Robertlouis-Around here it's mostly Bluegrass, which is sort of the native music. But Asheville, NC is a huge music scene, check it out on the internet-you should find the right links. And of course, the mountains are all around there too.
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Robertlouis-Around here it's mostly Bluegrass, which is sort of the native music. But Asheville, NC is a huge music scene, check it out on the internet-you should find the right links. And of course, the mountains are all around there too.
YouTube - ‪V. Vivaldi: Dopo un' orrida procella / Simone Kermes‬‏
She is so great !!7 watch this !
Its a killer of an aria, but Kermes brings it off and with no aspirations! I hadn't heard of her before so thanks for the link. The YouTube link identifies the Italian players but not the venue, my initial thought was the Kleine Saal in the Musikverein in Vienna but I am not sure -is it Venice? It doesnt look like La Fenice...
That was fucking awesome! Thanks....Quote:
Originally Posted by Birgitta
After checking out some more of her videos on her site http://www.simone-kermes.de/sites/video.html I think she's the Freddie Mercury of opera
Quote:
Originally Posted by runningdownthatdream
Yeesss!!!! (although i dont like freddy mercury much lol !)
she is such a pleasure to watch ! BaroCk!!! :}
I just bought her new cd "colori d'amore" (scarlatti amongst others)
Why is it that its easier for me to identify with old music and baroque then modern music ? Well maybe thats what any trained listener would say probably..(which im only becoming), you can really learn to love classical music, my parents never listened to it, but once your hooked, you never go back, im truely addicted, lol
Xxx
I expected the Stavros to say what you said about Freddie Mercury!Quote:
Originally Posted by Birgitta
Old things are fascinating for me because they require me to think outside of today's context (if that makes sense). Sometimes when the past meets the present it is really fascinating. The song below was apparently written in medieval times and I really like it:
YouTube - ‪Agnes Buen GarnÃ¥s / Jan Garbarek - Margjit og Targjei Risvollo‬‏
Hmmmm...Freddie Mercury...let's not go there people...
Hard to say why the Baroque appeals to some more than other periods in music -people who detest Wagner tend to loathe his philosophical topics wrapped in a huge and tonally rich orchestral tapestry. The Baroque is about control: similar to the concentrated use of language in Racine that nevertheless expresses a wide variety of thoughts and feelings: baroque sounds predictable (Handel is the criminal here, his Water Music consists of the same piece of music played like 500 times with no development, horrific), but the skill of the composers was in using a concentrated style of writing to express the range of thoughts and feelings, often demanding great dexterity by singers and beauty of singing and tone -bel canto. Baroque opera tends to be based on classical themes with all-too-human characters so the commonplace and the divine are merged in sound. And so on, but with a different palate to Wotan and Siegmund, for example. Decoration, artisty, musicality -different periods of music all have their appeal, to me anyway. Finally if you don't know it I hope you enjoy this clever play on musical style from Rameau's Platee:
YouTube - ‪Rameau Platée La Folie‬‏
I am a HUGE Lopatkina fan. This historic piece that she dances gives Pavlova a run for her money!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6829uWfH-g
Baroque predictable, i think i disagree, its very disciplined yes, but predictable, no ?
A painter like Honthorst, or carravagio, are they predictable, i would rather think they follow a discipline...and bach, well, i still am amazed about the complexity of his compositions, its more exciting and less predictable then most music today isnt it ? Even while baroque is the foundation of modern music, there is a lot of improvisation in baroque, at the time there were even a lot of arguements that the musicians improvised too much, so that the listener could no longer distinquish the melody from the improvisation...
I do prefer the pure feeling of the music over that of classical music, because classical music feels more personal to me then universal...
Thanks for the link, great !!7
Baroque predictable, i think i disagree, its very disciplined yes, but predictable, no ?
I didn't mean to sound pejorative -I was suggesting that in the baroque there were a set of rules that composers followed, a 'discipline if you will', the skill was working within these rules and continuing to create something new and fresh, I was only being negative in reference to Handel whose music I cant listen to without feeling imprisoned. I think there is a theory somewhere about people who believe classical music began with Bach and ended with Beethoven -I once met a German who took this view. He was opposed to romantic music and its consequences because it was driven by emotion and this allowed composers to stretch out music, radically change its tone and form and enable them to create chaos -but as Kenneth Clark once argued, there is always something of the classical in romantic art and vice versa. There is as much emotion in Bach and Mozart as there is in Wagner, only its expressed with more decorum...I think we are in the happy days when you can choose your medium to suit your mood, but in the end its a matter of personal taste.
