massive mill wheel on stage, reflecting Fate, which was very affecting. The performances across the board (sorry) were profound.
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    They were supposed to do another Janacek this year, I think, which sadly has been cancelled for obvious reasons.

    I admire PG’s dedication to correct diacritics. When I try to remember diacritics on the Ship I usually end up with an inconsistent mess.
  • Marsupial wrote: »
    They were supposed to do another Janacek this year, I think, which sadly has been cancelled for obvious reasons.
    Same with Welsh National Opera, after an excellent revival of "Cunning Little Vixen" about 18 months ago.

  • edited January 8
    I am blessed (or cursed) with very good auditory memory and imagery. I find myself listening to much classical music as conversation in a way. There's some form of statement about something by a violin, woodwinds, even percussion, and this is responded to by by others and the conversation continues. It can include voice or choir, depending. The discussion in music for me is emotional and spiritual, though spiritual in the way of lifting, oppressing or appreciating the uplift or oppression (and other experiences). My responses to music frequently arouse or otherwise disrupt my emotions, and I feel manipulated at times, Mozart and some movie scores (The Mission comes up frequently) being the most approachable example of a manipulative composer who plays with others' feelings in rather bossy ways with feelings.

    Frequently I play extended sequences of pieces of music in my head. I'll find myself deciding to play with them, changing notes, timing, orchestration, sequences. It is also a good way of recalling things, like when there was the challenge of memorizing Pi to 100 digits at school. Just setting it to music in my head, it becomes poetry. The Goldberg Variations were mentioned above, very useful as there are plenty of them. I also get mildly annoyed at performances of music which don't quite manage to be in perfect tune or pitch; there's been a tendency recently for baroque particularly to be played in the way the conductor believes is more authentic, lowering pitch and (usually) slowing timing. Not fond of these technical manipulations. There are times when I need to listen to cool jazz.

    I've discussed the above with a neuropsychologist a few times and also professional orchestral musicians. I've gathered that my experiences are not that rare, though people talk about them differently.
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    ECraigR wrote: »
    rhubarb wrote: »
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?

    My priest has a plaque in his office that reads "When the Angels play for God, they play Bach. When they play for themselves, they play Mozart."
    I would have thought that they were into polyphony or plainsong.
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    Pendragon wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    rhubarb wrote: »
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?

    My priest has a plaque in his office that reads "When the Angels play for God, they play Bach. When they play for themselves, they play Mozart."
    I would have thought that they were into polyphony or plainsong.

    That is reserved for the archangels.

  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I'm sincerely hoping they sing Tallis, Byrd and Gibbons.

    With a spot of Gilbert and Sullivan for light relief. :mrgreen:
  • I loved the play based on the life of Tallis sung by six of The Sixteen (Jessica Swale, title Thomas Tallis, commissioned for the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse).

    The Royal Opera House is streaming a handful of operas and ballets for not a lot of money, currently La Bohème is available to Sunday and Andrea Chénier from this evening, plus Alice in Wonderland ballet. All three cost £3.00 with VAT each.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    NOprophet_NOprofit, that way of experiencing music sounds so wonderful, I'm envious! I also envy people who see music as colors. Wow! It's like having extra senses. :smiley:
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    Noprophet noprofit, I think we probably have some neurological similarities. Much as I love my early music choir, the occasional necessity to sing at baroque pitch (if instruments are also involved) makes it harder for me to read the music and the conductor always apologises to me! If I have to sing a piece in a different key from the one written, I have to consciously transpose it, just as I would with an instrument. Possibly as a consequence of that, I don’t particularly mind what key I play a piece in, if I’m playing from memory anyway; it’s no worse than adapting to singing things in the wrong key.

    I also have a number of mental recordings (some whole works, e.g. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Bach’s St John Passion) though can’t vary them the way you do, which sounds intriguing.

    I am also extremely prone to earworms. It is a great relief not to be based in an NHS building any longer, as they seem to think listening to Red Dragon FM is essential for work.
  • Aravis wrote: »
    Noprophet noprofit, I think we probably have some neurological similarities. Much as I love my early music choir, the occasional necessity to sing at baroque pitch (if instruments are also involved) makes it harder for me to read the music and the conductor always apologises to me! If I have to sing a piece in a different key from the one written, I have to consciously transpose it, just as I would with an instrument. Possibly as a consequence of that, I don’t particularly mind what key I play a piece in, if I’m playing from memory anyway; it’s no worse than adapting to singing things in the wrong key.

    I also have a number of mental recordings (some whole works, e.g. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Bach’s St John Passion) though can’t vary them the way you do, which sounds intriguing.

