Part II – Aren’t these the greatest performances of classical music?

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[OscarCP]

This thread I start today is the continuation of one I begun in early 2020 and has by now hundreds of links to YouTube performances of some of the best Western classical music going back some four centuries, played  by the very best performers of the last 120 years, since music started to be recorded in ways that we can still appreciate today. Although “classical” has not meant exclusively “music performed at concert halls by symphonic orchestras, chamber ensembles, choruses, great opera singers and solo instrument virtuosos”.

The cause of the split is that the thread was getting quite long, with well over 500 comments containing each one or more links to YT performance videos, and Susan was quite determined that it needed to be split. She has allayed considerably my worry that splitting the thread would condemn the first part to oblivion once it went out of sight into the back pages, and in a short time. She has moved to prevent this by pinning it as one of those yellow-background entries in “New Posts” where recent comments are listed and linked, so it will not disappear from sight. Also by adding “Part I” to the title of the old thread, at my request.

The music commented and linked in Part I, as it shall continue to be the case here, in Part II, has ranged from works by J.S. Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to those by Messien, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Zoltán Kodály. Adding to all that those of the Greats of Jazz, Fusion, Bossa Nova, Progressive Tango, Rock, Country, movies (e.g. Morricone and Korngold) and Rhythms and Blues, from such greats as Ray Charles or Aretha Franklin, to our very own USA National Treasure, Dolly Parton.

Contributing comments to “Part I”, with the participation of other music lovers of similarly somewhat eclectic preferences, has been a task of love, one that I hope it has not only provided some real pleasure, but also some solace in difficult times to those visiting it. And helped as well those interested in learning more about this truly monumental and invaluable heritage of humanity: music.

I certainly have learned quite a lot about music while preparing to write my comments and by reading those made by others. And I hope we all may continue to do so in this new thread, “Part II”, that I hereby kick off now.

And how best to kick off this continuation of “Classical” with tree classic performances by some great artists of our very days:

First this one, from Part I, that I copy here in part:

In times when it is often hard to feel very cheerful, here is she at the Glastonbury Festival in Lancaster, UK, in 2014, singing while radiating her signature warm smile what is probably her most popular song, “Joleen” to a very large and enthusiastic audience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwBNBcFAFso

Keep in mind that she was already seventy when staging this great and truly classical performance.

And also from Part I, this other one:

So here is the last movement of Beethoven’s 9th “Choral” Symphony during the 2012 BBC Proms at London’s Albert Hall, with David Barenboim conducting the West-Estern Divan Orchestra and soloist singers Anna Samuil (soprano) Waltraud Meier (mezzo-soprano) Michael König (tenor) René Pape (bass), with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. A performance also noticeable for the youth of the musicians and members of the chorus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChygZLpJDNE

In it, the words of the “Ode to Joy” by the poet Friedrich Schiller, sang by the huge choir and the four soloists, is also translated from German to English in the subtitles.

Finally,  This is Bach’s monumental “Chaconne”, the last movement of the Partita No. 2 for solo violin, played here by my favorite violinist of the last two decades in her breakthrough recording, when she was 16 or 17 years old and still had a magnificent international career ahead of her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjEVKxQCWs

(Please, leave these “Picture links” in this first opening comment, as it was the case in the opening comment of Part I.)

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• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by OscarCP.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by OscarCP.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by OscarCP.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by OscarCP.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by OscarCP.

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Sky, wavy, Fred, GarthP, PKCano, Susan Bradley

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OscarCP wrote:

Glastonbury Festival in Lancaster, UK,

Glastonbury is 250 miles South of Lancaster.

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OscarCP

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Right, that should be “Somerset”, way south of Lancashire.

FYI: the nearest town to the site of the festival is Pilton.

And for more information to whoever happens to like or even love Dolly’s work, there is this:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/29/dolly-parton-at-glastonbury-2014-review

And here is the whole of Dolly Parton’s 50 minutes performance at Glastonbury, from start to finish:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3d5vnj

(If there is no sound: click on the video, put the cursor on it, to reveal a little speaker icon in its screen, then click on this icon to turn the sound on.)

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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FIRST: Part I has been closed for further comments, so if one wants to reply to something posted there, this has to be done in a comment here, in Part II, with a link to the comment in Part I that motivates the reply. More generally, if one finds something in Part I that seems interesting enough to link here, in Part II, a full comment, or a YouTube video in a comment, one hast to do as follows:

To link a comment or YT video in Part I to a comment here, in Part II, as shown in the example below, there is a procedure to be followed strictly:

(1) Find link to part I pinned (in a yellow background) by searching in “New Replies: last three days” and, when found, click on it. If you can’t do that for any reason (e.g. lack of time), then click on my “OscarCP” icon, at the top-right corner of any of my Part II comments.

(2) In my Profile page that then opens, click on “Topics Started” (right below my large icon there) and look for “Part I – Aren’t these the greatest performances of classical music?”, then and click on that.

(3) Once in Part I, to find a comment on a topic you want to read about in Part I and maybe also link to one of yours in Part II, look for such a comment in Part I as follows:

(4) Because the thread is very long, click Cntrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac) and in the search field that opens enter the full name, or just the last name of the player (e.g. Dolly Parton), or of the composer (e.g. Beethoven), or the name of the work, with enough words from its name so as not to be too unambiguous (e.g. clarinet concerto — there aren’t many of those, so you’ll have to find one that interest’s you by investigating only a handful; but “piano concerto” will take very long, so you’ll need something more specific there, but as one can only use consecutive words, “piano concerto” will make for a very long search, “Martha Argerich” for a fairly long one, and that’s the best anyone can do, unless you know really well the name of the piece in question and can use enough sequential words to identify it.

(5) Once you find the comment you like to read and use the YouTube links there to stream the corresponding videos, if then you would like to link this comment to one of yours in Part I:

(a) Click on the #xxxxxx number on the top right corner of the Part I comment or YT video you want to link.

(b) Mark and then copy (Cntrl+C, or Command+C) the comment’s own URL that now appears in full in the address bar at the top of the browser’s window.

(c) Back in Part II, paste the link (Cntrl+V or Command+V) where you would like to have it in a comment you are writing there.

BUT: paste the link following a line of text with no more than one blank between the last character in the text and the first one of the URL ( the “h”, as in “http://…”) IF YOU DON’T DO IT IN THIS WAY, you may get (depending on the browser you are using, it seems) a link to the top of the Part I thread, not to the comment in that thread that you are trying to link:

Right way: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2383345

Wrong way (depending, as far as it is known, on the browser) that takes one to the top of Part I, not to the intended place in it:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2383345

And using the correctly linked comment above, one then gets to see the Part I comment and, in it, the links to the YT videos you found interesting enough to want to share in Part II:

“And, finally as the golden brooch, a talk at Oxford University, England, by Uchida on comparing Beethoven, Mozart and also on herself as a performer and her thoughts of what, in her own experience, musicians need to find in their hearts when performing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mBzp5_yR18

One has to be a bit patient, because there are rather long preliminary remarks on the reason this meeting with Uchida is dedicated to the memory of the late Lord Weidenfeld and the foundation that bears his name to assist promising foreign candidates to do their post-graduate studies at Oxford.”

Except that there is something wrong here! The link to the video appears as a large “picture” link, and that is seriously frowned upon, because it slows down the AskWoody server when downloading the page. For this there is a procedure explained by PKCano in Part I to get string-of-character links (OK), not “picture” ones (not OK): search for “PK” in Part I, to find her entry with the “how-to” illustrated explanation. The comment title is: ” Make “Brown Links” – use “Visual” Tab. See #2136519 above
Before “

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Oscar, I just noticed your ‘helpful’ but not quite correct note about the nearest town to the Glastonbury Festival. Pilton is just a village, nice but small, less than 1000 people. The nearest town is Shepton Mallet, about 3 miles north-east, which has nearly 11,000. You got the county right, though, after a false start.

Nice part of the country, and I used to live not far away, but never a fan of the Festival.

Garth

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OscarCP

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Oscar, so be it! Here is an opener, in a relaxed fashion.

Light music as a genre has not had all that much of a following in recent years, but there is much that is excellent. I enjoy the music of English light music composer Ronald Binge, and here is a typical group of melodies, in traditional form.

https://youtu.be/KkZ2Ooz2gtI

On the other hand, I have a vinyl record of numerous songs sung in German by the Gunter Kallmann choir. Unfortunately I cannot find a compilation on YT but here is a single recording from that same record to show what a different and beautiful sound can be created.

https://youtu.be/EoE87Iw5xUY

Garth

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Garth,

Lovely interpretations. Which ones are the original compositions by Ronald Binge in that YT tube video? He was not only an arranger, but wrote music himself.

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GarthP

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Oscar, most of them were composed by Binge! A few are arrangements for Mantovani, in which he was a member of the orchestra, and then responsible for most of the Mantovani arrangements.

Here is a list of his compositions:

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ronald-binge-mn0001258366/compositions?1629490687544

He was born in the railway town of Derby, where I first started work, so I have a particular ‘soft spot’ for him. He was a remarkable musician!

Garth

 

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Garth, Very strange: When I first used the link to the site with the list of works by Binge, I was blocked and asked to either disable my ad blocker or subscribe. I did that, closed the page returning to this one, clicked again on the link in your comment, again it blocked me and asked me to disable the ad blocker, although this was clearly disabled. (I checked that.)

So: no list of Binge’s own works for now.

But I believe that “Autumn Leaves” ( based on the French song “Les Feuilles Mortes, with lyrics by Jacques Prévert) is not one of those by him.

And, while we are on the subject of classic old songs:

https://360degreesound.com/10-great-versions-of-jazz-standard-autumn-leaves/

And with a rather kitschy pictorial background, but never mind that, here is that classic, sang in English and French by the one and only Edith Piaf:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2s2tPORlW4

And to end, here is a true classic: beginning with her signature song “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien”, a collection of Piaf’s renditions of Parisian “Chanson Canaille” songs she made famous throughout the world and, in so doing, became one of the truly great popular singers of all time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdOGbtrNi8c

(And, for those who are patient, getting to  “Sous le Ciel du Paris” is a reward well waiting for; but all of it is a real and very fine treat.)

And finally, in “simultaneous” English translation:

The Dead Leaves/ Les Feuilles Mortes
by Jacques Prévert

Oh, I wish you could remember
Oh, je voudais tant que tu te souviennes

Happy days when we were friends
Des jours heureux où nous étions amis

At that time life was more beautiful
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle

And the sun is hotter than today
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui
Fallen leaves are collected with a shovel
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle

You see, I haven’t forgotten
Tu vois, je n’ai pas oublié

Fallen leaves are collected with a shovel
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle

Memories and regrets too
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
And the north wind carries them away,
Et le vent du Nord les emporte,

In the cold night of oblivion
Dans la nuit froide de l’oubli

You see I haven’t forgotten
Tu vois je n’ai pas oublié,

The song you sang to me
La chanson que tu me chantais
Fallen leaves are collected with a shovel
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle

Memories and regrets too,
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi,

But my silent and faithful love
Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle

Always smile and thank life
Sourit toujours et remercie la vie
I loved you so much, you were so pretty,
Je t’aimais tant, tu étais si jolie,

How do you want me to forget you?
Comment veux-tu que je t’oublie?

At that time life was more beautiful
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle

And the sun is hotter than today
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui
You were my sweetest friend
Tu étais ma plus douce amie

But I have nothing to do with regrets
Mais je n’ai que faire des regrets

And the song that you sang
Et la chanson que tu chantais,

Always, always I will hear it
Toujours, toujours je l’entendrai
This song reminds me of us,
C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble,

You, you loved me, I loved you
Toi tu m’aimais, moi je t’aimais

And we both lived together
Et nous vivions, tous deux ensemble,

You who loved me, I who loved you
Toi qui m’aimais, moi qui t’aimais
But life separates those who love each other,
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment,

Very slowly, without making any noise
Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit

And the sea erases on the sand
Et la mer efface sur le sable

The footsteps of disunited lovers
Les pas des amants désunis
This song reminds me of us,
C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble,

You loved me and I loved you
Toi tu m’aimais et je t’aimais

And we both lived together
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble,

You who loved me, I who loved you
Toi qui m’aimais, moi qui t’aimais
But life separates those who love each other,
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment,

Very slowly, without making any noise
Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit

And the sea erases on the sand
Et la mer efface sur le sable

The footsteps of disunited lovers
Les pas des amants désunis

And from one who commented on Piaf in YT:

“On n’écoute pas Piaf sans risques… celui d’être tourneboulé dans sa tête et sa mémoire… chanson réaliste, on dit ainsi, et c’est exactement comme ça que tout se passe… Elle chante la vie, rien que la vie, sans invention, brut de décoffrage… et une voix à nous mettre le cœur à l’envers”

“One does not listen to Piaf without risks…
that of being turned upside down in her head and her memory…
realistic song, we say so, and that’s exactly how everything
happens… She sings about life, nothing but life, without invention,
roughly stripped … and a voice to turn our hearts upside down“

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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Here is a scan of that website with (presumably) all compositions by Ronald Binge listed.

Garth

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OscarCP

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In case someone might have missed it, because I put it originally after the long bi-lingual version of the poem by Jacques Prévert (one my four or five beloved poets, out of all those who have been around, sometime, during my own life time) to format it there before moving it above the poem, as a final remark on her art, but run out of time for editing. So here I include, where it is easier to see, the following that I have copied from one comment in YT on Piaf’s singing and songs:

“On n’écoute pas Piaf sans risques… celui d’être tourneboulé dans sa tête et sa mémoire… Chanson réaliste, on dit ainsi, et c’est exactement comme ça que tout se passe… Elle chante la vie, rien que la vie, sans invention, brut de décoffrage… et une voix à nous mettre le cœur à l’envers”  (Emphasis is mine.)

“One does not listen to Piaf without risks…
that of being turned upside down inside one’s own head and one’s memory…
“Realistic song”, we say so, and that’s exactly how everything happens… She sings about life, nothing but life, without invention, roughly stripped … and a voice to turn our hearts upside down“

And what a limpid and beautiful voice that was!

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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Here is another, longer, Binge composition, proving he is not just a small piece man. Saturday Symphony has three movements, about a half hour long, but the sense of humour is never far away.

https://youtu.be/G3IvKVh3s3E

Garth

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OscarCP

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Garth, Thanks: a very fine symphony; for what I know about Binge (not a lot) it is a pity that he might have preferred composing short pieces.
The orchestra Binge was conducting was most likely the Süddeutsche Rundfunk Symphonie Orchester that emphasized in its programming the works of modern composers.

Here are three more by Binge I hope you’ll like:

Elizabethan Serenade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xc0xIRsbQw

A Scottish Rhapsody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rScKh4-75Yc

Sailing by, a collection of 21 music miniatures:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYzCQfsSiBw

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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GarthP

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Oscar, indeed, all of them thanks.

I have to admit though, that all of the versions of Elizabeth Serenade, the one I like best is the choral version by the Gunter Kallmann singers, a very long-standing absolute favourite ever since the 1960s!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoE87Iw5xUY

Garth

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The Concertgebouworkest is kicking off its 2021–22 season on Friday, 10 September (2021) with a festive open-air concert on Dam Square

The Concertgebouworkest is delighted to perform once again for a live audience. To celebrate, the orchestra is presenting the city, the country and the world with the gift of an open-air concert on Dam Square. Weather permitting, this special programme will be performed in the heart of Amsterdam, the music spilling out into the streets, on 10 September at 8.30 p.m. Together, the musicians and the audience will be bringing the city back to life.

https://www.concertgebouworkest.nl/en/season-opening-on-dam-square

 

* _ ... _ *

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OscarCP

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Dam Square is like the “dam” in Amsterdam: it is the city square!

It would be nice if the concerts were recorded for later distribution by online streaming.

Good luck to those performing and attending, specially these days when the reopening is taking place everywhere — and no one is too sure about how good an idea this is.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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Why all the big spaces in your post?

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Wavy, what big spaces? Everything looks normal to me.

Like  this:

If you are referring to the blank lines between paragraphs, they are put in there automatically by the WorldPress software after the final period in a paragraph; besides that is how I always have written, in all my by now numerous comments on anything under the Sun, at AskWoody and elsewhere. You have been seeing, and sometimes reading, my comments for quite a while, so that should not be a novelty to you.

So what else is that you see that looks unusual to you here?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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Oscar’s posts look to me as they do in the screenshots, if that helps.

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Sky, I explained yesterday, answering to Wavy, that is how all my comments have ever looked like, without hearing any remarks about large “blank spaces” until Wavy debuted this topic yesterday. Furthermore, if one wanted to avoid blank lines between paragraphs, the only way is to make the whole comment into one single and, if the text is long, one huge paragraph. As to blanks to the right of text, the sneaking right margin is how it is setup and how I like it. Wavy himself has been reading things I have posted for some years now that have all these blanks and never said anything about it.

To anyone who doubts any of this, please go and have a good look at Part I.

This is all very strange. I rather get comments on music, you know. My writing style and the way I separate paragraphs or how I like the line endings to line up is not really important, I would think.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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Please don’t take my comment the wrong way, Oscar, I was simply letting you know that your posts are showing up as you intended. I assumed that you were wondering if they were to others and that’s why you had said “Everything looks normal to me.” and posted the screenshots. I have no opinion in any direction as to post styling. Sorry, just trying to be of assistance!

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OscarCP

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Sky, Thanks: All is now clear. Sorry I misunderstood you.

By the way: did you and your wife ever got to watch “The Dragon Prince”, Seasons 1-3? If you did, what do you think of it?

Season 4 is said to be under development, but Netflix is remarkably mysterious about its premiere date; I am guessing sometime next year. It does not matter, really, because 1-3 are pretty much a complete narrative in themselves.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Sky

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All is good

I’ve not watched it yet, I’ve had a hectic few months, but I’ll make a note to let you know in the animation topic when I have watched it.

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OscarCP

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In answer this is what I see.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Wavy, there is something missing in your picture, according to your screenshot: Dolly Parton and her guitar sparkling in full rhinestones glory!

Everyone but you apparently sees it, myself included.

It is a “picture” YT link I made to have a splashy lead comment, same as the other two other “picture” links there for Beethoven’s 9th and Hilary’s Bach Chaconne. Can’t you see those? If so, than I would guess your browser does not want to show you YT “picture” links and your are fated to seeing many big blank spaces in entries in other places — here, to not overburden the AskWoody server, it is strictly brown (blue) URL links everywhere except for that very first comment, and those of people who don’t know any better and are then gently told what to do.

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And in closing for this day, I thank all of you who have posted today here, for helping send this Part II of “Classic” quite nicely on it way.

I am leaving you with something with plenty of meat to chew on:

A virtuoso, fiery and muscular performance by the soloist and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, under Leo Slatkin, of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cg_0jepxow

And the improvisations in the cadenzas and coda  (*) … well, you’ll have to see and hear those being played, because seeing and hearing is believing.

(This took place in 2017, some 20 years after one of the first published performances by this artist.)

(*) Also a cadenza, played near the end: a show-off part, where the conductor puts his hands on his lap, the orchestra players put down their instruments and is just the soloist playing like there is no tomorrow.

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Here is something new (to me, at least) and also something old:

Old: Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto op.35 & Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

New: Violinist Alena Baeva, playing here with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker Orchestra conducted by Alexandre Bloch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ckqOukGKK8

I had not heard of this Russian violinist until just today. I was listening to something else in YouTube and when it ended, the next thing in the list started automatically and it was this performance of Tchaikovski’s violin concerto follow by his Romeo and Juliet Overture.

I was left impressed with Baeva’s interpretation and, in my highly not authoritative opinion, I must say that she is pretty good. She played here with a serious orchestra, the Düsseldorf Symphonic Orchestra, at a respectable venue, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
After seeing her play, I can say that she shares with that most remarkable violinist Hilary Hahn, who is five years her senior, the important characteristic that she does not make funny faces when she is playing. She is 100% paying close attention to what she is doing, and that is the sign of the serious worker doing a tricky job and determined to do it very well, so as not to let down her fellow workers in the orchestra and disappoint the customers in the audience. And maybe never again get another half decent job as a musician.

As a possible further recommendation: Baeva plays a Stradivarius violin, one of 600 left and worth millions of dollars, because, it being a Strad, has the characteristically beautiful and robust sound that makes violin players dream with having one (**); she got the right to use and keep it, for as long as she remains an active performer, when she won the Grand Prix at the 2004 International Moscow Nicoló Paganini Competition.

So she can’t be that bad.
And she really likes her violin.

(*) https://today.tamu.edu/2021/08/12/the-secret-of-the-stradivari-violin-revealed/

(**) https://www.cnrs.fr/en/sound-projection-are-stradivarius-violins-really-better

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GarthP

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A couple of performances that I have enjoyed:

Firstly, an outstanding perforamnce from 2011 of the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing Verdi’s Requiem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlo1I3rx6n4

If you listen to nothing else from it, listen to Dies Irae at 9:39. That’s enough to move anyone! The scale is overwhelming.

Secondly, more of a general recommendation, and that is any performance of Beethoven by Wilhelm Kempff. Here are movements 1 and 3 (sorry for leaving you out movement 2!) of his Moonlight Sonata, as that is something that everyone has heard and will be able to compare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6txOvK-mAk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSulR9Fymg

Aren’t they just the most superb performances of these pieces? So perfect. He recorded Beethoven’s complete sonatas, which can be purchased, if you are interested. I own the CD and can recommend.

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OscarCP, GarthP

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What a wonderful Requiem. It’s a long time since I listened to a complete performance, and I had rather forgotten just how impressive it is. Not just the ‘best’ bits, but the piece as a whole – 90 minutes of wonderful music, and some magnificent singers who I did not know at all.

Garth

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The Verdi is impressive, both in the size of the forces involved and in its execution. One cannot ask for more of a performance of an Opera by Verdi.

I wrote that about as an observation, not a criticism. What Verdi wrote and is interpreted in this flawless performance is not a Requiem, is a magnificent Grand-Opera style package with a religious theme inside, at least I have always considered it to be that.

A Mass of Requiem is more than music and singing and creating an admirable hour plus of sound, it is a performance aimed at provoking, terrifying and presenting to those who believe in Heaven, Hell, the Day of Judgement and the Resurrection of the Flesh, in the most direct way, if wrapped in the magic of art, and from a Catholic perspective, the tragedy and the fundamental horror and mystery inherent to the human condition: awareness of the inevitability of death and fear of what might come, or come not, after it (*). Mozart got it right. So did Fauré (**). After all, no matter how much they believed or believed not (Fauré in particular was pretty luke-warm about religion), both were Catholics, had learned the Catechism to take their First Communion as boys, plus Confirmation as teens and then Holy Matrimony; and the Latin lyrics and arrangement of the various parts are a Catholic thing. Maybe an Anglican High Church one too, with the lyrics translated to English, except for the Kirie, sang partly in Greek. Verdi might have been a Catholic, but he was into Opera first and foremost, and a good thing too!

Conclusion: I listen to this religious-themed opera once more, after many years, as I write this, and have a great time doing both, believe you me. Thanks for making the video available. I look forward to more contributions of this quality. Thank you.

(*) Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna,   Free me, Lord, from eternal death.
In die illa tremenda, in die illa.        In that terrible day, in that day
Quando coeli movendi sunt,                When the Heavens are moving,
Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra.       When the Heavens and Earth are moving.
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.  And you come to judge the ages by fire.

(**) And Shakespeare, even if he did so in a poem in a play, not in a song.

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Sky, Here is the complete Moonlight Sonata played by Kempff. It is not an actual video, but just a few photos as background while the music plays:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGlwuioLNrY

But the performance is … well, words are just not enough.
Fortunately, only listening is required.

And, to complete the set of Ludwig’s  two most famous piano sonatas, here is Kempff again, playing the Appassionata:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN5cnVk85uo

But, if color is what you want, here is color for you and then some, besides a little Moonlight:

Lola & Hauser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzWDs26YL9Y

The YT subscribers’ comments are interesting, because I cannot disagree with them more. I think that Hauser, the guy, besides being a completely superfluous addition, is a terrible player and should be exiled to Mars, without a helmet. Lola plays OK and, as a bonus, has something one can look at. And quite a bit of something, most generously offered. My guess Lola is really, seriously keen on Hauser and that is why she lets him come around and then do whatever it is that he does with that cello. Women!

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By the way, there are YT links to the Moonlight Sonata and also to several Requiem Masses composed by Mozart and others in Part I. To find the Requiem links quickly, for example, using the browser’s search function, enter “requiem” in the search field and click and keep clicking on the up/down button to see what is there.

You are going to find Requiem Masses already posted and commented in Part I:

The Requiem Mass by Mozart (several versions); and I advise to check also Brahms’ “A German Requiem.” Although this is not a traditional Church Requiem, it is, nevertheless, a profoundly moving reflection on our mortality and the inexorable passing of time. To me particularly, the haunting part where a quotation from Isaiah 40:6 (or from Peter 1), that begins: “All flesh is grass” (“alles Fleisch ist Gras”), is sang by a large chorus, is something one must hear to realize just how beautiful and powerful this work is. Here: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2173359

And most remarkable, the little known but truly great Requiem by the Russian composer Osip Kosolovsky Here: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2305564

VERY IMPORTANT: For linking a comment in Part I to another in this thread, as I have done twice above here:

Looking for something in Part I, for example a Requiem, to link to a comment here, in Part II, once one has found a comment in Part I one would like to link, one must copy the full link in Part I, by clicking on he comment number “#2173359”, for example, then copying the whole URL in the address line at the top of the browser page and pasting it, where one wants to, in Part II, without leaving  more that one blank between the text one is writing and the copied link, as it can be seen in the two examples in this comment (leaving no blanks between text and link, as in the first example,  works too; not very tidy, though. It looks like there are blanks there, but that is just the way the software broke the line, because it would have been too long to fit.)

Once this has been done and the comment with the links to Part I has been posted, please check that the links are working.

I am hoping Susan might simplify this so it is only necessary to use the number of a Part I comment as the link – and without worrying about how many blanks can be placed between text and link, so it is exactly the same as linking one comment to another in the same thread.

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https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2384568

You do have to copy the url. Or right mouse click the upper right permalink and click on copy link.

 

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Susan,

When I “right click” (sort of, as this is a Mac) I get what you can see in this picture:

So what do I do with this? Any suggestions?

I have always done this successfully before, both when using Windows until January of 2020, and now, using a Mac:

(1) mark it, by passing the cursor carefully under the “#number” of the comment that I want to link to the one I am writing now; (2) copy it (Ctrl+C/Command+C); then (3) past this in the comment I am writing now with Ctrl+V/Command+V.

When I am done writing and submit the finished comment, I have always had a functional link to the first comment in the one just submitted. But not now, at least not with the Part I comment I wanted to link here, in Part II.

As I have already indicated and demonstrated here #2385100  (<= link inserted using my usual procedure), there is an alternative that works, and that is clicking on the number of the comment to be linked and then copying the whole URL that appears in the address bar at the top of the browser page with Ctrl+C … and, back in Part II, pasting it as the link.

But my usual, and quite simple procedure, which has worked not just when linking comments within the same page, but also across threads, does not work between this one and its predecessor, and that is not just a curiosity! It is either a wrong setup of Part I, or a bug. And I think you should be a little concerned about either possibility. That’s all.

 

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“Copy link location” is what you want.

 

 

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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OscarCP

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From a note here: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190465780.001.0001/oso-9780190465780-chapter-16

“Leonard Bernstein arrived in Hiroshima in August 1985 to conduct his peace concert to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. Bernstein, the musicians, and the organizers had to carefully navigate the local, national, and global politics surrounding the commemoration. While demonstrating his deep understanding of the complexity of the issues, Bernstein spoke vocally for nuclear disarmament and also formed a personal bond with the young musicians and the audience. The three Japanese people he had the closest relationship to–Seiji Ozawa, Kazuko Amano, and Kunihiko Hashimoto–were all in Hiroshima to witness and share in Bernstein’s prayer for peace, and each found new ways of expressing their love and dedication to the maestro.”

Hiroshima Peace concert, Fauré Requiem op 48, Seiji Ozawa with the European Community Youth Orchestra (ECYO), soloists and chorus (no further details available anywhere I looked):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqch8YP7b7w

I found this in Wikipedia’s article on the conductor: “Ozawa and the novelist Haruki Murakami (*) embarked on a series of six conversations about classical music that form the basis for the book Absolutely on Music.” That is book that I would like to read.

(*) I’ve  read some of his books. He is often mentioned as a possible Literature Nobel Prize recipient.

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And here, how the sausage is made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf_1kaf2Otc

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GarthP

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… and I have bought the book! “Absolutely on Music” is a series of conversations between the famous writer Haruki  Murakami and the equally famous Orchestra Conductor Seiji Ozawa about the performers, conductors and performances that Ozawa has known, has been a witness to, or participated in. The conversations were recorded by Murakami in his house near Tokyo, where they took place in 2009.

Murakami, for his part, looks in this book, written by him, like someone who has bought and listened to just about every music recording ever made, so as the occasion calls for it, he rummages in his collection and soon pops up the recording of, let’s say the 1962 performance of the Brahms’s Piano Concerto No 1 at the Carnegie Hall, where the conductor was Leonard Bernstein and the pianist Glenn Gould. Ozawa was there because he was the Assistant Conductor, waiting in the bleachers, so to speak, to be called in if necessary to replace Bernstein. And before the music started “Lenny”, according to Ozawa, gave a speech to the audience to the effect that he and Gould disagreed on the tempo that the piece was to be played; that the disagreement remained, but that he, Lenny, had too much respect for this pianist to call the whole thing off, or to hand it over to some “Assistant Conductor” (i.e. Ozawa). Then Murakami played the recording and with Ozawa they went with forks and tongues to deconstruct the performance, expressing a thoughtful, but overall negative opinion of it. They both also agree that the acoustics at the Carnegie Hall are not great. That’s news to me, but what do I know.

This comment is in reply to the previous one here #2385106  .

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After a series of comments about and connections to YT-hosted performances of the Requiem Mass by several composers, maybe a light interlude is in order before more brooding, mortality-related music.

Ferdinando Carulli, Guitar Concerto in A major Op. 8a – Pepe Romero, guitar with the Academia of St. Martin in the Fields, Iona Brown conductor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmQd6FM31X4

Francesco Molino, Guitar Concerto in E minor, Op.56, Pepe Romero, guitar, with the same orchestra and conductor as above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ii7Nd8QeQ

And Mauro Giuliani, Guitar Concerto No. 1, in A major, Op. 30, Narciso Yepes, guitar, with the English Chamber Orchestra, Garcia Navarro Conducting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5gx0okVzrI

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And here a rare jewel with and understated flamenco flair with, when appropriate, fast passages played at lighting speed (beginning around 18:49 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9mvdbvmz2A

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Susan,

Yes that works, but it depends, at least in a Mac. (A small correction: the option to use is “Copy link location.”)

One example of an unsuccessful linking to an item in Part I, that takes one not to the desired comment, but to the very beginning of the thread:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2125109

And an example of a successful one:

Here https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2125120

As I have already explained in my comment further up , here #2385100  , there has to be some text before where the link is copied, with no more than one blank between text and link.

Which is definitely weird.

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https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-ii-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/page/3/#post-2385227

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I wanted to paste here a link to “Carmina Burana”, the version in Part I of a performance at the Amsterdam Concertgebauw; unfortunately, it has been removed from You Tube. I said “unfortunately”, because it was a stupendous production. But I cannot imagine a “Classical” thread without Karl Orff’s creation, one of the most popular works in the classical repertoire of all times, with Latin lyrics from the Middle Ages that are a mix of baudy tavern songs and fine poetry. It is now hard to find a version I can be 100% happy with. This one, from 2007, is the one I like best of the ones I have found (not counting Manzarek’s, that is in it’s own category)  Picture quality is less than superb, but the performance has plenty of heart and the soloists do a first class job:

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, performed here by the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, the University Chorus and Alumni Chorus, and the Pacific Boychoir under the baton of Jeffrey Thomas, at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis:

https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Carl-Orff-Carmina-Burana-University-Chorus-and-Alumni-Chorus-UC-Davis-Symphony-Orchestra-and-the-Pacific-Boychoir-11787

This second one is impeccable in the orchestra performance and the singing by chorus and the three soloists (that are very good), but I think it is missing a little je ne se quoi, so it is my 2nd best (your opinion might be different):

Sofi Jeannin conducts Carmina Burana on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Radio France Choir. With the Maîtrise of Radio France and as soloists, Karen Harnay, Nicolae Hategan, Mark Pancek. Recorded on April 8, 2018 at the Auditorium of the Maison de la Radio (Paris).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adrw-zxiTe4

And last but not least, the remarkable version by Ray Manzarek, that has more than enough “quoi” :

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x33myy8

Fortune, Empress of the World, indeed!

Latin lyrics and English translation:

https://www.rwb.org/uploads/documents/Carmina_Burana_translation.pdf

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_Burana_(Orff)

” In 1934, Orff encountered the 1847 edition of the Carmina Burana by Johann Andreas Schmeller, the original text dating mostly from the 11th or 12th century, including some from the 13th century. Michel Hofmann [de] was a young law student and an enthusiast of Latin and Greek; he assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto, mostly in secular Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German[1] and Old French. The selection covers a wide range of topics, as familiar in the 13th century as they are in the 21st century: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of Spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust. “

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OscarCP wrote:

I would guess your browser does not want to show you YT “picture”

browser? no likely me as NoScript blocks a lot of stuff.
Why not just send the pic file? Less stress on the site.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Wavy: I already explained to you, answering your previous message, that I wanted to have a splashy-looking first comment in this thread by using those “picture” YouTube links instead of the plain string-of-characters ones that are a must in all following comments and … Wait, you are pulling my leg, right???

