Recently, while listening to the radio, I discovered Dance of the Gnomes, by David Popper. It's pretty cool. It kind of reminds me of some of Grieg's lyric pieces... only... with a cello.
I also discovered Kabalevsky's overture to 'Colas Breugnon'.
I like classical music, but I actually don't have that many records.
Here are some of my favorites:
Allan Pettersson - I love most of his stuff.
Bach - Love most of it.
Beethoven - most stuff, especially Symphony No. 7 in A, op. 92
Frédéric Chopin - most stuff, especially "Prelude in E-Minor (op.28 no. 4)"
Bela Bartok - a lot of stuff. Rumanian Folkdance is nice but I also like some of the more challenging music.
Eric Satie, - most stuff.
Igor Stravinsky: - lots of stuff: Firebird, The Rite of Spring and Symphony of Psalms are all great.
Mozart - most stuff, especially his Requiem
Franz Liszt - most stuff, especially Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 is great.
Maurice Ravel - some stuff, especially Bolero (I actually like the Frank Zappa version too)
Jean Sibelius, some of his stuff
György Ligeti - Awesome stuff, but challenging stuff.
Messiaen - some stuff, Turangalîla Symphony is an awesome opus, but challenging.
I love composers like Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone.
Also like some classic guitar music. Göran söllscher has recorded some great stuff.
|
I was going through some music I hadn't listened to in a while, and remembered how much I loved Edward MacDowell's 2nd piano concerto. It's an interesting work, with movements somewhat turned on their heads (the middle movement is the fastest). It has an impish, almost Mendelssohn-like sound. Check it out if you like devilishly difficult piano music!
|
|
I also discovered Kabalevsky's overture to 'Colas Breugnon'.
I have a fondness for Kabalevsky. My senior year of high school I won a piano competition by playing the 3rd movement of his Sonatina in C.
I tend to prefer the very old stuff, up to the Baroque era, before they smoothed the rough edges off the instruments (Praetorius!) or C20th - most of what happens inbetween isn't of much interest, so I'm sure I'm missing out.
@ Zark - I got into a lot of good stuff via Frank Zappa. There was an interesting compilation CD put out by Chrome Dreams with various tracks on that influenced him, with Varese and Webern in there alongside all the '50s R&B records - great listen, and the genre jumping certainly made you pay attention...
|
|
I forgot to post this here:
Elliott Carter dies at age 103.
His music was difficult for performers and for listeners, but the man was a giant in American music and in mid-20th century modernism globally.
Recently, while listening to the radio, I discovered Dance of the Gnomes, by David Popper. It's pretty cool. It kind of reminds me of some of Grieg's lyric pieces... only... with a cello.
I discovered another cool cello piece. I'm not a fan of Haydn. I find most of his music boring (with a few exceptions, such as his Military symphony). But the last movement of his cello concerto #1 is surprisingly wild for Haydn!
And a lot of aristocrats hired composers, but how often do you discover great music written by a king? I discovered the first movement of the Symphony in D by King Frederick the Great of Prussia when listening to the radio. Did you know that the guy was more interested in music and philosophy than in war, but his father forced him to be king? When he was 18, Frederick plotted to flee to England with his friend Hans Hermann von Katte, where they hoped to make a career as musicians, but they got caught. The king forced Frederick to watch Katte's decapitation. Frederick fainted and suffered hallucinations for two days.
So he was forced to stay and study statecraft and administration, but he kept pursuing his music. He was fond of the flute, and it comes as no surprise that he hired composers (including C.P.E. Bach, and Frederick's flute teacher, Johann Joachim Quantz) to write a lot of flute music. But the king himself was a gifted musician and composer, who wrote over 100 flute sonatas as well as four symphonies.
He was called "the Great" for conquering territories, thus connecting Prussia, but what is Prussia today? Part of Germany. Military conquests are temporary, but his music lives on.
Two years ago, when I had to take a break from RPGs, I went back to playing the piano for a while. (Since then, I got to go back to Pathfinder RPG, but I digress.) After Treppa had mentioned imslp.org in this thread, I was thrilled to discover that I now had a ton of free sheet music at my fingertips. With all that music from which to choose, my first choice, as I mentioned in 2010, was "The Old Castle" from Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky.
You hear Ravel's orchestration so often, it seems hard to believe that Mussorgsky originally wrote the piece for piano. Try listening to this performance (and start at 4:07 for The Old Castle).
