Classical Music Thread

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Tango Fusion Duo by contemporary composer Yves Prin.

Prin's work, like almost all French composers, are concerned with sonority. Just listen to the opening of this piece, at which the opening chords of the harpsicord resolutely marks this work at late 20th century. Throughout the work I find the harpsicord part to be more interesting -- and probably more demanding -- than the rather conventional accordion part.

Prin's flute concerto, Le Souffle D'Iris, is likewise very challenging for the soloist, employing lots of extended techniques on the flute. The soundworld stems from Debussy but then takes us to more dissonant, turbulent territories.
 
I found this Theme and Variations for solo cello by Sibelius recently. The video description has very interesting information. They say it was rediscovered in 1995 and claim it's "the first concert work for solo cello by a major composer since the Bach Suites".
 
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The most-performed work by the Estonian composer Veljo Tormis is likely Curse Upon Iron (1972)
Both the form and the content of the music was inspired by shamanic practice. The lore has it that if you know a material's name and provenance, you have power over it and hence can bend its will. The text accuses Iron for spilling innocent blood, reminds the material of its lowly origin as bog ore, its nature changed, becomes brutal because anger is hammered into it at the furnace. The shaman implores Iron to consider its common origin with human beings -- that is, we are both born of earth. The shaman, however is powerless towards the electronic and nuclear instruments of modern warfare, whose origins are obscure.

Such primal, intense music, with its pounding ostinatos, would be out of place when Tormis wrote for the genteel sound of the Hilliard Ensemble. Instead, he capitalized the Ensemble's precise dynamics and their ability to clarify dense textures. Here is Kullervo's Message.
The story is, of course, about the tragic Finnish / Estonian folk hero Kullervo, who was dear to Sibelius (and also Sallinen). The daredevil Kullervo rushed to one battle after another, and when messengers delivered to him the news that his father, sister, and brother had died, he answered nonchalantly and rode on. It was when the news came that his mother, the only person who would unconditionally forgives him, he broke down and cry (the countertenor's wail at 5:23).

In Kullervo's Message, the irregular ostinatos generate a propulsive force. If the ostinatos in Curse is the blacksmith's hammer, in Kullervo they are the hooves of the steed the warrior speeds on. The music only reaches repose, the Ensemble singing in unison, at the finale when Kullervo laments the death of his mother.
 
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Wish Wagner lived long enough to write his second symphony like he was planning to, he was fantastic at Sonata-Allegro form.
 
Pianist Susan Tomes, in her book The Piano - A History in 100 Pieces, describes Mozart's Rondo in A Minor, K511, as "probably the most heart-searching and sorrowful of his solo piano works". I find the mood of this piece wistful and nostalgic, rather than depressing or tragic. Presaging the music of Chopin, listening to this piece is like waltzing with your past self through the window of memory. At the brighter moments, the heart swells with joy at the good old days, yet the joy is fleeting, and the beaufiful reverie eventually vanishes with two forlorn final chords.
 
Positron said:
Pianist Susan Tomes, in her book The Piano - A History in 100 Pieces, describes Mozart's Rondo in A Minor, K511, as "probably the most heart-searching and sorrowful of his solo piano works". I find the mood of this piece wistful and nostalgic, rather than depressing or tragic. Presaging the music of Chopin, listening to this piece is like waltzing with your past self through the window of memory. At the brighter moments, the heart swells with joy at the good old days, yet the joy is fleeting, and the beaufiful reverie eventually vanishes with two forlorn final chords.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qeEJtifzuL0
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Thank you for sharing this and your notes! I'm not usually a Mozart fan but both your notes on it and Seong-Jin Cho's incredible performance really made it captivating to listen to.

Here is one of my favourite pieces, the third movement of Bartok's 4th quartet. It is one of the best examples of his "night music". As a result of the symmetrical structure of the quartet, the 3rd movement's mysteriousness radiates outward, affecting everything after it and retroactively affecting what was heard before.

 
Anstiv said:
Here is one of my favourite pieces, the third movement of Bartok's 4th quartet. It is one of the best examples of his "night music".
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My favorite of Bartok's night music is the middle movement of his Second Piano Concerto.

Ligeti's First String Quartet is a more expressive, more phantasmagoric take of Bartok's night music.
 
Even though I hate his overall contribution to music, I will still stand by the fact that Schoenberg's first quartet and Chamber Symphony are great works. Consequently these works were written before he converted to judaism. So I will blame everything he did afterwards on that because its funny.


 
Just been to a concert showcasing some recent works by French composer Philippe Manoury. I don't have much of his music but he's always intrigued me; a recording of his First Piano Sonata has the best recorded piano sound I've heard, yet I must say I'm not terribly in tune with the music.