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This thread has been split in two: a very long first part called “Part I – Aren’t these the greatest performances in classical music”, and Part II, this one we are now in.

There is a comment near the top of this thread that explains how to link whole Part I comments, or just some of the YT video URLs there, to a new comment here, in Part II. Use either of these two links to read this comment (or go to the top of this thread and scroll down a few comments, to get to it):

This one:

#2385512

Or this one: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-ii-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2385512

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There is a video of a concert I like very much and suspect others here, on hearing it for the first time, if they have not done so already elsewhere, will probably share my pleasure in listening to, and watching it:

It consists of two parts: in the first one, the violinist Hilary Hahn is the soloist in the Sibelius one and only violin concerto. Then she gives as an encore the Sarabande of the Partita No. 2 for violin solo by J.S. Bach. In the second part, the orchestra and conductor perform the “Simphonie Fantastique” by Berlioz.

The Sibelius part of this concert is available by itself in Part I of “Are these the best classical music performances” (search for “Sibelius” in Part I). Berlioz work, in the second half of the concert, was meant by Berlioz as a sort of love declaration to a woman he was besotted with, represented with a theme that repeats throughout much of this work, that has a dream-like quality for the first three movements. In the last movement, the dream changes into a nightmare: from happy hallucinations to unhappy ones, with the artist dreaming that he is being taken on a tumbril, either to the guillotine or perhaps to be hanged, in the slow famous “March to the Scaffold”, with drummers beating a slow roll reinforced by the brass and double bass section low-pitch chords, with a bell tolling mournfully, as if from above, while the strings add a wild but rhythmic punctuation to the progress towards the guillotine, in a theatrically sinister passage that leads to the climatic end of the work:

Hilary Hahn – Berlioz and Sibelius – Violin Concerto and Symphonie fantastique – Mikko Franck conducting the Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ut0ZIpnlc

Fom the YT Notes: “Hector Berlioz died in March 1869. On the 150th anniversary of his death, Mikko Franck and the Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France performed one of his most famous works: the “Symphonie fantastique”. The American violinist Hilary Hahn can also be seen as a soloist in the Radio France auditorium in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto.”

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonie_fantastique

Excerpt:

“The American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein described the symphony as the first musical expedition into psychedelia because of its hallucinatory and dream-like nature, and because history suggests Berlioz composed at least a portion of it under the influence of opium. According to Bernstein, “Berlioz tells it like it is. You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral.“

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From my: “I like this very much and hope you do too” department, here is a very difficult piece, played superbly well by a storied  group of musicians that was and is one of the very best. That performance, with more details, here:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2284406

St. George and the Dragon, what is that old icon doing there? No idea, and who cares.

Here is another performance by the same group of musicians of a work by another composer. The two works were created some 120 years apart. Do you notice some similitude?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA-tWsRkviQ

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I am writing about someone who was truly a great singer and a great actress, who was admired and loved by many throughout the world, who was an artist that put her everything in the execution of her art.
Born in New York, died in Paris and her ashes, years later, were finally scattered over the waters of the Aegean Sea, as she had asked to be done. She was 53 when she died, but she was much older, having lived several lives in one.

Her voice had its up and downs, but it was the power, the magnetism of the singer, this slim and strangely beautiful woman that dominated the stage with her presence, that made her performances so moving and unforgettable, that reached with her singing in certain passages a transcendental quality that went beyond the physical to where words fail and the soul alone contemplates the sublime.

Where that power of her singing came from? She said she did not know and did not understand how she could sing as she did. It was her very great gift, a mystery, a blessing and a curse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Callas

 

Aria “Casta Diva” from Bellini’s opera “Norma”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-TwMfgaDC8&list=RDs-TwMfgaDC8&start_radio=1&rv=s-TwMfgaDC8&t=421

Aria “Un bel dì, Vedremo” from Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk-cRaIHcLI

Concert Hamburg, 15 May 1959 & 16 March 1962.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1GUatmAMdE

Programe:

1:00 Spontini, La vestale: “Tu che invoco” … 9:43 “Sospendete qualche istante” (Act II)

12:48 Verdi, Macbeth: “Nel dì della vittoria” … 15:08 “Vieni! t’affretta!” (Act I)

19:52 Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia: “Una voce poco fa” (Act I)

28:38 Verdi, Don Carlo: “Tu che le vanità” … 36:18 “Addio, bei sogni d’ôr” (Act V)

42:15 Bellini, Il pirata: “Oh! s’io potessi dissipar le nubi” … 51:22″Col sorriso d’innocenza” … 56:28 “O sole! ti vela” (Act II)

1:02:49 Massenet, Le cid: “De cet affreux combat” … 1:04:28 “Pleurez mes yeux” (Act III)

1:10:20 Gounod, Mireille: Overture

1:16:32 Bizet, Carmen: Overture

1:18:32 Bizet, Carmen: “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (Act I)

1:22:50 Bizet, Carmen: Entracte (Act III)

1:25:05 Bizet, Carmen: “Près des remparts de Séville” (Act I)

1:29:06 Verdi, La forza del destino: Overture

1:37:20 Verdi, Ernani: “Surta è la notte” … 1:39:46 “Ernani! involami” (Act I)

1:43:04 Rossini, La Cenerentola: “Nacqui all’affanno” … 1:46:42 “Non più mesta” (Act II)

1:50:03 Verdi, Don Carlo: “O don fatale” (Act IV)

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

“ During a 1978 interview, upon being asked “Was it worth it to Maria Callas? She was a lonely, unhappy, often difficult woman,” music critic and Callas’s friend John Ardoin replied:

” That’s such a difficult question. There are times, you know, when there are people – certain people who are blessed, and cursed, with an extraordinary gift, in which the gift is almost greater than the human being. And Callas was one of these people. It was almost as if her wishes, her life, her own happiness were all subservient to this incredible, incredible gift that she was given, this gift that reached out and taught us all – taught us things about music we knew very well, but showed us new things, things we never thought about, new possibilities. I think that’s why singers admire her so; I think that’s why conductors admire her so; I know that’s why I admire her so. And she paid a tremendously difficult and expensive price for this career. I don’t think she always understood what she did or why she did. She knew she had a tremendous effect on audiences and on people. But it was not something that she could always live with gracefully or happily. I once said to her, “It must be very enviable to be Maria Callas.” And she said, “No, it’s a very terrible thing to be Maria Callas, because it’s a question of trying to understand something you can never really understand.” Because she couldn’t explain what she did – it was all done by instinct; it was something, incredibly, embedded deep within her.” ”

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migongo, Fred

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There is also this video in Part I of this thread of a full performance of Bellini’s “Norma”, with Callas in the main role: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2173366

 

About Part I: For information and advice on how to find there comments on a certain composer or performer and links to videos, please see third comment from the top of this thread, or click here: #2385512 .  To access Part I directly (it is a very long thread, so it takes a while to load), use this link: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/

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migongo

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For those who love the singing of Maria Callas, or just love great singing, period, there is another one like her, but not an opera singer, who was just as, or more, popular, while, for a time, both overlapped in their careers.

She had a voice as wonderful as that of any singer I have ever heard, that she used to great effect to make the songs she sang unforgettable. She also had a great gift for music, was also admired and loved around the world, also that great gift she had was, as with Callas’, a mystery, a blessing and a curse. Her life was full of drama and tragedy. As a singer, she was unique, she was great among the great. The venues where she sang were not concert halls, but the clubs in the Quartier Pigall, along Boulevard de Clichy and Rue de Pigalle, in Paris, coming down from Montmartre. She also performed in theaters and on the radio. Her recordings and her singing in the radio were all that could reach me where I lived, a continent and an ocean away from Paris, and her voice and songs are intertwined with memories, some happy, some  sad, of my youth.

There are links to YT recordings of her greatest hits, that she made famous worldwide, here:   #2384933

Don’t miss it.

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Fred

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Right you are OscarCP;
it is ’18e Arrondissement Montmartre’, between ‘quartier Pigalle’ and ‘quartier Pigalle-Martyrs’ , just a little south of the ‘Basilique Sacré-Cœur’ on top op of this little map.

Oh cruel Covid19, I do wish you were history.

* _ ... _ *

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OscarCP

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Piaf:

If she had been a singer in the USA, she would have been called a Torch singer. Hers was a fiery torch, one that burnt brightly within her and, in the end and largely for reasons beyond her control, its flame devoured her when she was 43.

Decades later, the same as Maria Callas, she got an asteroid named after her.

Abandoned as a young child, brought up in a bordello, itinerant acrobat, street singer and more, to great popular singer, to someone who, being also popular with the Nazi occupiers of France during WWII,  helped prisoners escape from the concentration camps where she went to sing; later accused of collaboration, was exonerated, because members of the Resistance interceded in her favor, and who was, after the war, influential in so many ways. What a life!

What a life, and not just a life:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89dith_Piaf

Excerpt:

“Although she was denied a funeral Mass by Cardinal Maurice Feltin since she had remarried after divorce in the Orthodox Church, her funeral procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris, and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000 fans. Charles Aznavour recalled that Piaf’s funeral procession was the only time since the end of World War II that he saw Parisian traffic come to a complete stop. On 10 October 2013, fifty years after her death, the Roman Catholic Church recanted and gave Piaf a memorial Mass in the St. Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville, Paris, the parish into which she was born.

Since 1963, the French media have continually published magazines, books, plays, television specials and films about the star often on the anniversary of her death. In 1973, the Association of the Friends of Édith Piaf was formed, followed by the inauguration of the Place Édith Piaf in Belleville in 1981.

Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina named a small planet, 3772 Piaf, in her honor.

In Paris, a two-room museum is dedicated to her, the Musée Édith Piaf (5, Rue Crespin du Gast).

A concert at The Town Hall in New York City commemorated the 100th anniversary of Piaf’s birth on 19 December 2015. Hosted by Robert Osborne and produced by Daniel Nardicio and Andy Brattain, it featured Little Annie, Gay Marshall, Amber Martin, Marilyn Maye, Meow Meow, Elaine Paige, Molly Pope, Vivian Reed, Kim David Smith, and Aaron Weinstein.“

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For those unfamiliar with this thread:

It includes music from great classical composers of instrumental, choral and operatic works (Palestrina, Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven Rimsky-Korsakov, Bellini, Richard Strauss, Copland, Stravinsky, Messiaen, etc.) , popular classics (by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Joao Gilberto, Astor Piazzolla, etc.)

And ballet:

For those who like ballet, this comment in Part I, for example, has links to videos of performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Nut Cracker” (the “Waltz of the Flowers” segment) and the whole of “Swan Lake” (the “happy ending” kind.): https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/part-i-arent-these-the-greatest-performances-of-classical-music/#post-2382321

To learn more about Part I and how to find things there, see the first comment in this thread, at its very top, and also the one third from the top.

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** Apple buys Primephonic music service.

..As a classical-only startup, we can not reach the majority of global classical listeners, especially those that listen to many other music genres as well. We therefore concluded that in order to achieve our mission, we need to partner with a leading streaming service that encompasses all music genres and also shares our love for classical music. Today, we are therefore thrilled to share a great step forward in our mission – Primephonic is joining Apple Music!

We are working on an amazing new classical music experience from Apple for early next year, but unfortunately, the Primephonic service will be taken offline starting September 7. You may continue to use it at no charge until then…

https://play.primephonic.com/

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Alex, That is good news for people who like to listen online to recordings of classical music (I am listening there to a performance of Ravel’s “Pavanne for a Dead Princess” as I type this — by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abado).

Unfortunately, this is soon to become a paid for service, now that it belongs to Apple, so its music is going to be available to those who subscribe to Apple Music, and therefore unavailable for linking the videos here, as it is possible to link the YouTube (*) ones:

https://www.macworld.com/article/225687/apple-music-faq-the-ins-and-outs-of-apples-new-streaming-music-service.html

But really good news overall.

(*) That tend to disappear, their links becoming useless, without previous notice. Sometime that is because they are moved to a different YT channel, sometimes they may be removed altogether, because, for example, of some lawsuit  over copyright. I recently posted a comment here, in Part II, about “Carmina Burana”, where I wanted to paste the link of the wonderful performance of this work at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw that I had put in a previous comment in Part I, about a year and a half ago. No such luck. Not only the link had died, but the performance is now nowhere to be found, not just in YT (I’ve searched there), but in other likely places, including at the Concertgebouw’s own videos and recordings collection, or in DVD release. So I pasted links to two good versions instead, but not as good or as well recorded as the one of the Concertgebouw’ concert.

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OscarCP wrote:

That is good news for people who like to listen online to recordings of classical music

I haven’t subscribed to any Music streaming service.
I listen to music from my collection or iTunes application’s Internet Radio.

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In all of the music I know, this is the most moving, heart wrenching composition, played here splendidly well — particularly the first movement — that was Franz Schubert’s swan song farewell:

Historic Schubert Quintet played by Brainin, Carlyss, Farulli, Metz and Berlinsky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUgFNWGPtQU

YT Note: “For the first and only time the members of the world leading String quartets met in July 1991 to perform the String Quintet with two cellos D.956 by Franz Schubert, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Orlando Chamber Music Festival in Kerkrade, The Netherlands.”

Norbert Brainin – Primarius Amadeus Quartet
Earl Carlyss – second violin Juilliard Quartet
Piero Farulli – viola Quartetto Italiano
Stefan Metz – cello Orlando Quartet
Valentin Berlinsky – cello Borodin Quartet

Note: The performance comes first. Then comes an excerpt of the rehearsal of the first movement; it is seldom interrupted by the first violin and leader of the ensemble to make a correction, so one gets to hear this extraordinary part again.

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quintet_(Schubert)

Excerpt:

” Franz Schubert’s final chamber work, the String Quintet in C major (D. 956, Op. posth. 163) is sometimes called the “Cello Quintet” because it is scored for a standard string quartet plus an extra cello instead of the extra viola which is more usual in conventional string quintets. It was composed in 1828 and completed just two months before the composer’s death. The first public performance of the piece did not occur until 1850, and publication occurred three years later in 1853. Schubert’s only full-fledged string quintet, it has been praised as “sublime” or “extraordinary” and as possessing “bottomless pathos,” and is generally regarded as Schubert’s finest chamber work as well as one of the greatest compositions in all chamber music. “

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The the salvation of Thaïs and the damnation of the monk Athaniel:

The last act of Massenet “Thaïs”, based on Anatole France’s novel “Thaïs, the Courtesan of Alexandria.” (that ends with this sentence: “In desperation, he passed his hands on his face, and felt his own ugliness.”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zTm60jRO6g

The theme is the one already heard in the famous “Meditation.”

===========

Massenet – Meditation (*)

Markus Stenz – Conductor, Radio Philarmonic Orchestra, Great Omroep Choir.
Niek Baar – Violin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCP4DTcOGj4

(*) More than a half century ago, in another country and in altogether another world, at the first ever co-ed dormitory (known there a “College”) in Australia: International House, at New South Wales University, in Sydney, where I was working on my doctorate, there came the time for the annual celebration of its foundation: “International Night”, with our sponsors, the members of Sydney’s Lion’s Club in attendance, up for a chicken rubber dinner and some entertainment provided by us, the inmates.
One of our improvised numbers had to be something classical and classy, and a young English lady offered to play Thaïs “Meditation” in her violin. Her turn came, and I, who with another two was MCing the proceedings of the night, announced her and in she climbed the podium, violin in hand — and played.
It turned out that she was devastatingly bad.
With my two co-presenters we sunk behind our desk, out of sight, and split a fifth of whisky (a good one too) there and then, partly to lessen the pain, partly to keep our mouths and throats occupied and not be able to giggle. When she finally stopped playing, we stood up, a little unsteadily, did a token clapping, I thanked her, then continued with the rest of the show.

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Sorry about the two or three mistakes in spelling, etc. The fact is that when I first submitted the comment, before I could revise it and do some necessary editing, it got spirited way to “moderating.” It came back soon enough, thanks to some quick and helpful person who found it in the “moderating” trashcan and put it back where I had place it. I fixed two problems with the links, submitted again without noticing the remaining errors, and it got sent back to “moderating” again. It came back and then I noticed the problems still there. But I did not dare to bother some MVP with another robo-reject, so there you have it. Susan thinks it’s the dieresis (the two dots on the “i” of Thais) that did it.

Anyhow, since I am here again to apologize, and have already done enough of that, let me put here some more music as a compensation for those mistakes:

Antonin Dvorak “Song to the Moon”, from “Rusalka” (the tale of the deadly water nymph in love with a mortal, and the opposite story of Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”) with the lyrics translated to English from the Czech original in the subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qxi-sYUT9s

Lucia Popp, Stefan Soltesz, Munich Radio Orchestra.

 

And, because I find it hard to say which one is the best, here is another version:

Renee Fleming with BBC Symphony Orchestra, Conductor: Jiří Bělohlávek, at the 2010 Proms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trfLkYpOglA

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GarthP

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Song to the Moon, one of my all-time favourites! Lucia Popp is excellent, but having just compared that recording with my own absolute favourite, that of Rita Streich, I still prefer the latter, as I mentioned in Part 1.

Oscar, some others of us have had hiccups with links or the moderating process in our time, no need to apologise. Rather, just celebrate the success and accept thanks for this long-lasting thread (Parts 1 and 2 ….) which has led us to experience more wonderful music!

Garth

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Garth,

I know the Rita Streich’s interpretation of “Rusalka” that you mean. I cannot find it right now, so I am going with this one instead. I think that, Streich’s aside, of all I’ve heard, Frederica von Stade’s is the one that just “kills it”: You’ll be the judge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwVYFpY3VL4

“Rusalka” is a water nymph and, according to a Czech legend, her kiss, to a mortal, is sure death. But she falls desperately in love with one and she sings to the Moon, that sees it all in the whole world from high above and surely must see where he is, to convey him her longing and her love.

This is a song of desperate love and longing and so of life itself.

Yesterday, 9/11, for ever belongs to Death. This is now a new day and it is best and most fitting to start it with a song about Life Itself.

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Here is the Rita Streich version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuKYGJPb6I

von Stade is good, certainly with a rich tone, but a little slow and too ‘operatic’ for my taste. I’ll stick with the one I have preferred for over 50 years!

Garth

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Garth, you told me about Rita Streich’s version months ago, I listened to it, downloaded it, it is in my collection now, but could not find it in YT, so I came and linked my comment to someone else’s, the best I could find, because I wanted to put here one work that, short as this one is, would best mark the start of a new day, with its renewed promise of Life, after one devoted to a remembrance of Death.

When I listen to one of the others I feel that I am listening to a great singer. When I listen to Streich’s version, I feel like a cleansing sword of fire is passing through my heart. So there is a difference. Her singing of “Song to the Moon” is not just well sang: it is perfect, meaning that nothing can be taken out of, or added to, without making it very good but mundane. She sang this with a deep understanding that was far more than about hitting all the notes, the highest ones included, at the right pitch, for the right length of time, with the right modulation. That is the difference, as I see it, between singing that is very good and singing that is sublime.

I am glad you found it.

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GarthP

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Here is a longer selection of Rita Streich's singing, which I thoroughly admire. This shows her in a number of different performances and roles, including lieder and operatic songs with an orchestra; it includes another version of Rusalka, also a beautiful version of the Brahms Cradle Song. It has video throughout, so listen watch and enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKtrNiSGlJc

Just beautiful singing from a beautiful performer! A great shame it is not more known now. She was performing in the same era as Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, (another of my favourites) and possibly slightly overshadowed, but I believe she was her equal.

Garth

 

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OscarCP

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And just can’t resist putting some more Rita S. here, she of the fabulous tremolo and vibrato:

“Rossignol” means “nightingale”, and I must say I find something nightingale-ish in her singing:

Saint-Saëns: Le rossignol et la rose (The nightingale and the rose) – Arranged by Kurt Gaebel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mqzPhAzKZo

 

Next in this little program: Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia / Act 1 – Una voce poco fa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGdD7sr9KUI

 

Now this one, that is a lullaby:

Flies: Wiegenlied (Previously Attributed To Mozart) –
“Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein” (“Sleep my little prince, sleep.”):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma8qsWM8PQw

 

And finally, a little waltz:

J. Strauss II: Voices of Spring, Op.410 (Frühlingsstimmen)

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Gg-2XWQn0

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GarthP

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Garth did this (above) knowing that my physical reaction to this singer’s “Song to the Moon” of Antonin Dvorak (see that two comments before this one) had been so strong that I doubted if I could hear a long program with her singing in most of it and be able to survive the sheer emotional exhaustion.

But he went ahead and did it anyway and, somehow, I am still here. But it was a close call, specially when I got to the part in this selection with her singing again “the Song to the Moon.”

Now, encouraged by not dying, I am putting here the link to a performance by Rita Streich of Franz Schubert “The shepherd on the Rock”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxDEksjNbs

She is pretty close to the level of the three very different women singers I admire the most, and no longer of this world: Maria Callas, Anna Moffo and Edith Piaf. It is sad to see and hard to explain why Rita is almost forgotten today.

And why Moffo? First because when I was a teenager she come by and I was very impressed by this strikingly beautiful singer that sang … well, here you can get some idea:

Anna Moffo, known as “La Bellissima” (“The Most Beautiful”), a selection of some of her greatest hits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZEpBKa9K2Y

Listen, in particular, to her amazing, (no other word fits this) performance of the scene in Donizetti’s “Lucia de Lammermoor” with a now mad Lucia, her mind lost in an imaginary world, starting at  6:27 in the video.

And this is the great duet where Violetta Valery, who knows she is ill and likely to die soon, is asked by Giorgio Germont to leave for ever his son and her lover, Alfredo, because she, being such a notorious courtesan, is going to ruin his son’s reputation and his future. Both are equally motivated by love, for son, for lover, in this passionate altercation and yet each can see the sincere motivation of the other, and that is the tragedy of it:

Anna Moffo & Gino Bechi – La Traviata (Verdi) – Pura siccome un angelo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYeVWoDlErQ

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And here is Moffo singing the “mad Lucia” scene in full and with subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p36KU8vZfq0

Enjoy!

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“The Last Rose of Summer”, a traditional Irish song that has for lyrics the 1805 poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore and for music an even older melody:

The most remarkable Rita Streich sings “The Last Rose of Summer”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDlEbHtKb-8

A twenty-something Hilary Hahn, at the beginning of her stellar career, plays at a church somewhere out west the 19th century virtuoso violinist’s Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst’ variations for violin solo of the “The Last Rose of Summer”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpss7GsCj7A

And someone going by the name of “Celtic Woman” sings it, along with her younger doppelganger?, and both shes are not half bad and, together, are near 100% fine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpIf5SSLsw

 

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Oscar,

In following up your Irish theme, I want to bring to attention an Irishman, one of the greatest ever tenor singers, famed for his purity of tone and breath control. John McCormack was born in 1884 and died in 1945, so many will never have heard of him, but he was a well-known opera and lieder singer. Indeed, at the time of his death, he was given the accolade of “the greatest living tenor”.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-McCormack

“Most popular with recital audiences were the Irish folk songs he invariably included in his programs”, and here are three examples. The first is from a 1930 film showing him performing in front of an audience with “I Hear You Calling Me“, which was the song most associated with him; the second example is Kathleen Mavourneen, sung (and recorded) with exceptional clarity. However, the third, dating from 1940, is the exquisite I’ll Walk Beside You which as performed by him is one of my personal top three pieces of music of all time. Sentimental undoubtedly, but none the worse for that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra0kNnhPFSI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7XZAJexbIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp5iZdWKaA8

There are several other recordings available on YouTube which are well worth exploring for anyone with the time. The later examples are best, as his earlier ones suffer technically from being acoustic recordings. There are also a couple of reminiscences from later broadcasts.

Garth

 

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Garth,

I could be wrong, but don’t remember anything by John McCormack being included in this thread, either here or in Part I before. If there has been such an omission, I am glad you have ended it. This man had a remarkable tenor voice, so smooth, even and well-suited for the songs in those examples you have provided; he was also an opera singer of renown, one of the very great ones, in fact.

He being Irish and no remiss to sing folk and popular songs, I looked to see if there is also a YT recording of him singing “The Last Rose of Summer”, that my comment was dedicated to. Oddly enough, I found, not that, but this one instead:

John McCormack – The First Rose of Summer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11UM-aijiRg

As a reward for bringing McCormack here, you now get to hear this one as well:

John McCormack – Silver threads among the gold:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J025u1lPPh8&list=PL84ihM0tQsHdOz4lgeAavCwoiL8H0VGPA

You know? These recordings sound like they must have been lifted with a tape recorder from a shellac 78 RPM disk being played in one of those old hand-cranked Victrola phonographs with a big horn on top and, if memory servers, a stencil of a little white dog cocking one ear visible on its front (and Victor’s “His master’s voice” disk recordings’ logo), same as the one my paternal grand parents had; being played on it was how, as a young boy, I first heard recorded music.

 

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And here, further down, you’ll find the complete poem by Thomas Moore that is also the lyrics of “The Last Rose of Summer”  — and it is also a link to a great Web site of a truly noble organization that promotes the knowledge and reading of poetry, an art form sadly much ignored by us these days when being cryptic and strange and, or “minimalist” (sort of like haiku writing, but one that Basho, after reading just a few, would have sent the so-called poet to clean his latrine) is all the rage among those who mostly have secure tenured jobs as teachers of contemporary literature at universities and such. As Daniel Pinkwater, of my NPR fondest memories, once said about one such scribbler: “She went to university to become a writer.”

Now here is the complete lyrics:

https://poets.org/poem/last-rose-summer

And here, some playing of slow, gentle and spare traditional music for the Irish harp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvyijUMqp_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlkgyFMEmu4

And about the most loved Daniel Pinkwater for those who did not enjoy the high privilege of hearing his talks at NPR:

https://tachyonpublications.com/happy-birthday-to-the-beloved-and-iconic-writer-illustrator-and-occasional-npr-commentator-daniel-pinkwater/

And for those who might not have enjoyed the also very high privilege of reading Basho’s haiku and other short-form poetry, here is a place to get a taste of it:

https://poets.org/poet/matsuo-basho

The cry of the cicada
Gives us no sign
That presently it will die.

(And that, my friends, says it all.)

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First a disclaimer: I don’t like hip-hop, so what follows is not because of a personal preference for this type of vocal performance, but because it is entirely on point about what music is for.

What follows is from an article published today by the BBC but that does not has its own Web page, being one in a string of articles published in a single page, mainly about Africa, so I copy the text here, something OK from a copyright point of view, as it is OK to distribute whole pages using their URL. The revolution mentioned here is the one that, starting in 2018 and after months of struggle and bloody repression, finally ousted the long-term dictator Omar Al-Bashir, that had ruled for nearly twenty years with an iron hand, committed genocide against the people of South and West Sudan and presided over a very corrupt government:

” MaMan, real name Mahdi Nouri, is part of a popular hip-hop and afro scene in Sudan – one that did exist before the revolution but which is now growing apace since the street protests of 2018 and 2019 brought about political regime change after decades of authoritarian rule.

“It’s not easy always to express these colours and cultures in your own way,” he says, addressing 30 years of limited artistic freedom.

“All that suppressed creative juice.”

During the revolution, MaMan was out on the frontline, protesting on the streets of the capital, Khartoum.

“The revolution was bound to happen. People get hungry, now they get angry. It was always scary to go out in the street and protest.”

And he saw just how ruthless the authorities could be, witnessing first-hand the deaths of hundreds of his fellow citizens on 3 June 2019.

“People getting shot next to you while you’re running away. And you’ll stop and think, ‘wait, they won’t shoot us’ – then as soon as you think that, someone next to you might fall in front of you, or you might see bullets right next to you on the wall.

“It was like living in a movie.”

After the revolution, the 30-year-old, who wanted to be an actor growing up, channelled his experiences into his music.

“Music has a very strong healing power,” he tells This Is Africa.

“It was really time to test it. If it really heals you then it can heal others.”

Whilst creating his most recent hits, including Sudan – an ode to his country and its people – MaMan has tried to fuse the current afro sounds popular across Africa with his nation’s Arabic influences.

“I would call myself an entrepreneur of musical culture,” he explains.

“I’ve gravitated towards identifying a very unique Sudanese afrobeat, especially as a young kid that has grown around a lot of percussion Sufi rituals.

By creating his new sound, MaMan hopes to convince those who view his country as an adjunct of Arabia that Sudan truly is a vibrant, upcoming part of The Motherland – and he wants to carry his music’s healing power across the continent to support others.

“It’s always going to be helping because life is always going to be finding a way to test you.” ”

 

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Traditional music for the harp: two samples from Ireland, one from Scotland and one from Paraguay:

Ireland

The Butterfly – Celtic Harp by Julia Cunningham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT61Mq2wF9A

Siobhán Armstrong, Lord Galway’s Lamentation / Síle Ní Chonalláin HHSI 2015

Played on a traditional instrument that looks to me like, after doing some research, that it could be a medieval wire-strung harp, reputed to be very difficult to play:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFsOfuZrOco

 

Scotland

It turned out that, in YT, Celtic music videos are more or less 99.99% Irish, so I had to run a really long way to get to some Scottish music that was not played in some quaint medieval stringed instrument, but in the one I remember being beautifully played by a good-looking young lady, in Edinburgh, all those years ago.
And the performer here and now may not be a Scott, but she’ll do:

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Audition, BA Scottish Music (Harp) – Rachel Clemente

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kYTjcLd2is

 

Paraguay

Pájaro Campana (Bell Bird) – Harpist Miguel Angel Ramirez.
The theme of this dazzlingly played traditional is an imitation of the bird’s song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-OlbRk4kQM

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GarthP

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And with some more time today to do this, and as a sonorous reminder that the Celts’ civilization was not restricted to the British Islands, here are some examples of Celtic harp music from the continent of Europe:

 

France:

Improvisation on Anne de Bretagne (traditional French Folk Tune) – Marianne Bouvette Celtic Harp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjh0tT3A3oQ

 

Galicia (NE Spain):

Performances of traditional music for the Galician Celtic harp are even harder to find in YT than those for the Scottish one. Personally, I am familiar with the traditional bagpipes music of Galicia, something that is not really a good fit for this thread. So just how traditional are the tunes that are reinterpreted here, I couldn’t say, except that the harps used are bona fides appropriate instruments. But I am confident that Mary-Kate, below, deserves more views than she has had so far, both for her very lovely performance and her very lovely self.

Galician Air – Stefano Corsi Celtic Harp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IawOGf9a2ZM

Galician Waltz –  Mary-Kate Spring Lee Celtic Harp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYzhEU6esMM

 

And if you really want to learn more about harps, Celtic or not, here is a video from a young lady that owns a surprising large number of harps of various shapes and sizes and plays nicely on several of these, ten actually, to demonstrate how they sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXUvZ5Xkb9k

Map provided by “www.irelandstory.com” (This link is not working … it looks like they moved here: https://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/)

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I was going to listen this in Part I, just because I like Hahn, Bach and Piazzolla, and I found that the video was no longer available there, because the link was dead. I hate this when it happens. But, sometimes, this is because it has been moved to another place still within YouTube, which fortunately has been the case here:

Hilary Hahn — Bach Violin Concerto (BWV 1041, 1042) & Piazzolla’s Oblivion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyfWJzVSmR4

And here is a very recent concert that shows Hahn possibly emerging from self-isolation without realizing (as some friends of mine also have not) that, if one prefers not to go to a hairdresser because is not so nice to have someone working with his or her face very close to one’s, practically breathing on top of one, in these covid times, mask or no mask, one can actually cut one’s own hair, with scissors, in front of a large enough mirror and now and then holding a small mirror to see, using both together, how is it going at the back, no previous experience required and, nevertheless, do it passably well. As I have discovered to my considerable surprise. The trick is not to cut too much, because that is irreversible.

The same forces playing here performed and absolutely amazing Vieuxtemps’ concerto No 4 that now it is no where to be found on YouTube, except for a few short snippets here and there. So here is them performing this other work, by the Spanish composer Sarasate:

Pablo de Sarasate: Carmen-Fantasia ∙ Hessian Radio’s Symphonic Orchestra ∙ Hilary Hahn Violin ∙ Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-oHLG0oB20

(Performed at the Alte Oper, in Frankfurt, 17 June 2021)

It is nice to see that, at the end, Hilary gets a fine bouquet of roses, instead the usual hydrangeas and sunflowers.

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Alex5723

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Oscar,

You appear to be saying that Hilary Hahn  playing Vieuxtemps concerto No 4. is not available. Surely not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tctk3Uy1w5s

And with Paarvo Järvi in charge! However, I note in some links this is only classed as a Preview and cuts off short at 19mins.

Garth

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Garth: this is the same performance, but not the complete video, one of which that YT used to have the complete video, unlike this one, that has several minutes chopped off at the beginning and somewhere else (I did not watch all of it) and definitely well before the end, to get it down to some 19 minutes when it should have taken some 38. Maybe this is also the reason this video with her playing  the Vieuxtemps with Paavo Järvi and the HF Orchestra is still around in YT. Someone, perhaps Hahn’s lawyers or the publishers of her DVDs, have been getting the full-length videos of some of her performances removed and replaced with snippets. Fortunately for me, most of these are still around (and some I have downloaded and safe at home, such as this one’s complete missing one). But still around for who knows how long yet. And this is not just happening with her work, but it also happens with those of other players.

