Classical Music Thread

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I missed spooky music season so here's to Christmas.






(Shout-out to the tiny woman the cameraman can't pan to.)

(I think KF allows playlists...)






 
I'm listening to the reconstruction of a Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning circa 1620, reconstructed by Paul McCreesh using mostly the music of Michael Praetorius. What is striking about this reconstruction is the richness of the instruments: organ, violins, violas, harpsicord, harp, theorbo, recorders, cornets, sackbuts, and so on. McCreesh assures us this would take about a dozen players, well within the reach of a church at that era.

"Puer natus in Bethlehem / Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem" is a bilingual hymn that is presented as the Introit. The choir and soloists sing mainly in Latin, while the congregation joins in -- at 3'30", after the organ solo -- in German.
 
Random, really autistic pet peeve of mine, why do so many recordings of Mahler's 8th chop up Veni Creator Spiritus in chunks rather than a single movement? The whole point of it was that it was a vocal piece that follows a semi-standard Sonata-Allegro structure and the entire thing works as a single 24 minute movement. I don't really get the point of splitting it up in sections when they really don't work in isolated chunks like some other choral pieces do

Regardless, this recording is great nonetheless

 
FPTMIU said:
Random, really autistic pet peeve of mine, why do so many recordings of Mahler's 8th chop up Veni Creator Spiritus in chunks rather than a single movement?
Click to expand...
They do this with Brahms' Haydn Variations too. I think that's because if you play an actual CD (or FLACs from rutracker) it's completely gapless, so the "split" just acts an index to help you find the right moment, nothing more. Then it gets uploaded to youtube as bazillion tracks and becomes a shitshow.

Speaking of Brahms, I recently discovered the Dorati recordings, have some no-bullshit Brahms
 
In related news:

1768251014296.png

I checked and that night they were playing, among other things, this:


performed by the same soloist, with the same orchestra, 57 years later. As if not only the nigger, but time itself froze.
 

Got curious, how often do you guys listen to vocal classical music? Notice that very often even people who are very into classical music seem to often fixate on instrumental music.
 
It's so ubiquitous until the classical period that I figure modern listeners feel spoiled for choice after that point and want something different. It could be argued that major composers themselves were in accordance with this and from the 19th Century tended to produce infrequent large works rather than a continuous stream for church use. I find concepts such as a "concert mass" to be a little dispiriting compared to earlier functional choral music. Haydn is a sweet spot since his masses are a little of both sides.


Choral music becomes more important to me when it's from a Romantic composer of unusual feeling (Bruckner's motets, Tchaikovsky's vespers), or when it starts to go completely off the rails and becomes weird mystical stuff (Tournemire, Finzi) or post-Romantic bombast (Reger, Brian).
 
The only thing I want is a Sviatoslav Richter performance of Carnaval Op. 9 by Schumann but this does not exist

If anyone has a suggestion and actually has a nuanced view on Schumann performances, please tell me
But just a quick aside I fucking hate Boris Giltman and the sort of overly interpretative "Western" way of playing Schumann
If there is variation of the intonation on the hemiolas instead of a staccato with geist, it's too Eusebian and not nearly "of Florestan" enough for me
 
You made me remember that Regis/Alto disc of Richter's Schumann, such good playing if anybody hasn't heard it.

Spotify link

Your post made me look up a Carnival that I liked but would absolutely not be what you are looking for (Barere) and I found a schizo in the comments that seems to fit this site well:

schumann schizo 1.png

>Robert Schumann gave me lessons through visions...
 
This User said:
The only thing I want is a Sviatoslav Richter performance of Carnaval Op. 9 by Schumann but this does not exist

If anyone has a suggestion and actually has a nuanced view on Schumann performances, please tell me
But just a quick aside I fucking hate Boris Giltman and the sort of overly interpretative "Western" way of playing Schumann
If there is variation of the intonation on the hemiolas instead of a staccato with geist, it's too Eusebian and not nearly "of Florestan" enough for me
Click to expand...
For the record I found what I was looking for

 
I saw this live recently and greatly enjoyed it. I know nothing about contemporary music and went into this dismissive and anticipating what was programmed afterwards.

The atmospheric nature was fantastic in person but it might not translate all too well in a recording unless you have a huge sound system. The organ is used to make whooshing and chattering sound effects which were truly awesome. The feeling was like being inside the bowels of some great machine.

I need to be less dismissive of contemporary music.
 
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