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QuoteReplyTopic: Classical Music Posted: 16-Dec-2008 at 10:23
I had a strong suspicion that Mahler might be up next. Made me smile again. For a second I thought you might hit up Ravel, while you were in the south side, but when I factor in the Britten factor, Mahler seems to the right direction. Let me guess the next one..... Bartok?
Well, both are over my head for sure. Most of the major composers I can grasp the main ideas they are trying to express without formal education. But when I get to Mahler and Bartok I just know that there are so much more harmonic and theoretic intricacies going on that it just intimidates me most of the time. I gotta wait until guys like Stravinsky and Schoenberg show up to say, 'oh, I hear what he was trying with that right there......', again.
Well, let me Ravel one up, love 'Bolero' but bit over played, how about....
Oh, yeah, before I forget, just read in wiki that the Mahler piece you linked was the funeral song for Robert Kennedy, just a little historical side note.
Mahler stated that the three final orchestral blows which are heard on the finale of his sixth symphony prophesied three things: losing his job, death of his daughter, and ultimately his own. Mahler was obsessed with Beethoven's legacy; he declared that all of his symphonies were "ninths", having the same impact and scale as Beethoven's famous Choral. Mahler was also apparently a firm believer in the curse of the ninth and thus terrified of writing a ninth numbered symphony. This is held to be the reason why he did not give a number to the symphonic work - Das Lied von der Erde - which followed his Eighth, but instead described it merely as Eine Symphonie für eine Tenor- und eine Alt- (oder Bariton-) Stimme und Orchester (nach Hans Bethges "Die chinesische Flöte") (A symphony for one tenor and one alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra, after Hans Bethge's "The Chinese Flute"). The work can be considered a combination of song cycle and symphony.
Leonard Bernstein, who was instrumental in championing Mahler's music after his lifetime, portrayed the Symphony as the prophetic musical statement of the 20th century crisis in classical music. Not only did Mahler know he would not live long after the work was completed in 1908, but (according to Bernstein) he also "prophesized" through the music that the death of major/minor tonality was soon at hand. A further extension of that idea also implied that the death of Faustian culture and perhaps the entire human race (the rumblings of World War I were already apparent) would soon be at hand.
Mahler's unfinished tenth symphony was later orchestrated by Deryck Cooke, with the apparent blessings of Alma Mahler. While Leonard Bernstein never performed or recorded this "realization," other conductors appreciated the work, both performing and recording it......
I had a strong suspicion that Mahler might be up next. Made me smile again. For a second I thought you might hit up Ravel, while you were in the south side, but when I factor in the Britten factor, Mahler seems to the right direction. Let me guess the next one..... Bartok?
Well, both are over my head for sure. Most of the major composers I can grasp the main ideas they are trying to express without formal education. But when I get to Mahler and Bartok I just know that there are so much more harmonic and theoretic intricacies going on that it just intimidates me most of the time. I gotta wait until guys like Stravinsky and Schoenberg show up to say, 'oh, I hear what he was trying with that right there......', again.
Well, let me Ravel one up, love 'Bolero' but bit over played, how about....
Oh, yeah, before I forget, just read in wiki that the Mahler piece you linked was the funeral song for Robert Kennedy, just a little historical side note.
Mahler stated that the three final orchestral blows which are heard on the finale of his sixth symphony prophesied three things: losing his job, death of his daughter, and ultimately his own. Mahler was obsessed with Beethoven's legacy; he declared that all of his symphonies were "ninths", having the same impact and scale as Beethoven's famous Choral. Mahler was also apparently a firm believer in the curse of the ninth and thus terrified of writing a ninth numbered symphony. This is held to be the reason why he did not give a number to the symphonic work - Das Lied von der Erde - which followed his Eighth, but instead described it merely as Eine Symphonie für eine Tenor- und eine Alt- (oder Bariton-) Stimme und Orchester (nach Hans Bethges "Die chinesische Flöte") (A symphony for one tenor and one alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra, after Hans Bethge's "The Chinese Flute"). The work can be considered a combination of song cycle and symphony.