In compensation of the above, here is her playing Bruch’s first violin concerto, also with the Hessian Radio Symphonic Orchestra, with the (I believe) Colombian conductor Orozco-Estrada, where between the two of them (aided and abetted by the orchestra) almost make the theater catch fire:

Bruch: 1. Violinkonzert ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Hilary Hahn ∙ Andrés Orozco-Estrada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDJ6Wbzgy3E

And in one of her reappearance concerts, in June of this year, as the masked hairy lady violinist, the same forces are playing here the Dvorak with equal determination to cause a serious conflagration right there and then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=044AF783nok

Where one of those commenting on it in YT wrote:

“Me, a Canadian, commenting on a video of an American violinist playing a Czech concerto on a French violin, accompanied by a German orchestra, all while being conducted by a Colombian. What a world“

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GarthP

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Thanks for both those links, they are superb performances! Hope they stay.

On the Dvorak, I saw one of the comments (from one Gustav Mahler[!] apparently a current professional musician) which read “The fingered octaves at the end — I’m literally dying.” Someone no doubt good at music but def needs a lesson or three in the use of English! RIP surely.

I had already come to the conclusion that some of the disappearing links you mention were likely due to commercial considerations, unfortunately.

Garth

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Garth, You have brought, quite unintentionally I think, a subject dear to my heart:

Fingered octaves, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, … finger positions, and double-stops (some fairly hard to do and that Hilary does at supersonic speed, if she needs to):

Finger positions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztf_J30UL-s

Fingered octaves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GikH0JBLPlY

Double stops, for playing two-notes chords; various types:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x-p2dNlzg4

(Orchestra string sections fake the double stops, by one half of the musicians playing one note and the other half, the other.)

And triple stops (Oh My!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYOo1CZn4o

Quadruple stops? Not really.

And all of the above and a lot more in a surprisingly short video, demonstrated in order of difficulty by two guys that do them all and sound great as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYi8dIxRhCg

 

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Totally unintentionally, I assure you! Thanks but no thanks, I’ll leave such niceties as feature on your last link to others to comment on. As an (old) piano player, my expertise/ understanding FWIW is limited to that. My great or otherwise expertise on strings is simply listening to (and observing) others such as Hilary. In the flesh, so to speak, I am now limited to Nicola Benedetti, in Glasgow.

Garth

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Nicola Benedetti? That’s good; my problem with Benedetti is that there seems to be no full-length performances by her in YouTube, only snippets a few minutes long, or longer but, as in the case of that one by Hahn, incomplete versions of a concert, chopped down to some ten minutes or so.

Perhaps, if you knew of some complete videos of her performances, you could post at least one here?

As to those niceties you have mentioned, they are about things that often come up in commentaries and in reviews, so the same as previous discussions on certain instruments, I thought that it might help someone who might be interested in knowing what to make of them, to put that here. And maybe help me learn more about this myself, if there is an illuminating conversation on this topic. As it happens, some of the people coursing through this thread, both its parts, are actually performers, even professional ones, of some instrument.

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Yes, Nicola Benedetti has very few full-length performances on Youtube. The undoubted best IMV (and possibly only one) is Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, a wonderfully tuneful piece, and one with which I suspect she sympathises as very much part of her heritage and Scottish upbringing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpX8DoS2hr8

Garth

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Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy: A well-known piece, a lovely work by soloist, conductor and orchestra playing so well together:

Nicola Benedetti, violin
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Rory Macdonald

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Benedetti

Let’s see: she’s been given, to play music with, a more than two-hundred years’ old Stradivarius violin that might be valued at more than all of my savings put together, all for herself, and was made MBE when she was 26, for service to music and charity.
So she knows how to play the violin and is a nice person, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius

One of the comments in the same YT page caught my eye.

It is in Portuguese, maybe from Brazil, or Portugal, or — who knows? — Angola, or …
“A DOÇURA MAIOR DA VIDA FLUI NO SOM DA MÚSICA…QUANDO SE ESTÁ EM SILÊNCIO” PRECIOSO VÍDEO! OBRIGADA
“The greatest sweetness of life flows in the sound of music … when one is silent.” Lovely video! Thanks
(Not merely by not talking, but also inside, feeling the music without thinking, I would add.)

Garth: By the way: nice house. Roof needs some work. Is that yours?

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There are several complete works with Nicola Benedetti as violin soloist here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nicola+benedetti

This is one, of the Max Bruch Violin concerto No. 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmMN-6g1L8w

Her interpretation and the orchestra’s is different, a little more subdued, more meditative perhaps, than that of Hahn and Orozco-Estrada posted here recently:

soloist: Nicola Benedetti
conductor: Jiri Belohlavek
BBC Symphony Orchestra

Spot on in this one, can’t ask for more:

The Lark Ascending – Ralph Vaughan Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLhpkvQLDt0

Nicola Benedetti, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton

And it turns out that her Strad is from 1717, so it actually more than three hundred years old:

Short appearance at the “Tiny desk” music program at NPR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-Si874NWw

Unusual interpretation of the first part of Bach’s Chaconne. (Compare it to Hahn’s, first comment of this “Part II” thread.)

And a not so subdued one Korngold:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Refum8OnTIE

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GarthP

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One odd thing: when clicking on the Korngold link above, one may land on the video of the Shostakovitch concert instead, but if one closes that window, the Korngold one appears in another window that was, apparently, hiding just behind it and one can then start to play the video of this concerto.

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While I am waiting for the comments I made just now to come back, if they do, from being moderated, most likely for having one too many URL links to Nicola Benedetti performing several complete works and also related to her career, all found here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nicola+benedetti

I am taking this necessary pause to post one more of her performances, a short one this time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOY2NQdFHuc&list=OLAK5uy_kqi4JIbmBTL3zAD9PMhdOdfrq9tG-NtcI

Now, first of all, I must tell those reading this, that I know a thing or two about tango.
Also, I would add, that violin players that have flourished big time playing tango are as numerous as hens’ teeth, although some have had moderate success as accompanists, but maybe at most two as soloists.

Given that, and particularly since she is from nowhere near the River Plate region, Benedetti’s performance is breathtakingly, unbelievably authentic, except for the occasional virtuoso flourish that sounds right where she puts it (the accordionist is no slouch either).

Here, in the staged heavy-ambience of a 1950’s or so high class dive, she plays the violin performing the tango “Por una Cabeza” (For One Head – of a horse: the song is about someone who not only lost his money betting on a good horse that did not quite make it, but that was unfortunate in other basic departments, women in particular) composed by Carlos Gardel (*) with lyrics by one who wrote most of those for his music, Alfredo Le Pera.

 

(*) A composer, singer and movie actor, most famous in the 30s, who died in an air crash when flying to an engagement in Colombia, resulting in an instantaneous national outpour of grief I could compare only to that caused by the death of Princess Dianne in the UK. His fame remains pretty solid even now, 86 years after his death, and that should tell you something. To the eternal dismay of the Argentinians, he was born in France and grew up on the other side of the River Plate, in Uruguay, of which he was also a citizen. And then he had quite a life, even if a short one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Gardel

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Here there is talent squared (at the very least): Wynton Marsalis is one of the few living giants of contemporary Jazz, straddling the span between Jazz and classical music; she is pretty good too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsAkAHMvf4&list=OLAK5uy_kqi4JIbmBTL3zAD9PMhdOdfrq9tG-NtcI&index=31

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynton_Marsalis

Excerpts:

” In The Jazz Book, the authors list what Marsalis considers to be the fundamentals of jazz: blues, standards, a swing beat, tonality, harmony, craftsmanship, and mastery of the tradition beginning with New Orleans jazz up to Ornette Coleman. He has little or no respect for free jazz, avant-garde, hip hop, fusion, European, or Asian jazz .”

I disagree about “fusion” and don’t know enough about Asian Jazz to comment, but wholeheartedly agree with Marsalis on everything else, starting with those novel “avant-garde”, etc. variants that have no traction with the broader public: it’s musicians playing for musicians, threatening to convert good Jazz into a museum piece. And there is more:

” For his part, Marsalis compared Miles Davis’s embrace of pop music to “a general who has betrayed his country.” He called rap “hormone driven pop music” and said that hip hop “reinforces destructive behavior at home and influences the world’s view of the Afro American in a decidedly negative direction.” ” Hear! Hear!

” Marsalis responded to criticism by saying, “You can’t enter a battle and expect not to get hurt.” He said that losing the freedom to criticize is “to accept mob rule, it is a step back towards slavery.” And this is all so true well beyond Jazz, these days.

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Finally, one opinion and one more enjoyable performance by Benedetti:

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, Nicola Benedetti, violin, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra · Jakub Hrusa Conductor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ1tzEeGsYo&list=OLAK5uy_mK2J9ZjX4Ro9U8zSoWzW_hdzDlH67b2XA&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOxkEQAWWvM&list=OLAK5uy_mK2J9ZjX4Ro9U8zSoWzW_hdzDlH67b2XA&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSxDTPFwKtU&list=OLAK5uy_mK2J9ZjX4Ro9U8zSoWzW_hdzDlH67b2XA&index=3

Unfortunately, it is not in one continuous recording here, but broken into three, one per movement. There is a continuous one, also with Benedetti as soloist, at the BBC Proms 2019, but the quality of both sound and picture is not great. This, on the other hand, is an excellent one of an excellent performance.

News Flash!: I started the first movement and it just kept on playing, got to the end and then the second movement started all by itself, then the third when the second ended. So it looks like one does not need to play one movement at a time.

Now, my opinion. Both this player and my favorite fiddler share one characteristic I appreciate very much: they do not make funny faces when playing, but their expressions show only concentration on the tricky job they are doing. Although Hahn allows herself a little smile, sometimes not so little when shared with the conductor, when something comes off just great. A”we killed it!”, or “I killed it!” kind of smile. Benedetti, on the other hand, who while in person, not playing, has a delightful smile, is not only serious while playing, but does not seem to be enjoying herself as much as she most likely is. Because the thing about playing great music with great skill and deep understanding of its humor, pathos and drama, is that it is a deeply satisfying thing to do, as I have been assured (not exclusively) by a great of the violin in one of his YT master classes: Maxim Vengerov.

Another difference between them, is that Han plays almost exclussively classical music, from J.S. Bach (her favorite composer) all the way to modern composers I have never hard of, and  some I have, such as Carlos Guastavino, and some of whom have composed music expressly for her. Benedetti, on the other hand, seems to be quite willing and able to tackle anything any time, and doing it very well, as shown in my previous comment on her with a link to a video where she plays a tango with amazing authenticity.

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GarthP

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And now for something else and well worth hearing:

(And it is not at every concert that one sees the audience give an standing ovation at the end of a performance.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIdqiis3Mts

Maxim Vengerov plays Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major op. 61 and Meditation by J. Massenet

Maxim Vengerov — violin
Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marek Pijarowski.
14th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition:
Special Concert of Maxim Vengerov: ‘And yet he will play!’
Poznań, 23 October 2011.

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Two performances of works for violin and piano, with Nicola Benedetti, violin, with her usual accompanist, Alexei Grynyuk, piano:

In the late romantic style, a partial rendition of an early work by Richard Strauss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQrlkRb_5jI

R. Strauss’ Violin Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 18: Movements. II & III, Nicola Benedetti accompanied by pianist Alexei Grynyuk at the piano.
January 16, 2019.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X96YaspfK0

Nicola Benedetti (violin) and Alexei Grynyuk (piano) play the Elgar Violin Sonata from the Seoul Arts Center. (No further information on this performance is available.)

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OK, it’s like this:

Let’s say you take all the emotion, humor, pathos and drama extracted from a concerto by a good soloist, for example, from the Sibelius Violin Concerto, or any well-known violin concerto, particularly one of the romantic period, and all that is enough to fill a large Coke bottle of half a gallon or so. Then you concentrate this liquid musical essence in a still several times, until it has been reduced to something that is just enough to fill a small bottle originally meant to contain some very rare and expensive perfume. And you better be careful, because the concentrate is not only, well, very concentrated, but is also highly inflammable, and if the tiny bottle is open carelessly, that is bound to start an all-devouring conflagration.

That gallon of the original fluid is very pleasant and tasty, and is how most players would perform the Sibelius violin concerto.

In its highly concentrated and inflammable form is how Hilary Hahn plays this concerto. And quite many other things too, if the spirit of the work calls for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0w0t4Qn6LY

And that, right there, is all the difference between playing very well and playing magnificently and unforgettably well.

And when the conductor and the orchestra raise to the occasion and glide over the bar set so high by the soloist’s performance, as they do here, then the result is just superb; and the rest is silence.

So, is this why I am such a big fan of this artist?
Guilty as charged, Your Honor.

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And almost forgot, this other sample:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cg_0jepxow

The first movement is very long, and people get understandably confused at what she means when she lifts her bow like that. And those cadenzas!  (And wait for the encore.)

Beat that, Ling Ling! (Whoever you are.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwsnIoFXrt0

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And to conclude this long night, during which I have been kept up waiting for an important call, this thought:

In all artistic performance and in all work of art that strikes me as worth spending some time listening to it, reading it, or looking at it, be it a musical performance, like the one above, or a painting, like a Chagall, a Matisse, or a Vermeer, or a sculpture, like “The Citizens of Calais”, by Rodin, “La Pietá” by Michel Angelo, or “The Penitent Magdalena”, by Donatello, or reading a poem, like the “Romance Sonámbulo” by García Lorca, or a novel like “Huckleberry Finn” by Marc Twain, or Cervantes’ “El Quijote”, or a movie like “Citizen Kane” by Welles, or “Les Enfants du Paradise” by Carné, or in front, or inside, of a great building, like Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona, or the Duomo of Milan, there are two aspects in exquisite tension I find in all of them: a great creative passion, kept nicely under control.

For a further example, consider this, among the greatest music for the violin ever created, as performed by Itzhak Perlman:

(If you get a black square with the message in big letters “Video unavailable … “,  disregard that and click on “Watch on You Tube” in smaller letters.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtyTaE7LvVs

 

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Paris National Opera.
Inaugural concert season 21/22

This evening brings together an anthology of operatic excerpts and invites you to find great arias, duets, ensembles, musical interludes from a rich and eclectic repertoire. From Carmen by Georges Bizet to Doctor Atomic by John Adams, from Lohengrin by Richard Wagner to Ainadamar by Osvaldo Golijov, Le Chevalier à la rose by Richard Strauss to Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, from La Vida breve by Manuel De Falla to Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten, Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Orchestra, Choir and Academy artists as well as guest soloists. A real musical celebration for the first edition of this exceptional concert.

With the Orchester de l’Opéra national de Paris, the Choirs of the Opéra national de Paris, the Maîtrise des Hauts de Seine / Children’s Choir of the Opéra national de Paris.

Program

Georges bizet
Carmen
Prelude
“Love is a rebellious bird” – aria from Carmen: Clémentine Margaine
“The flower you threw at me” – aria by Don José: Matthew Polenzani
“Here they are, here is the quadrille …” – chorus of act IV

Osvaldo Golijov
Ainadamar
“Mariana, tus ojos

DE FALLA Manual
La vida breve
Dance of the second scene (Choirs)

Benjamin britten
Peter Grimes
“The storm” – Interlude n. 4

John adams
Doctor Atomic
“Batter my heart”, act I
Gerald Finley

Richard wagner
Lohengrin
Prelude to Act I

Richard strauss
The knight with the rose
“Marie Theres’! … Hab ’mir’s gelobt” – final trio of act III

Giuseppe Verdi
Falstaff
“Viola there!” Chi go there “- Act III finale

Coproduction of the Opéra national de Paris and Camera Lucida, with the participation of France televisions, Mezzo and Medici.tv with the support of the CNC and the Orange Foundation, sponsor of the audiovisual broadcasts of the Opéra national de Paris.

https://chezsoi.operadeparis.fr/videos/concert-inaugural-saison-21-22

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GarthP

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This is great! In fact, it is quite amazing! Thank you so much, Anonymous.

Very fine singing in all the operatic segments.

The soprano in “Carmen”, who and what is she (besides her name)? Great singing!

By the way, “Carmen” did not do well when it was premiered in Paris in 1875 (shortly before the death of Bizet) and not only that. Critics found fault in its, to them, offensive immorality. One wrote that the singer “Mademoiselle Galli-Marié would be arrested if she used that language in the 9th Arrondissement” (South Pigalle, the “naughtiest” part of Paris then, and for many years yet to come.)

The final trio in Act III of the “Rosenkavalier” is a very fine thing to listen to, in this rendition.
Here is where the Marschallin, in the very late summer of her life, recognizes that youth should have its chances and it is better for her to give way graciously and recollect, instead, her own earlier days of wine and roses.

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The Carmen soloist is Clémentine Margaine, I believe, and according to the credits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9mentine_Margaine

Garth

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OscarCP

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So she is something of an specialist in Bizet’s “Carmen.” But it seems like she is not with the Paris, or French, Opera, but with its German equivalent. (I know very little about national opera companies.)

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But that is not all: the link to this year season premiere of the Paris Opera opens a door to finding more fine performances that have taken place in that grand old building in very recent times, of orchestral and instrumental music and ballet. Such as this fine example of quartet playing, with works by Wolf, Schubert and Richard Strauss:

https://chezsoi.operadeparis.fr/concert-recital/videos/concert-schubert-wolf-strauss

With more too explore, discover and enjoy at the Paris Opera’s Web site – free. One could also subscribe … I imagine that might not be very cheap. But who knows?

https://chezsoi.operadeparis.fr/concert-recital

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Still not enough Brahms here, in Part II.

So I am adding one work of this composer that wrote so much, so well, across such a wide range of musical forms, in two different interpretations, each by an excellent group of musicians recorded in the by now distant musical past, but with excellent clarity.
Why this work in particular? Because I find it at the same time mysterious, alluring and hard to forget. It’s one of those things that, once fully experienced, marks you.

These two performances, separated in time by a decade and a half, bring to the listener’s ear, each in its own style, this composition for clarinet soloist and string quartet the way it deserves to be heard: at once hauntingly beautiful, and ghost-like haunting:

Johannes Brahms Quintet for Clarinet & String Quartet. in B minor Op.115, Karl Leister clarinet, the Amadeus Quintet (1967):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOzEgxUJMG4

 

Brahms: Clarinet Quintet, Leopold Wlach, Clarinet & Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet (1952):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rKJCFg3yn4

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Push-button Beethoven:

Fred sent me the URL link to an article on a group of AI specialists, musicians and others that have attempted to use an AI to complete Beethoven’s incomplete 10th Symphony. Death got him first, while he was still playing around with ideas for initial themes, of which he left short annotations, some in scraps of paper, now being used as the starting point for this novel use of a neural network.
You can listen to a clip of the now completed job in the article as well.

What follows is my answer. We are not discussing intimate things no one else should ever hear about, so I think it is OK to post here my own answer to Fred’s concerning just the AI thing. As to whether you agree or disagree with me, feel free to post your comments/criticisms below mine. Preferably with a link to some YT video of anything that you think is very good music, one that, same as Ludwig himself, is also for the ages:

Fred,

Thank you for sending me this unexpected email about this off beat thing some grown up people have actually been up to:

https://thenextweb.com/news/computer-scientists-completed-beethoven-10th-symphony-syndication

“Beethoven never finished his 10th Symphony. Computer scientists just did.”
(Sorta kinda of.)

This article is funny enough that I laughed out loud in some places, but also felt sad, when I thought of all the work that must have gone into this to get something that, well, maybe the orchestra is not so good or there is something else that does not work too well, but listening to the three-minute sample of the already completed work, words fail me to describe how much not like Beethoven this sounds to me.

I am not too sure how good an idea has been to use all of Beethoven’s work to train the neural network where, supposedly, the creative spark of Ludwig at the very end of his late period was to be reborn. Because that means to pour into the AI his early works, that sounded a lot like Haydn or Mozart, with those of his middle period, that is what most of his work sounds like, to the late period, when he was evolving musically into something so very different, writing things like the Große Fuge, that sounds avant-garde even today, and the great and so innovative Late Quartets, along with the 9th, with a whole universe of sound, with such almost physical emotional punch extracted from an ensemble of orchestra, soloists and chorus.

In other words, Beethoven was never the same Beethoven, and to put all of his works into a neural network means that whatever then comes out is bound to be very unlike what Late Beethoven, who was so busy burning bridges with his own musical past, might have been imagining the 10th was going to be when, having written the last note of a possible theme he was playing with, he himself became one for the ages.

Let us enjoy the real thing we still have and wonder at what this first attempt to synthesize a genius might lead to, particularly in applications of no artistic character. Maybe to something good or, I fear, maybe not.

Finally, something not in my reply to Fred: I feel moved to tell you about another, darker experience, this one listening to the playing of the recording of a violin concert by Robert Schumann that he composed when he was going mad. It was a miserable thing and I could not help but thinking: why do this? He did not intend to write an awful piece of music: he was unable to help it. Leave the dead in peace.

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Oscar,

I think this is somewhat misguided, even almost a pastiche, for the very reason you gave. Late Beethoven is a particular style (if one could so describe it) that would have been the summation of all his experiences, yes, but that does not mean that equal weight would have been given to all such experiences. He would surely have discarded some earlier experiences as being less worthwhile, or simply not working as well, or indeed wanting to move on or progress, so any such process as this would properly have to evaluate that experience, surely an impossible task. At the very least, the AI input should minimise the input from say the first half, or two thirds, of Beethoven’s life.

Indeed, just stating that shows the fallibility of the whole idea.

In musical terms, the work as played is perfectly innocuous, and does sound vaguely ‘Beethovenish’, but that’s all. There is no particular spark there. Just because it is now possible to do something such as this, does not mean one should!

Garth

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Perhaps the article’s writer (a professor at Rutger’s), and maybe the AI people, are hyping the actual achievement, that more soberly might be described as:

“We trained an AI, starting from scratch, using all the things composed by Beethoven and, as the result, it produced an actual symphony in a Romantic, early-19th Century style, that is not afflicted with weird musical errors from beginning to end, but instead is correct in terms of musical theory and not too offensive to the ear. Maybe even with a Beethoven-ish tinge. One that actually sounds as if composed by a skilled but untalented admirer of Beethoven that did not quite get Beethoven. Or by a good composer, just for a lark, to make a mild musical joke on Beethoven’s music. Not great, but also not bad for a piece of artificial art.

It needs further work, but it is definitely a step forward to a “full-Skynet” (*) future that we have brought more than one step closer with this achievement. Cheers!”

(*) Skynet, the sentient network of interconnected AIs controlling an army of war machines trying to eradicate humanity in the original “Terminator” movies with “I’ll be back” as the lead character:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(Terminator)

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So how was Late Beethoven different?
The dissonant chords, notably the acid, loud, high pitched ones and the thrills; the low, sometimes growling sound of the cello; the percussive notes;  the intricate, dramatic use of counterpoint; the cresting and breaking waves of sound; the angelic, compassionate solace in the slow melodies: that’s Late Beethoven’s chamber music.
That is, in short, the “essence” of Late Beethoven.

Last of Beethoven’s Late Quartets, the No. 16 was also the last major work he ever composed, death being near him already and getting closer.

It takes great musicians to play this work as it deserves to be heard:

Borodin Quartet plays Beethoven String Quartet Op.135

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laUMuPkm7Ow

This comment someone left in YouTube says it very well:

“It’s astonishing how “modern” some of Beethoven’s later works sound, especially the Grosse Fugue. He stands absolutely alone as the most original composer who ever lived. No other sounds so radically different from those who immediately preceded him.”

And Schubert said: “After this, what is left for us to do”

So, here, the final proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxzHQrFuDkk

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To end my illustration of “Late Beethoven” using some of its quartets as examples, this one, that is  also my favorite “Late” one:

The Quatuor Ebène plays Beethoven Quartet No. 13, Opus 130, with the “Grosse Fuge” included:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXvP0bqw2Cs

(The Fugue was originally a part of this quartet, then was changed into a separate piece by Beethoven and replaced with a different one, because being then too unusual — and really ahead of its time — it was going to be hard for the public to accept. And it would also have made the quartet too long, I think.)

 

And, finally, this short passage, also from the No. 13, that is one of the deepest, most moving and most loved of all string quartet movements:

Heifetz 2016: Beethoven | Cavatina of String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat, Op. 130.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-LcmrTKWBc

(And I like the remarks by the first violinist, before they start playing.)

Heifetz International Music Institute:

00:17 Introduction by Ji-Won Song
02:01 V. Cavatina: Allegro Molto Espressivo.

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Beethoven’s 5th Movement of his Quartet No. 13, know as the “Cavatina”, as performed by the great Budapest Quartet, was the last recording in the two identical golden disks, sent with a message with a sample of the music of humanity to whomever may receive it, one carried in each one of the two Voyager space probes that now have left the influence of the magnetic field of the Sun, that envelopes the Solar System, and have began an unimaginably long journey of unknown and unknowable destination through the space between the stars:

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/music/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quartet_No._13_(Beethoven)

If the disk is received and then played by unknown and maybe to us also unknowable sentient beings, far from our little world, perhaps long after us and even it are gone, what will those make of it, perhaps the very last sounds to be heard of our chattering and noisy species? And as Beethoven’s music becomes manifest again at the very end, his Cavatina might be the final comment, and a lament at that, on what we once were — and on what we could have been.

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I like the way this quartet, the Ebène plays these last of Beethoven Late Quartets. The Borodin’s performances are very wisely and beautifully executed, but they are a bit to “Romantic” in my opinion. Beethoven in these last works was moving in a new direction and the Ebène musicians know how to follow his old steps. Too bad he could not complete the journey. I wonder now what the heritage of Beethoven in music might had been, if he might have allowed us to skip Wagner and get directly to Richard Strauss, who claimed to be a devoted “Wagnerian” but was just himself; to Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Bartok and the rest of the giants from the early decades through the first half of the 20th Century, but sooner.

So here are the 14th and 15th to complete, with the 13th and 16th in a previous nearby comment, the set of these four quartets, the last of them all, the transcendental ones:

Quatuor Ebène plays Beethoven String quartet No 14 Op. 131

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0u6tfY_tkc

Quatuor Ebène : Beethoven String quartet Nr. 15 Op. 132

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB556rRO0AE

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Having discovered very late in the day the, as it happens, already famous, and for good reason, Quartet Ebène, I am including now here their rendition of a more traditionally Romantic work than Beethoven’s last four quartets, in this case a sort of symphonic poem by Tchaikovsky. The reason for doing this: because of their take on this well-known example of Peter Ilyich’s work.

The interesting thing to know about this group of musicians, is that all four have had a conventional classical musical education and training (in the same conservatoire, where they were fellow students), but they did not leave the conservatoire to get jobs in orchestras and such, or to try their luck in other usual ways, but instead took on different non-classical jobs, where also were not playing with the same instruments they are playing with now in their quartet. And they continue to do that when not performing classical, switching over to more popular kinds of music, that require quite different approaches from what does classical.

More about that here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89b%C3%A8ne_Quartet

Excerpt:

“The group is known for its versatility and performs a variety of genres, such as Classical_music,Contemporary_music, jazz, and crossover. Beyond its classical repertoire, some of the group’s most popular performances have been crossover, such a rendition of the music from the score of “Pulp_Fiction”, arrangements of classic Beatles’ hits, and a jazz vocal/instrumental arrangement of “Someday My Prince Will Come” from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film).

New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn highlighted the group’s versatility, describing the group as “a string quartet that can easily morph into a jazz band.”

This unusually broad experience (professional classical musicians might play other things, but rarely as a job) shows that these are not the usual kind of concert hall musicians, that they are prepared to take on all comers, and that they have therefore the right spirit, in my opinion, to play relentlessly the quartets of Beethoven as they were meant to be played, in such a way that, if Ludwig had heard them (not really, being deaf as a very thick concrete wall, nice thought, though) he would have been so proud of them, who so mercilessly have been playing what, I believe, they have understood so well of his music.

And maybe also of Tchaikovsky’s, who, as you can hear in the following video, is not your mother’s Tchaikovsky anymore:

The Quatuor Ebène plays “Souvenir de Florence” by Tchaikovsky:

(They are including a extra viola and an extra cello player (the viola on the left and cello nearest the middle (*)), so there are six musicians on stage, not four. And all six really understand each other very well, even when they are not a regular, permanent ensemble.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0GRH4rABgk

(*) They have changed, in their quartet, the permanent man viola player for a permanent woman viola player, more recently than when this recording was made.

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And now for something in a slightly different format.

My regular orchestra here in Scotland is the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, RSNO for short. As a result, I received an invitation to see a recent live performance in Glasgow; I could not be there, so the availability for the moment on Youtube is helpful for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_9y2czDCaY

This is a special live-stream of Sibelius’ Karelia Overture, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No.5. Rory Macdonald conducts, and one of the RSNO’s own stars, clarinettist Timothy Orpen, takes centre stage for the concerto, held in the New Auditorium of Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Most of the performers are recognisable to me, as a regular attendee, so I can very much recommend this for viewing. How long it will be available I don’t know, so I suggest watching as soon as you can.

Garth

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OscarCP

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Garth, Does the RSNO do this sort of thing regularly, or at least now and then: Putting a concert on YT, or otherwise streaming it where, even across the Atlantic, we might be able to pick it up? And if so, where on the Web might one find out news about the concerts and their programs?

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I think this was probably a one-off, done as an opener physical performance after the forced isolation due to Covid. It was done in conjunction with radio station Classic FM here in the UK. It was not a full orchestra by any means, something like 60% I think.

Nevertheless, there are links available for the RSNO online, which you may find rewarding. If you look at their subscription channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYfVi1Q2DP-NkY2loIquRwA

you will see some works available, as well as brief interpretive sessions with performers, and something for the younger element.

Garth

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OscarCP

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Here is a short but typically exuberant performance by the RSNO’s master timpanist, Paul Philbert, in Mahler #1. Paul is a perfectionist, as can be seen at any of his concerts, and also is a holder of the MBE for services to music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMI1Qv4I_Ss

There are several interesting follow-on links available when seeing this.

Garth

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Paul Philbert: Impressive!

What is particularly good about this video is that one can see better what the percussion section does in detail, something not easy when looking from the audience front-stage, because this section then is up in the far horizon of the orchestra. Here it is possible to see the timpanist choosing the mallets and drumsticks appropriate by weight and size to what he is about to do with them. Then using them; then putting the back, and so on.

Now let’s have some more:

Tasty Timpanic Treats Through Time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPwTLg_Oz_4

And also this:

Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR Sinfonieorchester) – Rehearsal for Sheherezade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtyyTUOwjRA

Then there are the comments from viewers, below the video: “my father was a percussionist …”

Normally, it is as if an orchestra’s percussion section, contrary to children, is to be heard but not seen (much, or very well). Camera close ups during concert performances are often too short to see well how the drummers do their work. From the videos, one gets a much better idea of what the winds, both brass and woods sections, do and how.

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GarthP

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Here is a new performer for me, Korean cellist Hee-Young Lim, playing Massenet’s ‘Meditation’ from Thais.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H75wuVUi0Lo

And then, to follow, an arrangement for cello and piano of the song “Vocalise” by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKAYL0nT-Lo

Beautiful music, beautifully played in this video.

Garth

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“Meditation” cello player:  As it is famed was Thaïs of Alexandria, who practiced a different art, she is a looker.

That seems to be a sine qua non characteristic of female cello players that are good at it.

She reminds me of someone I once knew. Did not play the cello, though, was an MD.

I knew another that did play the cello, in Sydney. But she was full-blood Aussie.

And a Japanese lady cellist from the Tokyo SO once made me the honor of playing for me Piazzola’s “Oblivion.”

Here is another one, that also played the cello:

Jacqueline du Pré – Bach, Suites for Solo Cello No. 1 & 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0PU5RsMEeU

And, for a touch of true greatness, this one too:

Jacqueline du Pré – Dvořák Cello Concerto – London Symphony Orchestra cond. Daniel Barenboim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_yxtaeFuEQ

And a painting by Augustus John, exhibited at the Tate in London:

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The actual name of “The Swagger” was “Madame Suggia”, who was a famous Portuguese cellist of the day residing in London. “The Swagger Portrait” was an exhibition in the early 1990’s for which this painting was reproduced in the poster announcing this art show, that was named accordingly.

The portrait was painted by a famous Welsh portraitist, Augustus John, who lived a very interesting life and painted the portraits of the likes of T. E. Laurence (a.k.a “of Arabia”), Yeats and many other notable people of those days.

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I am new here as of yesterday and just found this. What a beautiful labor of love.

Mille grazie !!!

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Welcome, and enjoy. Feel free to contribute.

Garth

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OscarCP

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Bookman and anyone else around that likes this thread, as well as its Part I, now closed but still available to see and listen what is there, that was split in two parts, because it was getting too long:

This is the labor of love of several of us, so welcome any time to join in. This thread can always use more good music videos. By that I mean, as it has always meant here: Classical (mostly in the Western tradition), Jazz, Bossa Nova, fusion, Dolly Parton’s, etc.  Country-Western, music from the movies, progressive tango, Ray Manzarek’s “Carmina Burana” and various instances of traditional Celtic harp and whatever mystery girl Tina S did with her electric guitar … even while the peers of Palestrina and Vivaldi and Bach and Beethoven and Brahms and Schubert and Verdi and Puccini, as well as those of Ravel and Richard Strauss and Villa Lobos and Stravinsky and Schoenberg and Bela Bartok, do definitely have pride of place.

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Commenting on women cellists, on some that I have known, at different times, in different countries, and then on this English one, Jacqueline du Pré, a few entries earlier, has brought memories that I feel a need to put in front of those who, probably unknown to me, will read this:

This was the concerto whose performances by her inspired the careers of a thousand women cellists, including one that was a friend of mine:

Jacqueline du Pre & Daniel Barenboim – Elgar Cello Concerto. Philadelphia Orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPhkZW_jwc0

Tribute to Jacqueline du Pré | by AllegroFilms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvPza4XosW4

A tribute to a beautiful woman of amazing gifts, wonderful smile, generous nature and an enthusiastic and inspiring joie de vivre — with a slow and painfully tragic end while still quite young, that can be the excuse for making a really tacky documentary.
But not this one.