I am a HUGE Lopatkina fan
So am I, she is a wonderful dancer, but I am not old enough to have seen Pavlova dance and compare the two, honest...
I would be surprised if anyone here was old enough to see here dance LOL! You can see a clip of her dancing the same piece as it was originated on youtube. Here it is!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW01o9x0Alc
And I was sure your wit and wisdom must come from someone at least in their nineties, Stavros
I believe that the structure of Baroque music appeals to an audience nurtured on the rigidity of rock 'n' roll music. The generation who grew up before the rock era seemed, by and large, to prefer later romantic composers, but the post sixties generation when moving on from rock have in many cases chosen to listen to the Baroque.
I believe that the structure of Baroque music appeals to an audience nurtured on the rigidity of rock 'n' roll music
I think you should be more precise about which R&R you refer to, is it for example, Led Zeppelin and Guns 'n Roses, or Pink Floyd -? I can understand the drift of your argument but I don't know enough about r&r to comment.
The argument that intrigues me is the one derived in part from Plato's critique of poetry and Lenin's notorious remarks about Beethoven's Apassionata sonata which he loved, but which produced an emotional reaction in him which dissipated his energy and thus detracted from the need for revolutionaries to be forever vigilant in their prosecution of the class struggle...when he was a boy there was a score of the Ring on the family piano, I think he turned against Wagner in his mature years...
...in other words, music and poetry for some are, in their entirety, a threat to the pursuit of reason precisely because they inspire irrational thoughts and feelings in people; and for some this is the difference between 'acceptable' tonally secure music and 'dangerous' atonal music even when it merely strays from tonic resolution-Stalin's fury at Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District -'chaos instead of music' and Socialist Realism's Hymns to the Boy who Fell in Love with a Tractor are another consequence...
I once spent the best part of a day listening to Don Cherry -the guy who lived upstairs objected, claiming it was 'soophisticated noise'...
The Baroque explores within a set framework, when it succeeds it is outstanding, when it fails it is boring -like most art I guess.
Well not the Floyd of led Zeppelin... more the twelve bar blues and rigid verse chorus structure of earlier rock and roll. it is the innate order - a form of musical conservatism. That would probably have made it appealing to Stalin - if it was freed from its otherwise rebellious quality. Dissonance, disorder etc are open doors in music and suggest other possibilities don't they. The anarchic scratch of jazz on the shiny surfaces of the idealised state or corporation. And yes when baroque is good it is utterly wonderful, but whe nit fails there is little more dull.
It feels to me that early music / baroque the emotions are more universal and less egoistical (i dont want to make this spund negative in any way), im not sure how to explain it...i do love classical music too though...but baroque is music i listen to daily and no matter what mood i am in, i enjoy it...
this is not the case with classical music for me...
Atonal music can be great...yet sometimes it sounds to me that it was composed just to be different then what went before and not because it wants to communicate with the listener, but its all so very personal, also the way the music is performed can make such a huge difference ! Anyway i looooove it, music really makes me happy !
And Prospero, its true baroque reminds me of rock, punk rock even lol, ...maybe im a tough kitten after all :)
Love
Birgitta
As I awoke this morning
When all sweet things are born
A robin perched on my windowsill
To greet the coming dawn
He sang his song so sweetly
And paused for a moment's lull
I gently raised the window
And crushed his fucking skull
Lol !Quote:
Originally Posted by OmarZ
Atonal music can be great...yet sometimes it sounds to me that it was composed just to be different then what went before and not because it wants to communicate with the listener
This is almost exactly what happened when Schoenberg composed his Three Piano Pieces op 11 in 1909 and the two songs op 14, to formally depart from tonality in composition. Dissonance as a form of atonality is present in all music in the sense that the intervals between notes do not form a natural tonal form unless the composer makes sure they do -JS Bach blurs the boundaries of tonality in one of the Brandenburg Concerti, Mozart's 'Dissonance' String Quartet K465 uses it to deepen the satisfaction of tonality, and famously Wagner broke the rules in the opening chord of Tristan und Isolde, which Berlioz listened to a hundred times in complete bewilderment. The problem is that Schoenberg felt it had to be formalised if music was to move forwards, but like the breakdown of form in painting, abstraction left a lot of the audience behind.