Leonard Bernstein, who was instrumental in championing Mahler's music after his lifetime, portrayed the Symphony as the prophetic musical statement of the 20th century crisis in classical music. Not only did Mahler know he would not live long after the work was completed in 1908, but (according to Bernstein) he also "prophesized" through the music that the death of major/minor tonality was soon at hand. A further extension of that idea also implied that the death of Faustian culture and perhaps the entire human race (the rumblings of World War I were already apparent) would soon be at hand.
Mahler's unfinished tenth symphony was later orchestrated by Deryck Cooke, with the apparent blessings of Alma Mahler. While Leonard Bernstein never performed or recorded this "realization," other conductors appreciated the work, both performing and recording it......
I'll be back with Bartok later unless someone beats me to him first which would be great actually, I'll take anything Bartok.
If there was rhyme and reason to my direction - it was inadvertent Go ahead and post some Bartok, as I am not too well versed in his music at all.
In terms of Mahler - I look into the technical side of his music as much as my lack-of-expertise takes me. But mainly, I just prefer to listen and ponder. I am an awful musician and have very little knowledge about the intricacies of classical music, so I am in no position to make an pretentious judgments about it.
Random interruption of train-of-thought: I am listening to Mahler's 9th now, and the climax in Mvt.1 is amazing!
Anyway, I have a friend who knows a lot about classical music and is a fine musician - she has taught me a lot. Unfortunately time is of the essence for now so I can't leave any links to music. I receive my results from final schooling exams, for university entry, in the morning. I wonder what music will be on the agenda for then. (Hopefully something triumphant like 1812 Overture ).
Thanks es_bih. Well, I can't let this thread die, so I'm going to post some more thoughts and music. It did turn out that I got to play the triumphant cacophony of the 1812 overture this morning, so I am pleased.
In a shift back to arguably the most famous classical composer Beethoven, I've gone with a less famous symphony of his (but nonetheless spectacular). Beethoven's 7th is a beautiful symphony characterised by luscious melody climaxing to sonic crescendo. Well that is one abstract way of putting it. The second movement is the highlight for me. Here it is, conducted by the great Herbert Karajan (it's all movements, so is quite long):
Wow, jusyt got done listening to all 33 mins of the link you posted, Knight. I wonder what year the footage is from. Karajan looks like at the peak of his career. But the footage is rather in high quality.
Here is a little footage of a Korean singer, Jo Sumi auditioning for Karajan, about 20 years ago. Now famous Cecilia Bartoli accompanying her as Mezzo. Just another day at the office with uncle Hervert.
She is the most celebrated Korean Oprera singer if not most most celebrated Korean Classical musicians all together.
a couple more of her doing 'Lakmé ' by Delibes. The first one The Flower Duet ("Sous le dôme epais") is quite popular piece and everyone will recognize. I've actually posted that one in 'What you are listening to' thread about a month or two ago.....
Such as his clarinet concertos? Yes a lot of his work can be nice. I like Marriage of Figaro Overture
I don't know if Tchaikovsky has been brought up much in this thread? His work is very solid and idiosyncratic. He would be my favourite of the Russian composers simply because of the sheer range of his compositions, and because they are all of world-class standard. Piano Concerto No. 1 and 1812 have got to be among the best.
Béla Bartók (March 25, 1881-September 26, 1945), the greatest Hungarian composer, was one of the most significant musicians of the twentieth century. He shared with his friend Zoltán Kodály, another leading Hungarian composer, a passion for ethnomusicology. His music was invigorated by the themes, modes, and rhythmic patterns of the Hungarian and other folk music traditions he studied, which he synthesized with influences from his contemporaries into his own distinctive style.....
......Unlike Kodály, Bartók also became interested in other folk traditions, studying the folk music of Romanians, Slovakians, Serbs, Croatians, Bulgarians, Turks, and North Africans as well as Hungarians. In 1906, while visiting Algeria, Bartók had a vision of how he might begin to order scattered folk tunes of the world. This, as he recalled, ended any desire on his part for the kind of career others had projected for him, as "the future master of the most charming salon music." Afterwards, the main task of his life was to collect, analyze, and catalogue major portions of the world's folk music.