This is a tribute made of segments of her being filmed while playing the cello, having a good time, and so forth, interspersed by comments of some famous musicians and others that were close to her and knew her well and loved her — and admired her — for what she was.
Her widower, the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, describes her as “an extraordinary, like no one else I’ve known, musical conversationalist”, meaning by that someone that also spoke, most remarkably, through music. Of course, the cello has the range of the human voice, from mezzo to bass, and can be made to talk and sing and express meaning, and high passion and drama and comedy and tragedy … in the right hands of someone of musical genius.
Jacqueline du Pré was such a genius.

“30 years after she died, and 44 after she stopped playing, Jacqueline du Pré remains a much loved figure in the public imagination, and in a way that is very rare. In the year that would have been her 72th birthday, we pay tribute to Jacqueline du Pré.” – Christopher Nupen ” (That was in 2016, she would have been 77 early this year.)

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Oscar, that tribute to Jacqueline du Pré featured on BBC TV last week here in the UK, so I was able to watch it. What came over to me was, as you mention, the over-riding joie de vivre (literally the joy of life) she had, as well as, of course, a complete and masterful musical talent that is so rare. It is absolutely worth an hour of anyone’s time.

Garth

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To complete this remembrance and thankful memorial of Jacqueline du Pré on the 34th anniversary, the 19th of this month, of her death at age 42:

Another recording of Elgar’s cello concerto, that is considered, because of the quality of both sound and of performance, as one of the most perfect recordings of instrumental classical music ever made — and certainly, as pointed out already, one of the most influential, by motivating gifted young people, many young women in particular, to play the cello professionally — and making so for a richer world:

Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor Opus 85:
Jacqueline du Pré, Cello 19 August 1965
Sir John Barbirolli / London Symphony Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwMON0FsAaA

About her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_du_Pr%C3%A9

About her influence:

https://stringsmagazine.com/how-jacqueline-du-pre-sparked-a-cello-explosion/

” The current generation of star cellists doesn’t shy away from the du Pré effect. For instance, Clein calls the first generation after du Pré “a creative burst, a cello population explosion, with them, in turn, becoming great teachers themselves as well as players.” She feels that this is how du Pré’s legacy is being carried on. ”

And a more personal tribute:

https://sites.psu.edu/passionofthecummings/2018/03/17/jacqueline-du-pre-beautiful-life/

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As a point of interest: I find the Elgar with Barenboim and the Philharmonia Orchestra a better performance, or at lest more representative of the, at times, fiery playing style of du Pré, than the much prized and later, more subdued performance with Barbirolly conducting the London SO. Also it looks like the Barenboim performance was closer to the full original recording with Elgar still around and with Beatrice Harrison playing the cello, in 1928.

So why is the recording with Barbirolli and the LSO the most famous and the one transcendentally significant for the future of cello playing? I think the answer is: because it was recorded on 33.3 long-play vinyl disks that were then distributed around the world, so people could buy it in many places where they could not see the film of the other one, or  of any concert, because the Internet still had not been invented, let alone the Web, not to mention DVDs and streaming, and few TV stations would show a film of the concert outside the UK, probably shown there only on the BBC. So in most places it was pretty much: listen to it on a disk, or listen not.

That was how, five years after it was recorded, I first heard it, my cellist in-the-making friend had heard it already, because she had the record, so we listened at it together; and many, many more heard it, in those days when the world was younger and a great musician still walked the Earth that, with a future still shining with the brightest promise, was, for a time, her oyster.

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On the month of the 34th anniversary:

The piano sings, the sounds of the orchestra swirl and dance, while the cello both sings and speaks, and through it, in the recording, a heart now long absent says to a living one all that needs to be said about love, about life; when listened carefully, so anything else is superfluous:

Brahms – Cello Sonata No.1 in E minor, Op. 38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XiYrzsgWto

And, to end, this is the one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pmBJLI4kVw

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By the way: “Jacqueline’s Tears” (“Les Larmes de Jacqueline”), by Offenbach, has nothing to do with du Pré. That is just a coincidence. What matters is the unforgettable way she played this very moving short work.

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Of the classical instruments, the pedal harp is there, on stage, more to be seen than heard, like children were said to be, once upon a time.
I find this odd: such a beautiful, large and impressive-looking thing being used, in slow passages, to create with its arpeggios and assorted plinks and plonks, an atmosphere, mostly peaceful, or for the harpist to accompany occasionally other players, but so rarely be the soloist that some never see this being done.
So here is a video that shows what else can de done with it:

Harp concert by Sophia Kiprskaya , soloist of the Mariinsky Theater – San Petersburg, Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xn3uAHZHcc

00:01 Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
08:35 Smetana: Vltava (Die Moldau)
18:04 Kiprsky: Concertino for Harp and String Quartet
30:05 Debussy: Sonata for Flute, Harp and Viola
49:15 ??

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And some more concert-for-harp playing:

Point of interest: I have found in YouTube other videos of harp concerti, but all have been either performed in the Russian Federation or, the second one here in Croatia, by citizens of those places, going by their last names.
So maybe playing classical music for the pedal harp is a Slavic thing?

… or maybe not quite: if you search with “harp performance” in Google you’ll get the “Images for Harp Performances” with a hundred gazillion pictures and videos of harp performances, overwhelmingly by good-looking young women players with non-slavic-sounding last names.
So maybe this is a good-looking-young-woman-player thing?
In any case, a pedal harp goes very well with a good looking young woman, in my opinion.

G.Handel Concert for Harp and Orchestra

International Russian Rotary Children Music Competition 2010

Performed by Aggejalfis Taellija-Jaroslavna (who, I am guessing, is no more than 16)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay1hyj8Lo00

 

Mozart Concerto for Flute Harp and Orchestra in C major, K 299 – complete – LIVE (Back in the day.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nheif2BuFz0

Tamara Coha Mandić, flute
Diana Grubišić Ćiković, harp
Croatian chamber orchester
Igor Tatarević, conductor
Croatian music institute concert hall
Zagreb, 12 november 2013.

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Full concert celebrating Mozart’s 250 anniversary of his birth.
(Beethoven had his, so now Mozart … Or was it the other way around?)

Mitsuko Uchida, piano, Cecilia Bartoli, Thomas Hampson, singers, with Ricardo Muti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb4FLHRpsVs

Say no more.

Festkonzert zum 250 Geburtstag von W.A. Mozart:

1. Konzert fur Klavier und Orchester in C-Dur. (Mitsuko Uchida)

2. Szene und Rondo fur Sopran und Orchester “Ch’io mi scordi di te”. (Cecilia Bartoli, Mitsuko Uchida)

3. Symphonie in D-Dur, “Haffner Symphonie”

4. Motette fur Sopran und Orchester “Exsultate, jubilate” (Cecilia Bartoli)

5. Rezitativ und Arie des Grafen aus “Le nozze di Figaro” (Thomas Hampson)

6. Duett Zerlina und Don Giovanni “La ci darem la mano” (Cecilia Bartoli, Thomas Hampson)

7. Final choir of “The Magic Flute.”

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And more music and singing:

Opera gala: arias from Mozart, Verdi, Rossini and others.
(Including one that one always gives me goose bumps: the aria of the “Flower Duet” from Lakmé of Delibes. And a most remarkable tour de force performance of “The birds in the arbor” of the “Tales of Hoffman” by Simone Kermes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXUMqSWpomA

From the YT Notes:

” Beautiful arias by Mozart, Verdi, Rossini and other famous composers!
In May 2016, international stars like Roberto de Biasio, Ingeborg Gillebo, Robin Johannsen and Simone Kermes performed these famous Arias at the 5th opera gala in Bonn. The fundraising event was organised by the German AIDS Foundation … and the proceeds went to projects in Germany and Mozambique. ”

And  with Julia Novikova.

Program:

0:00 Overture (Le nozze die Figaro — Mozart)
4:20 Chiara Skerath: “Deh vieni, non tardar” (Le nozze di Figaro — Mozart)
8:55 Julia Novikova: “Je veux vivre” (Roméo et Juliette — Gounod)
13:20 Robin Johannsen: “O wär ich schon mit Dir vereint” (Fidelio — Beethoven)
16:55 Ingeborg Gillebo: “Il segreto per esser felici” (Lucrezia Borgia — Donizetti)
20:15 “O mon Dieu” – Theater Bonn Opera Chorus (Jerusalem — Verdi)
25:30 Simone Kermes: “Gran Dio! Giusto Dio che umile adoro” (Tancredi — Rossini)
33:20 Davide Luciano: “Felice ancor… per me giunto” (Don Carlos — Verdi)
37:40 Marina Prudenskaya: “O don fatale” (Don Carlos — Verdi)
42:40 Roberto De Biasio: “Quando le sere al placido” (Luisa Miller — Verdi)
46:10 Ingeborg Gillebo/Robin Johannsen: “Dôme épais le jasmin” (Lakmé — Delibes)
51:40 Robin Johannsen: “Voi avete un cor fedele” (Mozart)
58:30 Davide Luciano/Julia Novikova: “Pronta io son!” (Don Pasquale — Donizetti)
1:06:00 Simone Kermes: “Les oiseaux dans la charmille” (Les contes d‘Hoffmann — Offenbach)
1:11:55 Davide Luciano: “Largo al factotum” (Il barbiere di Siviglia — Rossini)
1:16:40 Roberto de Biasio: “Non ti scordar di me” (Ernesto de Curtis)
1:20:30 Julia Novikova: “Il bacio” (Arditi)
1:25:10 Matia Prudenskaya: “Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein” (Die Fledermaus — Strauss)

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Quatuor Ebène : Bela Bartok String quartet Nr. 4 C-major Sz 91

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_XNfKk-Qbs

Beethoven: Grosse Fuge In B Flat, Op.133

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeyDjb6E9eU

 

It took nearly one century to get to Bartok’s quartet from the year when Beethoven wrote his own number 13, with the Goße Fuge as its last movement, later replaced by another more conventional ending and made into a separate “single-movement work for string quartet.”
As such, other than in the view of some great musicians of his day, such as Schubert, who admired it, this work was unpopular with audiences, reviled by the critics and performed only a few times over the decades that went past since then. He never heard it performed, not could he had even if this had been done in his presence, as he was deeply deaf by then. Stravinsky, in the 20th Century, when it was finally understood as being one of the most transcendental compositions in all of Western music, described it as “an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever.”

This was how Beethoven, consciously, or perhaps intuitively, was moving at the end of a life too short for realizing all that he had in him yet to get done. He was 56 when he died a short few years after composing No. 13, and just starting to go along a new, unmarked, unexplored path to the future. Bartok’s may sound like an echo — but it is really a testimony of two creative geniuses arriving at the same place along their own separate ways. With the arrival of the first anticipating that of the second for such a very long time. And the second coming along when the time was finally right for both to be heard and their works rightly appreciated.

Béla Bartok quartets are considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of the 20th Century.
Easy-listening pieces to play on the stereo for relaxation or when studying, they are not.

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Of the works of Bartók, this is perhaps the most accessible, certainly the most popular:

Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (1943)  (*)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG26BMDVR9E

This concerto was written less than two years before he died of leukemia in September of 1945, at age 64.
So last month was the 76 anniversary of his death, while in March it was the 140 of his birth.

Bartók was many things in music: performer, composer, collector and compiler of folk music, mainly from Central Europe. Many of his compositions were inspired by, and musically inclusive of ideas taken from folk music, although they are not exactly folksy.
He was born well before the World Wars, in what still was the Kingdom of Hungary, the other half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The coming of Nazism and their taking power in Hungary, something he made no bones about how much he disliked, and the start of World War II forced him and his wife to exile themselves in the USA, where he lived the rest of his life. In 1988 his remains were returned to Hungary and given there a state funeral and buried alongside his wife, who had preceded him there after his death. He is considered as one of the two greatest of Hungarian composers, along with Franz Liszt.

One of his best known compositions is this one:

Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, hr-Symphonic Orchestra, Frankfurt ∙ Orozco-Estrada conductor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bX1BVXJak

And this is a recording of him at the piano, with some words from him introducing the work as it goes along:

Béla Bartók plays Bartók “For Children”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3un2XV9E6Y

 

(*) “Concerto for Orchestra”, because the various groups of instrument players, at various times, are the “soloists” of this concerto intended for the orchestra. That is why the conductor asks them, when the performance is over, to stand up by groups, to receive  a special applause from the audience.

More about this composer here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_Bart%C3%B3k

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This is a prayer of nearly twenty centuries and one hundred generations of suffering the capricious abuses of the powerful, the terror of plagues, the incomprehensible devastations of war, the knowledge of the inevitability of death and that the world is ruled by blind chance, is in constant change and is indifferent to us:

Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi,     Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
miserere nobis.                         have mercy on us.
Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi,     Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
dona nobis pacem.                       grant us peace.

(Slide the bar to read both versions)

And those are the very words that end one of the most extraordinary of all choral works I have heard in my whole life, in this magnificent version:

Ludwig van Beethoven: Missa Solemnis   Solemn Mass   in D Major

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bI9-DTloKU&list=TLPQMTYxMDIwMjHni1xLuDcETg&index=2

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano) Christa Ludwig (mezzosoprano) Nicolai Gedda (tenor) Nicola Zaccaria (bass) Philharmonia Orchestra Wiener Singverein Herbert von Karajan recorded in 1958 .

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And about those devastations of war — and those abuses of power — in our own times:

Ludwig van Beethoven Missa Solemnis in D Major, op 123

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpS_O-2-fQI

Krassimira Stoyanova, Elīna Garanča, Michael Schade, Franz Josef Selig, Conductor Christian Thielemann, Orchestra and Chorus of the City of Dresden.

Performed in remembrance of the February 13th, 1945 destruction of Dresden in a firestorm caused by incendiary bombs dropped during a massive aerial attack that killed perhaps 20,000 of its inhabitants, at less than three months of the end of the war.
On the occasion of the reopening of the “Semperoper”, Dresden’s Opera House on February 13th 1985, destroyed during the attacks.

And still almost five long years to go before the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989.

Notice that at the entrance of conductor and singers when the function is about to start, and at the end of the remarkable performance that follows, there is absolute silence and nobody applauds.

 

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Points of historical interest:

The grumpy-looking gentleman in the principal balcony is no other than the then newly designated, practically speaking, as maximum leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. The man who, with a few high-level allies was going to start pushing for the modernization and liberalization of the soviet regime, moving gradually towards more democracy and defusing the escalating Cold War by signing nuclear arm reduction treaties with the then President of the USA, Regan. And who, in so doing all of the above, was going to upset the apple cart of the soviet world, including its East German allies, some of whose leaders were sharing the balcony with him.

Among other things, he kept the soviets from intervening (i.e. not sending in the tanks) to do something to stop the by then openly-crossing East Germans going through Hungary into Austria, and this resulted, eventually, in a new East German regime deciding not to stop (i.e. by shooting them to death) people from crossing into West Germany, a dramatic development that no long after culminated in the demolishing of the Berlin Wall. A wall that I visited once, when it was still part of a functioning, formidable and lethal mechanism for enforcing the city’s East-West separation, one time I went to West Berlin for a meeting in the early 1980’s, in what then was a Western bustling isle in a sea of Eastern red. And a truly interesting, in a funky way, isle that was!

He was hampered every step of the way by the incompetence of and, or sabotage from the bureaucracy, resulting in a crisis of supply of everyday necessities, such as food at the markets, something that made him widely unpopular. Then a reactionary coup d’etat (*) that, while defeated, left him in a decisively weakened political position and, with the opportunistic intervention of Boris Yeltsin, resulted in his resignation and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, propelling the inhabitants of this world into a new age, an Age of Uncertainty we still live in.

(*) I was visiting Buda Pest during the coup, and there was extreme tension in the air, as people were all wandering, myself included, when the Russian tanks would be coming down, as many years before did, to regain control and forcibly return the state of things to the days before Gorbachev, firing their guns and heavy machine guns to stop dead any show of resistance, along the elegant boulevards that are emblematic of this wonderful city, that is actually two, one at each side of the Danube.

CNN was a new development in Hungary, so we could actually watch on TV when Yeltsin made his speech atop a tank whose crew had either surrendered to him and his group, or come in  their support, urging the insurgent troops that were still encircling them in a broad Moscow street, or a small plaza, to “either shoot us or join us” in resisting the coup and marching to protect the Parliament — if my memory of the details of events in that distant and dramatically crucial day still serves.

On my way to Buda Pest from Vienna along the Danube, the captain of the ferry informed us to those going further that the ship was not going to make the usual stop in what was by then “ex Yugoslavia”, “because of events there”, as the internecine war that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia was already under way, in the heart of Europe, where as history shows, the USA was liable to get pulled in, eventually, possibly at great cost of lives and of treasure. As it finally happened, but fortunately at a much  lighter cost. The whole Western world seemed to be bursting out of its long-standing margins of safety, and its now unpredictable fate was a menacing unknown.

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I forgot, almost, to add to the preceding recollection that, during that time so full of disquiet in Buda Pest, I crossed the Danube over the Margaret bridge to attend, in the main church in Pest, an orchestral performance of J.S. Bach’s “Art of the Fugue”, that had a particularly dramatic meaning in those days so full of drama.

Bach died days after writing the last bars of this monumental work. He had an eye-operation incompetently performed that caused an infection that, in those days, meant a likely, painful death, as it was his. He persevered as far as he could with the work that was part of his great legacy to our civilization.

In the orchestral version, the instruments, towards the end, fell silent one by one, until only the oboe or, in some interpretations, a violin remains and, after a few notes, it also stops being heard. It is over. In those days of foreboding, not a voice was heard, only the sniffles of those of us whose noses and eyes were wet from the effect of what we just had heard:

Bach – The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 – Academy Of St Martin In The Fields, Sir Neville Marriner conducting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5FPC3nSn1E

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This is a great place where to watch and listen to classical music programs and podcasts:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

Here, among many others, there are some archival BBC programs from last year’s “Beethoven’s 250”, with narrators that are very good and knowledgeable.
Having discovered it as a teenager through records and the radio, I was not aware and so, particularly interested in the one about the 9th Symphony and how it has been used in so many different ways for so many different purposes in so many different occasions, from the Nazis to the EU and beyond:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/collection:p0801f4y/m000qbgj

(There are two “turn” icons, that move the podcast back and forth and a “start/stop” one in the middle, all three at the top of the page.)

And two of the repercussions of the 9th:

The Chagall Window, stained-glass, at the Lobby United Nations Headquarter:

” The memorial, which is about 15 feet wide and 12 feet high, contains several symbols of peace and love, such as the young child in the center being kissed by an angelic face which emerges from a mass of flowers. On the left, below and above, motherhood and the people who are struggling for peace are depicted. Musical symbols in the panel evoke thoughts of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which was a favourite of Mr. Hammarskjold’s. ”

https://www.un.org/depts/dhl/dag/chagallwindow.htm

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-5/ludwig-van-beethoven-symphony-no-9-d-minor-op-125/

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After a big helping of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis”,  this is the digestive: Church music as I have known it. From the inside, as it were.

As a boy, I was the little one, the baby of the extended family that was not a very religious family but adhered to certain religious formalities: baptism, communion, confirmation, marriage, final rites. So I was sent to learn the basics of Catholicism and attend mass while I was at it. The deal was that this was good for me, while I was a child, because it was good for children (and made them look normal in the eyes of everyone else, I imagine), “but when you are old enough, you are going to choose for yourself what to believe.” And at age 16 I indeed did. My choice did not please everyone, my mother in particular, but a deal was a deal (my father was a confirmed agnostic and did not mind, most of my elders did not particularly care, either: Such faith!).

When I was still going through my Catholic-child stage, the Pope was the not very friendly-looking Pius XII, and the music played at services, if music was played at all, it was to accompany Gregorian Chant.
While there was a certain possibility that one might hear something a little more modern, the actual chances were this close to next to nil.

So I missed until my late teens on Bach, I missed on Mozart, and most definitely I missed on Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis”, that I was to discover when I was old enough to be considered old.

This Gregorian Chant phase lasted in the Church more than sixty years, until Pope Pius XII died and then some years more after his successor adopted the official name of John XXIII (a.k.a “The Good Pope”). Then it was already 1958, and I was finishing high school, making ready for University. And, therefore, for leaving the home town for the wider world. Couldn’t happen soon enough for me.

Before going into more details on the evolution of church music in the first sixty-odd years of the 20th Century, I want to introduce here on of the greatest compositions of this type of music:

Johannes Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

There are several excellent versions in YouTube, and among these I have chosen two at the opposite extremes of the range of interpretations recorded and available as video for streaming.

The first is one of modest forces, both chorus and orchestra, furthermore played in period instruments, the signature of the Netherlands’ “All Bach” society, an enthusiastic group that has the highly idealistic goal of recording all of Bach’s work, just as their name says:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FLbiDrn8IE

The second one is from a much more numerous chorus and orchestra, with modern instruments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F7TVM8m95Y

Prom 26: Bach — Mass in B minor Johann Sebastian Bach – Mass in B minor, Joélle Harvey soprano Carolyn, Sampson soprano, Iestyn Davies counter-tenor, Ed Lyon tenor Matthew Rose bass, Choir of the English Concert, The English Concert, Harry Bicket conductor. Royal Albert Hall 2 August 2012

My own preference, influenced from my boyhood religious formation, is the Dutch version, because to me is more appropriate to what a mass is for: as an act of affirmation of faith as well as one of reflection and contrition for one’s own faults and trespasses — and a conjuration against the darkness of despair, of evil, and of death. It is really about the attendants, not the musicians, that has a priest as the officiant and sermon-giver, just because it needs one. It might not sound like a lot of fun, but that is what religion, pretty much any religion I know about, is like. Take it from me. (Personally, I am for fun.)

Now, back to the evolution of religious music in the Catholic Church.

The Gregorian chant primacy lasted:

From 1903 and Pius X Encyclical, through PIUS XII until John Paul XXIII and, in fact, until nearly the end of the Second Vatican Council that outlived him (1968):

From the article in Wikipedia:

“By the late nineteenth century, “operatic Church-music” was dominant in Italy. Churches were known to set Latin texts to such secular favorites as the sextet from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor or the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto.

A movement for liturgical reform, including scholarship devoted to early Church practice and Gregorian Chant performance, had developed over the course of the nineteenth century. Local jurisdictions implemented changes independent of direction from the Vatican. Earlier in his career Pope Pius [X] taught courses on liturgical music and chant to seminarians. In 1888, as Bishop of Mantua, he removed women from church choirs and ended the use of bands.”

So Pius X was not big on singing women, or on bands.

Pius X codified his musical preferences in an extensive encyclical (an authoritative circular letter to all bishops) called “Tra le Sollecitudini”, meaning “Among the Concerns”, that, as is traditional, are the first words in an encyclical:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tra_le_sollecitudini

Vatican II Council

As in many other aspects of religion, this Council, under John Paul XXIII, liberalized the playing of music, allowing for Bach, Mozart, Hayden again being heard in church, during certain services, along with the rest of what I had missed in my church-going childhood, and including the possibility of either singing and, or saying the mass in the vernacular, the language of the country where the mass was being said. (In my church going days, the priest spoke Latin, except for the sermon, we answered when prescribed, in Latin, but sang in our own language, Spanish).
This new Pope was a reformist and a courageous priest that, while Archbishop of Bulgaria, had sheltered and helped escape many persecuted Jews from the Nazis, by providing them with certificates of immigration to be able to travel to Palestine by safe routes and then settle there.

And so we get to Hilary Hahn performing Mozart 3rd concerto for violin in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI, the immediate predecessor of the current one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhQAtkXOK6o

Hilary Hahn, violin
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra
Birthday Concert for Pope Benedict XVI (2007)

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Too late to fix it now, so just to clear one thing up: He was officially called Pope John XXIII all the way; that “Paul” sneaked in there when I was not looking.

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The Swan Songs, some of those works of art created in the full knowledge that death was coming and coming soon for the artist, those are among the finest, and are also gestures of what? Defiance? Acceptance? Fear?

The Romantic movement of the early through late nineteen century was inspired by the idea of the Sublime: a thing awe-inspiring, a thing of superhuman grandeur, a thing of “terrible beauty.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/aug/19/scienceandnature

And what is, of all things, the one of the most terrifying beauty, the one that is more so than the chilling infinity of the Cosmos revealed by a cloudless sky in a moonless night, the ragged hills, the torrential rivers, the ferocious storms, the roaring hurricanes, the bolts of lightning that split the sky in two, the full majesty of Nature at its most ferocious and magnificent?

Death is.

Here I have put together three examples, already available in as many separate entries in this two-part thread, written a short time before each of their composers’ death and in the full realization of being in the presence of this ultimate and irreversible fact.

Schubert:

This heart wrenching composition, played here splendidly well — that was Franz Schubert’s swan song farewell, considered one of the finest works in all of chamber music:

Historic Schubert Quintet played by Brainin, Carlyss, Farulli, Metz and Berlinsky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUgFNWGPtQU

Beethoven:

This short passage, from the Quartet No. 13, that is one of the deepest, most moving and most loved of all string quartet movements:

Heifetz 2016: Beethoven | Cavatina of String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat, Op. 130.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-LcmrTKWBc

(And I like the remarks by the first violinist, before they start playing.)

Heifetz International Music Institute:

00:17 Introduction by Ji-Won Song
02:01 V. Cavatina: Allegro Molto Espressivo.

Richard Strauss “Four Last Songs”, that were, really, not just called that, but the last music he ever composed. It is, like Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”, a work inspired by the realization that life is coming to an end for the artist. Sang by the marvelous Gundula Janowitz, this is a work performed in a way that fits its “sublime” topic perfectly. Truly, the topic is one of ‘terrible beauty’, and these are songs to the magnificence of life and the inevitability of its end, when both are finally seen in calm acceptance, as in the name and theme of the last Song: “At Twilight.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANdPoigJ_qw

Gundula Janowitz, soprano, Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic.

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Bernard Haitink has died:

https://operawire.com/obituary-legendary-conductor-bernard-haitink-dies-at-92/

There are links in the Opera Wire article to two performances conducted by Maestro Haitink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Haitink

Also:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) – Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219 “The Turkish” (1775)
Isabelle Faust, violin, Bernard Haitink, conductor, Boston Symphony Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9njzsnFwFxA

Rest In Peace, Maestro Bernard Haitink (March 4, 1929 – October 21, 2021)!

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The why of the harp.

Listening this evening to this Mozart concerto for harp, flute and orchestra:

Mozart. Flute and Harp Concerto K299. Zubin Mehta, Julia Rovinsky, Guy Eshed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oj_2Lmb23A

I started wondering about the shape of the neck of the instrument, the gracefully curved part at the top.

So, why are harps shaped the way they are?
The reason is in the physics of sound-production with stringed instruments, the harp being one of these:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/life-and-physics/2012/may/12/harp-physics

The length and tension of a string, as well as the weight per unit length (density) of the material it is made of jointly determine the resulting sound produced by a string, in particular its timbre and its pitch.
The diatonic scale, augmented by the chromatic one of semitones, is the standard in Western classical music. The frequency of the notes doubles at every octave, so the sound of a note having frequency f1 in one octave, has a frequency of f2 = 2f1 in the next and fn = 2x2x2x … x2 f1 when separated by n octaves, or fn = f1 2^n. (“^n” here means “raised to the nth power”)
This is an exponential relationship, so the lengths of the strings, if these are made of the same material and are all kept at the same tension, would grow exponentially, getting exponentially bigger the more octaves the harp covers. This would result in impossibly large instrument pretty soon. So, by varying tension and composition of the strings along the instrument, the same range can be covered with a much smaller instrument.
But, as a result of this varying type of string, the curve of the neck does not follow an exponential curve ever rising above the sound box, but the graceful, manageably large, standard shape it has instead, so all harps can be made of the same size and shape to use the same kind of strings in length, materials and how they are tensed, making it possible for a person to be able first to learn to play and then to play the instrument anywhere they might be performing, be it in Greenland or in Mongolia.

The piano is, essentially, an horizontal or vertical harp with a elaborate keyboard and pedals mechanism for playing it instead of using fingers to pluck its strings and palms to dampen them. So the shape of this internal harp is also one where the part corresponding to the neck is curved in a similar way as in other harps.

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Recently released version of Weber’s Clarinet Concerto, with Timothy Orpen and the RSNO Chamber Ensemble, Glasgow. The players are mostly principals of the main Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LahlQHoZ-9s

I always think this is a lovely piece, liquid and totally tuneful.

Garth

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Weber has been neglected in this thread for too long, I’m afraid.
Thanks to Garth, this omission is beginning to be remedied.
(By the way, Weber’s delightful Clarinet Quintet, to me, sounds more like a Clarinet Concerto with a String Quartet accompaniment.)

Now more Weber:

Overture to “The Marksman” (Der Freischuz)

Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester, Carlos Kleiber Conductor, recorded in 1970.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Umd7w5cECE
This was the first German opera (as opposed to Austrian) that became famous and popular. And this performance of the Overture, led by one of the great conductors of last century in all its dramatic, suspenseful spookiness, is something to truly enjoy listening.
More about this opera:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Der-Freischutz

And another overture from Weber:

Carl Maria von Weber: Oberon Overture
Conductor: Zubin Mehta Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfKvesW59UM

 

Now, here is that always a favorite, Weber’s Top Hit, many times winner of the Extra-Shiny Golden Gramophone, or Grammy, etc., etc., etc. (And that false ending, that is just a silence, always fools everyone.) Way to go, Carl Maria!

Invitation to the Dance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf0on9TKtB4

Maestro Edvard Tchivzhel returns to St. Petersburg, Russia to once again conduct the St. Petersburg Philharmonic for the 100th anniversary of the legendary Yevgeni Mravinsky.

“He is, simply put, a master… There is an authority and authenticity in Maestro Tchivzhel’s music making that is indisputably commanding and communicative.” — Yo Yo Ma

OscarCP says: Nice tempo, too!

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It was wonderful last night to be able to experience a live concert again, after nearly two years! The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performed in Perth, Scotland, in Schumann’s 2nd Symphony, and coincidentally another Weber favourite, his 1st clarinet concerto. It was much appreciated by all that the orchestra came and performed, admittedly only about 45 strong rather than the more usual c70 performers, but that was doubtless due to social distancing.

Unfortunately this BBC orchestra don’t have the Weber work available on Youtube, but here is an equivalent with Jörg Widmann, who was indeed the director and clarinet soloist last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37kaymgFkUI

Garth

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This is a concerto I was not familiar with, so I did a bit of research and it turned out that: Yes! It is meant to be conducted, as usual, by someone with a baton and hand gestures directing the orchestra from the front of the stage.

Some concerti for the piano can be conducted by the soloist: Some of Mozart’s for example, because Mozart himself would conduct some of them from the piano, so he made it easier by the way he wrote those concerti. But in this case …

These Cologne musicians did it … how? It must have taken who knows how many rehearsals to get everything synchronized enough that the soloist, with both hands occupied most of the time playing the clarinet, could lead the orchestra with whole body movements requiring some acrobatic ability and sheer physical endurance. And also with the previously agreed actions that “the moment I play this note, in this measure, you, you and you do this like so, the rest does the other this way.” And, with all that to deal with, they not just pulled it off, but did it so splendidly.

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The Goldberg Variations heard from three players at three times in life:

Wanda Landowska:

I was 17 and she was no more, but the electronic ghost of her, playing from an old recording, opened wide the past of music to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jS873pDWNs

Glenn Gould:

A stranger in a strange land, I was getting lost; this music, from his piano, was the way back to myself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwas_7H5KUs

Jean Rondeau:

In a grim time of disappointment, hatred, cruel lies, an invisible bringer of death, and corrosive fear, listening to this recording I understood that some good endures, that not all beauty is lost, that life still has some meaning and can and must go on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AtOPiG5jyk

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Here is some more Weber and a (somewhat more sedated) “Invitation to the Dance”, not to be pointlessly redundant, even if I would not mind that when I really like something like this “Invitation”, but because of the fantastic old setting of this performance. Watch as well as listen, and feast your eyes!
Here, in the fading days of the Autro-Hungarian Empire, direct successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Habsburgs, even years before of the Great War that put an end to it, the remaining of Central Europe kaiserliche Funktionäre, Aristokraten, Könige, Kaisers and Keiserinnen, having arrived in their carriages, along with the commoners that were notables of the Realm (and probably included, more than once, the likes of Thomas Mann, Gustav Mahler, Sigmund Freud, Anna Mahler, Gustav Klein, Erwin Schrödinger (minus that questionable cat), Stefan Zweig …), sat on these very balconies and front rows, slightly more than a century ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvDne3ToM8

(And, as always, an audience fooled again by that false finale!)

And a propos of nothing, in the same hall but a decade earlier, another event worth listening:

Vienna Philharmonic, 1993 New Year Concert, Ricardo Muti conductor. (Commentary is in Spanish: I don’t mind.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uzbsO3rSxY

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Carlos Kleiber and the Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester in the 1970 Rehersal of Weber’s overture to “Der Freishütz”, the resulting performance already linked in another recently posted comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVk2Glu-7kM

This great conductor is all business: he explains, he inspires, he encourages: all that is necessary to get a good outcome from an assortment of individuals playing different instruments and with different ideas as to how to use them. And doing nothing more.
He is demanding, in each case, but for a reason This reason, his reason, might not be a conventional one the musicians are used to, but he makes this reason clear in simple terms to them. He is not showing off or being critically sarcastic in front of, or towards those who had no choice but to put up with him. That is a mark of true greatness in any occupation deign of being considered important.

