What Are You Listening To?

[stlukesguild]

My wife loves him... and thinks he was gorgeous when he was young. Later on he became a bit of an outsider/outlaw along with Willie... but I still love him:

 

[snoball]

He made some pretty good music in his time.

 

[stlukesguild]

Boccherini was a fascinating composer. One of the negative aspects of the "Classical Era" is that a good majority of the composers sound far too much like the Big Three: Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven.... and rarely anywhere near as good. The few exceptions would include Gluck, Antonio Soler, Fernando Sor, J.S. Bach's sons Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Christian Bach, and Boccherini. Boccherini was born and trained in Italy and then Vienna before moving to Madrid. His music is characterized by Rococo charm, lightness, and optimism with the light airy sense of Sprezzatura common to Italian music. This was married to the form and the melodic and rhythmic invention, coupled with frequent influences from the guitar tradition of his adopted country, Spain.

La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid is best known from the film, Master and Commander:

Too bad the whole scene is no to be found from the film... but this is probably due to copyright issues.

 

[brianvds]

This undoubtedly required a lot of editing. The music teacher in my school has said that group performances on Microsoft Teams or Zoom are impossible because of the lag in streaming... especially if some students have slower services. I thought teaching Art was bad enough online. Honestly, the work I get is garbage compared to what the kids can do when I'm right there... circulating the room... giving them feedback and motivating the slackers. But Music and PE? Jumping jacks in your office in front of your computer?

Well, my brother managed with the exercise thing. We had a very hard lockdown here, so he and his regular gym partner could no longer exercise as usual. But they found a calisthenics program online, and started doing that "together" on Zoom or something like that. He tells me he has never been this fit in his life, and he doubts if he'll ever bother with the gym again.

Still, he's probably an exception. I agree with the online teaching thing - it might work for some subjects, but I don[t see how one can make it work in meaningful manner with art. I teach weekly lessons at a local Montessori school. As it turned out, they simply closed down all their external lessons, and I have to say it was something of a relief, even though I had to forego the income.

 

[brianvds]

Perhaps this will come as surprise to StLukes:

Stereolab is one of the very few groups of modern popular musicians whose work I enjoy. I have no idea what genre it is, or whether it's completely unique, but whatever: it's nice background for drawing.

 

[stlukesguild]

I can't say I'd search them out... but neither would I rush to turn them off... unlike this:

This, on the other hand, is a lovely collection of work by Bach performed on violin & guitar with the crystal-clear voice of Sumi Jo. I can almost imagine this as not unlike what one might have heard in Bach's time... when the composer's work was often performed... and composed... based upon the limited range of musicians he had at the time. All we have is a guitarist and soprano? Well old man Bach can accompany them on violin. The result? A truly magical and intimate sound.

 

[brianvds]

Yoko and John give me a new appreciation for the sound of fornicating cats.

 

[stlukesguild]

Clarify that: Yoko and John Zorn... not John Lennon. I wonder how many who claim to embrace Conceptual Art also enjoy this?

 

[OliveOyl]

Funny, as I write this (taking a break from painting)...this is playing downstairs.

It’s his new album to celebrate his 80th birthday. It has 36 songs from the span of his career and it’s all remixed to such a high quality and sounds really, really good. I don’t know music production things so what I mean is that it sounds so crystal clear and crisp and we have it playing...loud.

Oh and btw, we have 7 Stereolab albums in this house and so SOMEBODY around here likes them.
Must be he, cuz it’s not me.

 

[Iain]

I remember liking the song Working Class Hero, maybe because of the f-word. His fellow band mate's solo effort really appealed to me recently, not that I have found god, but I find something divine in it. Hello Olive.

 

[stlukesguild]

Granted, I am a huge Fauré fan... but this is a truly exquisite disc. I listened to this yesterday afternoon while relaxing after spending several hours cleaning and reorganizing our "library". I still have quite a number of hours to go to get that back into shape.

In the evening we had some BBQ and chicken wings with a decent Octoberfest beer while listening to my Country/Bluegrass playlist on Spotify.

This one always gets my wife... and me as well. The live version is especially moving as Vince Gill struggles to make it through the song which he's written after the death of his brother and was now performing at the funeral of his musical hero, George Jones:

 

[brianvds]

View attachment 5370

Granted, I am a huge Fauré fan... but this is a truly exquisite disc. I listened to this yesterday afternoon while relaxing after spending several hours cleaning and reorganizing our "library". I still have quite a number of hours to go to get that back into shape.