This multi-ethnic interest caused Bartók trouble, especially after World War I when Slovakians and Romanians were no longer part of Hungary. Areas in which Bartók had previously been free to explore and do research were no longer open to him. Moreover, he endured much criticism at home for his "unpatriotic" interest in the peoples of nations hostile to Hungary. Nostalgic for the ethnic diversity of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bartók dreamed of the "brotherhood of people, brotherhood in spite of all wars and conflicts." .......
......In 1898 he was accepted by the Vienna Conservatory, but following Dohnányi he went to the Budapest Academy (1899-1903), where he studied the piano with Liszt's pupil Istvan Thoman and composition with Janos Koessler. There he deepened his acquaintance with Wagner, though it was the music of Strauss, which he met at the Budapest premiere of Also sprach Zarathustra in 1902, that had most influence. He wrote a symphonic poem, Kossuth (1903), using Strauss's methods with Hungarian elements in Liszt's manner.
In 1904 Kossuth was performed in Budapest and Manchester; at the same time Bartók began to make a career as a pianist, writing a Piano Quintet and two Lisztian virtuoso showpieces (Rhapsody op.1, Scherzo op.2). Also in 1904 he made his first Hungarian folksong transcription. In 1905 he collected more songs and began his collaboration with Kodály: their first arrangements were published in 1906. The next year he was appointed Thoman's successor at the Budapest Academy, which enabled him to settle in Hungary and continue his folksong collecting, notably in Transylvania. Meanwhile his music was beginning to be influenced by this activity and by the music of Debussy that Kodály had brought back from Paris: both opened the way to new, modal kinds of harmony and irregular metre. The 1908 Violin Concerto is still within the symphonic tradition, but the many small piano pieces of this period show a new, authentically Hungarian Bartók emerging, with the 4ths of Magyar folksong, the rhythms of peasant dance and the scales he had discovered among Hungarian, Romanian and Slovak peoples. The arrival of this new voice is documented in his String Quartet no.1 (1908), introduced at a Budapest concert of his music in 1910......
......While composing The Mandarin Bartók came under the influence of Stravinsky and Schönberg, and produced some of his most complex music in the two violin sonatas of 1921-2. At the same time he was gaining international esteem: his works were published by Universal Edition and he was invited to play them all over Europe. He was now well established, too, at home. He wrote the confident Dance Suite (1923) for a concert marking the 50th anniversary of Budapest, though there was then another lull in his composing activity until the sudden rush of works in 1926 designed for himself to play, including the Piano Concerto no.1, the Piano Sonata and the suite Out of Doors. These exploit the piano as a percussion instrument, using its resonances as well as its xylophonic hardness. The search for new sonorities and driving rhythms was continued in the next two string quartets (1927-8), of which no.4, like the concerto, is in a five-section palindromic pattem (ABCBA). .....
......Bartók is an influential modernist and his music used or may be analysed as containing various modernist techniques such as atonality, bitonality, attenuated harmonic function, polymodal chromaticism, projected sets, privileged patterns, and large set types used as source sets such as the equal tempered twelve tone aggregate, octatonic scale (and alpha chord), the diatonic and heptatonia seconda seven-note scales, and less often the whole tone scale and the primary pentatonic collection (Wilson 1992, 24–29).
He rarely used the simple aggregate actively to shape musical structure, though there are notable examples such as the second theme from the first movement of his Second Violin Concerto, commenting that he "wanted to show Schoenberg that one can use all twelve tones and still remain tonal" (Gillies 1990, 185).......
I would love to elaborate why Bartok is so great with my impeccable music theory comprehension but all I can feel is the compassion for the extend of own ignorance, he he. I know his works embodies and explores many different musical ideas, schools and traditions some involving very Avant Garde and experimental, controversial rather intellectual in his time. But like that wiki quote of him about Schoenberg, while experimenting and implementing new intellectual ideas he always left the grace of a melody to come through and take you in. I have mad respect for Schoenberg and other far out Avant Garde composers, but do i love Schoenberg's pieces? It takes lotta efforts. Bartok can take you out there too, but it always feel like coming home.
Wooo, I feel unqualified to claim him as 'My Favorite', perhaps someone I like to be able to appreciate more. I love the Romanian Dances though and his other folksy pieces, almost like Gershwin of Gypsy Music, yet he can still satisfy my Philip Glass, John Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen, etc trained later 20th century Post-Modern, Conceptual and Serial Music influence, pehpaps those guys listened to Bartok too, I'd assume.