I'm not sure what it is about the original that really grabbed my attention about this particular movement more than Ravel's orchestration. Maybe the piano makes more audible the tolling of the bell (indicated with the repeating rhythm of the bass G# playing almost throughout the entire piece). Maybe that climactic chord (at around 6:19 or 6:20 in the YouTube video) seems more dramatic on the piano somehow... although you'd think that the orchestra, able to make the chord grow louder while playing it, which a piano cannot do, ought to make it sound better. I can't explain it.
Of course, this is Paizo's web site, so I'd feel remiss discussing Pictures at an Exhibition this soon before the start of the Reign of Winter AP without mentioning The Hut of Baba Yaga.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 4
|
Another piece that would be perfect for Reign of Winter is Alfred Reed's "Russian Christmas Music." It's beautifully haunting and the ending is suitably triumphant. It's also a blast to play.
Who are some newer classic composers that folks are listening to?
There are droves of new composers coming out of the music schools in New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville.
|
|
I love Arvo Pärt's music, although I concede that, while living, he is hardly "new". Likewise with John Tavener (although I don't find that I connect with his music on the same level that I do with Pärt). And sometimes I am just in a Philip Glass kind of mood.
Among younger composers, I've also heard some good things from Avner Dorman, Thomas Adès, and Eric Whitacre (although I have a bit of a beef with Whitacre's methods of self-promotion).
I did a big assignment on Adès while I was in college that gave me a very in-depth appreciation of his influences.
Some favorites in there: Pärt's "Lamentate" and "Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten," Dorman's concerto grosso, and Eric Whitacre's "Five Hebrew Lovesongs."
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One of my favorite things is finding a piece by one of my favorite composers that I was not familiar with. This week, it is Les Djinns by Cesar Franck. I adore Franck's music, but the catalog of his late works (the ones I like) don't run very deep. I'm really digging this piece, though.
So I was looking around on youtube, and found a gigue by Bach, as played by a 5-year-old. (Link.)
I clicked on that expecting to see something cute. But this is beyond cute. It's friggin' AMAZING. I mean, she's no Evgeny Kissin, but she's FIVE YEARS OLD.
I also happened to find a clip of the same girl, playing the same gigue, at the more mature old age...
...of seven. Link.
...why didn't someone tune that poor girl's piano (for the age 7 video)?
True, but you can hear that she plays it with greater proficiency.
Anyway, this girl didn't quit. I wish I knew her name, but as of yet, I can only refer to her by her YouTube user name, paddler16. I've discovered 33 videos of her playing, from ages from 5 to 12. Link.
Since you probably don't have time for 33 videos, here are three that I particularly like.
This one shows her playing Chopin's Minute Waltz at the age of 10. I couldn't play it that well as an adult. (Would you believe I came close... sort of?)
This one shows her at 11 playing a movement of a Haydn sonata.
This one shows her at 11 playing the prelude from Grieg's Holberg suite.
Speaking of Grieg (but getting off the topic of paddler16), while listening to the radio the other day, I discovered the Homage March from Grieg's Sigurd Jorsalfar suite.
And I've discovered yet another great Falla piece: the spanish dance from "La Vida Breve". Unfortunately, I wasn't especially thrilled with any of the YouTube videos of that piece that I found. Too bad I can't play the CD for you. :)
|
|
I have been on a Nikolai Medtner kick.
He was a contemporary of Rachmaninoff's, and in a similar vain, although his sound is a bit more "modern". I feel a connection because I used to assist this amazing pianist (Mr. Meadows) who claimed that Medtner was his piano teacher's teacher. He always talked about Medtner.
Anyway, here is Medtner's first piano concerto.
Also, RIP Mr. Meadows, who sadly passed away last year. He was an incredible musician who taught me a great deal.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I also discovered Kabalevsky's overture to 'Colas Breugnon'.I have a fondness for Kabalevsky. My senior year of high school I won a piano competition by playing the 3rd movement of his Sonatina in C.
I have a prejudice against 20th-century "Classical" music, as I generally find it too harsh and dissonant for me, yet time and time again, I find exceptions.
The other day, while listening to the radio, I heard The Comedians' Gallop by Kabalevsky. How could this piece fail to grab me? It couldn't. It takes me an effort not to smile in amusement when I hear it.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A while back, I heard Khachaturian's Walts from Masquerade for the first time. It happened to come on the radio at a time that will always give it a positive association for me, but I don't think that is the only reason I liked it.