I think you have posted this before - there was a long discussion about who painted the cover art.

 

[brianvds]

Glenn Gould being controversial, but very entertaining, as he explains why he thinks late Mozart was a bad, bad composer:

One might or might not agree with Gould. But what this really underscores for me is just how appalling television has become. How did we go from this to Kardashians and ancient aliens?

 

[stlukesguild]

Populism... it is also the reason for many of the politicians we now have around the globe.

 

[brianvds]

Populism... it is also the reason for many of the politicians we now have around the globe.

Lucky for me there's no law that requires me to watch it.

 

[stlukesguild]

After doing a slew of work around the house... including making dinner... Hungarian Goulash... in the crockpot, I crashed on the bed for a while after selecting some music. I decided upon the cello and happened upon this disc... which was quite good:

I haven't heard Elgar's cello concerto for some time. After the Tchaikovsky cello work (Variations on a Rococo Theme) I decided to turn to a favorite potboiler by Tchaikovsky... and one of the finest classical recordings ever made:

And since its Sunday, I finished up with Bach... these marvelous cello suites:

 

[brianvds]

I'm somewhat eccentric, in preferring Tchaikovsky's second piano concerto to the far more famous first. I prefer Tchaikovsky in small doses anyway. All that passion and pathos can be a bit much.

 

[stlukesguild]

I can't say I even know Tchaikovsky's second well enough to compare it with the first. I have this disc which includes all 3 of Tchaikovsky's concertos as well as concertos by Prokofiev and Bartok. The soloists are Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter. I believe Richter performs the Tchaikovskys... but either performer would be more than adequate. Considering the quality of the performers I have to wonder just how good the 2nd and 3rd by Tchaikovsky are that I wouldn't remember them.

I'll need to give them another listen-to soon.

Tonight I being far from the "purist". Then again, while I love many HIP performances of Classical Music I am far from a "purist". I far prefer the piano over the harpsichord for the solo keyboard works of Bach and will take the modern Grand Piano over the piano-forte for Mozart and Beethoven. I also prefer the female soloist over the choir boys for Bach. Tonight I'm taking this impurity even further:

La Venexia is a brilliant ensemble known for their HIP performances of Renaissance and Baroque music. They recorded all of Monteverdi's madrigals. Upon completing the last of these they must have needed to let off some steam and thus recorded this marvelous disc of Monteverdi filtered through jazz.

The Jacques Loussier Trio is one of the best-known and one of the best ensembles for jazz interpretations of Bach... and this may be their finest recording.

 

[brianvds]

I can't say I even know Tchaikovsky's second well enough to compare it with the first. I have this disc which includes all 3 of Tchaikovsky's concertos as well as concertos by Prokofiev and Bartok. The soloists are Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter. I believe Richter performs the Tchaikovskys... but either performer would be more than adequate. Considering the quality of the performers I have to wonder just how good the 2nd and 3rd by Tchaikovsky are that I wouldn't remember them.

Well, I did not even know there was a third, but I am no Tchaikovsky expert. My liking for the second may be part nostalgia - I grew up with it, as it was in our record collection at home. But it did withstand repeated listening too, and the slow movement is very typical Peter-wearing-his-heart-on-his-sleeve-again stuff.

Tonight I being far from the "purist". Then again, while I love many HIP performances of Classical Music I am far from a "purist". I far prefer the piano over the harpsichord for the solo keyboard works of Bach and will take the modern Grand Piano over the piano-forte for Mozart and Beethoven.

I can deal with the fortepiano for Mozart, and with some piano concertos of that time, I might well actually prefer it. I think Haydn's keyboard concertos sound quite delightful on the older instrument. But Beethoven on a fortepiano? Might as well use a frickin' clavichord. Beethoven clearly wrote for a modern grand, even if he never had one.

I also prefer the female soloist over the choir boys for Bach.

Now that's just sacrilege.

Speaking of which, I was listening to Mozart's great C minor mass:

Not sacrilege in itself, but realizing that I greatly prefer it over his more famous Requiem might be. In any event, you'll be pleased to learn that at least with that sort of music, I would agree with you on the issue of female sopranos - there are no doubt boys who could sing the soprano part here, but it would be completely out of idiom for a boy's voice, quite a bit like trying to perform the Brahms violin concerto on a viola da gamba or something.