The soundtrack is, naturally, in German. I doubt this matters, what counts is the attitude, that comes through just fine.

 

And this BBC documentary is all about who and what was this man, his mystery, his talent, his characteristic and unique genius. With commentaries of those who worked with him, such as the opera singer Plácido Domingo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2EUsV2UJ7M

 

And also this:

Beethoven – Symphony No 7 – Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, Carlos Kleiber Conductor (1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNYk0jI1cio

As someone commenting in YouTube has noted, at times Kleiber is not just conducting: he is drawing the music in the air. This might not make sense until one watches this performance.

 

Finally:

Carlos Kleiber: Tristan Prelude & Isolde Liebestod (Wagner):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nYVxH2M7sY

(Never mind the somewhat noisy recording, what comes through is simply amazing.)

 

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The why of the piano.

Everyone with a minimum of interest in music has seen, some time or another, a grand piano. Or more likely still, a vertical one.

Earlier on I wrote a comment titled “The why of the harp”, where I mentioned, in a brief paragraph at the very end, that pianos were in fact harps, horizontal or vertical, depending on whether it was a grand piano (or a baby grand) or a more common vertical  piano, like the one at the parlor of my grandparents’ house, that my dear Aunt “Lela” used to play when trying to attract the interest of her very own prince or knight in shining armor at a time when playing the piano was one of the important social graces a young lady of a respectable family should pursue to acquire and perfect, with the lofty goal of snaring a good catch. Although my aunt did played the piano because she liked doing it. Getting a good catch was not going to be a problem for her, with her great looks and clever social skills.

Yes, pianos are harps (as were their predecessors of the keyboard instrument variety, such as the harpsichord, clavichord, etc.), but there are big differences between pianos played with keyboard and pedals, and the harps played with fingertips to pluck the strings and produce their sound, and palms to dampen them. And also similitudes, of course. In last analysis, harps are harps.

So here is a general view of what is inside of a piano:

Two major differences immediately noticed looking inside of the piano and are: (1) that the string corresponding to one note can be in fact a group of three strings, all tuned to the same pitch and placed side by side. And (2) that the sound box in the harp is replaced by a board and also with the space beneath, where there is a wooden support structure resting on the bottom of the piano’s box and leaving open spaces between its struts. The length of each string that is free to vibrate and produce sound is determined by the corresponding pin in the pinblock, at the front of the piano, next and parallel to the keyboard, and by the bridge, a curved piece of wood glued or screwed into the sound board. This bridge is curved in a way that somewhat resembles the curved neck (the long piece at the top) of a smaller traditional, or of a larger concert pedal, harp, and its shape is so for the same reasons already explained when discussing the shape of the harp in “The why of the harp.”

Then there is the elaborate mechanism for striking the strings, beginning with the pushing of the corresponding keys, followed by the transmission of this movement to the hammers and dampers that make and then quell the sound, plus the pedals that cause, when depressed, for the strings to vibrate freely or mutedly, change the timbre and volume of their sound by striking more or fewer strings in a group of three, allow certain strings, when a pedal and their corresponding keys are depressed together, to keep sounding for as long as desired until the pedal is released, to produce rich harmonic effects, etc.

And here is the corresponding detailed description and explanation:

https://www.europianosnaples.com/how-a-grand-piano-works/

Finally here, another two articles on two important parts of the piano no covered in the previous one:

https://www.piano.christophersmit.com/frame.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_pedals

I’ll leave you to it. You can comment on all this later, if you so wish.

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As Oscar said some time ago, “there has not been enough Mozart here”, and rather surprisingly there has not been any performance of his Flute Concerto No.1 in G major in either part of this thread. I propose to remedy that with one released earlier this year by the RSNO with Principal Flute Katherine Bryan taking the lead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlgVrBzD95M

As with all recent live performances, the orchestra is considerably diminished for safety reasons, but in this case that is not really a problem. I suspect with an orchestra of less than 30 we are getting back more towards what the composer might have experienced in the late 18th Century.

And for good measure, the Mozart Oboe concerto in C major by the same orchestra, with Principal Adrian Wilson in the lead, again conducted by Gregory Batsleer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvWWlkGOHwk

Whatever the case, it’s always good to get back to Mozart!

Garth

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OscarCP

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About Katherine Bryan. And flutes in general:

Excellent flute player and a fine interpretation of Mozart.
(Also interesting choice of décolletage.)
It looks like she is a well-regarded flute-player:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Bryan

It says in this article that in 2003, at age 21, soon after graduating from the well-regarded Juilliard School of Music, she made her debut at New York’s Lincoln Center playing the very concerto by Mozart kindly linked by Garth in his previous comment, and that she has had a distinguished career since.

Also she is the principal flute at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Good of the RSNO to put these shows: it may not be not quite the same as in old times, but they are a sign of recovery and a source of hope for us who are still not too sure what is now the best way forward in this covid mess.

Old times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDrVtXPpuRI

New times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUmsTNsind8

The transverse flute she is playing represents where things stand now with an instrument that has been evolving over many millennia.

The flute is one of the most ancient of musical instruments, the oldest known being dated to more than 40,000 years ago, during the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic).
These flutes were not only made by modern humans, essentially like us, but also by Neanderthals, which puts a new twist in the commonly held idea that they were not sentient enough to invent some form of art:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_flutes

And here is more Katherine Bryan playing, in 2015, an arrangement for solo flute of Massenet’s “Meditation” from his opera “Thaïs.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIMSlHoao6E

And here is more “Meditation”, delightfully played by two young ladies I’ve never heard of, one in flute, the other in harp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L50mCM2yHIY

Then there is my story of playing a quena, a Quechua flute from the high Andes, with a design from at least the time of the Incas (originally made also with the long leg bone of a condor, as bird bones are hollow).
One of my female relatives had given it to me as a present, and I had repaired to play it far from anyone else, one day during a school vacation, when I was staying with an aunt that had a state out in the country. So I found a conveniently shaped tree and sat on its roots, leaning against the trunk and there played and played. After a while something made me look around and then I saw some twelve cows, forming a semicircle of some eight or ten meters in radius and centered on me, listening attentively. Best audience I ever had.

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OK: The time for unleashing onslaughts of deserved superlatives on someone’s work is right now:

When it comes to superb musical works, J.S. Bach’s partitas and sonatas for solo violin are music of incomparable power and beauty, because they are, along with his sonatas for solo violoncello, first and foremost, some of the greatest works of art ever created by a human mind.
These recordings of performances by Arthur Grumiaux, who was one the greatest of great violinists of the last century, with pops, scratches and all, are pure joy to listen to:

Bach Arthur Grumiaux ‎– Complete Sonatas And Partitas For Solo Violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKy-X_3OQfw

And for those who can read music, the score is shown in the video, page following page, as the music plays on.

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The slow and eerily beautiful song cycle “The nights of summer” by Hector Berlioz:

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) Les Nuits d’été, Op. 7 (with lyrics from poems by Théophile Gautier)

Nicolai Gedda, tenor (11 Jul.1925 – 08 Jan.2017)   Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Silvio Varviso, Feb. 25, 1968.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jebFUgG7KKs

1. Villanelle                       Villanelle (a kind of song)
2. Le spectre de la rose   The ghost of the rose
3. Sur les lagunes            On the lagoons
4. Absence                       Absence
5. Au cimetière                 At the cemetery
6. L’Île Inconnue              The Unknown Island

Villanelle

When the new season has come,
when the cold has disappeared,
together we will go, my lovely one,
to gather lilies-of the valley in the woods.
Beneath our feet picking the pearls
that one sees trembling in the morning.
We will go to hear the blackbirds whistle.

Spring has come, my lovely one,
this is the month blessed by lovers;
and the bird, smoothing its wing,
speaks its verses from the rim of its nest.
Oh! Come here, onto this mossy bank
to speak of our beautiful love,
and say to me, in your sweet voice,
Forever!

Far, very far, wandering from our path,
setting to flight the hidden rabbit,
and the buck, in the mirror of the spring
admiring its great twisted antlers;
then home, all happy and at ease,
lacing our fingers together like baskets,
we’ll return, carrying wild strawberries.

II The ghost of the rose

Lift your closed eyelids,
touched by a virginal dream!
I am the ghost of a rose
which you wore last night at the ball.

You took me, still pearled
with silver tears from the watering can,
and, throughout the star-filled festival
you carried me all the evening.

Oh you who were the cause of my death,
without your being able to chase it away,
every night my rose-colored ghost
will dance by your pillow.

But fear nothing; I claim
neither mass nor requiem.
This light perfume is my soul,
and I have come from paradise.

My destiny is worthy of envy
and to have a fate so beautiful
more than one might have given his life;
since your bosom is my tomb,

And upon the alabaster where I rest
a poet has written with a kiss:
“Here lies a rose
which all kings might envy.”

III On the lagoons

My beautiful friend is dead;
I will weep forever.
Into the tomb she has carried
my soul and my heart.
To heaven, without waiting for me,
she has returned;
the angel who led her
did not want to take me.
How bitter is my fate!
Ah! To go to sea without love!

The fair creature
is lying in her coffin;
how everything in nature
seems to me to be in mourning!
The forsaken dove
weeps and dreams of the absent one.
My soul weeps and feels
that it has lost its partner!
How bitter is my fate!
Ah! To go to sea without love!

Over me the immense night
spreads itself like a shroud.
I sing my romance
which only heaven hears:
Ah! How beautiful she was
and how I loved her!
I will never love
another woman as much as I loved her…
How bitter is my fate!
Ah! To go to sea without love!

IV Absence

Return, return, my beloved!
Like a flower far from the sun,
the flower of my life is closed
far from your brilliant smile!

Between our hearts what distance!
What space between our kisses!
O bitter fate! O hard absence!
O great, unappeasable desires!

Return, return…

Between here and there what fields,
what cities and towns,
what valleys and mountains
to weary the feet of the horses!
Return, return…

V At the cemetery (Moonlight)

Do you know the white tomb,
where floats, with a plaintive sound,
the shadow of a yew-tree?
On the yew a pale dove,
sad and alone in the sunset,
sings its song:

A melody morbidly tender,
at once charming and deadly,
which will do you harm
and which one wishes to listen to forever;
a melody like the sighing in heaven
of an angel in love.

One might say that an awakened soul
weeps beneath the earth together
with the song,
and, in sorrow at having been forgotten,
laments by cooing
very sweetly.

On the wings of the music
one slowly feels returning
a memory.
A shadow, an angelic form
passes in a ray of trembling light,
veiled in white.

The half-closed Marvels of Peru*
spread their delicate and sweet perfume
about you,
and the ghost, standing limply,
murmurs, holding her arms out to you:
“You will return!”

*Flowers also known as “Four O’clocks”

Oh! Never again will I go near the tomb
when evening falls
in its black robe,
to listen to the pale dove
singing, on the branch of the yew-tree,
its plaintive song.

VI

The unknown island

Tell me, pretty young girl,
where do you wish to go?
The sail spreads its wing,
the breeze is beginning to blow.

The oar is of ivory,
the flag of silk,
the rudder of pure gold;
for ballast I have an orange,
for sail the wing of an angel,
for cabin-boy, a seraph.

Tell me…

Is it to the Baltic sea?
To the Pacific ocean?
To the island of Java?
Or is it rather to Norway,
to gather snow-flowers,
or the flowers of Angsoka?

Tell me, tell me, where do you want to go?

“Take me,” says the pretty one,
“to the faithful shore
where people love forever!”
That shore, my dear,
is almost unknown
in the country of love.

Where do you want to go?
The breeze is beginning to blow.

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GarthP

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A wonderful tenor, Nicolai Gedda.

Garth

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Beethoven was 31 when he composed his Sonata No. 5 for violin and piano, and still had another 25 fruitful years to live and continue to produce one of the most masterful, beautiful and consequential bodies of work in the history of Western music.

To me this has been, since I first heard it many years ago, when I was the same age as Beethoven when he composed it, my favorite sonata, not only of those by Beethoven, but of all the sonatas in the classical repertoire I am familiar with.
I am not saying this is the best sonata ever, but my best loved one.

The music in this video I am linking here, performed by two exceptionally gifted musicians (recorded oh, so long ago!), tastes in my mind, feels in my heart, like the distillation of all the sweetness, the hope, the poignancy and the delight of the bewitching and ephemeral beauty of life:

David Oistrach and Lev Oborin: Beethoven Violin Sonata No.5, Op.24, the “Spring Sonata.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfm-zJLYWB8

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Organist Xaver Varnus plays J.S. Bach toccata and fugue in D minor on Berlin’s cathedral Grand W. Sauer organ in front of a full-capacity audience during the Berlin International Organ Summer Festival 2013:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHNLdHe8uxY

The organ:
This organ has a very large number of pipes (over 7,000), more than 100 registers (*)  and six keyboards: four manuals and two pedals:

https://www.berlinerdom.de/en/visiting/about-the-cathedral/great-sauer-organ/

The organ’s maker:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Sauer

Excerpts from the article on the organ:

” At its inauguration in 1905, the organ was considered to be the largest in Germany with 7269 pipes and 113 registers, which were spread across four manuals and pedals. Organ designer to the court, Wilhelm Sauer, from Frankfurt/Oder created an instrument that, at the time, embodied the latest in technological and musical innovation to be found in German organ design.

The organ thus met the high standards set by the awarding authorities and the organ designer: at the Evangelical Cathedral in the capital city of Berlin, it was envisaged that a prestigious, modern and exceptionally high-quality instrument should deliver a beautiful sound.”

“The Berlin Cathedral organ embodies the pinnacle of design efforts by Sauer, and also signals the end of the long-term development of Romantic orchestral organs, whose tonal characteristics were a perfect fit with the Symphony Orchestras of the time.”

“Today the organ found in Berlin Cathedral is the largest preserved organ in its original state, dating back to the ‘Late Romantic’ period.”

(*) (*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_stop

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This is a thread dedicated to the great performances of classical music available on YouTube and similar streaming services.
I’m sure this one, barely 26 minutes long, qualifies:

J.S. Bach – Magnificat In D Major, BWV 243 | John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir – Period Instruments
Nancy Argenta: Soprano I
Patrizia Kwella: Soprano II
Charles Brett: Alto
Anthony Rolfe-Johnson: Tenor
David Thomas: Bass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJQJkZKay2Q

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And as great is as great does, here is a great and possibly historical performance that certainly belongs in this thread:

Ravi & Anoushka Shankar in  concert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIQrUZLyATo

Four Ragas (*)

There is no information as to when this performance took place, or who were the guys accompanying on tabla drums, but it might have been back in the 70s.

The following comment, published in the same page of the video, is interesting:

“Shankar performed at the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, held at Madison Square Garden in New York. After the musicians had tuned up on stage for over a minute, the crowd of rock-music fans broke into applause, to which the amused Shankar responded, “If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.” I will never forget it !”

While I have remarked several times that this thread is primarily for classical music in the Western tradition (and good non-classical, such as Bossa Nova, etc., examples of this already here and in Part I), that is simply because I do not know much about other traditions and might recommend something not so great. But with these artists even I can’t go wrong.

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raga

“Rāgas, in the Hindu tradition, are believed to have a natural existence. Artists don’t invent them, they only discover them. Music appeals to human beings, according to Hinduism, because they are hidden harmonies of the ultimate creation.“

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Some people, after listening to some of Mozart’s quick and dirty made-to-order works, may ask: And this guy was supposed to be such a genius? Really?

Well, listening to this one, they will have to agree that, yes, he was:

Mozart | Clarinet quintet K581 in A major – Armida Quartet, Sabine Meyer Clarinet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTNbclgU3h4

Martin Funda, Violin
Johanna Staemmler, Viloin
Teresa Schwamm, Viola
Peter-Phlilipp Staemmler, Violoncello

Very good recording: Good to listen to, and also to look at:

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GarthP

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There are some musical performances the memory of which forever I carry with me, recorded in my memory and in my heart, because of their intrinsic beauty and excellence and also because of peripheral factors that, in the context of where and when the performance took place, are relevant and must be kept in mind.

Of those performances, this is one:

BEETHOVEN Concerto for Violin and Orchestra – Hilary Hahn, violin; Leonard Slatkin, conductor, Detroit Symphony Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cg_0jepxow

From a musical point of view, not only is this performance remarkably good in general, but it has moments such as the long cadenza, where the violinist plays solo while the conductor keeps his hands on his lap and the musicians held still, while some in the orchestra are obviously very impressed by what the soloist is creating, as if by magic, out of thin air by vibrating just four strings with a piece of wood and horse hair, towards the end of the first movement. There the soloist does a rendition that is past excellent, because it is the performance of a lifetime.

And this goes beyond the performance itself: it is played in the city of Detroit in the State of Michigan in the United States of America.
This used to be the world capital of automobile making, and also a place where aspiring and consecrated popular composers, musicians and singers would throng to put together and play and sing songs that were very often top of the charts.

Then the two oil crises of the late Seventies happened; the more fuel-frugal autos from Japan and Europe started to be bought by people that could no longer afford the price of gasoline the gas-guzzlers locally made needed to keep running, because of the accompanying economic crisis …

And then the majestic, sparkling, chrome and fin-tailed carriages coming out of the great Michigan car factories started to loose buyers.

And then, one by one, the car factories started to close, leaving thousands of many until then well-paid workers out of work, for whom a source of pride was what they used to do in their jobs. And many of the factories never reopened.

And then this snowballed right into the local businesses and these closed down too.

And then this great city went into a decline that has lasted, mercilessly, more than three decades and from which, so far, it has never fully recovered.

And so it became many sad things, the saddest, in my own mind, what I call “The City that Fun Forgot.”

So watching this performance does make me happy, does warm my heart, because of where and when it happened, because for a magical hour, people there are obviously having fun. After days of hard work rehearsing, the musicians are flying in their minds, carried aloft as if by a great wind of music, while great music is flying from their fingers and their mouths. And there are smiles in many lips, certainly in those of the soloist, that are the easiest to spot.
And more smiles when people, carried out by their enthusiasm after hearing that long, incredible cadenza, start applauding out of turn, just at the end of the first movement.

And this great and lovable man, Leonard Slatkin, is conducting the attentive musicians of the orchestra as the true Maestro he is, but there is something kind and soft in the demeanor of this massive bear of a man.

According to Wikipedia:

“Slatkin is credited with having rebuilt the DSO [Detroit Symphonic Orchestra] after a six-month strike and elevating it as a pillar of civic pride through innovative live webcasts and engaging community programming”

The long cadenza:

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Mitsuko Uchida is one of the great pianists of our day and has been so for many years.
She belongs to the group of greatest piano performers of the last 100 years, with a few others, such as Marta Argerich, Claudio Arrau, Wilhem Kemp, Arthur Rubinstein.

She is famous as an interpreter of Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven.
Here there are three videos of her playing three works, one from each of those composers, in her characteristically passionate way:

Schubert Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat: Mitsuko Uchida, piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7cc2FD06FM

 

Here, in Part I of this this thread: #2297935  there is an spectacular rendition of Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20, where she conducts from the piano the Camerata Salzburg..

And here is she playing her favorite Mozart concerto:

Mozart Piano Concerto No 25 C major K 503: Mitsuko Uchida, piano, Riccardo Muti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIjAGbyQO9M

 

Seiji Ozawa is one of the best orchestra conductors of the 20th Century still with us and still conducting. He has worked in several countries and some of the main orchestras of the USA, Europe and Japan. He started working with Herbert von Karajan in Berlin and then with the New York Philarmonic as Leonard Bernstein’s Assistant Conductor. He founded the International Saito Kinen Orchestra, named after his tutor the music teacher Hideo Saito, where performers from other countries and Japan have come regularly to play together for almost thirty years.
Recently a book, “Absolutely on Music”, a compilation of his conversations with the writer Haruki Murakami and written by the later, has been published by Vintage, where he reminisces and comments on the performers, orchestras and conductors that he has known in the course of his long and remarkable life.

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”): Mitsuko Uchida, piano, Seiji Ozawa Conducting the Saito Kinen Ochestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQHrNdjUPDc

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Tribute to an old dear friend who passed away this week.

Pavane pour un enfent defunte, Ravel

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2_c8JRCKq1A

 

 

 

 

* _ ... _ *

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Fred: What a lovely performance.
Sorry about the sad news. The more we live, the more leaves us.

If it is any help, here is something that can take one’s mind far away from the here and now:

Rimski-Korsakov : Shéhérazade, Orchestre National de France, Emmanuel Krivine conductor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwbRnNTOoZ8

Parts: “The Sea and Sinbad’s ship”, “The Story of Prince Kalender”, “The Young Prince and the Princess”, “The Party in Baghdad”; “The sea” ; “Shipwreck of the ship on the rocks.”

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Fred

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Oscar, that’s right…. This is so beautiful that one drifts off into new dreams and worlds.
But first, the pain of loss must be put into some kind of perspective. Now the wound of delayed treatments and misinformation is too fresh;
Here healthcare has been stripped down too much here in recent years. The good health system that was had to make way for privatization (sounds familiar?). Even the wishes for the very last steps got bogged down in bureaucracy.
Trying to find new motivation right now.

* _ ... _ *

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This is what I call a great performance:
(I believe that the applause at the end of the first two movements are not mistakes of the audience, but well-earned rewards, as certainly is the rapturous final ovation. As is the nice bouquet of mostly roses Ms. Diakun gets at the end, instead of the usual hydrangeas and sunflowers.)

Dvorak Symphony No 9 “Of the New World”, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mazena Diakun conducting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV0KkYUa6iA

This Polish lady conductor gives, at first hearing, at least in my not very authoritative opinion, clear signs that she may have what it takes to become — with enough good luck, that is always necessary — one of the great conductors of the 21st Century.
Not everybody that is not yet a very famous conductor and is invited to direct such a famous orchestra gets out of it, after just several rehearsals, such a splendid performance of such a well-known work.
If you love symphonic music that is well-played, I think that you should pay attention to her career. She is going places.

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What is a “sonata”?
Well, it’s been different things at different times:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zwjnsbk/revision/4

Excerpts:

” During the Baroque period (roughly 1600–1750) the word ‘sonata’ was used quite loosely meaning a piece to be ‘played’ rather than ‘sung’. ‘Sonata’ was generally applied to small instrumental works. There was no set form or number of movements. ”

Glenn Gould & Yehudi Menuhin – Bach, Sonata No. 4 in C minor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boii0EA6hWo

….

” In the Classical period (roughly 1750-1810) ‘sonata’ came to mean a work in several movements. It was usually three, with the first movement in a special sonata form. Sonatas were a popular and important form, and many were composed for amateur performers to play at home.
During the Classical period the harpsichord had been largely replaced by the piano. Many piano sonatas were written and many composers wrote sonatas for a solo instrument and piano. Violin, cello and flute sonatas were all popular.

Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven all wrote piano sonatas, violin sonatas and cello sonatas.”

Mozart Piano Sonata No 16 C major K 545 Barenboim, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vDxlnJVvW8

….

” During the Romantic period (roughly the 19th Century) some well-known composers such as Brahms, Liszt and Chopin contributed important works to the sonata repertoire.

The ensemble sonata (for solo instrument and piano) retained much of its popularity, violin sonatas and cello sonatas in particular.

Brahms and Schumann both wrote violin sonatas. Brahms also wrote two clarinet sonatas.”

Brahms – Piano Sonata No.3 in F minor, Op.5 – Claudio Arrau, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KDAe2GtYmw

….

“During the late 19th Century, the piano sonata slowly lost its popularity as composers broke away from the traditional form.

Although sonatas continue to be composed, sonata form is very rarely used for the first movement.

The 20th Century French composer Poulenc was fond of the form and wrote sonatas for many instruments including oboe, clarinet and flute.”

Poulenc: Sonata for Violin & Piano, FP 119 — Janine Jansen, violin / Alexander Gavrylyuk, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3AbYdl0tOI

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Two concerts of solo guitar by two of the top guitar players of the day:

Ana Vidovic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZRtBJRQ80w

00:10 J.S. Bach: Partita in E major, BWV 1006a
-Prelude
04:30 J.S.Bach: Violin Sonata No. 1, BWV 1001
04:30 -Adagio
08:26 -Fuga
13:12 Domenico Scarlatti:
13:12 Sonata in D minor, K. 1, L. 366
16:02 Sonata in D minor, K. 213, L. 108
21:27 Mauro Giuliani: Gran Sonata Eroica, Op. 150
30:44 Francisco Tarrega: Capricho Arabe

Alexandra Wittingham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPhmaUsWX50

00:00 Sonata K.333 by Domenico Scarlatti on a 2021 Jean Marquet
3:46 Sonata in D minor K.213 by Domenico Scarlatti on a 2021 Jean Marquet
10:48 Minuet by Fernando Sor on a 1938 Julian Gomez Ramirez
13:25 Fantasia for Guitar by Roberto Gerhard on a 2021 Andreas Kirschner
18:15 Légende Op. 201 by Ernest Shand on a 1938 Julian Gomez Ramirez
21:05 Le Départ by Napoelon Coste on a 1968 Daniel Friederich
30:35 Forgotten Impromptu by Madame Sidney Pratten on a 1938 Julian Gomez Ramirez

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Modern composers, from around the 1910 – 1920s onward, are not the most popular, although they are much appreciated by many. In my own case, Bela Bartók is one of my favorite modern composers,  Sergei Prokofiev is another, and I am happy to include in this thread this two piano concerti, one from each, performed by one of my favorite pianists. Who, in both performances, earns big ovations, one of them an standing one. If you want to know why, you’ll just have to watch the videos:

These are the kind of compositions where, to an unusual degree, silences are as important as notes in some passages. It is the mark of a superb pianist to be able to give them all their right values. Glenn Gould, Mitsuke Uchida, and Martha Argerich are among those who have been able to do this consistently.

Martha Argerich plays Bartók’s Piano Concerto No.3 (cond. Bashmet) – Japan, 2007

Martha Argerich, piano
Toho Gakuen Orchestra
Yuri Bashmet, conductor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlJP4fAckpM

Martha Argerich Plays Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3 | Singapore International Piano Festival 2018

Martha Argerich, piano
Darío Alejandro Ntaca, conductor
Singapore Symphony Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS0SwRoYAW0

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And after a second hearing of the pieces above, I am back here to point out that, after more than 60 years of public performing, from a time when those who were born then are now getting close to retiring, at the end of their careers, Martha Argerich remains supremely in possession of her ability to amaze at the piano. She is probably the most gifted pianist in generations — and she is a gift herself.

Her playing of the beautiful and diabolically fast passages in those two compositions, the Prokofiev in particular, is as fast and as accurate and with such deep understanding of the drama and humor of the music as it ever has been, and so is her playing of the slower and Jazz-redolent syncopations of the long passage that starts at 26 minutes. Her ability to render an unforgettable performance has lost nothing in the sixty-odd years since the beginnings of her extraordinary international career. The huge standing ovation at the end of her performance by the crowded audience, three years ago, in Singapore, is an eloquent demonstration of how loved an admired around the world this amazing woman truly is.

For those of us who are of much the same age as Martha, hers is an encouraging example that great things are still possible; that, as the world moves on, so still can we.

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GarthP

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Oscar, that Prokofiev work I did not know, and although he is not one of my favourites, there is certainly a great vitality there. And what a tour de force – the technical difficulty is so great, Argerich simply makes it look so easy. I think there would be many concert pianists half her age who would settle for something quite a lot less than that performance.

Half an hour of extremely demanding technical ability, and she looks as fresh as a daisy at the end. What a performance!

Garth

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Garth: “I think there would be many concert pianists half her age who would settle for something quite a lot less than that performance.”

Quite true. I believe that even such greats as Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz did not touch this Prokofiev concert when it was already very much around in their time and one that, by contemporary music standards, is close enough to the Late Romantic stuff they played often enough. Of course, it could have been a simple matter of not liking this work, rather than finding it too much like hard work, but for whatever reason, I believe that they did not play it.

Rubinstein did not ignore Prokofiev, as he played and recorded, for example, this brief selection from the opera “Love and Three Oranges”, a work that I already have commented on in Part I:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S485XY07kIY

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Here is a little music presented in a light-hearted manner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILNDWCLVnpw

Classical doesn’t have to be stuffy!

I hope it brings a smile to everyone at this festive time. Have an enjoyable and safe Christmas!

Garth

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OscarCP

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Great Mall, great performance, very impressive the entrance of the various musicians with their instruments. Good choice of music for the occasion too: Ravel’s Bolero is ideal, because it does not matter if one comes late to listening, one does not miss much.

Here, in the USA Malls are not considered cool anymore in many places (although they are the result of poor public transportation, so one needs to drive to wherever one has to go and get a place to park the car once there, where there is ready access to plenty of different shops. Malls have been, and still are, the answer to this problem.

For example, a very good and elegant mall not far from where I live, with shops that specialized in quality stuff, was bough by a company that decided to demolish it and build a sort of mini-town with shops instead of houses.. The demolition happened, after much litigation by some owners of “anchor shops,” but the mini-town did not. So, on the rubble of the old mall, grass and weeds and substantial trees (the demolition was several years ago) now grow thick on it: Nature has retaken the place. It is a sort of mini-demonstration of what the world will be like once we humans are not around anymore.

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A rather similar thing has happened in the city of Nottingham, where following the demise of a shopping centre company in 2020, the former Broadmarsh Centre has stood as nothing more than a half-demolished shell.

The site was handed back to Nottingham City which immediately appointed an advisory group and held a consultation which gathered more than 3,000 responses from people expressing their views on what should come next.

The Broad Marsh area used to be a much more orchestrated and organised street space and it used to work very well, but what happened is the Broadmarsh [Centre] itself killed a lot of the way the city worked. The new plan is to bring back many of the streets and routes around the city because  they used to work really well. Add to that a process of part rewilding – a “green heart”, a highly-requested feature during the public consultation – with a baby oak tree from Sherwood Forest in the centre, and “there will be a beautiful panoramic space in the middle of the city.”

It seems to me that most people like their surroundings to be kept at a human scale, with plenty of greenery, at least here in the UK.

Garth

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Garth: Here in the USA too, many of us would like to live in cities built to a human scale, where one can use public transport, walk or bike to one’s destination without the fear of being run over by cars, trucks, minivans, etc., and can also enjoy plenty of greenery. The problem is that our cities are built around the automobile, a triumph of auto makers over good civic planning. And if one value one’s life or the possession of the usual number of limbs, then better avoid crossing the broad, multi-lane “streets” that run through neighborhoods in many places. This, in many ways, is a very strange country. And the only one I know that has a National Anthem that no one that is not a professional singer really can sing. For example, as sang here by one of my favorite singers and pop stars, because she really has brains, a style all her own and can really sing without half swallowing the microphone!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Fw2cxQspM

“The rockets red flare” and most of the rest is about “the War of 1812”, when the Brits came to teach the bad-mannered locals, who had left the Empire with such bad grace,  a thing or two.

So they took over Washington, their commanding officers had dinner in the White House, helping themselves to what was ready to eat there and had been left untouched by its now absent residents as they left in a hurry, quaffed some fine wines and liquors from the cellar and then, for a bit of spectacle, torched part of the town, and moved on.

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Hmmm  … “the rockets red glare” not “flare.”

For more information, that line goes further to mention “the bombs bursting in air”; the rockets were British, the bombs were fired from American cannons, in reply.

The first stanza of the anthem, the part of it that actually is sang as far as I know, goes:

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner

As an ex-resident of Baltimore and having always lived near this city, I know that this is about the Battle of Baltimore, during the War of 1812, when British forces attempted a naval attack on this even then major port city and were beaten back.

The war ended later, after the British forces left Baltimore alone and sailed to New Orleans and continued the campaign for a while there, until news got finally from Europe that a treaty to end hostilities had been signed in Ghent.

Even then, some more fighting was needed to persuade the British to leave altogether, as the British did not accept that they were fighting in US territory, as their government did not regard as valid the Louisiana Purchase of New Orleans and a big chunk of North America by the USA from the French during the government of Napoleon, then the First Consul of the 1st French Republic. (Napoleon considered that keeping the Louisiana was not worth the trouble, for various reasons and was happy to get cash for the land)

That was in 1803. The next year the French Senate proclaimed what, in the event, was to be the 1st Empire, with Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor.

The USA kept the Louisiana, a territory that today includes a big part of the Midwestern and Southern states.

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This thread, divided in two parts, I and II, is perhaps the longest in AskWoody.

It is about great performances of “classical” music, although the definition of “classical” means more than the concert hall or opera house type of music, although here it is mostly about these two. But what is a classic? Well, it is something that makes such a deep mark on any kind of art that it determines the successive works of others in that art form, be it “serious” or “popular.” Both kinds are represented here, from J.S. Bach (contrapunctal baroque), to Joao Gilberto (Bossa Nova), to Ray Charles (Rhythm and Blues), to Dolly Parton (Country).

Now, in the Northern Hemisphere winter deepens, so it is good to stay warm at home; and many of us in the northern latitudes, particularly those older and perhaps not in the best of health, are reluctant to leave home because of the current pandemic. Older people have reminiscences, with whole lifetimes of subject matter to reminisce about.

Winter and reminiscences and being more isolated than ever before in many cases, make for the ideal time to reminisce and to meditate on things that are deep, personally moving, basic and even mysterious.

So here are some compositions that I think are ideal to inspire serious and often calm — if at times intensely moving — reminiscing, reflecting and daydreaming, executed by true masters of their art.