I find it stunningly gorgeous. A great match for Kabalevsky.
Recent activity in this thread at the same time that I finished Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata requires a post, I think:
"They played the 'Kreutzer Sonata' of Beethoven; do you know the first presto? Eh? Ah!..." he exclaimed, "it is a strange piece of music, that sonata, especially the first part of it. And music generally is a strange thing. I can not comprehend it. What is music? What effect does it produce? And in virtue of what does it produce the effect that we see it produce?...." [Goes on a long and amusing denunciation of music, except military marches and church masses]
"Take the 'Kreutzer Sonata,' for example: is it right to play that first presto in a drawing-room of ladies in low dresses? to play that presto, then to applaud it, and immediately afterward to eat ice creams and discuss the latest scandal?...."
"Upon me, at least, this piece produced a terrible effect; it seemed as if new feelings were revealed to me, new possibilities unfolded to my gaze, of which I had never even dreamed before. 'It is thus that I should live and think, and not as I have hitherto lived and thought,' a voice seemed to whisper in my soul. What that new object of knowledge was, I could not satisfactorily explain to myself; but the consciousness of its existence was most delightful....After this presto they executed the splendid but traditional andante, which has nothing new in it, with the commonplace variations and very weak finale."
Yeah, I remember that waltz from Masquerade. Since you mention Khachaturian and compare him to Kabalevsky, after I described the incredible accessibility of one of the latter's pieces, and since DA brought up the emotional effect of some music, I feel compelled to mention that my kids, who aren't crazy about music in general, used to run wild - literally - upon hearing the Sabre Dance from "Gayne".
As for not loving Beethoven, I have to say that there's no way any composer or piece could appeal to every listener. I remember one DJ saying "Anyone who doesn't like that piece is not a music lover." That's just baloney. Music doesn't even sound the same to different people.
I've decided that my favorite Rachmaninov piece is his Prelude Op. 23 no.5 in G minor.
And it can be fun to hear an orchestral performance of Largo Al Factotum from "Barber of Seville" by Rossini.
|
|
That Rachmaninoff prelude was my brothers' Senior-year recital piece. It is a nice one. I never took the time to learn it, although the Prelude in c-sharp minor has been a standby for me for many years.
This past Thursday, I went to the NY Phil for the first time (odd, since I have lived in the area for a couple years now). I had a front-row seat (they tend to not be very desirable, so it was available and inexpensive). I recommend, if you are a classical music fan, that you listen to The Death of Tybalt from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet suite from the front row at some point during your life. Man was that intense.
On a final classical music related note, I sing with an opera group that performs once a month - mostly arias but some duets and a few non-operatic works thrown into the mix. In a week, I am singing the Toreador Song in front of an audience for the first time. I have been cramming the lyrics into my head all month, but there's a lot of frickin' French text to memorize there. Ugh. Should be fun when the time comes, though.
It's not one of my favorite Grieg pieces. I wouldn't even consider it for a list of my 10 favorite Grieg pieces, were I ever to try compiling such a list. But lately, I keep wanting to hear Grieg's Symphonic Dance #1. Sometimes, I also listen to the #2 and / or #3 while I'm at it. Here's a recording of the complete set.
And earlier in this thread, I griped about a solo-piano adaptation of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by Sousa, which I felt suffered for lack of the piccolo part. I thought about that recently, when I happened to come across one obvious solution to that problem, namely four hands.
|
|
That is a nice arrangement of Stars and Stripes Forever, I agree. Any arrangement that leaves out the piccolo part is an abomination, as far as I'm concerned.
Is anyone else here a fan of organ music? I've always had a soft spot for the king of instruments. Here is a student performance of which I am quite enamored - the Organ Symphony No. 6 by Charles-Marie Widor.
And for some choir and organ, here is a Kyrie by Louis Vierne, played in-situ during a church service at Notre Dame de Paris, which you so rarely encounter. It's especially fitting because Vierne worked most of his life at Notre Dame. To borrow a phrase from the kids these days, Vierne was a boss - he spent his life writing crazy-ass music for the cathedral and was a legendary organist (despite being legally blind - he read music in Braille). Befitting the way he lived, he died seated at the organ during a recital, with his foot resting on a low E that resounded through the cathedral until he was removed.
Wikipedia entry on Louis Vierne. Such a boss.