    I am also extremely prone to earworms. It is a great relief not to be based in an NHS building any longer, as they seem to think listening to Red Dragon FM is essential for work.

    Yes, we a flutes of an orchestra, birds of a feather. Before the invasion of so much sound and music with the internet certainly, perhaps before, it seemed a bit easier.

    Re variations. Just imagine perhaps one of those choir experiences, re-imagining it as should be for yourself. It was annoyance that may have driven me to it. I also recall disagreeing with my piano teacher when I was young. Mrs. McX actually fired me as a student. There's a longer story but perhaps my innate stubbornness is part of it.
  • My son and I both have musical synesthesia, though it's not nearly as exciting as you'd think (at least for me). He sees notes as colors. I see them as shapes with texture and a bit of movement. They are never "things" like desks, people, horses, etc. but rather weird solids, like the blobs you'd get in a Lava Lamp. I can ignore them if I want, which makes it possible to drive.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    I know a couple of synesthetics. Having one as a choir director was interesting because she had no doubt when we were going flat.
  • We had a woman in our choir who had perfect pitch. She always knew when we were flat, and if someone was off key it was physically painful to her.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    I know a couple of synesthetics. Having one as a choir director was interesting because she had no doubt when we were going flat.

    Yeah, but it makes you sound deeply weird when you say things like "It's getting a bit green in here, stick to the blue."
  • When my mother first went into the hospital, her 'roommate' was considerably older, and certainly had dementia. One day I went to the hospital, and my mother was asleep, so I just sat by the bed, reading my newspaper. The roommate pulled on her gown, and pointed at my shirt (a deep blue) and said, "Such beautiful music..." I asked a neurologist friend of mine whether he thought it was some sort of synesthesia or aphasia. He shrugged, "I dunno."
  • The brain has many many options with processing of sensory signals doesn't it? Synthesesia of the visual variety requires much better visual imaging that I have.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I don't think of or see particular pieces in colour, but do see periods of music in different shades - golden yellow and tan for the late renaissance/early baroque, bright blues for the high baroque*, light browns and yellows for the classical period, lots of greens for the romantic composers becoming sharper as the period progressed, rainbow palettes for the twentieth century until about the death of Britten. Nothing yet for the period after then.

    * Except for Bach, who is pure gold.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    I know a couple of synesthetics. Having one as a choir director was interesting because she had no doubt when we were going flat.

    Yeah, but it makes you sound deeply weird when you say things like "It's getting a bit green in here, stick to the blue."

    She wouldn't say that. But I've heard second-hand that she and other synesthetic had fun arguing about what colour different keys were. Every synesthetic's set of colours, shapes etc is unique to them.

    I also knew someone whose mother was synesthetic for proper nouns - names of people, days of the week, etc. She had a difficult time liking people with muddy brown names.
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    Ah yes. The colour of musical notes and keys. I remember the first time we tried sight-reading Gesualdo in choir. I had a silly grin on my face because the colours were all over the place and very startling: bright reddish orange paired with deep turquoise and streaks of dark green (not sure which piece it was).
    For a while we had a bass who tended to wear clothes consistent with D minor, which was oddly satisfying when that was the key we were singing in.
    Harmonic changes are interesting. The note a semitone above middle C is the same colour for me whatever you call it, a sort of maroonish brown (I used to have a shirt that colour) but I’d call it purple when it’s C sharp and brown when it’s D flat. But I think of D sharp and E flat as different colours from each other. It would be amazing if the system in my head was consistent, but unfortunately it’s not.
  • edited January 10
    Some music is so fast, it's bubbles, like from carbonated water. Except it's not a tongue or mouth thing, more in the connective tissue. Sort of like when people say that an organ vibrates their bones, except with anything. I pick up moods like this from people I tune into as well. as they talk.
  • One of my favorite nurseries has acres of plants and as you walk around you hear nothing but classical music piped throughout the place. I think they boost their sales that way. I know it puts me in a good mood and makes me want to stay longer and thus buy more.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    A lot of my post-Christmas CD purchases have been arriving this week (which surprised me, I'd heard that mail from Europe was taking much longer in the pandemic but it seems to have gone back closer to normal).

    Amongst the arrivals are 9 Haydn string quartets (op.50 and 55), plus another 3 are in transit (op.54), plus I nabbed another 6 (op.33) a little before Christmas after unexpectedly seeing a rare album cheap on eBay and in Australia.

    Listening to op.50/1 right now. Honestly, I can't imagine ever tiring of Haydn, especially not the quartets. In a good performance they're just so... full of warmth and life.
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