These works are all by the great 20th century composer Dmitri Shostakovich, starting with his first violin concerto, and then the whole set of his quartets, some of the most transcendental compositions in this genre.

So listen and daydream, in the warmth of your home, when the sunlight hours are short and it’s mostly night, often under grey skies, sometimes when snowing outside, while the wind calls from the naked branches of trees and from the moaning vortices it forms as it turns around the building:

Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No.1 in A minor – Hilary Hahn, violin; Riccardo Chailly conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J_kyHTbQcM&ab_channel=furbru

Shostakovich – String Quartets 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15; the Borodin String Quartet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-L2vG8nM1M&ab_channel=ClassicalMusic%2F%2FReferenceRecording

Piano : Sviatoslav Richter. Borodin String Quartet Violin : Mikhail Kopelman & Andrei Abramenkov Viola : Dmitri Shebalin Cello : Valentin Berlinsky Recorded in 1978-84, at Moscow. New Mastering in 2020 by AB for CMRR

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The Vienna Philharmonic presents its traditional New Year Concert on January 1st of every year since 1941, during probably the worst war in history, and has continued to do so through good and bad times and this New Year of 2022, however the year ahead turns out to be, is not going to be an exception. The concert is staged in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, the home of the Vienna Philharmonic and the video, as in the past, will show not only the orchestra playing but also accompanying clips of ballet performances by the Vienna State Ballet in various venues, including open air ones, around Vienna.

The actual event will start at 11:15 AM Central European Time, in Vienna, that is six hours earlier in the USA, but it will be streamed by PBS at more convenient time in the USA and, I hope, elsewhere as well.

https://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/en/newyearsconcert

A brief outline of events and information as to where to watch the concert online:

https://www.myworldevents.com/new-years-eve/vienna-new-year-concert.html

Excerpts:

“The New Year’s Concert will be conducted by Daniel Barenboim and include compositions by Josef Hellmesberger, Johann Strauss Jr, Josef Strauss, Carl Michael Ziehrer, Eduard Strauss, Johann Strauss senior.”

“Live Stream, TV Coverage

The New Year concert from Vienna is broadcast around the world in many different countries and watched by an audience of many millions. In the UK is has been part of the BBC new year programming schedule for several years now, generally shown live on BBC2.

You can watch this coverage online here:

BBC2 live stream

https://www.filmon.tv/channel/bbc-two

In the US this is also being live streamed online by PBS as part of their Great Performances schedule:

Vienna new year on PBS  [Delayed broadcast at 8:00 PM EST]

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/great-performance-from-vienna-the-new-years-celebration-2022-about/13282/ “

There should be other streaming sites from where one can also watch, as there have been in the past. If you know of any of those, please chip in with your own comment in this thread with a short explanation of the stream and put there the corresponding URL link. Thanks.

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The concert is now available in full on Youtube, at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZHkkrgzaw8

Happy New Year.

Garth

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This is the BBC stream in English, for those not familiar with Spanish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp5OUhDZgYc

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migongo

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Well, for those who missed it, and because both posted URL to the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic (with Spanish and English commentary, respectively) are no longer working, here is one that still is, although I have no idea if it works only in the USA or not. Click “Yes” if asked if your PBS station is …?”

https://www.pbs.org/video/from-vienna-the-new-years-celebration-2022-wfofco/

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And now for some silver and some gold:

James Galway & Friends Concert (excerpt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lK6RP0FnJU

Sir James Galway, flute & tin whistle

Lady Jeanne Galway, flute Claire Jones, harp Tutti Flutti Flute, Ensemble City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, Gilbert Sak, conductor
RTHK Production 2012

Mozart – Flute & Harp Concerto in C, K.299 – Rondeau (Allegro)

Lord of the Rings Suite (11’24”)

Interview with Jonathan Douglas (19’06”)

Gossec – Tambourin (21’50”)

Marais – Le Basque (23’30”)

Debussy – En Bateau (25’47”)

Debussy – Clair de Lune (29’35”)

Horner – My Heart Will Go On from ‘Titanic’ (34’00”)

D. Overton – Galway Fair (39’00”)

Brian Boru’s March (44’00”) Traditional

Rimsky Korsakov – Flight of the Bumblebee (46’15”)

Arranged by D. Overton – Badinereelerie (47’40”)

John Denver – Annie’s Song (51’40”)

Henry Mancini – Penny Whistle Jig (54’40”)

Shenandoah (57’32”) Traditionnal

Danny Boy Traditional Irish Folk Song

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Well, the collection of songs sang by Edith Piaf I linked in a comment on Part I has been removed from YouTube, so now I have to replace it with this other one, with nearly the same songs and that has been licensed to YouTube, so it might have a longer life here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqwwyMu36eU

Edith Piaf: Greatest of torch singers. Every single song in this recording is a classic, because the way she sang it.

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Search for: “greatest French singer”, and you get her name right away and at the very top of almost every list. Nearly fifty eight years after her death, in December 1963, when she was forty seven.

And this entry of mine is about one of her greatest hits, not just in France, but all over the world. Even in countries where few spoke or understood French. That was her magic, the magic of the truly great artist.
But it had a particular poignancy for the French, the year when she first sang it:

La Vie en Rose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzViYkZAz4

Written and performed by Piaf in December 1945, in the immediate aftermath of World War II in Europe and the end of German occupation, it was an inspired and inspiring contribution, as a song celebrating passionate physical and emotional human love, to make the French regain their optimism and hopefulness.
Things were looking up, if songs like these were already being sang!

Lyrics with English translation:

Eyes that make mine lower
Des yeux qui font baisser les miens

A laugh that is lost on his mouth
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche

Here is the portrait without retouching
Voilà le portrait sans retouches

From the man I belong to
De l’homme auquel j’appartiens
When he takes me in his arms
Quand il me prend dans ses bras

He whispers to me
Il me parle tout bas

I see life in pink
Je vois la vie en rose
He tell me love words
Il me dit des mots d’amour

Everyday words
Des mots de tous les jours

And it does something to me
Et ça me fait quelque chose
He has entered in my heart
Il est entré dans mon cœur

A slice of happiness
Une part de bonheur

That I know the reason
Dont je connais la cause
It’s him for me, me for him in life
C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie

He told me, swore it for life
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie
And as soon as I see him
Et dès que je l’aperçois

So I feel Inside me
Alors je sens en moi

My heart beating
Mon cœur qui bat
Nights of endless love
Des nuits d’amour à plus finir

A great happiness that takes its place
Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place

Trouble, sorrow fades away
Des ennuis, des chagrins s’effacent

Happy, happy to die
Heureux, heureux à en mourir
When he takes me in his arms
Quand il me prend dans ses bras

Repeat:

He whispers to me
Il me parle tout bas

I see life in pink
Je vois la vie en rose
He tells me love words
Il me dit des mots d’amour

Everyday words
Des mots de tous les jours

And it does something to me
Et ça me fait quelque chose
He has entered in my heart
Il est entré dans mon cœur

A slice of happiness
Une part de bonheur

That I know the reason
Dont je connais la cause
It’s you for me, me for you in life
C’est toi pour moi, moi pour toi dans la vie

He told me, swore it for life
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie
And as soon as I see you
Et dès que je t’aperçois

So I feel inside me
Alors je sens dans moi

My heart beating
Mon cœur qui bat

End:

La la, la la, la la

La la, la la, ah la

La la la la

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A musical mystery (at least to me):

They formed a trio years ago, recorded those of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and a few other big name composers, and then, it seems to me after doing some research on their work, they were never heard of again, as a trio at least.

They called themselves “Klaviertrio Amsterdam”, or “Piano Trio Amsterdam.”

Their names: Klára Würtz piano, Joan Berkhemer violin, Nadia David cello.

Whatever the reason for their disappearance, they left several recordings of those works as beautiful as any I have heard before. For example, the “Notturno” of Schubert, at 38 minutes 40 seconds into this recording, is played with a deep understanding of this composition in a way that is both nuanced and very moving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6HTkmXtoqY

And here you can see what they looked like while playing together as a trio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-3fbG3mk9s

These certainly were not three amateurs, so I wonder which orchestras or quartets they were part of when they decided to start a named trio of their own, perhaps on the side.

If so, why did they stop? Because there are not as many works for piano trio as they are for quartets and quintets? So less familiar to audiences and not enough who were prepared to paid to listen to them? I don’t think this is a likely explanation, but who knows.

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Oscar, an interesting trio. Although not as widely known, they are all excellent performers, but you have to dig a bit to get information. Below is what I quickly found.

Garth

 

Klára Würtz, Hungarian classical pianist, born 1965 in Budapest. She’s specialized in the classical and romantic repertoire.

https://www.kaposfest.com/en/performers/klara-wuertz/

 

Joan Berkhemer, As a violinist Berkhemer won first prize at the National Violin Competition Oskar Back (1975), the Prix d’Excellence and first prize at the International Chamber Music Competition in Colmar (France). He has played as a soloist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, all Dutch radio orchestras and the Louisville Symphony Orchestra, among others.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Berkhemer

Nadia David enjoys a solo and chamber music career that has taken her to major halls in Europe, Israel, South America and the United States.

She performed at important venues in the Netherlands, London, Paris, Rome, and Salzburg,. as well as Washington DC; and Louisville.

https://www.nadiadavid.com/about.html

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It just occurred to me that they might have not continued their trio performances because they got too busy doing other things.

I read recently a book by the noted novelist Haruki Murakami based on his recorded conversations with Seiji Ozawa, when they got together to do this over a period of two years, while Maestro Ozawa was recovering from a major operation and had greatly reduced his working schedule, so he had time to do that. The English title of the book is “Absolutely on Music”, but it really should be “Absolutely on Performing.” What I got most firmly grasped in my mind from reading it, is how extremely busy is the life of a successful artist, particular in the case of a musician, and most particularly a conductor: organizing, rehearsing and conducting instrumental music and opera performances all over the world, studying, endlessly studying the score of the works to be performed in the next concert, trying to squeeze the composer’s intended mood, drama and humor, with little or no instructions as to the feeling to be conveyed, beyond a general idea from a few Italian words here and there, out of the squiggles that cover the five lines of the staff, or in other words: the score. How much musical learning as well as knowledge of how others have performed that piece go into that! And then come the rehearsal sessions that require building a lot off rapport with the members of the orchestra, the soloists and the singers as well, if they are part of the coming performance, and the sheer amount of physical energy that it takes to do all this. Besides other aspects of these busy artists’ lives, in the case of Ozawa, running annually two young musicians academies, one in Japan, the other in Switzerland, as well as getting together the performances of the Saito Kinen International Orchestra, of which he is one of the founders.

All this came to mind again when reading about the careers of the three musicians that formed the Klaviertrio Amsterdam, all three obviously seasoned professionals with remarkable careers of their own, as I had suspected.

Take, for example, Joan Berkhemer, that besides being a violinist, according to the Wikipedia article to which you have given the URL link, is also an orchestra conductor and a composer, a rare combination now days. And they all teach, whether in formal courses of in master class events.

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Here is a delicious treat for those who enjoy listening to music decently played and more so if they can read music and may be interested to see what J.S. Bach got to in his “Musical Offering” (somewhat shocking to those of a democratic bent could be, first in the dedication and then in the subtitles of the names of each part, the usual brown nosing due to a King in those days, intended mainly to stay out of serious trouble and maybe gain some useful royal preference in return).

This work was JSB’s answer to the King of Prussia Frederik II’s challenge to do something with a tricky theme he played, improvising on his flute, what was thereafter known as the “Thema Regium”, or “Theme of the King” — Frederik being a gifted musician and composer who favored the flute.

This is an animated score with the parts of the various instruments sliding back and forth past each other, moving along at different speeds, etc., keeping pace with the music, to show clearly the clever harmonic and temporal structure of the piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23yNGer9Wqs

For example, following the famous “Ricercare at six voices”, at 43 minutes starts a “Cannon at two voices” (flute and harpsichord) that is intended as a puzzle with four possible ways of playing it, the puzzle “solutions.”

When watching, make sure to keep some motion sickness pills handy, just in case.

About this composition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Musical_Offering

Excerpt:

“The Musical Offering (German: Musikalisches Opfer or Das Musikalische Opfer), BWV 1079, is a collection of keyboard canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, all based on a single musical theme given to him by Frederick the Great (King Frederick II of Prussia), to whom they are dedicated. They were published in September 1747. The Ricercar a 6, a six-voice fugue which is regarded as the high point of the entire work, was put forward by the musicologist Charles Rosen as the most significant piano composition in history (partly because it is one of the first). This ricercar is also occasionally called the Prussian Fugue, a name used by Bach himself. The composition is featured in the opening section of Douglas Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979).“

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This is a truly magnificent conjunction of voices and music in a rendition that is both beautiful and appropriate of an ancient church hymn that Bach, being commissioned to write, used as an opportunity to create something wonderful:

Johann Sebastian Bach
Magnificat in D major, BWV 243

Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Concentus Musicus Wien – Vienna Boys Choir – Chorus Viennensis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUe7kW0aZP0

Some of those commenting in the YouTube page complain that this version is too slow. Not only the tempo is quite right, but in fact this version is shorter by several minutes than the others in YouTube. Harnoncourt, with the same forces, made at least two recordings, now in YouTube, of this composition and this is the one I like best.

And this other is one that made that choice a hard one, so I am putting the link here anyway:

J.S. Bach / Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 / Avner Biron conductor / Israel Vocal Ensamble / Israel Camerata
Singers: Daniela Skorka, Avital Dery, Ed Lyon, Yair Polishook – soloists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4CluTzJX9U

The Magnificat is one of the oldest Christian hymns, it is in the hymnals of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches. Also known as the Song of Mary, the lyrics correspond to the words spoken by Mary when visiting her cousin Elizabeth who was pregnant, according to the Gospel of Luke.

The traditional Latin version, sang in Bach’s “Magnificat” and two English translations can be found in this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificat

 

By the way: I found this painting from the early 15th Century of Mary with Child, by the renowned Italian painter Fra Angelico, created during the transition from the stilted medieval style prevalent until then to a more naturalistic one, at the beginning of the Renaissance and the quick evolution of figure painting to one that showed an understanding of the human body unparalleled since the Ancient World, and with such novelties as perspective.

All that blue! In those days blue was usually made using ground lapis lazuli brought from distant Persian mines in what is now Afghanistan, making such a large painting (1m x 60 cm) incredibly expensive:

https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/lapis-lazuli-pigment/

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So that was J.S.B and his church music.

Now, this is Tina S and her electrifying interpretation of Ludwig’s “Moonlight Sonata”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6rBK0BqL2w

More about her, with some samples of her playing:

https://www.themusicman.uk/tina-s/So who is Tina S? Tina S was, maybe still is, one amazing electric guitar player to put Jimmy Hendrix to shame and also an enigma: she rose meteorically recording her extraordinary riffs, playing solo with some occasional battery backing but often with recordings of famous rock groups as accompaniment, in videos she then posted in her YouTube channel. She has millions of followers, her popularity is for ever rising, although … she disappeared, from public view at least, four years ago. Since then, neither hide nor hair, not a single chord or even a broken guitar string has been seen of, or heard again from her.

Paganini 5th Caprice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tXuYLc6rIg

Yngwie Malmsteen – Arpeggios From Hell – Tina S Cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B4pZBmI_gU

“Vivaldi Tribute”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGfO2Dgc9Y

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Tina S, the missing guitar prodigy, has cited Ana Vidovic as her ideal of what a guitar player should aspire to be like. And rightly so, as Vidovic is one of the very best classical guitar players among those who began their careers and have became well known in this century.

Here is Vidovic playing Albéniz “Asturias.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inBKFMB-yPg

 

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Today I paid my first visit to my new doctor’s office. My old one of 34 years retired at the end of last year and recommended this one.
One of the procedures as a new patient, before being seen by Dr. Gupta, was to fill in a questionnaire by taping on an electronic tablet the boxes one would check to indicate the appropriate answers.

Joy, beautiful spark of Divinity
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter, drunk with fire,
Heavenly one, thy sanctuary!

The questions were mostly on the patient state of mind, most notably the last one:
“Do you think that your life is meaningless and perhaps it would be best if it were over?”

All creatures drink of joy
At nature’s breasts.
All the Just, all the Evil
Follow her trail of roses.

At some other time, this question in the tablet’s questionnaire might have seem faintly ridiculous, but not now: people are getting sick in unprecedented numbers, some very badly so, some may be going to die, some are dead already and their friends and relatives are grieving.
Business, particularly those that cater directly to the public, are winding down, some have already closed, others are cutting down personnel.
People are losing their jobs, as the economic consequences hit home and their hopes of further employment are unclear, while the need to be employed is very clear.

Whoever has succeeded in the great attempt,
To be a friend’s friend,
Whoever has won a lovely wife,
Add his to the jubilation!
Yes, and also whoever has just one soul
To call his own in this world!

But there is always hope, if one knows where to find it. Through the two dark years already gone by and the future still looking shrouded in storm clouds, this is what has kept me adding to this thread touches of what is beautiful, in this case of the glorious music that dedicated, hard working men and women are able to make: a most clear reminder of the beauty of life.

Kisses she gave us and grapevines,
And a friend, proven in death.

Here is one of those uplifting works at its most moving: the last movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
Of all it parts, the one that I always look forward to hear once more is the last quartet, sung in fugal counterpoint by the soprano, mezzo, tenor and bass.

Desire was given to the worm
And the cherub stands before God.

The one word that fits the effect of this quartet on me is: ‘transporting’. It takes me, as it has always taken me since I was a teenager and first heard it, to some higher, better, more luminous an inspiring state where I find my heart soothed and replenished in its courage and compassion.

Gladly, as His suns fly
through the heavens’ grand plan
Journey, brothers, on your way,
Joyful, like a hero to victory.

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, made of Israeli and Palestinian musicians, has been put together and is conducted here, along with the 200-strong National Youth Choir of Great Britain, during a 2012 BBC Proms’ Concert performed in London to an Albert Hall audience of 6000, by Daniel Barenboim, the notable Argentinian-Israeli pianist and orchestra conductor; this orchestra is in itself a reason for hope:

Thy magic binds again:
What custom strictly divided;
All people become brothers
Where thy gentle wing abides.

Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss to all the world!

The last movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the “Choral”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChygZLpJDNE

Anna Samuil (soprano)

Waltraud Meier (mezzo-soprano)

Michael König (tenor)

René Pape (bass)

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Pepe Romero plays J.S. Bach’s works transcribed from violin solo to guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9mvdbvmz2A

Notable performance, with Romero’s very personal touch.

Best guitar performance I’ve heard of the “Chaconne” movement of the violin Partita No.2. Transcribed here, I believe, by Romero himself.

On the spectacular orchestral side, there is also this:

J. S. Bach – Suites for Orchestra BWV 1066 – 1069 – N. Harnoncourt with the Concentus Musicus of Vienna:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGMJq3APDPc

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Trifonov plays Liszt’s Transcendental Études
Filmed at the Auditorium Maurice Ravel in Lyon on November 7, 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD4T-rNklsY

I wish I could find this work with Martha Argerich at the piano, but this guy will do, I think: It looks like they have been throwing flowers at him.

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Manuel de Falla: thin as a rail, visionary, composer, exile from Franco’s terror, same as Pau Casals, as Picasso, as so many of the truly great ones, the glory of Spain.

One of his best known works:

Manuel de Falla – El Amor Brujo (Love the Magician)
Postsmout Orchestar, John Rosten Conductor
Unnamed singer.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3XfmRZAQ-o

Plot: A gypsy woman call Candela (“Candle”) whose husband has died, is haunted by jealous his ghost. She loves someone else who also loves her, but they can’t get together because she is tied by a spell to her dead husband and dances with his specter every night. Some older women suggest performing a spell-casting ritual involving certain words being sang while they dance around a blazing fire in a sacred cave nearby, to dissolve the unnatural link that keeps her attached to her spectral ex-mate by playing a trick on him.

The ritual fails, but finally the spell is broken; the night is ending, morning is coming. and the gypsy hears the bells in town singing with their tongues of bronze in celebration of the new day, and she also sings, to them and with them, with fresh hope that now that she is free to be with her beloved, “my glory” is coming.

Lyrics:
Spanish:

Canción del amor dolido:

Ay!
Yo no sé qué siento,
ni sé qué me pasa
cuando este maldito
gitano me falta.
Candela qué ardes…
más arde el infierno
que toíta mi sangre
abrasá de celos.
¡Ay!
Cuando el río suena
¿qué querrá decir?
¡Ay!
¡Por querer a otra
se olvía de mí!
¡Ay!
Cuando el fuego abrasa…
Cuando el río suena…
Si el agua no mata el fuego,
a mí el pesar me condena,
a mí el querer me envenena,
a mí me matan las penas.

Canción del fuego fatuo

Lo mismo que el fuego fatuo,
lo mismito es el querer.
Lo mismo que el fuego fatuo,
lo mismito es el querer.
Le huyes y te persigue,
le llamas y echa a correr.
Lo mismo que el fuego fatuo,
lo mismito es el querer.
¡Malhaya los ojos negros
que le alcanzaron a ver!
¡Malhaya los ojos negros
que le alcanzaron a ver!
¡Malhaya el corazón triste
que en su llama quiso arder!
Lo mismo que el fuego fatuo
se desvanece el querer.

Danza Ritual del Fuego

Tú eres aquel mal gitano
que una gitana quería;
¡El querer que ella te daba,
tú no te lo merecías!
¡Quién lo había de decir
que con otra la vendías!
¡Soy la voz de tu destino!
¡Soy el fuego en que te abrasas!
¡Soy el viento en que suspiras!
¡Soy la mar en que naufragas!

Final: Las campanas del amanecer

¡Ya está despuntando el día!
¡Cantad, campanas, cantad!
¡Que vuelve la gloria mía!

English

Song of the love that suffers:

Oh!
I don’t know what I feel
I don’t know what’s wrong with me
when this cursed
gypsy I miss.
Candela what are you burning …     (Candela, candle)
more fierce burns the hell
that burns all my blood
with jealousy.
Oh!
When the river sounds
what do you want to say?
Oh!
for loving another
forgot about me!
Oh!
When the fire burns…
When the river sounds…
If the water doesn’t kill the fire,
grief condemns me,
wanting poisons me,
sorrow kills me.

Song of the Will-O’-The-Wisp

The same as the will-o’-The-wisp
the same is loving.
The same as the will-o’-the-wisp
the same is loving.
You run away from him and he chases you,
You call him and he runs.
The same as the will-o’-the-wisp
the same is wanting.
Damn the black eyes
that they managed to see him!
Damn the black eyes
that they managed to see him!
woe to the sad heart
that in its flame wanted to burn!
Same as will-o’-the-wisp
love vanishes.

Ritual Fire Dance

You are that bad gypsy
that a gypsy wanted;
The love that she gave you,
you didn’t deserve it!
Who would have said it
that with another you sold it!
I am the voice of your destiny!
I am the fire in which you burn!
I am the wind in which you sigh!
I am the sea in which you are shipwrecked!

Ending: The Bells of Dawn

The day is already dawning!
Sing, bells, sing!
My glory returns!

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Oscar,

A comment and a different link suggests that the singer is Dolores Arriaga.

Garth

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Garth, I missed that comment! By the way, the song is not in conventional Spanish, but as spoken by the Andalusian gypsies, a copla sang in traditional octosillabic quartets.

Also, sorry about some typos and an ungrammatical expression: the comment about this dramatic ballet suite got dramatically hijacked the moment I posted it, either by the decency filter, or some other one, and sent to “Moderating” before I could see and fix them. By the time it was put back in, unchanged (thanks, moderator, sorry about the bother), the editing time window had long closed.

And here a Ritual Fire Dance actually danced — it is a one-act ballet, after all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XxfzhfWULE

And when it comes to the singing, here is, in an old video, the fire spell-breaking song, sang, (with one other: “Compañero”, i.e. “Companion”), by the extraordinary gypsy-style “cante jondo” singer Rocío Jurado, who was Andalucian and from Cadiz, same as de Falla:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp-3VMvkXAU

And since I am at it, and why not? More Rocío Jurado singing “Tierra Seca” (“Dry Land”), by Manuel de Arpe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN1JX2rTyfA

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GarthP

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More Manuel de Falla, in this case the brief symphonic suite and the complete ballet “The Three Cornered Hat” (“El Sombrero de Tres Picos”). Probably his most famous work, both in the original ballet form and in its two orchestral versions, of which the one here is the second:

Falla: The Three-Corner Hat – 2. Symphonic Suite ∙ Frankfurt hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada

(Orchestra most vigorously and enthusiastically directed by the conductor, inspiring the orchestra to give, in return, a very lively and really great performance.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOhjQ1WDWss

As to the ballet: Something about a pretty water-mill miller’s wife and her husband, tricking repeatedly a lecherous local magistrate that can’t keep his hands off her. Other than that, I won’t even try to narrate the plot in more detail. You go and look it up here, if you want to understand anything you see. Or, as most people do when watching an unfamiliar ballet, just relax and enjoy the show:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Cornered_Hat

Falla – The Three-Cornered Hat Ballet – Proms 2013, Mezzo-soprano Clara Mouriz joins conductor Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic, with the Antonio Marquez’s dance company – London’s Albert Hall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_kGIPwdneY

From the accompaning YT Notes:

“In Falla’s colourful Ballets Russes’ commission from Diaghilev, The Three-Cornered Hat is a tale of intrigue and jealousy shot through with the spirit of Spanish folk dances.”

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And now, who is for some serious soul scratching and scraping?

Albinoni: (Arranged by Giazotto) Adagio For Strings And Organ In G Minor
Berliner Philharmoniker · Herbert von Karajan · David Bell · Leon Spierer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Q8Y9rhLQc

Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings : Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin Conductor.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=adagio+strings+barber&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=adagio+strings+barber&sc=6-21&sk=&cvid=EDD22FC4C69D4C75B14C47ECC74CA487

Jacques Offenbach: Jacqueline Tears, (no relation) Jacqueline du Pré cello, Werner Thomas with Münchener Kammerorcheste
(And dedicated by conductor and orchestra to J. du Pré.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pmBJLI4kVw

Don’t say I didn’t tell you!

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GarthP

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Thanks indeed, I had never heard Offenbach’s Jacqueline Tears, and what a beautiful piece it is.

Garth

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Who performed it and when matters:

From the high point of the Baroque Renaissance of last century, roughly the mid- 1950s to the mid 1960s, here is what for me is the best interpretation ever made, then or ever after, of twelve concerti for strings and accompanying harpsichord by Vivaldi, probably at least the first four of which might be already familiar to you, but perhaps you’ve never heard them played quite like this:

A.Vivaldi Op.8 “Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione” (*) , F. Ayo lead violin & I-Musici  (1959~1961)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmjNkrVtTac

(*) “The discussion of Harmony and Invention.”

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And while considering old things that never truly get old:

Arthur Rubinstein, nearly blind and at 88, plays Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5 “Emperor”, with Alexander Schneider and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra – in 1975 and in Israel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K25fZRwbeGM

How much you’d think he’s slowed down, eh?

He used to say that his being almost blind was not a problem for playing, because he knew where all the keys were. And I don’t think he was either fibbing or bragging. He still clearly had good muscle control, particularly of fine movements, and obviously, to go along with that, an excellent muscle memory very well trained by playing so many times certain pieces of his repertoire. And with those long, long fingers of his “like carrots!”, as mi paternal grandmother, that saw them from very up close, liked to say.

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I feel that singing as a choir, and doing it well, is one of the finest things humans can do.

Johannes Sebastian Bach, Mass in B Minor: #2396393

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I just came across this pianist I had not heard of before, but going by the number of views of this video of him playing, now well into the millions, it looks like others might have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_de_Brunhoff

He plays a wider repertoire but specializes in Chopin, I think — or did, before he became a Benedictine monk and it looks like he gave up playing altogether:

Thierry de Brunhoff plays Chopin — Complete Nocturnes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNqX_jWhUzY

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Here, with the partiture and an invisible page-turner, for all those who, like myself, are eximious air-piano players to play along:

Beethoven: piano sonata No. 21 in C major, “Waldstein” — Mikhail Pletnev, piano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbblMw6k1cU

 

And the same here:

Beethoven: Sonata No.8 in C Minor, Op.13, “Pathétique” Pianists: Feltsman, Lortie, Korstick playing different parts each:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_124D_7KoU

Both works accompanied with unusually elaborate YouTube notes.

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The quartet No. 13 of Beethoven is among the highest peaks of Western music.

It is, along with the 9th Symphony “Choral” and the following three last quartets composed in the years preceding his death, an extraordinary achievement of the human spirit by a composer who was completely deaf, in poor health and in a high-functioning depressive state, grieving the collapse of his hopes for a better world after the floundering of the French Revolution into state terror, the adventures of a jumped-up military officer who named himself Emperor and started disastrous wars with Austria and Russia, and the subsequent restoration and reaffirmation, after his final defeat, of the most reactionary monarchies in modern European history.

This quartet includes two most remarkable movements: the “Cavatina” and the “Große Fuge”, or “Great Fugue.” The first is a song of deepest despair, the second is something never heard before at the time, that many thought it was a sad sign of Beethoven’s purported mental derangement. It took almost a century to be recognized not as something crazy, but as something a century ahead of its time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Fuge

Excerpt:

“A reviewer writing for the “Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” in 1826 described the fugue as “incomprehensible, like Chinese” and “a confusion of Babel”. However, critical opinion of the work has risen steadily since the early 20th century and it is now considered among Beethoven’s greatest achievements. Igor Stravinsky described it as “an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever.” ”

“The composition originally served as the final movement of Beethoven’s Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major, Op. 130, written in 1825; but his publisher was concerned about the dismal commercial prospects of the piece and wanted Beethoven to replace the fugue with a new finale. Beethoven complied, and the Grosse Fuge was published as a separate work in 1827 as Op. 133. It was composed when Beethoven was almost totally deaf, and is considered to be part of his set of late quartets. It was first performed in 1826, as the finale of the B♭ quartet, by the Schuppanzigh Quartet.”

Now here are two full interpretations of the original quartet, both ending with the “Große Fuge” as the last movement; sometimes (depending on how I am feeling) I prefer one or the other.
Both, I think, are equally valid and excellently performed ways of playing this work:

(1) Sharp, acid sound, more genuine late-Beethoven to my taste — and with lots of auditorium resonance as was fashionable forty years ago, and now is deprecated in favor of venues with drier acoustics, so a strange choice for such a modern-style performance:

Quatour Ebene : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXvP0bqw2Cs

(2) Sweeter sound, more meditative, an almost Romantic-style approach, equally valid as the more modern one. After all, Beethoven composed this in 1825:

American Quartet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i29LA1fy5r4

As always, each of us shall choose what feels best.

The front cover of the original, separate edition of the Große Fuge, with Beethoven’s own seal at the bottom:

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Debussy ‘s Symphonic Poem “La Mer”, the late great Bernard Haitink conducting the Royal Concertgebow in Amsterdam :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe1pB9KqHRg

(That haunting duet of flute and oboe in “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea” at 21:23 minutes and seconds …)

Though already touching ninety and somewhat unsteady in his walk, using a cane, he conducted standing fully erect at the podium in front of the orchestra and then to receive a standing ovation at the end that most of the audience gave him and the orchestra.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Haitink

 

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GarthP

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More YouTube videos of performances at the Concertgebow in a YT channel dedicated to them, here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG_xCloLaV2TvXtKOCH-lSA

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The first time I heard Dvorak’s “American Quartet” (composed in a few days during the same visit to the USA when he composed the famous “From the New World” Symphony) I said to myself:
“If the last thing I hear just before my life ends and the eternal nothing closes on it is the slow, second movement of this quartet, I’ll go out feeling satisfied.”
And I still say the same thing to myself every time I have the great good fortune to hear a good interpretation of it. (And the rest of the quartet is not too bad either.)

I have never said that about any other musical composition (*), as I am not that interested in how everything ends for me, more in what comes next while I am still around.

If you are not familiar with this work, listen to it, in this excellent interpretation recorded with a live audience, ca. 2016:

The New York Philharmonic String Quartet performs Dvořák’s American Quartet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrqgMrwG4i0

 

(*) Well, maybe also the last movement of the J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg No. 6. Maybe.

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I hope this is the appropriate place to post an International newsletter I received from : All of Bach of the Netherlands Bach Society

“International Newsletter March 2022

…If you want to keep informed about the new releases on All of Bach, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel for free and receive a notification with every new upload.

If you are interested in receiving the following international newsletters as well, please subscribe …

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OscarCP

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In understand that this is a recording of one of the most difficult violin concerti in the whole repertoire. In the YT commentary section on this particular performance, one viewer wrote:

“I believe this is the concerto about which a violinist once told Schoenberg “It would take a violinist with six fingers to play it.” Schoenberg’s answer? “I can wait.””

Someone count Hillary Hahn’s fingers, because she plays it beautifully! (To be fair, so have many others.) But she is spectacularly good. ” Enough said.

Schoenberg Violin Concerto Opus 36, Hilary Hahn, Violin, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa Pekka Salonen Conductor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ukPsvh51hI

Here Schoenberg was trying out his ideas on serialism in a way that I find not very annoying, but rather very beautiful.

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Alex5723

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He died at age 31, but in composing music like this one, he set free from within himself, with this brief work, something that shall never grow old, as long as there are musicians that can play it; or recordings that can be made to sound this and human ears that can listen to it:

Franz Schubert: Notturno in E flat major, Op. 148, D. 897, the Suk Trio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7tA0cv5wxg

Written c. 1827, the year before his death.