Behind this are theories of modernism in music -where modernism expresses the spirit of the industrial age -the loss of direct links to nature, the alienation of modern work and the impersonal city, anxiety, loss of control, the collision of diverse cultures in one urban setting, a crisis in religious feeling -all of the ingredients that some people feel Atonal music expresses the problems of modern life. It can be intensely beautiful and dramatic, even if, as with Berg's Wozzeck and Lulu that composer never fully abandoned tonality (much to his teacher Schoenberg's disgust). One triumph wold be The Passion of St John by Sofia Gubaidulina, a phenomenal work that has to be heard live to be experienced at its best -but requires huge forces and is therefore expensive to put on (I saw it at the Proms with Valery Gergiev a few years ago, simply staggering).
On the other hand, I have been bored almost to an early grave by Harrison Birtwistle who to my ears has been writing the same thing over and over again for the last 50 years. I have made an honest effort to listen to his music, but its a cruel and unusual form of punishment, and therefore an abuse of my human rights.
After listening to that stuff, its no surprise that Bartoli, Savall and other baroque specialists have such a wide audience.
How do you feel about Minimalism? Reich, Adams, Glass?
Hiii !Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Im not so experienced, i know Phillip Glass, saw him perform once, lovely, though the music bores me quickly, a lot of it sounds the same to me, i have a cd of simeon ten holt (if i write it correctly,( im pretty bad with names and music theory), its called canto ostinatos i believe lol, which is a work i love, very hypnotic.
I think you hit the nail right on the head when you described atonal music, its exactly the reason i dont listen to it, i live in the city, its always crowded and busy here, un personal, individualistic, i long for nature, balance, love, serenity, perhaps when i lived far out in the woods i will be listening my xenakis cds more often, they dissapearedinto my drawer, even pop music is too intrusive for me lately ! :)
Sorry Birgitta, canto ostinato sounds like the repetitive emptiness of Michael Nyman in The Piano...if you want something with more depth and imagination, the Koln Concerts Keith Jarret recorded in the 1970s are worth listening to (there are three segments on youtube), you need to immerse yourself in all three, love it or hate it. Jarret is one of the few musicians who can cross boundaries without controversy although I think that people who either play an instrument or have experienced live music from an early age appreciate the best in most genres, and he is one of the rare people who can play more or less anything...
YouTube - ‪Keith Jarrett Köln Concert - Part 1 1 / 3‬‏
The 2011 season of the BBC proms starts next Friday, with the usual varied and eclectic programme. Let's hope that the BBC's sponsorship doesn't become another casualty of this philistine government's barbarian accounting policies.
In the early stages I'm attracted by Prom 7 which features the Schubert String Quintet, a desert island piece for me, Prom 9 for Sibelius 7th which I've never heard performed live, and Prom 14 which features Mahler's final melancholic masterpiece, the 9th.
The kickoff concert should be good too with Janacek's glorious Glagolitic Mass.
I was an avid promgoer when I lived in London. These days the mix of Radio 3 and BBC4 suits me perfectly.
But I loathe the smug home counties fest of the Last Night more than any other musical event on the planet.
Anyone else?
Philip Glass is of course a modern tonal composer. It seems his generation of composers has re-embraced tonality and have abandoned serial and other atonal techniques. Actually I think it's ashamed. I love both tonal and atonal musics. Anton Webern's music is brief and exacting__exquisite mathematics for the ear (Die Funf Lieder, for example). Not at all programmatic of the anxieties of modern life. Alban Berg's stirring compositions probe the deep wells of the human soul. Some of the aleatoric music of John Cage (for example Five Stone Wind) though atonal, can be pensive and restful. The atonal period was full of experiment and innovation and it produced some of the world's most provocative and alluring music.
I do live in London and still seldom get to the proms. The whole chase for tickets is a hassle.. which is stupid of course. But the last night? You'd have to pay me a lot of money to go. As RL says its "smug home counties" and worse... a chance for fools to show off their jingoism and listen to usually rather hackneyed music.
My first Prom was Messiaen's Transfiguration in 1970, and I have been to some awesome ones over the years but like RLS no longer live in London. Last time I went I had to stay in a hotel for two days, I think the whole expedition cost me around £250. The best way these days is to buy a weekend ticket if the August bank holiday includes more than one concert you want to go to -it also means you join the priority queue and can usually get one of the seats on the sides of the arena which are also quite good acoustically. The problem is that sometimes -always?- the nerds ruin a performance -Sibelius 7 will undoubtedly be ruined by some dickhead bellowing BRAVO! a micro-second after the final note has been played -would you do that after listening to it on disc at home? I wonder what these people think they are achieving when they do this, after a profound piece of music I want silence.
Some of the aleatoric music of John Cage (for example Five Stone Wind) though atonal, can be pensive and restful.