Among the pieces in the concert, I'm most impressed by Argumenta for two percussionists.
In this piece Manoury wishes to demonstrate the "ductility" (a legato-like sound) of the marimba. What was more striking to me was his penchant in the decay, the afterglow of sound. The crotales are often played loudly, resulting in a swell that took a long time to decay, and here Manoury put in the most virtuosic passages for the keyed percussions. As for the title, I find that the "Argument" was by and large friendly and productive; the two players may not be playing in sync, yet neither talked pass or browbeat each other.

In the same concert was the (so-far) only two pieces from Book II of his Études pour Piano, "Réseaux" ("Networks") and "Dérèglements" ("Disruptions"). These are very virtuosic, very visceral works. The audience gave a hearty cheer afterwards. And especially in Dérèglements, his predilection for sound decay was noted. The music is perhaps rather similar to some of Ligeti's Etudes, yet without Ligeti's humor.
 
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Listening to a bunch of Easter Cantatas by Telemann.

"Brannte nicht unser Herz in uns" ("Did our heart not burn in us?"), TWV 1:131, was written during Telemann's Eisenach period (i.e. very early in his career), and belongs to the so-called "Jahrgang ohne Recitative" ("Year-cycle without Recitatives"). The absence of recitatives spare the lyricists of much work -- it would be rather difficult to keep up with the prolificity of Telemann. A lot of the text is either lifted from the Bible -- as this bass aria, taken from the Letter to the Ephesians 4:29, and the following SATB chorus, from Ephesians 4:30 -- or from earlier Chorales. Instrumentally the music is also pared down, without brass or percussions, resulting in a more refined, melliferous sound.
 
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Positron said:
Listening to a bunch of Easter Cantatas by Telemann.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=1fjFSYJ3dNE"Brannte nicht unser Herz in uns" ("Did our heart not burn in us?"), TWV 1:131, was written during Telemann's Eisenach period (i.e. very early in his career), and belongs to the so-called "Jahrgang ohne Recitative" ("Year-cycle without Recitatives"). The absence of recitatives spare the lyricists of much work -- it would be rather difficult to keep up with the prolificity of Telemann. A lot of the text is either lifted from the Bible -- as this bass aria, taken from the Letter to the Ephesians 4:29, and the following SATB chorus, from Ephesians 4:30 -- or from earlier Chorales. Instrumentally the music is also pared down, without brass or percussions, resulting in a more refined, melliferous sound.
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Man, I always hate when HIP is the only way to listen to a piece. I personally think HIP is a gimmick gone wrong as the entire practice is based on theories on what might have been common performance practice which can be interesting to hear but I don't think has much value. I think performing music in the tradition that has kept it alive over the course of centuries is more important than a approximation of what a performance might have sounded like when the piece was new. Especially as dressing the music up in old sounds is just going to make it distant to us because it sounds more alien.

If you ask me what I think is better, this
or this

I am picking the former any day of the week. Is it historically accurate? No. Would Bach have minded? Also no.
 
FPTMIU said:
I always hate when HIP is the only way to listen to a piece. I personally think HIP is a gimmick gone wrong as the entire practice is based on theories on what might have been common performance practice which can be interesting to hear but I don't think has much value. I think performing music in the tradition that has kept it alive over the course of centuries is more important than a approximation of what a performance might have sounded like when the piece was new.
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Historical research of performance practice is just information that simply opens possibilities for people to perform and understand music. I can't recall many HIP conductors or performers who are stickers to the dogma that music must be performed as closely as possible to the resources that the composers might have at hand. Artists are free to make use of them as they see fit, and in most cases they are able to capitalize on the advantage of HIP, in particular smaller-scale ensembles (clarity, agility) while avoiding the bane of HIP (stiffness, jarring continuos, astringency -- although the latter can add spice in appropriate places). I'm usually not a fan of the one-voice-per-part school in bigger works, such as Bach's B-minor Mass, although in smaller works it makes sense.

I love Karl Richter's Bach too, I think the Cantatas in particular are aural ambrosia, and in no small part due to top-notch soloists.
 
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What makes the brass sound like this sometimes? When I hear it I instantly recognize it as "Mid 20th century Hollywood brass"


It has to be something to do with the production because I don't have this with newer Mahler recordings or even recordings from around this time. What gives the brass *that* sound? Am I being schizophrenic?
 
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Like any of his large-scale works, Prokofiev's opera Betrothal in a Monastery is brim full of humorous touches and innovation to the very end. Based on Sheridan's The Duenna, the story is about charade and mistaken identity and ends with a double wedding. In the final scene there is this inspired ensemble accompanied by wine glass percussion
The sound recalls the tinkling of coins. Don Jerome, the father of two of the newlyweds, may boast to the guests that he knew the hearts of young lovers, but his chief concern is still money, and he is in high spirits because while his daughter married poor, his son got himself a rich heiress, and in the end he still comes out on top.

Here is a better production of the opera, but the video does not allow embedding.
 
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Crazy how this work was mocked and belittled on it's first performance. I know the orchestra in question didn't like wagnerian-influenced music but how can you listen to this and not think it's even of a little value?

 
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