Suk Trio:

Josef Suk, violin

Jan Panenka, piano

Josef Chuchro, cello

Recorded in 1964. Re-release from 1979.

 

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And so it goes.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-entertainment-hungary-europe-united-nations-7900b60d15fc03d89e489c00eb6854a4

Excerpt:

” ZAHONY, Hungary (AP) — The violin was so beloved by Myroslava Sherbina it was the one item she took as she fled Ukraine, along with the clothes she wore. But the instrument has remained silent since the start of Russia’s invasion of her country.
“I didn’t want to play so I could hear the sirens and we could go to the bomb shelter,” the 20-year-old Sherbina said.

She is among the more than 1.7 million people who have fled Ukraine in what the United Nations calls Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. The number is up from 1.5 million on Sunday, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Sherbina spoke at a train station in Hungary, one of dozens of musicians with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine who are now refugees. They were on their way to Slovenia as part of a joint evacuation mission with a Slovenian orchestra.

Cellos, violins, violas and other instruments lay on the train platform next to their young and disoriented owners. Hours-long train delays caused by the surge of Ukrainians toward borders meant that about 30 musicians were still unaccounted for. “

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Given the current events in Ukraine, this music is for our times:

Benjamin Britten: War Requiem;  Benjamin Britten, Composer and Conductor, London Symphony Orchestra, Melos Ensemble, unnamed singers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsSMCq7pl_k

0:01 – I. Requiem aeternam
9:27 – II. Dies irae
35:05 – III. Offertorium
44:42 – IV. Sanctus
54:38 – V. Agnus Dei
58:19 – VI. Libera me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Requiem

Excerpt:

” The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen (*), written during World War I. ”

 

(*) Owen is considered one of the greatest of the First World War British soldier-poets — famous for telling it like it was. He was killed in action one week before the armistice that ended the war was signed “at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918, having received the Military Cross, for gallantry and leadership while taking command when his CO was killed in action and leading an effective counter-attack on enemy troops, during the last few days of his service as a soldier, and of his life.

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Which is the right way to play music and sing in war time?

This is the wrong way:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-60684374

Excerpt:

“A Welsh orchestra has removed Russian composer Tchaikovsky from its programme of upcoming concerts.

Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra said it would be “inappropriate at this time” to perform the composer’s music after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The decision means the 1812 Overture will no longer be played at St David’s Hall in Cardiff on 18 March.

However Welsh Tory MP Fay Jones said on social media: “Groan. Putin is the enemy here. Not Russia.”

In a statement on its website, the orchestra said: “In light of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra, with the agreement of St David’s Hall, feel the previously advertised programme including the 1812 Overture to be inappropriate at this time.” ”

And the anti-Russian reaction does not stop there:

“Conductor Valery Gergiev, 68, has been dropped by festivals, concert halls and management due to his links with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He was fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic for not rejecting the invasion of Ukraine.

Gergiev’s resignation as honorary president of the Edinburgh International Festival was also “asked for and accepted” by the event’s board of trustees last month.”

Not exactly my favorite conductor, but then again …

…

“Soprano Anna Netrebko withdrew from her future engagements at the Metropolitan Opera rather than repudiate her support for Mr Putin, costing the company one of its top singers and best box-office draws. ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Netrebko

Those two artists live in the Russia of Vladimir the First and Great “King Protector of the Faith in Putin and Scourge of the Heretical Internal Enemies of Mother Russia and Maybe Also of NATO”, and not in the UK and certainly not in Wales, for further information.

Further in the same article, Netrebko actually: “has criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but has not withdrawn her support of President Putin”

Also for further information: People in Russia criticizing the invasion of Ukraine have been accosted and beaten up by the police and imprisoned by the thousands.

So what’s the right way?

This is the right way, specially in winter and without central heating:

https://www.al.com/news/2022/03/ukrainian-girl-7-sings-let-it-go-from-kyiv-bomb-shelter-goes-viral-idina-menzel-reacts.html

And for those not familiar with this song, these are the complete English Lyrics — that to me at least seem strangely appropriate, somehow, to these days’ appalling events, even if quite unrelated to the story of the movie “Frozen” this song is from. Or perhaps not so unrelated, as this is also about someone’s rising the voice in a song of spiritual defiance against what the singer has been, or is still being, forced to endure, as well as of hope in unhappy times — and for doing this, age is not a barrier:

Let it Go

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation
And it looks like I’m the queen
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I’ve tried
Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
Well, now they know
Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don’t care what they’re going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway
It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I’m free
Let it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You’ll never see me cry
Here I stand and here I stay
Let the storm rage on
My power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I’m never going back, the past is in the past
Let it go, let it go
When I’ll rise like the break of dawn
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone
Here I stand in the light of day
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway

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Is perhaps this the right music for these times?

Franz Schubert: String Quintet in C major
Isaac Stern: violin; Alexander Schneider: violin; Milton Katims: alto; Pablo Casals: cello; Paul Tortelier: cello – 1952

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3tmFhrOgNk

Why would it be music for these times?

Because it’s beauty is the inspiring product of courageous endurance and defiance in the face of the most adverse fate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quintet_(Schubert)

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These days our world is on trial, awaiting a perhaps terrible judgement, and the best and the worst we are capable of are the evidence, clear to see for those of us who dare lift our eyes from our trivial concerns and watch:

“Sheltering from bombs, Ukraine’s ‘cellar violinist’ plays on”

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-cellar-violinist-ff8e65a3b0ed452a901d8ab04d7c25e2

Excerpts:

“Vera Lytovchenko has become an internet icon of resilience as images of the concert violinist playing in the basement bomb shelter have inspired an international audience via social media.

When heavy Russian bombing of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv started two weeks ago, Lytovchenko, her professor father and neighbors sought safety in their building’s basement.”

…

“On Wednesday, during the temporary cease-fire in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Lytovchenko was able to return to her apartment for a few hours. She told the AP she was happy to see sunlight after spending two weeks in the dark basement, adding that she and her neighbors are lucky because they have heating in the cellar and food.

Before the war, Lytovchenko played for the Kharkiv City Opera orchestra and taught music lessons.

“It was another life … a normal life,” she said of the time before the war. “I’m an orchestra player. I am a teacher in college. I have my students, I have friends, I play concerts, I play operas and ballets. I play Italian operas in the theater.”

Describing Ukraine before the war, Lytovchenko said: “We had a cultural life in our country, our cities, in spite of the coronavirus. We were vaccinated. It was a normal life. … But now we can’t understand what is happening.”

Lytovchenko says she hopes that her posts can help raise funds for Kharkiv’s music community.

“I dream about my little financial fund, because I received messages from all over the world, from all countries. They texted me, they want to help,” she said.

She wants “to help musicians … and to rebuild our city, our conservatory, our music college, our music school,” she said. “To help our musicians who lost their houses and help musicians to return to their own cities and not to be refugees.”

Lytovchenko said as frightening as it is, playing in the cellar to lift the spirts of others has given her new encouragement.

“This is why I do these videos, I try to help, I try to do all I can do,” she said. “

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For a change of pace?

Johannes Brahms Song of Destiny; English National Opera Chorus; BBC Singers; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Martyn Brabbins conductor
BBC Proms 2019 (Lyrics subtitled)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7g-56J0_B0

But perhaps not:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schicksalslied

And a different interpretation, with somewhat better sound recording:

hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) ∙
Collegium Vocale Gent ∙ Philippe Herreweghe, Dirigent ∙

Alte Oper Frankfurt, 25. Oktober 2013

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A truly stunning performance:

Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem
David Zinman Conductor, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Christiane Karg, Soprano, Michael Nagy, Baritone, Choir of Central Germany Radio, Nicolas Fink, Choir Master
Alte Oper, Frankfurt, 11 October 2019 ∙

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXU9vqVdudM

It is called that way, not because it is for the Germans or about the Germans, but because it has for lyrics passages from the German Protestant Bible, one that goes back to the days of Martin Luther. And it is not a liturgical Requiem Mass as, for example, Mozart’s, but an inspirational “Requiem-like” composition for orchestra and chorus on the subject of life’s uncertain span and certain end.

Ever since I heard it for the first time, when I was an undergraduate student, the long initial part of the second section, with the passage in First Peter that begins with: “All flesh is grass” for lyrics, made a deep impression that has stayed with me.

These are the complete lyrics of this work:

https://web.stanford.edu/group/SymCh/performances/S1995/text.html

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Oscar, most grateful for this. Wonderful wonderful music, as well as being one of my absolute favourites always. I hadn’t heard this performance previously, and agree it is stunning. It goes to the top of my list!

Garth

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Verdi’s “Requiem” has been already included further up in this thread by Sky and discussed there by some of us. It was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
But I have discovered another video recording of this work, by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, that I find so impressive as to deserve being added here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlq9lJRElBk

Giuseppe Verdi: Messa da Requiem — Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Conductor, Frankfurt Radio Symphony,
Erika Grimaldi, Soprano, Violeta Urmana, Mezzosoprano, Saimir Pirgu, Tenor, Kihwan Sim, Bass, Central Germany Radio Choir, Philipp Ahmann, Choirmaster

Alte Oper Frankfurt, 20 October 2017

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Still on Verdi’s Requiem:

(1) The YT Notes in “Show More” incorrectly say that the “Liber Scriptus” is the 1975 version, when in fact is the 1875 one, rewritten by Verdi himself, who modified it to give the soprano more to sing about.

(2) I did not know until I read it just now in Wikipedia that this composition was written in memory of Alessandro Manzoni in the first anniversary if his death, a writer and sometime politician who had been a staunch supporter of the unification of Italy — a hard-fought goal that took much of the 19th century to be realized — from the mosaic of kingdoms and principalities that it was until then; he also wrote one of the most famous works of Italian literature, the novel “I Promessi Sposi”, or in English “The Betrothed”, a work that proved critical to the development of modern standard Italian. (I read parts of this novel as a student of Italian in High School; it was an alternative to taking French that, because it is not a phonetic language, I decided was going to be too much like hard work.)

(3) I concur with the summary evaluation of this great work in the first paragraph of this article and have explained this when commenting on it, earlier on #2385115  :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_(Verdi)

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Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 (1944), Violin: Gidon Kremer, Cello: Mischa Maisky, Piano: Martha Argerich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyt_L7PtZGg

0:00 – 1. Andante
7:59 – 2. Allegro con brio
10:59 – 3. Largo
16:52 – 4. Allegretto

Dmitri Shostakovich – Preludes and Fugues, Op.87, Book I – Tatiana Nikolayeva, piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyURjdnYQaU

In these darkening days when some misguided souls are starting to bash Russia indiscriminately on account of the criminal actions of the dictatorial kleptocracy now ruling there, it is important to be reminded, and reminded often, that when one speaks of ‘Russia’, one must keep firmly in mind what ‘Russia’ truly means.

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Still on the Russian theme, this is on the other side of the recording of the Shostakovich trio, with the same interpreters:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A Minor, Op.50, Argerich, piano, Minski, cello, Kramer,violin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODgwPVm57U

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And more Tatyana Nikolayeva:

Dmitri Shostakovich – Preludes and Fugues, Op.87, Book II – Tatyana Nikolayeva at the piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQPS7CmZlHM

And:

Tatyana Nikolayeva plays Bach 12 Keyboard Concertos, BWV 1052-1065 – live 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HY2xbbOnvQ

From the YT Notes:

Tatiana Nikolayeva playing Bach’s Keyboard Concerti 1-5 and 7, and 6 Concerti for two, three and four pianos with Mikhail Petukhov, Marina Yevseyeva and Sergei Senkov. Saulius Sondeckis conducts the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, live in Moscow on 11, 13 and 14 December 1975

Johannes Sebastian Bach:The Art Of Fugue — Performer: Tatyana Nikolayeva, piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHumG0H8628

(Say no more.)

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Dolly Parton has been mentioned several times in this thread, because her musical body of work is not just a classic one: She is also very classy herself:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/03/17/dolly-parton-rock-hall-nomination/

Excerpt: (Emphasis is mine)

” Dolly Parton is a rock star whether she likes it or not.

After the beloved country singer this week asked for her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination to be revoked, the Rock Hall respectfully declined to do so. The foundation noted Thursday in a tweeted statement that the work it celebrates “has had deep roots in Rhythm & Blues and Country music.”

Rock-and-roll “is not defined by any one genre, rather a sound that moves youth culture,” the statement reads. “Dolly Parton’s music impacted a generation of young fans and influenced countless artists that followed. Her nominations to be considered for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame followed the same process as all other artists who have been considered.”

There may be a logistical reason for declining Parton’s request as well. The Rock Hall pointed out that her nomination had already been included in the ballots sent to 1,200 voters this month.

On Monday, Parton expressed in a tweeted statement that although she was “extremely flattered and grateful to be nominated … I don’t feel that I have earned that right. I really do not want votes to be split because of me, so I must respectfully bow out.”

“I do hope that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will understand and be willing to consider me again — if I’m ever worthy,” she continued. “This has, however, inspired me to put out a hopefully great rock ’n’ roll album at some point in the future, which I have always wanted to do!” ”

Here are two examples that show the range of subjects and sentiments touched upon and expressed in her own songs and her interpretations of those of others that she has made famous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teQr9-3thSc&ab_channel=CountryQueen4Ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAeSIgELz8&ab_channel=AngelTini23

 

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More Russian music, as a reminder that Russian art, science and literature are an important part of the universal culture that is the foundation of our civilization, and now is in danger, as in any war situation, to become a victim of the contrarian passions of the moment. We can see this already starting with the cancellations of appearances of Russian artists on Western theatre stages. This is not a real punishment to the Russian government and its supporters, where the effect is likely to be shrugged off while they continue to either carry on, or else helping to enable the barbaric criminal actions in Ukraine, but is really a punishment to ourselves more than to anyone else.

Russian Piano Trios by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Glinka, Arensky, Taneyev; The Moscow Piano Trio, pianist Alexander Bonduriansky, violinist Vladimir Ivanov and cellist Mikhail Utkin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwDF05dcAk0&ab_channel=BrilliantClassics

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky:
00:00:00 Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50: I. Pezzo elegiaco
00:22:40 Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50: IIa. Tema con variazione: Andante con moto
00:43:05 Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50: IIb. Variazione finale e coda
Mikhail Glinka:
00:55:52 Trio pathétique in D Minor: I. Allegro moderato
01:01:08 Trio pathétique in D Minor: II. Scherzo: Vivacissimo
01:04:40 Trio pathétique in D Minor: III. Largo
01:09:42 Trio pathétique in D Minor: IV. Allegro con spirito
Anton Arensky:
01:11:53 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32: I. Allegro moderato
01:25:18 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32: II. Scherzo: Allegro molto
01:31:27 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32: III. Élégie: Adagio
01:38:14 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32: IV. Finale: Allegro non troppo
Sergei Taneyev:
01:44:53 Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 22: I. Allegro
01:57:07 Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 22: II. Allegro molto
02:09:29 Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 22: III. Andante espressivo
02:16:06 Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 22: IV. Finale
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov:
02:27:23 Piano Trio in C Minor: I. Allegro assai
02:42:48 Piano Trio in C Minor: II. Allegro
02:47:30 Piano Trio in C Minor: III. Adagio
02:56:54 Piano Trio in C Minor: IV. Allegro assai
Alexander Borodin:
03:12:25 Piano Trio in D Major (Unfinished): I. Allegro con brio
03:18:44 Piano Trio in D Major (Unfinished): II. Romance: Andante
03:26:29 Piano Trio in D Major (Unfinished): III. Intermezzo: Tempo di minuetto

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Oscar,

Sorry, but contrarian or not, I don’t at the moment relish anything Russian, given what is happening in Ukraine. Germany suffered years of opprobrium following the 2nd World War, and I suspect the same (to a somewhat lesser extent) will now occur with all things Russian.

Garth

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Garth: “Germany suffered years of opprobrium following the 2nd World War, and I suspect the same (to a somewhat lesser extent) will now occur with all things Russian”

So I fear. The question is: who really losses the most? I have answered that from my own perspective, in my previous comment.

The Nazis banned the music of Mendelssohn and others because they were Jews or worked with Jews, something that made Mozart, for example, into someone who was considered suspicious of not having been a good Arian. They banned the “Degenerate Art” of modern painters and sculptors. To attack in the passive-aggressive way of cancellations the Russian artists the way it is being done to some already, is not fundamentally different, really: It is not because they are proven accomplices and, or fervent supporters of Putin; whatever the excuses given, it is mostly because of their ethnicity. And that is what worries me.

I know with close to certainty that reason, generosity and kindness are not going to prevail in this question, for a long time, against prejudice and rejectionism, that mine is an idealistic position. Well, I have made very clear my opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine here and elsewhere. But, if when it comes to still cherishing the good Russian things I am being too idealistic, then I plead guilty as charged: that’s me 100%; it always has been (well, for the most part) and, I do hope, it shall always be.

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“What Happened to One of Classical Music’s Most Popular Pieces?”

Seldom heard these days, some wonder why:

In today’s article ” in the New York Times this question is considered.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/arts/music/cesar-franck-symphony.html

Among other things it says there:

“Greeted tepidly then, the symphony waited a decade for its American debut, long after Franck had died, in 1890. The Boston Symphony’s performances in April 1899 left critics unsure, too. The Boston Herald deplored its “wearisome repetitions” but noted the “certain weird fascination that it exerts.” The Boston Globe suggested that it was “calculated to appeal more to the educated musician than to the average concert patron.” ”

Now you can judge for yourself:

Cesar Franck: Symphony in D Minor. Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra, Marc Minkowski, conductor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRWFjK11lfw&ab_channel=hr-Sinfonieorchester%E2%80%93FrankfurtRadioSymphony

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I just listen the Frank symphony again after several years of not hearing it, and I was struck by the similarity of one of the main themes with that of the “Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras” (“For all Flesh {it} is like Grass”) section in Brahms’ “A German Requiem.” (Commented and with a performance linked recently here.)

Further investigation revealed that Brahms had composed the”Requiem” in the years of 1865-68, while Frank, his one and only symphony, in 1889.

In conclusion?

Whatever the conclusion might be, I still like this symphony a lot.

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I was listening casually to music recently, and came upon a (completely new to me)  composer with a most attractive 20th century symphony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ySSn7UFxQA

The Swedish composer is Kurt Atterberg, and the work is his Symphony No.6 in C-major, Op.31 “Dollarsymfonin” (1928). Well worth a listen, and I for one will be seeking out some of his other works.

Garth

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Garth,

You are by far not the only one who just discovered this composer, judging by the commentary in YouTube.
I find this work from a composer I also did not know anything about, very appealing.
Clearly his music is not heard much these days. Maybe because he was “too Romantic” a bit too late in the XX Century for that to be considered “worth listening” according to critics and scholars of music?

And I wonder how you came across his work.

As it turns out, Atterberg was quite a prolific composer that lived until 1974, when he was 87, and produced among many other “classical” things (concerti, chamber music, operas …), nine symphonies, the “9th” being organized somewhat along the lines of Beethoven’s, as a “Choral” symphony, although the singing is spread throughout and it is not relegated to the last movement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Atterberg

He was, according to this article, also an engineer and worked in the Swedish Patent Office until he retired in 1968. Similar to another one whose first name was Albert, in Switzerland, although Albert did not stay that long in this job.

I have found an interpretation of his 9th in YouTube and here it is:

Kurt Attenberg:Symphony No.9 in B minor “Visionaria” – North German Radio Chorus, Prager Chamber Choir and North German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ari Rasilainen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNvRrYtMp8E&ab_channel=SergioC%C3%A1novas

With something of a Wagnerian “vibe”, I think.

Life is full of surprises, and if we are lucky, some are good ones.

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Oscar, you ask how it happened.

I was listening to something by Halvorsen, on Youtube as it happens, was not fully concentrating and before I knew it the Atterberg symphony had started. I let it run, all of it, and started searching for more! So far, I like his even-numbered symphonies 4, 6 and 8 more than the others, but give me time.

Garth

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This one is short and very sweet:

Astor Piazzolla: Café 1930 – Alexandra Whittingham, guitar, Esther Abrami, violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRjl3qm2KpM

As is this other one:

Astor Piazzolla: Libertango – Alexandra Whittingham, guitar, Esther Abram, violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eUz_bj1b0

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And two more short pieces of guitar music:

I have thought of Ms. Whittingham as a very good guitar player, among the better ones around today, but not among the very best.

However, her interpretations here of these two very difficult to play short pieces have changed my opinion, moving her up in my appreciation of her talent:

Roland Dyens: Tango en Skaï  Alexandra Whittingham, guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hn6lCz8dxQ

F. Tárrega: Capricho Árabe  Alexandra Whittingham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7ZLcUYzvnc

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Good artists are born with a great gift, then learn the tricks of the trade.
If and when they get really serious about it, they start a career, and once in it, they study the subject of their next work: a musical composition, or a landscape, or a song, or someone whose portrait is going to be painted, or a role to be acted in a play or a movie, or a story to be written — to get to its subject’s essence and from there decide how the work will be carried out as their oown personal creative interpretation. And then they work hard and unsparingly at it, until it is done, or time runs out. Or, in the case to be considered here, until they understand the music deeply and have practiced it so mercilessly that believe they are ready to perform it.

Here is a sampler, from the very early days to last year, of someone who is, to me, the greatest violinist under 45 years of age to have come into public notice in the last twenty five years:

Breakthrough at age 17, in 1997:

Johann Sebastian Bach – Chaconne, Partita No. 2 BWV 1004, Hilary Hahn Violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjEVKxQCWs

Beginnings of a career:

Playing at a church auditorium, somewhere in a Mountain State:

Ernst: Last Rose of Summer, Hilary Hahn violin, ca. 2000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpss7GsCj7A

Last year, coming out of her Covid-19 public performing hiatus:

Sarasate: Carmen-Fantasy, Hilary Hahn, violin, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Conductor, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, June 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-oHLG0oB20

Dvořák: Violin Concerto, Hilary Hahn, Violin, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Conductor, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, 22 April 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=044AF783nok

And the there is this: #2385570

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I have been listening to the Six Brandenburg concertos since the early 1970’s, when I bought a long-play recording of them performed by some excellent musicians, and fell in love with these works, the Sixth concert in particular. That record has disappeared in the intervening decades and I no longer remember who were the musicians.
But I have listened to this music now and then throughout the years, in both good and bad times, and it has always been like meeting a good old friend.

And here we meet again, in this lovely interpretation:

J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerti 1 – 6, Claudio Abbado, Orchestra Mozart and Harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone, recorder Michala Petri, trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich, Baroque violinist, Giuliano Carmignola.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbQORqkStpk

From the YT commentary: “No two sets of Brandenburg Concertos sound alike, which was true in the pre-HIP (*) past, too, since the score lacks dynamics and expression markings.”

Here is a video with the same artists performing the concerto No. 1 plus encore.
How often does one see musicians receiving an ovation from a very enthusiastic audience while being showered with flowers in a truly grand old concert hall?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Ry71tOkwg

(*) HIP = (Society for) “Historically Informed Performance.” Basically, this Society’s members are concerned with the correct playing of old music on period instruments, as close as possible to how it might have been originally performed.

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Well, I got back too late to correct the last link: this is the 2nd Brandenburg (not the 1st) that has the encore and the flowers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_1jmoSvOBs

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This is a beautifully filmed performance, from the late 1970’s, of one of the most beautiful of all piano concertos played by one of the truly great pianists of the Twentieth Century and, therefore, in the more than two centuries the piano as we know it has been around, by one of the greatest pianists that ever lived. With every note played at the right time, with the right duration and the right force: with absolute authority.

Rubinstein, at 90, plays Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, André Previn conducts the London Symphony Orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Yoyz6_Los

Isn’t this one of the greatest performances of Classical Music?

Yes, it is.

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so Oscar, my reply to you is removed by mr.wordpress himself the classicalmusicpolicegoodpeople finds the words “yes it is” are not good anough, though there was no word cyrillic in it.
So when I tell you that I have the same music in my collection, then it is a substantial contribution.
Even more, unfortunately anough, this music was played by Athur Brendel too I believe, but  I  could never find, pitty.

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OscarCP

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More Rubinstein:

Robert Schumann: Carnaval, Arthur Rubinsten, pianist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO_4qPI01OE

The YT page is in Japanese, but for those not from Japan, it has one good universal feature I like very much:
The name of which short piece is being played at the time is shown, in English, in the background picture.

 

For more details on this composition, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnaval_(Schumann)

Now, about ‘Carnaval’ and ‘Carnival’:

‘Carnaval’ is Italian for ‘Carnival’ and this work is based on a set of variations by Schubert, but the pieces were modified by Schumann and several named by him after acquaintances or friends met at the festivities in Venice, whose character each of these was supposed to portray. Among others: Chopin, Paganini, Schumann’s own wife Clara, with her part called “Chiarina”, which is an affectionate Italian diminutive for ‘Chiara”, or ‘Clara.’ There are also parts with descriptive names of events, such as “Promenade” where masked party-goers moved along and, when guessing they knew each other, in spite of having their faces hidden behind masks, would salute and perhaps stop to have a chat.
The last part is called “The League of David Against the Philistines.”

The Venetian Carnival has been for centuries, but particularly in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, the place for anyone who was someone to show up to see and be seen. People attending the Venice carnival included members of both the hereditary nobilities of Europe and of its natural ones: musicians, poets, writers, etc.: the creative people already famous for their accomplishments. Such as the Schumann’s, both being recognized music composers and renowned pianists.

As to the Carnival: every February or early March, it is celebrated in most countries with a Catholic and (I understand) in some with an Anglican tradition. These, outside Europe itself, hark back to colonial times, when countries in Latin America and Africa, for example, that were colonies of France, Portugal, or Spain, still celebrate Carnival with enthusiasm, the most famous being the one in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
And in other countries without this tradition, but with regions that were colonized or dominated by Catholic countries in the past, where people still celebrate the occasion.
Possibly the most famous of these is the one in the USA State of Louisiana, at different times part of Spanish and French dominions, that ends in the huge street party of Mardi Gras, particularly in New Orleans, the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival#United_States

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In several countries, Brazil among them, they will celebrate Carnival this year after Easter and not before Lent as is tradition because of the pandemic. And as it approaches let me add this beautiful contribution to carnivals in classical music. Greetings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qrKjywjo7Q

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OscarCP, GarthP

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Professionalism and sense of humor will never be at odds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBbRTRBY4D4

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migongo:

Great example of “sang froid.”

So she started with Chopin and, without the use of a pedal, then switched to Debussy (“Arabesques” I think). She did this because it was a segment that does not require using pedals?

Not something one sees every day, or in this case, every night. The audience got to enjoy a truly memorable performance at no extra charge.

As to “Arabesques”, this is No. 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVYH-7QGE-A

And as desert, here is “Reflections”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnnKmQ-wXZw

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Maybe not the right thread but anyone have a good program to save an youtube sound track. We want to use a chant for a memorial and I am not sure we have cell coverage at the site.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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wavy, Your question fits just fine in here, if you are looking on advice how to collect streamed music.

The quality of the advice might vary, tough.

I use ClipGrab, that has both a Windows version and a Mac version. I have used both.

With it I have built a very large collection of YouTube videos (besides a bunch of DVDs I have paid for), and some of the things I comment about here are inspired by their recordings in my collection (e.g. the last two postings on performances by Rubinstein I made after listening to them once again). Sometimes it is the other way around: I find something in YouTube that I would like and comment on it here, then download the video to my Mac.

ClipGrab generally works nicely and is easy to use: you launch this application and then just copy and paste the URL of the video in the field for that in its window, click “Grab this clip” and it first asks where you want to put it in the HDD or SDD, you choose a folder (it remembers from the last time, so first in line it shows the folder where you put that last one), you assign a name to the stored video (e.g. “Rubinstein plays Schumann Carnaval”), click “Save”, and away it goes. Sometimes the download is fast, sometimes quite slow, and this is somewhat, but not strictly related to the size of the download.

https://clipgrab.en.softonic.com/

This application has had rather mixed reviews, some saying it is a security hazard, “crapware”, loaded with malware, etc., etc.

All I know is that I have been using it for nearly four years with no noticeable ill-effects, and I have installed safety tools that will rise the alarm if detected that some application is up to no good. No such alarms have been raised about ClipGrab.

For more details, this article on ClipGrab:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClipGrab

Excerpt:

“ClipGrab is software for downloading videos from various websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion or Facebook . It has been praised for its user-friendliness, but also flagged as malware by security software. It can convert the downloaded files to other file formats such as MP3, MPEG4, OGG Theora, or WMV. It is published as  free software under the terms of version 3 of the GNU General Public License.”

Life is a serious game of chance where the spoils are often to the wild and the reckless.

I think.

 

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Very well indeed.
Perhaps the OlderGeeks have some information for you too.

* _ ... _ *

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Now, this is Beethoven’s triple concerto, with YoiYo Ma at the cello, Daniel Barenboim at the piano and Anne-Sophie Mutter playing the violin part.

I must make first a confession:

I have been remiss posting until now anything here with Ms. Sophie Mutter in it for this reason:

She being naturally very well-endowed by nature, has (or had, when younger) a definite tendency to flaunt her endowments when performing, something I did find both vulgar, unprofessional, misplaced and — not being made of stone — also distracting. (I wouldn’t had mind one bit if she did that when she was not performing.)

But, fortunately, here none of the players can be actually seen performing, because the video shows just the photo of the three soloists posing together, in the cover of their long-play album. So, finally, I can post something where she is in charge of the fiddling part that I can  actually enjoy listening without such extraneous distraction, as I hope will you:

Beethoven: Triple Concerto in C Major Op.56 – Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violin, Yo-Yo Ma Cello, and Daniel Barenboim, piano, with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GH1S6EbSo0

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As an antidote to the sometimes excessive seriousness of Beethoven, here is an example of Bohemian artistry at its best. Josef Suk’s “Serenade in E-flat Major” is one of my favourites, written when only a teenager. This performance is by the renowned Czech Philharmonic under Libor Pesek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iIyZtvhNSM

Oscar, there are no visual distractions either, so you can listen unsullied by grosser thoughts! Seriously though, a great piece by a great orchestra, and beautiful music as well.

More about it here.

https://www.hollywoodbowl.com/musicdb/pieces/3252/serenade-in-e-flat-op-6

Garth

 

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Garth,

Thanks for:

(1) Not adding something Mutter-esque to gratuitously sully my thoughts.

(2) Bringing here something by Suk, that is one artist I don’t remember being mentioned before in this thread and, if so, a really serious omission of such a talented composer and, in his day, also a noted violinist.

To make things more interesting, there were at least three Josef Suck that were successful concert performers: this one, his father and his son:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Suk_(composer)

And about Beethoven: I don’t think he was “excessively serious”, rather that he was not lighthearted often enough, except for some concerto and symphony movements (e.g. in the 6th, “Pastoral”) and in short pieces, such as those in the Bagatelles:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6, ‘Pastoral’ – Bernard Haitink conductor, Berlin Philharmonic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ORsinmqm0M

Beethoven – 11 Bagatelles, Op. 119 – Rudolf Serkin, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjk2zYjwaJc

 

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Sometimes Josef Suk seems to suffer from being described as a ‘one piece composer’, with the Serenade being so comparatively well-known. Here are a couple more pieces by him, equally worth listening to although less known.

First, his Scherzo Fantastique, which someone commenting described as ‘fun to listen to, not just beautiful’, which is a very fair comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEGiRfOEWU

Second, a rather more ‘serious’ piece, his 1st Symphony. Like nearly all his compositions, it meets one of my main criteria for good music of being tuneful. Music does not need to be dull to be serious!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwM28UFt6R8

Garth

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Another piece of very nice music I must “dive” in to. Thank you GarthP. Will using a second wristwatch buy me some extra time?
Anyway, it wiil be good to explore this one too.

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Fred, time is what you make of it. It is an elastic concept, not an exact one! Watches are only a (convenient) approximation of reality, at least on the space-time continuum, so do what you will, but enjoy it.

Garth

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And to let Beethoven be Beethoven:

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony Nº 3, en E Flat Major, Op. 55 “Eroica” – Daniel Barnboim Conductor, East-Western Divan Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ6kaiMN9X8

At the 1912 BBC Proms, in the Albert Hall, in London.

The orchestra was started by the Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim with young Israeli and Arab musicians.

By the way, great job by the percussionist in the  “Pastoral” stormy 3rd movement; see my previous comment.

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Fred

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More Zuk, this time a choral work:

Josef Suk: Beneath the Apple Tree, incidental music to Zeyer’s dramatic legend, Op. 20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrI2bcAG2A8

“The closest Suk came to opera is in his incidental music to the play Pod jabloní (Beneath the Apple Tree).”  From the Wikipedia article on Joseph Zuk.

This is a compilation where different parts of this work have been taken from performances by different orchestras:

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Libor Pešek (1, 2, 4, 5, 6)
Czechoslovakian Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. Alois Klíma (3, 7)
Czechoslovakian Radio Chorus, chorus master M. Malý (3, 7)
soprano Eva Děpoltová (2, 5)

Where:

[ 0:00] 1. Under the Apple Tree – Živan’s Longing: overture to scene II
[ 7:11] 2. Danica’s song “Ty řeko modrá” (“You Blue River”): overture to scene III and the song
[12:16] 3. Choruses of the Blissful (from scene IV)
[17:39] 4. Bacchanale: overture to scene V
[21:15] 5. Danica’s song “Pad temný stín” (“A Dark Shadow Fell”, from scene VI)
[25:04] 6. Intermezzo: overture to scene VI
[29:14] 7. The Chorus of Angels: opening scene of the drama

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I have in my collection these works for the solo violin interpreted by some of the great masters of this instrument:
Menuhin, Grumiaux, Perlman, Oistrakh …

And now I have found and added to my collection these two recordings that for a long time I have been looking for without being able to find them until just now.
They are nearly a quarter century old, performed by a then little known artist that in a few more years was going to take the classical musical world by storm.
Such a talent is both a wonder and a mystery.
Compared to the remarkable performances of those works by those other great violinists, these are different in a very personal and unique way.