To be controversial for once (!) I think John Cage should be re-classified as a sound engineer, not a composer. All music is sound, but not all sound is music, not that he knew much about it. If he is a composer, he is a fraud; if he is a sound engineer he plays around with musical instruments, electronics, sounds, silent intervals (sometimes lasting 4' 33") and contributed nothing to modern music. Allow me to sum up John Cage in his own words:
I have nothing to say
and I am saying it
So there! Webern, on the other hand, I can listen to. Such a tragic death.
My first prom was Elgar in the 80s. It was a treat, the 1st symphony with its gloriously sonorous and stately theme, the under-appreciated violin concerto, and the Enigma Variations. What I remember most of all was the organ coming in at the triumphal end and making the whole of the Albert Hall shake.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Sibelius 7th is another desert island constant for me, but it has to be Ashkenazy's recording on Decca. Somehow he imbues it with a depth of emotion that none of the others can match.
And as for stupid audience response, I remember one idiot cheering after the first of thor's five mighty hammer blows in the finale of Sibelius 5th - almost spoiled what had been up till then a very fine rendition by an Estonian orchestra at the Royal in Northampton, a perhaps surprisingly good venue for pre and post west end runs of drama as well as classical concerts. I'm also an annual subscriber for the summer series of concerts at the Corn Exchange in Bedford and dip into the Cambridge Festival too, particularly strong on chamber works, as well as playing at the folk festival myself!
You don't have to go to London to enjoy some wonderful music.
I was once at a concert of music by Xenakis and as it finished - before the applause - a single vice rang out with the word "Rubbish."
I was once at a performance of Verdi's Requiem at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, where, right from the start, the large lady in front of me began to give vent to the loudest and smelliest farts imaginable. I did feel like asking her companion to take her out before she started shitting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
Anyway, I haven't been able to listen to the piece since without feeling queasy.
BTW, anyone else agree with me that it has to the campest requiem mass of them all?
RL wrote: " I did feel like asking her companion to take her out before she started shitting."
You have a bit of English in your clearly. The "Feel like" rather than actually doing anything. What kinda Scot are you!
I don't like Verdi's religious music. (I like Rigoletto simply because i had a music master who sang the whole opera to us over a few weeks at school.) Brahms Requiem on the other hand is sheer thrilling bliss.
Sibelius, Xenakis -hilarious examples, in their own way.
I recall a concert of contemporary sound/music at the QEH featuring I think, Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Music No 2 -I think- I can't be sure it was this piece, but in one of them, he created 'music' by dropping a sandwich [wrapped in cling film I guess] onto the floor. Judged by its melodious consequence , it was cheese and onion...
Anyway, I haven't been able to listen to the piece since without feeling queasy.
BTW, anyone else agree with me that it has to the campest requiem mass of them all?
This is tragic, Verdi's Requiem is equal to Bach's Mass in B Minor, Beethoven's Mass in D, Mozart's Mass in C, Szymanowski's Stabat Mater, and the Brahms -Verdi camp??? I think that needs an explanation...
I'm not devaluing it in any way, I simply mean that for me at least it contains all the ingredients to make it a camp classic. I can shut my eyes and imagine Judy Garland doing the solos.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I'd agree with the peers that you named, of which the Brahms for me is special. Choosing to take Lutheran rather than Latin texts was a bold and very personal move.
I'd add the Faure for its humanism and the relatively little known Berlioz.
Ah the late great Cornelius Cardew - the musical equivalent of some of the winners of the Turner prize. Like the fellow given the award for turning on and off the gallery lights.
Interesting Stavros... I've ears and soul for Bach's B Minor Mass (for me the single greatest piece of music in the world) and the Great Mass in C and Szymanowski and Penderecki's choral work and Brahms.
I grew up with oratorio as my late parents were founder members of what was to become one of the leading amateur choirs in Scotland, so I've been familiar with the great works in the canon since I was about seven. The Tallis Spem in Alium sung in the round with the audience in the middle in Glasgow Cathedral with only a few candles for illumination has haunted me all my life.
There must be a point in Spem in Alium that is close to organised chaos and rampant dissonance: the genius of Tallis -who died a hundred years before Werckmeister codified the harmonic 'temperaments' (and over 500 years before Bela Tarr's amazing film Werckmeister Harmonies) -was to create a quasi-mathematical masterpiece pre-figuring most of what Werckmeister was trying to organise as theory. The result is literally beyond words, I don't know what words I could use to do justice to it.
Favourite recordings please.
If there's any English in me it must predate 1720, and previous to that year the family name was Swedish, so I doubt it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
Hell of an insult, Prospero. You should know better.