I long regarded it as a cruel irony. On the one hand, I generally dislike the sound of the organ. I know nothing about the types of organs out there, but I usually find the organ obnoxiously loud and booming, and sometimes, I hear recordings of what must be some other kind of organ, with a tiny, tinny, nasal tone.
Oh, sometimes I hear a recording I like. For instance, I once discovered a CD of Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music playing Handel's organ concerti, Opus 4, and liked it. Maybe it was the type of organ, or maybe the recording technique did something for the sound on that CD. I quickly took to the concerto number 2 movement 2 and the concerto number 5 movement 4, and both those movements are now on my playlist.
But as I was saying, the cruel irony is my dislike for the sound of the organ although Bach wrote some of my all-time favorite music for that instrument.
One obvious solution is adaptations for other instruments. For instance, I loved the Sinfonias from Bach's Cantata BWV 35, but feeling annoyed with the organ, I bought the Oboe Concerto, BWV 1059-R on MP3.
Befitting the way he lived, he died seated at the organ during a recital, with his foot resting on a low E that resounded through the cathedral until he was removed.
I feel bad for finding humor in a man's death, but... what an image! I guess there are alternatives to pulling out stops. My typically insane mind keeps picturing one person collapsing on the instrument while another keeps on playing. And that image, in turn, has sent Bach's Toccata from the BWV 540 playing in my head on and off for the last few hours.
(And that, by the way, is one example of a piece that can overcome my prejudice against the organ.)
Of course, another way to adapt Bach organ music is with synthesized sounds. I know some people speak of it rather sardonically, but I'm sure I'm not the only one with fond memories of "Switched-On Bach".
|
|
You can also turn to Liszt transcriptions, since I know you like piano music.
Fantasy and Fugue in G minor BWV 542
Prelude and Fugue in A minor BWV 543 (This one is particularly stunning.)
I actually heard this piece a long time ago, although I didn't discover what it was until recently. But as a young child, I heard one fast, orchestral dance, which sounded operatic to me at the time. There was one line in particular which I could have sworn I had heard sung by a tenor at some point, although I guess I must have been mistaken.
Anyway, I recently found out that the piece is the Tarantella from the ballet La Boutique Fantasque, by Respighi. Interestingly enough, Respighi based the music of that ballet on some unpublished piano music written by Rossini in his later years. So my impression of that line sounding "operatic" might not have been too far off. Conceivably, Rossini might have been thinking the same thing, writing that line.
Ah! I wasn't far off at all! After all these years, I found the answer!
Recently, I had a whim to listen to the fun and wacky can-can from that ballet. Looking for a YouTube video of it, I happened to stumble upon the Petite Caprice by Rossini upon which it was based (in the first 2 minutes and 20 seconds of this video.)
Surprised to discover this, I found my thoughts turning back to the Tarantella. Could I find the original piano version of that as well?
So I sniffed around on YouTube, and found that it wasn't a piano work at all! It was a patter song! So I wasn't crazy! I really HAD heard it sung!
And I'd have remained ignorant if not for YouTube.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am in awe. I was exposed to a whole lot of avant-garde music in my collegiate studies, but had never encountered Moondog. People should hear that music.
Thanks, DA!
Edit: I don't want to just drive-by post without sharing something myself, so here is some more late 20th century music. Arvo Pärt's "Lamentate"
Edit part 2: Evidently, "Lamentate" premiered in 2002, so it is not a 20th century work. Close enough.
Ooo, I need to check this thread out. Phoenix has a local classical station I've been listening to since I arrived, but I couldn't identify anything they play. Mostly just use it to not road rage on the highways.
I usually listen to WQXR on the radio or WCPE online. I'm always impressed by the amount of great music I have never heard. On the other hand, classical has its many warhorses.
Phoenix has a local classical station I've been listening to since I arrived, but I couldn't identify anything they play.
Are you saying that the DJs on this radio station don't identify the pieces? Or are you saying that you wouldn't know the pieces without the DJs' help?
Heh. It's the same here. I turn on the radio and hear a piece from the middle wondering what it is, but by the time the piece ends and the DJ identifies it, my mind has wandered and I fail to catch the composer's name.
Do your stations have the playlists up online? I know some do (the BBC does, but that may not be much help...)
I think most do, although you might be interested to know that it is illegal for some stations in the US to post advance playlists nowadays. Many fans are aggrieved because WQXR posted them when it was owned by the Times Company, but apparently would run afoul of the DCMA now that it is a public station.