Now perhaps Bach would have preferred female sopranos, but boys were what he had available, and what a consummate musician he was: he knew exactly how to push their voices to the limit without going beyond. It occurs to me that apart from all his many other mind-blowing achievements, he created the greatest body of work for treble voices in all of music history, equal probably to all other composers who wrote for the medium put together.

He was said to be a great teacher. One has to wonder how he managed to get such music out of his choir boys: did he inspire them, or were they just too terrified of him to dare sing a wrong note?

We may disagree on the merits of the the voices, but I think we mostly agree on the issue of Bach.

 

[stlukesguild]

I can deal with the fortepiano for Mozart, and with some piano concertos of that time, I might well actually prefer it. I think Haydn's keyboard concertos sound quite delightful on the older instrument.

I agree that some of Mozart's work might sound OK on the piano-forte. I do have John Eliot Gardiner's boxed HIP set. But I lean toward Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, Alfred Brendel, Rudolf Serkin, and a couple of others who all play on the modern grand.

Haydn's concertos? Honestly, I haven't listened much to these which have regularly been dismissed in comparison to Mozart's. I am well aware of his sonatas, however, and can imagine them on piano-forte... although again, the recordings I am most fond of are all on modern grands. I will need to listen to these concertos as well... considering I have access through Spotify.

But Beethoven on a fortepiano? Might as well use a frickin' clavichord. Beethoven clearly wrote for a modern grand, even if he never had one.

Might as well use a kazoo for Mozart's clarinet quintet.

Two of the biggest losses in music IMO is the fact that Mozart never composed any violin concertos after his 5th... composed in his early 20s... and Beethoven never wrote any more piano concertos after his hearing began to fail.

"I also prefer the female soloist over the choir boys for Bach."

Now that's just sacrilege.

Bach preferred the female vocalists as well. And the female sopranos were common with German composers for secular music. Unfortunately, Bach was employed in small provincial churches. There are letters in which he speaks enviously of the access to brilliant orchestras and female soloists in the more sophisticated courts of Brandenburg etc... At least he wasn't forced to use the Castrati ala the courts in Italy and England. The French liked their women too much and never went down that path... and the Lutheran Germans thought the castrati were simply "unnatural".

I actually have a recording of Handel's Messiah on Naxos performed with choir boys which is pretty damn good.

Not sacrilege in itself, but realizing that I greatly prefer it over his more famous Requiem might be.

I would never go there... but I agree that the Great Mass in C-minor is fabulous. More than one reason its known as the "Great" Mass.

He was said to be a great teacher. One has to wonder how he managed to get such music out of his choir boys: did he inspire them, or were they just too terrified of him to dare sing a wrong note?

Bach always has this reputation as the dour old religious composer that matches this well-known portrait:

But this was also Bach...

He was famous for sneaking his wife-to-be into the choir lofts with some questionable intentions. He fathered 20 children, so he clearly was not adverse to women and sex. In fact, his second wife, Anna Magdalena was a talented and well-paid chamber singer. She gave birth to 13 of Bach's children, ran the household filled with constant visitors and students, made copies of his music, and sang in Bach's amateur orchestra, the Collegium musicum, made up mainly of students.

Bach was also a friend of Christiane Mariane von Ziegler who founded one of Germany's first literary-musical salons, a "meeting place for citizens, scholars and artists. Ziegler was something of an early Feminist... or at least a rebel against the expected roles of women. In those days, a female poet was certainly an anomaly. The proper place for women was not to show intelligence let alone wit.

Bach also famously admired Faustina Bordoni, the highest-paid soprano of her day. George Frideric Handel tailor-made the star role in five of his operas for Bordoni. In 1730, she married the composer Johann Adolf Hasse and followed him to the opera company at the court of King Augustus the Strong in Dresden. One year later, she sang at the triumphant premiere of Hasse's opera "Cleofide." Bach was in the audience - and not for the last time. He's known to have said to his son Wilhelm Friedemann, who lived in Dresden, "Let's go hear the lovely Dresden songstress again!" The Hasses were on cordial terms with the Bachs and visited them, in turn, in Leipzig on a number of occasions, so it's likely that Faustina also sang with Bach's Collegium musicum.