My favorite Rock guitarist of all time Robert Fripp of King Crimson once said in an interview after seeing Jimi Hendrix playing live for the first time, that it made him wanting to create music that would sound like Jimi playing Bartok. Too bad, Jimi was talking about enrolling into Berklee Music Conservatory to study Classical composition just before his untimely death.
I think Jimi would have liked this one, a rare Orchestral work for Bartok
Nice Thread! My favourite composer is J.S.Bach, a German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. Although he introduced no new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust contrapuntal technique, an unrivalled control of harmonic and motivic organisation in composition for diverse instrumentation, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France.
Revered for their intellectual depth, technical command and artistic beauty, Bach's works include the Brandenburg concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mass in B Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Magnificat, The Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue, the English Suites, the French Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo, the Cello Suites, more than 200 surviving cantatas, and a similar number of organ works, including the celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
While Bach's fame as an organist was great during his lifetime, he was not particularly well-known as a composer. His adherence to Baroque forms and contrapuntal style was considered "old-fashioned" by his contemporaries, especially late in his career when the musical fashion tended towards Rococo and later Classical styles. A revival of interest and performances of his music began early in the 19th century, and he is now widely considered to be one of the greatest composers in the Western tradition.
I like mozart, beethoven, grieg, elgar, martinu, dvorak, smetana, pachelbel [canon]
I play on violoncello, so it is not surprise my favourite composition is dvorak b/minor
"Toho bohda nebude, aby Cesky kral z boje utikal"(Let it never be the case that a Bohemian king runs from a fight!] John the Blind-king of Bohemia,in battle for Crecy
The catch in listening classical music is the objective of doing it. People usually listen to classic music for relaxing,yes it helps(sometimes,sometimes it makes everything worse);but there is something more important in classical music. It contains emotions,ideas,incidents. And the best of all,you can use your imagination. I personally,advice you Tchiakovsky's Swan Lake Ballet Suite,op 20,waltz;anything from the Nutcracker;Four Seasons;Schubert:Symphony No.8 "unfinished".
P.S: Yes,I am a nerd.
A wizard is never late,nor he is early he arrives exactly when he means to :) ( Gandalf the White in the Third Age of History Empire Of Istari )
People usually listen to classic music for relaxing,yes it
helps(sometimes,sometimes it makes everything worse);but there is
something more important in classical music. It contains
emotions,ideas,incidents. And the best of all,you can use your
imagination. I personally,advice you Tchiakovsky's Swan Lake Ballet
Suite,op 20,waltz;anything from the Nutcracker;Four
Seasons;Schubert:Symphony No.8 "unfinished".
Whilst I claim no expertise concerning "Classical Music", I do know what I enjoy, and to a great degree, it is mostly a pleasing experience! The problem with some of it, however, is that it is best heard live! Especially the parts of it that include an entire orchestra to accomplish! Young people, who like there music at extreem DbA, levels might well not understand that orchestras can deliver just as extreem levels very easily!
So, while it might well be expensive I would suggest that those of you who have not experienced a first class orchestra performing some of these "Classics", should try to do so!
Even "Chamber Music" should be experienced live!
And I almost forgot to mention the great works written expressly for the wonderful "Pipe Organs!" Certainly one of the best and most easily accesible places to hear one of these organs is to be found in Salt Lake City, UT.
Great to hear of your interest Parnell. I'm no expert, just a humble fan of the music we group together to call classical. Put simply, the classical era could be seen as a progression of periods, characterised and brought about by musical and even social movements.
Some major composers are: - Vivaldi - Beethoven - Tchaikovsky - Handel - Bach - Mozart
Those are just a few, and many would say there are more significant ones that some on my list.
In regards to some classics. This mightn't be the definitive list of model classical music - more a fusion of major pieces/symphonies and ones that are personal favourites.
- - The Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky)
So, those are a few I'd recommend to get started on. You'd recognise most of them. I apologise to any classical/musical experts out there if I have made any minor errors. Enjoy listening!
Regards,
- Knights -
I love those composers! One of my favorite classical music is The Nutcraker. I give you credit for that, for listing those great composers!
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