So I was looking around on youtube, and found a gigue by Bach, as played by a 5-year-old. (Link.)
I clicked on that expecting to see something cute. But this is beyond cute. It's friggin' AMAZING. I mean, she's no Evgeny Kissin, but she's FIVE YEARS OLD.
I also happened to find a clip of the same girl, playing the same gigue, at the more mature old age...
...of seven. Link.
...why didn't someone tune that poor girl's piano (for the age 7 video)?True, but you can hear that she plays it with greater proficiency.
Well, after loaning out my piano for a couple of years, I got it back. The very day I got it back, I wondered if I could play that gigue as well as the 5-year-old, and started learning it to find out.
The short answer is: no, I can't. But I gave it a shot. My attempt sounds like this.
Anyway, this girl didn't quit. I wish I knew her name, but as of yet, I can only refer to her by her YouTube user name, paddler16. I've discovered 33 videos of her playing, from ages from 5 to 12. Link.
Since you probably don't have time for 33 videos, here are three that I particularly like.
This one shows her playing Chopin's Minute Waltz at the age of 10. I couldn't play it that well as an adult. (Would you believe I came close... sort of?)
This one shows her at 11 playing a movement of a Haydn sonata.
This one shows her at 11 playing the prelude from Grieg's Holberg suite.
Hmm... I wouldn't even attempt the Grieg piece, but that Haydn sonata might be doable...
My all-time favorite music for piano with four hands is Moritz Moszkowski's Spanish Dances, Opus 12 (or the first 4 of those 5 dances, anyway. I never cared for the Bolero). It's hard to find professional performances of those dances (except for adaptations, such as those for orchestra) but they're fun in private recitals. In fact, I first discovered those pieces back in my teens when my teacher ran a recital for her students, and she played the first two of those dances with her husband.
Here's a good performance of the complete set.
Unfortunately, the recording got messed up during the 3rd and 4th dances, so...
|
|
As an operatic vocalist, I tend to listen to more vocal music. Some of my favorites are all performed by Fritz Wunderlich, and if you haven't heard him sing, you need to go find some recordings. My favorites of his are "Dein ist mein ganzes herz" by Franz Lehar, and "Im wundershonen monat Mai" by Schumann.
There's also tons of great operatic music that many people don't know exists or haven't listened to. Les Contes d'Hoffman and Die Lustige Witwe come to mind, which are two of my favorite operatic scores EVER. Of course, I can never get enough of Puccini and Donizetti, and Verdi's arias, while not as moving imo, are wonderfully fun to perform (kind of like Mozarts are, actually).
Then there's the mountains of art songs I like to learn and listen to. Schubert, Beethoven, Schumann, Strauss... it's all golden.
On my classic music station, I tend to get plenty of exposure to instrumental pieces, which is nice, as I didn't get as much exposure to them in college (again, being a vocalist). Beethoven's 9th and Handel's Messiah I always find breathtaking (yeah, they have vocal parts. So sue me :P), and I really adore Dvorak's New World Symphony (that final movement is possibly the most badass thing in all of music).
I also listen to a lot of video game and film music, as that's what got me into classic music to begin with. Uematsu will always be one of my favorite composers, and everyone likes John Williams.
Diggy diggy hole. It's a classic. Ad nauseum. Ad infinitum.
Had to drop the pitch a bit for the dwarves to sound manly enough though.
Wierd Al Yankovic does Peter and the Wolf is a close second though.
As a vocalist I'm enjoying Avi Kaplan. He's not throwing peter steele but that's ok. I can handle both. Aint nobody throwing Rainbow of Love like JD Sumner.
For the ladies i've been listening to a lot of hayley westenra's christmas stuff lately when the wife's not home. She's got somethin against christmas music...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For those of you who haven't read (or don't remember) my previous posts on this thread, here's a recap of some of them:
Here she is - at the age of 5 - playing a gigue from a Partita by Bach.
Well, I finally know paddler16's real name: Sora Watanabe. It seems that she just turned 13 (on December 22) and she's still at it.
Since I didn't play as well as the 5-year-old Sora, I obviously can't compete with her 11-year-old self. But I promised on this thread that I would give the Haydn a shot anyway. (Actually, it was more like a threat.)
So once again, here's Sora playing the first movement of a Haydn sonata.
And just for some variety, I thought I'd give the Rialto Ripples rag by Gershwin a shot.
And thanks again, Treppa! I got the sheet music for both of those pieces from IMSLP.