What makes me love these recordings is the uncanny balance between the cerebral and the passionate in them, something so important in a performance of Bach.
She got it right, with a deep and very personal understanding of these works, as if she had been playing them all her life.
Which perhaps she had, as she was just seventeen when she recorded them:

Bach: Partita No.3 in E major BWV 1006 – Hilary Hahn, violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGBN5_MT-24

Bach: Sonata No.3 in C major BWV 1005 – Hilary Hahn, violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJttLLX_fKI

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Fred

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Besides doing it so beautifully, I also like how she performs the Sonata No. 3 because, unlike other violinists, even good ones, she does not play those long sequences of equally spaced, strongly sounded chords punctuating the melody, as someone who is sawing wood. She is definitely using a bow and not a hand saw.

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Fred

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[Fred]

My contributions lately are very few. Fortunately, though here are posters that post many interesting and beautiful parts of culture and music; thank you all, this also keeps me sharp for what is really important.
Recently I saw a Cultural TV special about a youthful renewing conductor that can make one positive and optimistic. The conductor Lorenzo Viotti (29) has been appointed Chief Conductor of the National Opera and the Philharmonic Orchestra in Amsterdam.

https://www.operaballet.nl/en/lorenzo-viotti-chef-dirigent

Very remarkable is that with his classical music he manages to interest many young people and gets them into opera, ballet and the concert hall.
I think he’s one of the new people worth following.

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• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Fred.

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OscarCP

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Fred: Vitotti looks fit enough, so he is likely to last quite a while as a conductor. Maybe as long or even longer than Haitink, whose career lasted all of 65 years.

According to that article:

“Although Viotti’s artistic vision is based on the tradition of opera and orchestra, he is also driven by a fierce appetite for other art forms and exciting experiments. This will be apparent during the course of the next season in Missa in tempore belli, for example, a co-production between Dutch National Opera and Dutch National Ballet. Viotti: ‘It promises to be an exciting production featuring musical theatre, video, dance and electronic music.’ ”

I hope there is a video of this that one can watch later. That mass by Haydn is one I really like. With or without ballet. So I hope he does a good job.

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Fred

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Do you know why some people don’t like Prokofiev’s music?

This is why:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=015QVOO-5Ek

But this concerto (No. 1, in D major) is not really that bad when one hears the whole thing together, rather than some technically very changeling bits and pieces played without connection to each other and each from a cold start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyFQwiAqDS4

In fact, I really liked this, and think that ending the concerto with the same opening melody played at its beginning, but this time with plenty more vibrato, was both a lovely and brilliant idea.

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Music from the stars.

Or rather from enormous black holes amidst them, at the center of far away galaxies and even groups of galaxies, or galaxy clusters, made of billions of stars and huge gas and dust clouds.
The black holes produce traveling pressure waves, that is another name for sound waves, in those clouds, of an extremely low frequency that have been shifted to our audible range 57 and 58 octaves, or hundreds of quadrillions of times, by NASA so we can hear how they sound. Some are very tuneful and sound more or less like pleasant clips of weirdly relaxing music.

The same black holes also eject huge jets of matter many light years long and also light years wide at their fast moving far ends, where sound waves propagate along these jets with a similar effect.
And this week in May is Black Hole Week, in case you did not know.

So, while in a space nobody can hear you cry, the songs of the black holes can definitely be heard.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/nasa-sonification-lets-us-hear-the-eerie-music-emitted-by-black-holes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioR5np1fmEc

From the accompanying YT notes:

“Since 2003, the black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster has been associated with sound. This is because astronomers discovered that pressure waves sent out by the black hole caused ripples in the cluster’s hot gas that could be translated into a note — one that humans cannot hear some 57 octaves below middle C. Now a new sonification brings more notes to this black hole sound machine. This new sonification — that is, the translation of astronomical data into sound — is being released for NASA’s Black Hole Week this year.”

“The popular misconception that there is no sound in space originates with the fact that most of space is essentially a vacuum, providing no medium for sound waves to propagate through. A galaxy cluster, on the other hand, has copious amounts of gas that envelop the hundreds or even thousands of galaxies within it, providing a medium for the sound waves to travel.”

(More information in the same notes.)

And, given that Earth is in the middle of all this, here is some terrestrial music from a Hungarian composer I have never heard of before (my fault, not his), but this composition by him turns out to be pretty good; this recording is from 2007:

Karl Goldmark Violin concerto No. 1 in A minor, Hilary Hahn violin, Charles Dutoit conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LurlPDkLB4E

About the composer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Goldmark

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GarthP, Fred

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Thank you, and for all the effort you put in this.
Just wondering, how many hours are there in your days? Must be like 48 or so

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Oscar,

Thanks for the Goldmark concerto, not one I know; very attractive piece.

Taken aback by the Hilary photo heading it, most uncharacteristic! Usually such a sober appearance during performance, it must have been taken at the end.

Garth

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Garth, She usually is very serious, because she concentrates on something quite tricky and hard to do, as is playing the violin well enough to be and stay at the top of her class. But she now and then exchanges smiles with the conductor, particularly when something comes out really well: her “we killed it!” smile.

I think that in this case she is looking a bit odd, mostly because of the angle of her face and perhaps some strain she may be experiencing at that moment, but she does smile now and then while playing, with a very nice fleeting smile. What she never does, and God bless her for that, is to look “involved” and deeply “feeling” what she is playing. Her feeling for the piece is where it belongs, in her playing of it. She is all business, in this case playing to a live audience that paid to hear her play and giving them the best of herself as musician. And that is how it should be.

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? says:

Oscar, is there a sonata from Sagittarius A?

https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/astronomers-reveal-first-image-black-hole-heart-our-galaxy

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Anonymous:

A black hole sonata? Perhaps not yet. This new result of the extraordinary international cooperative example of the use of the technique known as Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), the project known as “Event Horizon”, where the data collected with several radio telescopes around the world are combined to obtain a remarkable and otherwise impossible result (*) is, indeed, a great achievement. But it does not show the black hole ultra-low frequency and light-year long sound waves that can be translated into audible music, perhaps because it is, for now, not active enough to generate sufficiently strong waves.

This is the second black hole imaged in this way, the one of greatest importance to us, because it is the massive one at the center of our own galaxy, but is also much harder to observe than the first one, because that one is much larger, as explained in the excellent article you have provided the URL. This black hole cannot be imaged with optical telescopes, such as the Hubble, because it is obscured from us by clouds of gas and dust that are opaque to visible light, but not to radio waves observed with radio telescopes. All of such telescopes are sited on Earth, except for Spektr-RG of the ongoing RadioAstron Russian project, that is not part of “Event Horizon.”

But while there is not a sonata by a black hole, yet, we already have something from our own solar system that might do, although it is not a sonata:

Gustav Holst: The Planets — Orchestra and conductor both totally unclear in the video’s Notes; this could be a mix of different recordings, one for each planet. Not bad, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isic2Z2e2xs&ab_channel=SalemRonkartz

 

(*) In my own specialty, VLBI is used to find with great precision the distances between a number of participant radio telescopes, as well as the orientation of Earth relative to very distant and active black holes known as quasars, the modern equivalent of “the distant stars”, to study the movement of the telescope locations due to plate tectonics, seismicity, etc. as well as the movements of the celestial pole and the rate of rotation of the Earth.

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Besides that of black holes, there is great music from other sources:

I have just discovered this, to me, unexpected musical trove:

Dvorak: Complete Symphonic Poems – Overtures — Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar (conductor)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwXPPGQQW1k&ab_channel=BrilliantClassics

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? says:

thank you, Oscar. interesting this space music:

https://chandra.si.edu/sound/

perhaps the great composers?

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OscarCP

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Anonymous: “perhaps the great composers?”

If not quite the greatest, certainly the hugest ones.

“Sonification” is a word that describes the translation of digitized data (e.g. numbers) into sounds. In this case we are considering here, the numbers actually define which colors to give in a picture of a celestial object, such as a nebula or a galaxy, to the pixels showing its discretized constituting light sources that can be resolved with a telescope. This often depends on the chemical composition, in particular of the main substance making up what is there, as revealed by the spectral lines of the light emanating from it. So one color would be assigned, arbitrarily, to oxygen, another to sulfur, etc. Sonification replaces data not into colors but sounds that correspond to those colors.

In the case of those black holes such as those we have given the URL to their corresponding NASA videos, the sonification there actually represents in audible sound the actual, if inaudible infra sound waves produced by those black holes, imaged from the variations in density of the gas and dust interstellar medium caused by those pressure sound waves propagating through it. Other sonifications replace colors with sounds where no actual sound waves can be detected. But their effect is not very different from that of listening to black holes sound waves shifted up in frequency to our hearing range: weirdly soothing.

As to weirdly soothing music of a terrestrial origin, here is an example:

Eric Satie: Gymnopedies #1 ~ Gnossiennes #1,3,4,5: Works For Piano Solo And Piano Duet ~ Artist ~ Pianist: Anne Queffelec, with artwork by Edouard Leon Cortes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9WKC5sT9Z4

 

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? says:

thank you for the youtube, Oscar. very nice piano from E. Satie et al. paired with the E.L. Cortes scene from early 20th century gay Paree. someone on antiques roadshow brough in a similar Cortes a few years ago found in a Goodwill in Montana…

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OscarCP

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Cortes has been called “the Parisian poet of painting”, for his pictures of life in the late evening and night streets of Paris, particularly during the early 20th Century (first with horse-driven cabs and then cars in them). Looking at the pictures shown in the background of the Satie video, I can’t help thinking that he must have got pretty wet and even soaked making those street paintings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Cort%C3%A8s

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For half a century I have enjoyed, admired and been moved by the works of Bach for unaccompanied violin and cello. They are landmarks in the artistic legacy of Western civilization and, therefore, part of the inestimable heritage of the world. To play them and to listen to them is everyone’s birthright: it is up to us to exercise it or not.

My first encounter with these suites happened when I was a post-graduate student at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, having heard them first on ABC radio and then finding the long-play recordings, in a big records shop in George Street, of the cello ones, played by Paul Tortelier.
Since then I have heard these works played by other great cellists: Jacqueline du Pré recorded just two of the suits; Mischa Maisky all six, Pau Casals played all of them for decades and often, whether in public, recording studios, or just at home, by himself; in his old age noting that he had “seen some improvements of late” in his playing.

But, of all these fine performances and several more by other distinguished musicians, the ones by Tortelier remain my favorite.

Now most of those great master musicians I listened play these works are gone, but the sounds still linger, like fantastic iridescent bugs trapped in amber, in the recordings of their playing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_Suites_(Bach)

Bach – Cello Suites 1,4,5 (reference recording : Paul Tortelier 1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUPkSMlcV9A

Bach – Cello Suites 2,3,6 + Presentation (reference recording : Paul Tortelier 1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdA_RJldIU

 

The first page from the manuscript written J.S. Bach second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, of Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007:

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Edward Grieg composed in 1875 the original music these two suits are based on, for the play by Ibsen “Peer Gynt”, in turn based on an old Norwegian fairy tale, about a ne’er do well man that grows old trying to make good only for himself, avoiding responsibilities and caring little for anyone else.
After a life ill-spent, banished from his homeland for kidnapping Ingrid, a young woman, in the night of her wedding, wandering through many a distant land, always getting in trouble and then running away, having various adventures and misadventures, where in one of these he meets the King of the Trolls: the Mountain King, with his daughter. Whom he then gets magically pregnant “with his mind”, without touching her, just by desiring her.
In his old age, he finally sets out on a dangerous return journey to his natal country, to die there alone, in penury and spiritually desolate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_Gynt

Perhaps the most poignant and lovely part of this composition is the very last of the second suit, “Solveigs’ Song”:

Peer Gynt, now an old and feeble man, is back in his home town, a shadow of the young man that left it so many years ago. There he seeks Solveig, a woman he once loved, who loved him with all her heart and then he abandoned, to ask for her forgiveness.
She receives him, tells him that there is nothing for her to forgive.
He, ashamed and scared, hides his head in Solveigh’s lap.
Solveig holds him and sings to him a lullaby, as he dies.

Grieg – Peer Gynt Suite No.1 Op.46　Karajan Berlin Philharmonic
September 1971

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaBaPXt-wBA

１ Morning Mood　0:00
２ Aase’s Death　4:00
３ Anitra’s Dance　8:47
４In the Hall of the Moutain King　12:33

Grieg – Peer Gynt　Second Suite Op.55　Karajan Berlin Philharmonic
September 1971

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r87siGRKGcg

１ The Abducion of the Bride – Ingrid’s Lament　0:00
２ Arabian Dance　4:56
３ Peer Gynt’s Homecoming　9:37
４ Solveig’s Song　12:21

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Fred, GarthP

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Amazing
Il piccolo genio Alberto Cartuccia Cingolani di 5 anni esegue alcuni brani di Mozart.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U-YVaX8wmBY
.

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OscarCP

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Amazing is the right word. Surprising is how he can manage with his small hands to reach all the right keys. And the pedals? No pedals. Yet it sounds OK.

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Fred

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No pedals, no helmet: just like the bicycle. Haha.
Regards

* _ ... _ *

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GarthP has observed that Hilary Hahn’s face is not always as inexpressive when playing her violin as he expected. True, she sometimes smiles at the conductor, who might smile back, when happy about how well some tricky passage played by her with the orchestra came out.

Now here is something that should reassure Garth that she can be totally unsmiling, except when taking a bow to the camera, at the end:

J. S. Bach: Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, BWV 1006 – Hilary Hahn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr_gK9fzwSo

Judging by her messy hair, she recorded this at home earlier last year, during the thick of the pandemic, when there wasn’t a lot to smile about. And she was playing by herself and probably alone, with no one to smile at. (Also her portrait on the wall looks pretty serious.)

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Nostalgia, despair, transcendence:

A remarkable musical creation and excellent musicians putting together a magical performance of a bewitching composition:

Antonin Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor — Mstislav Rostropovich, cello, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan Conductor (1968 recording – remastered in 2012)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNZqy3FxvhQ

(Try listening on a good stereo system or with a good pair of headphones.)

About this concert:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%C3%ADn_Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k#Concerti

Excerpt:

“Dvořák’s concerto premiered in London on 16 March 1896, with the English cellist Leo Stern.
The reception was “enthusiastic”. Brahms said of the work: “Had I known that one could write a cello concerto like this, I would have written one long ago!” Agreeing with Schonberg, the cellist and author Robert Battey wrote “I believe it to be the greatest of all cello concertos…an opinion shared by most cellists” “

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Fred

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OscarCP wrote:

(Try listening on a good stereo system or with a good pair of headphones.)

Oscar: This is so very true.
Thanks for giving this musicguidance. It gives many moments of joy and pleasure.
Can you give some of your examples on flute music, as in concerti too please?

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Fred,

Mozart has the monopoly of flute music on YouTube, but I managed to find these six by Vivaldi, played by none but the best:

Antonio Vivaldi 6 Flute Concertos Op.10 — Aurèle Nicolet, flute — I Musici.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8CPvA2NKmU

Antonio Vivaldi 6 Flute Concertos Op.10

1. No. 1 In F, RV 433 “La tempesta di mare” 0:05
2. No. 2 In G Minor, RV 439 “La notte” 6:57
3. No. 3 In D, RV 428 “Il gardellino” 16:43
4. No. 4 In G, RV 435 26:51
5. No. 5 In F, RV 434 33:42
6. No. 6 In G, RV 437 41:39
Aurèle Nicolet, Flute
I Musici
Rec.: 1986

I hope you like them.

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Slow day here.

So I am posting this performance of one of my favorite compositions and the intriguing mystery of the young white-headed viola player that goes with it:

Dvořák : Serenade for Strings – Netherlands Chamber Orchestra – Gordan Nikolić (violin / concertmaster)
Recorded live at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, November 27

2016.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRcbDMg56yg

Who is she? What is she?

Is she an albino? Or an extreme platinum blonde? Or … Your guess?

As a prize to those who reply to this comment with their answers to the above:

I’ll fulfill their requests for posting classical musical here (*), for the next several days.

(Not that I shall, or can stop anyone for posting precisely that any time they wish to.)

 

(*) If available in YouTube.

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Fred

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Unfortunately I couldn’t find the white-gray headed violin player amongst the players of Het Nederlands Kamerorkest.

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OscarCP wrote:

I hope you like them

Downloaded audio (4K video downloader app). Converted to Flac (Portable fre-ac app). Added to my audio/video USB thumb drive for my infotainment system in my car.

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This is I think the best interpretation I have heard of this evocative musical poem for strings, like an immense wind blowing in waves over a sea of grass, sounding in tall reed lands an ancient air:

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for double stringed orchestra

David Nolan, Strings Leader, Bryden Thomson Conductor, London Philharmonic Orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U6sWqfrnTs

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This is a blessing for the ears, after listening to “Schulte” for a long time last night.

I definitely have to look for better earplugs.

* _ ... _ *

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Another amazing developement: The Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam appoints a new young conductor in the years to come. A remarkable talent.
Read

https://www.concertgebouworkest.nl/en/stories/klaus-makela-the-eighth-chief-conductor

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OscarCP

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The surname of this conductor looks Finish to me. Is he from Finland?

It is interesting that he was voted as the next conductor by the orchestra, because they like to work with him. That, I understand, is very important: the conductor has to work well with the other musicians, because their music-making is a joint, cooperative effort. (*)

Interesting also how the “getting along” of conductor and orchestra has become something to be expected. Back when I started listening to classical music, the standard relationship between many a conductor with the members of an orchestra was that of a tyrant to his (yes, ‘his’) disgruntled and often humiliated subjects. The great Arturo Toscanini was the best (or worst) example of this.

Not only this has changed enormously, but also has the presence of women musicians on the stage as part of the orchestra, inclusive as conductors (few still, but good). It used to be about zero; now days men and women are close to 50/50. Same with non-European orchestra members and conductors. For example, the days, back in the 60s, when Seiji Ozawa was probably the lone Asian conductor, or Asian musician of any kind with a steady job in an orchestra outside of Asia, are now well in the past.

A sample of the new conductor’s work:

Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 4 – Klaus Mäkelä Conductor – Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4UScRNrb5M

The Oslo Concert Hall. The recording was made on 4th June 2021.

(*) About something at the end of the video of the interview: Yes, those steep Dutch stairs with their tiny, narrow threads are a risk to limb and life, I must say. The ones giving access to the Concertgebau stage are not only typical, but rise to a great height, for a longer fall rolling down them.

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A remarkable singing performance by a very special combination of soprano, orchestra and chorus in a remarkable venue:

Jessye Norman, soprano — “Christmastide” A Christmas Concert of Carols at Ely Cathedral —  Recorded live with the American Chorus, Robert De Cormier and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in December of 1988:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhPs3F0s2SA

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessye_Norman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ely_Cathedral

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What follows is a declaration of my own idea of what is moral or otherwise in great works of art, in this case as it applies to the performance of a great musical composition by a great and storied Russian string quartet (here augmented by another cellist to form a quintet), while considering also the composer of the music itself.

My thesis, that I am convinced is right, is that a great work of art is not subject to our finite judgement that splits the human world and its works into those things that are good and those that are evil, high or low, sublime or despicable. Because I declare with conviction that a great work of art validates itself, that makes its own space among the great achievements of the human mind, that it does not need our approval or acceptance. That it just IS in a sense that exceeds our limited intellects’ ability to pass judgement.

So here is an example of what I just wrote: a great musical work composed by an Austrian, a citizen of a Central European power that had, close to a century before he composed this, bathed in blood Europe during an endless and pointless war of succession to the Habsburg’s imperial throne and, close to a century thence, it was going to cause much more blood still to be shedded during one of the most terrible wars in history. In the meantime subjugating populations in the Balkans and Italy.

And this work of such origin is here being played by the storied Russian “Borodin” Quartet, that through most of last century and all of the current one has played to audiences that have included some of the most malignant and destructive autocrats in European history, or their ruthless minions, from Joseph Stalin to the present occupant of the Kremlin.

But all the same, to deny the worth of what is a sublime emanation of the human spirit is to deny our own humanity, no matter how bright or dark is, or has been, or is likely to be the state of the world in which it first took form, or why:

Franz Schubert, String Quintet in C Major, D. 956 — The Borodin Quartet With Alexander Buzlov (additional cello)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3iX7x73JY

From the YouTube Notes:

“Played by The Borodin Quartet With Alexander Buzlov (cello) – The Quintet was to be Schubert’s last completed chamber work. Just a few weeks after having completed the Quintet, Schubert died at three o’clock in the afternoon on November 19, 1828. It is widely believed to be among the handful of greatest chamber works ever composed.

The Borodin Quartet was formed in 1945 by four students from the Moscow Conservatory. Calling itself the Moscow Philharmonic Quartet, the group changed its name to Borodin Quartet ten years later and remains one of the very few existing established chamber ensembles with uninterrupted longevity. The current members of the Quartet are Ruben Aharonian, Sergei Lomovsky, Igor Naidin and Vladimir Balshin.“

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So what is “genius”? One might ask.

Well, if you really want to know, just listen to this:

Mozart | Clarinet quintet K581 in A major – Armida Quartet, Sabine Meyer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTNbclgU3h4

Notice what Mozart did there? In the first part, for example, the theme is just a sinuous and sensual string of several mainly ascending notes: that’s it.

But pay close attention to what Mozart did with such apparently limited material (*). Be prepared to be amazed. (Particularly around 5:30 minutes.)

By the way, that Sabine is pretty good. I’ve listened to her playing Schubert’s Octet (**). What she does here with Mozart so nicely is not just a fluke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnpVu8Eihj4

(*) This is the sort of music some hired musicians play at functions where everybody is talking loudly and one can only notice, almost subliminally, that music is being played at all. Everybody’s loss, except for the musicians, that at least get paid for not to being heard.

(**) At the Solberg festival, both created in 2005 and organized since then by the skinny cellist, Sol Gabetta, an Argentinian living in Switzerland and a musician of international recognition. The festival concert is at the Abby of the Olsberg monastery, also in Switzerland.

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GarthP

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Yes, a good recording, but …….. rather flat compared with the following suggestion.

I have always greatly enjoyed the Mozart quintets, as they seem much greater than the quartets, so much more sonorous.

My ‘go to’ performances (all on vinyl) are by an old but superb group, the Amadeus Quartet, in this case with Gervase de Peyer; the Youtube performance is a reissue of the original 1976 recording (which I have) and does not have a video accompanying it, but the musical performance is wonderful, masterful, exquisite. You will gather I like it! Indeed, I venture to say there has never been a better one.

Garth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IppVSEFs2So

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OscarCP

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Now meet Sol Gabetta while she is hitting all the notes with gusto:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococco Theme by Paganini – Sol Gabetta, cellist. Conductor and orchestra are good but unnamed in YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfWtZntljaA&t=80s

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GarthP: ”

“Yes, a good recording, but …….. rather flat compared with the following suggestion.”

Well, that was actually my point: what Mozart, if one listens carefully, did make out of nothing much.

“I have always greatly enjoyed the Mozart quintets, as they seem much greater than the quartets, so much more sonorous.”

You mentioned the Amadeus quartet augmented with a clarinet player. To me, that is one of the great string quartets of all time and I have all of Schumann’s and most of the five last quartets of Beethoven by them, so not surprised by your liking one of their performances. How great a quartet? As great as is great the Borodin, or the Budapest, the Jiulliard, or the Alban Berg, to mention just four others in my all-time great quartets list.

But Mozart trios are not to be left out of consideration, when it comes to sonorous attention-getting compositions. Played with three of the performers featured in my previous two postings, for comparison:

W.A. Mozart: Divertimento KV 563 – Veronika Eberle, violin – Amihai Grosz, viola – Sol Gabetta, cello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8c83bpOVXo

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And still on Mozart, two more things:

One of my favorite works by Wolfgang Amadeus.
Maybe Garp has this one on that Vinil collection too?

Mozart Flute & Harp Concerto C major K 299- Patrick Gallois, flute – Isabelle Moretti, harp – Neville Marriner, conductor
(Orchestra not mentioned in YT, but I suspect is the Academy of  St. Martin in the Fields)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTpVBF2X2bM

And for the Grand Finale:

Mozart “Great Mass in C minor, K 427” Barbara Hendricks, soprano – David Bell, bass – Peter Schreier, tenor – Benjamin Luxon, baritone – Berliner Philharmoniker – Herbert von Karajan, conductor – Wiener Singverein, chorus
Recorded in 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHKhcbZEWI

This is a solemn work, of course, but I feel shining through it the light from Mozart’s possibly happiest time: engaged to and soon to marry Constanze and having left the employment of the abusive and not exactly congenial Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, he was now living in Vienna, starting there a more independent career that was to be one of the most brilliantly creative in the history of music.

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This is so wonderful I cannot help but add it here, although I already had thought that with the “Great Mass” I had found the perfect brooch to pin at the end of this series of Mozart comments:

Mozart: Piano Sonatas K 545, 570, 576, 533/494 – Mitsuko Uchida, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OydFO53iSzk

Uchida is one the great living Mozart interpreters. With her playing, she illustrates the meaning of the old musicians’ joke that “The angels play Bach to God and Mozart to each other.”

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Fred

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OscarCP wrote:

“The angels play Bach to God and Mozart to each other.”

This is so very true. My old-time cdplayer knows!

* _ ... _ *

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Half a century ago, a great conductor, a great orchestra and a great pianist performed a piano concerto composed by a musical genius.
This was the result:

Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1 – Arthur Rubinstein, piano – Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink conductor (1973)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cMo9r2DVZc

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This is something I came across when looking for something else — and I am delighted that I did:

J.S Bach — 5 (+1/3 ?) Trumpet concerti — Matthias Höfs, piccolo trumpet, with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yViWS5zjyg

https://mouthpieceonline.com/trumpet-artist-profile-matthias-hofs/

Excerpted from the YouTube accompanying Notes: (*)

“Johann Sebastian Bach sadly left no trumpet concertos known to us in the twenty-first century. The trumpeter Matthias Höfs has now remedied this situation by arranging a number of Bach’s solo concertos for his instrument. His modern piccolo trumpet is able – unlike the valveless Baroque trumpet – to bring out the brilliant sound of the trumpet in the demanding melodies of the concertos.

Most instrumentalists, especially trumpeters, must come to terms with the fact that the history of their instrument is frequently one reflecting the gradual development of its musical and technical abilities. What that means is that a modern-day trumpeter can achieve far more with their modern instrument than was possible with the Baroque trumpet. While it is true that Bach composed superb solo parts for trumpet, he seems to have been deterred from writing a concerto in several movements for the trumpet, either because the trumpet of his day had a limited note range or there was no suitable soloist available to play such a complex work.

Back in the Baroque era, it was perfectly commonplace for concertos and in particular solo concertos to be played ad libitum on a whole range of different instruments. Bach wrote all of the concertos that Matthias Höfs has recorded on his new album for the Clavier (clavichord or harpsichord).”

Tracks:

00:00 – Italian Concert in F major, BWV 971: I. Allegro
04:06 – Concerto in G minor, BWV 1056/156: I. Moderato
07:16 – Concerto in G minor, BWV 1056/156: II. Adagio
10:03 – Concerto in G minor, BWV 1056/156: III. Presto (Allegro)
13:44 – Concerto in D major, BWV 972 (after RV 230): I. Allegro
15:49 – Concerto in D major, BWV 972 (after RV 230): II. Larghetto
18:51 – Concerto in D major, BWV 972 (after RV 230): III. Allegro
20:59 – Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1060: I. Allegro
25:34 – Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1060: II. Adagio
29:59 – Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1060: III. Allegro
33:35 – Concerto in G major, BWV 978 (after RV 310): I. Allegro
36:04 – Concerto in G major, BWV 978 (after RV 310): II. Largo
38:25 – Concerto in G major, BWV 978 (after RV 310): III. Allegro
41:05 – Concerto in D minor, BWV 974 (after Alessandro Marcello): I. Andante e spiccato
44:00 – Concerto in D minor, BWV 974 (after Alessandro Marcello): II. Adagio
47:32 – Concerto in D minor, BWV 974 (after Alessandro Marcello): III. Presto

(*) I have the same set of concerti arranged for violin and baroque orchestra — the BWV 1060, here for violin and trumpet, in its original form for violin and oboe, later arranged by Bach for two harpsichords, later still for …

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On this day and in fulfillment of a young and pretty gypsy lady’s prophecy she made when she suddenly showed up at my window one day, many years ago, when I was an undergraduate engineering student, today I have reached the exact age she told me I was going to. So now I am finally and officially really old. And, consequently, in a mood that calls for such grandiloquent, dramatic and often loud music as this one:

Richard Wagner: the complete “Götterdämmerung (or “The Twilight of the Gods” in English)

— Orchestra and choir of the Scala di Milano, Conductor: Wilhelm Furtwängler (1950 recording)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqEF6b4lv8

Cast:

Siegfried: Max Lorenz
Brünnhilde: Kirsten Flagstad
Waltraute: Elisabeth Höngen
Gunther: Josef Hermann
Gutrune: Hilde Konetzni
Alberich: Alois Pernerstorfer
Hagen: Ludwig Weber
Erste Norn: Margret Weth-Falke
Zweite Norn: Margherita Kenney
Dritte Norn: Hilde Konetzni
Woglinde: Magda Gabory
Wellgunde: Margherita Kenney
Floßhilde: Sieglinde Wagner

Say what you like about Furtwängler, he was a heck of a great conductor.

If you do not have 4 hours and 15 minutes to listen to the whole opera, then listen to this 6:15 minutes clip instead:

Wagner Götterdämmerung – Siegfried’s death and Funeral march Klaus — Tennstedt, Conductor, London Philharmonic Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXh5JprKqiU

For more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6tterd%C3%A4mmerung

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GarthP

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Oscar,

How I say it, I have lived a long time, but I am not old! Congratulations on having lived a long time.

On Götterdämmerung and Wagner, perhaps two quotes are in order:

From Thomas Mann:

“The overpowering accents of the music that bears away Siegfried’s corpse no longer refer to the woodland youth who set forth in order to learn fear; they instruct our feeling in what is really passing there behind falling veils of mist. The sun-hero himself lies on his bier, struck down by pale darkness, and the word comes to the aid of our emotions: ‘the fury of a wild boar’, says Gunther, pointing to Hagen, ‘who mangled the flesh of this noble youth’. ”

 

A succinct one from Stephen Hawking

“Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since. ”

Says it all, really.

Garth

 

 

 

 

 

 

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OscarCP

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Garth, Quite so!

Even while I am not a fan of Wagner (or, while I am at it, of Mahler and other composers to my ear slow and ponderous in style) there are things that they express best and this is one of them: the inescapable fate of us and, same as us, our dearest achievements, our ephemeral gods, along with the hills, the world, the very stars, as time grounds all things to meaningless dust while it pours itself down, inexorably, from the deep past towards the unknowable future.

That said, I am well-defined by your choice of words, because, as you put it, although I have lived a very long time, I don’t feel old.

And about the poor horse burned to death in Siegfried’s huge funeral pyre, with Valhalla itself aflame, all to add drama to the ending:

“Brünnhilde, willing to be reunited with her love, mounts her horse Grane and rides into the flames, joining Siegfried in death.” (From Wikipedia’s cited article on this opera.)

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Thank you for all the insights you provide. I enjoy the writing, knowledge and philosophy of all who participate in these emails.

I am not far behind you in age and we share the knowledge that we are not old and, fortunately, are still healthy. I believe the old people are those who sit and watch the “idiot box” of American TV day and night. That phrase came to me from a neighbor who lived in the apartment above us after he served in the Korean War and got married. His words have stayed with me since I was about 9. The beauty of city life and that “old” world was that people did not stray very far and we were able to maintain contact with him until he passed a few years ago.

The internet also had the promise of enlightening the masses but, as with TV, has failed in that regard. I am astonished to see many people from 20 to 80 or more playing children’s games on a computer or phone. I do not get the attraction. I stopped playing games when I was 13 and started working in my father’s photographic studio. An Italian immigrant boy that lived across the street was working in a corner store that sold “live” chickens; mostly the housewife would come in and choose the chicken she wanted and my friend’s job was to cut off the chicken’s head. I can still visualize him walking home in a bloodied white apron while other kids played in the street. Immigrants ensured their children’s success in life by teaching them the importance of work over play. Stay well.

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Two of the great musicians of our time together in a fiery performance of a piano concerto for all times:

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” — Mitsuko Uchida. piano, Seiji Ozawa, conductor, with the Saito Kinen international Orchestra
(On November 25th, 2014.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQHrNdjUPDc

The orchestra:

Ozawa begun forming this ensemble in 1984, naming it in memory of a generally revered teacher that was his mentor when he was a music student in Japan. It is formed with Japanese performers working both in Japan and abroad, as well as other artists from different nationalities. The orchestra has been getting together, usually once a year, to perform at a festival organized by Ozawa in Japan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saito_Kinen_Orchestra

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On the topic of greatest musical classics of many kinds, here in particular one of our times:

Those were the days, following the Liberation of France, when Yves Montand, Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf were some of the most popular singers of the day in France and in much of the world.

This short poem, written also in those long-ago days, is one of the truest about life I’ve ever read, one I could never forget.
It’s call simply “Song” and it was written by a great poet:

What day is it
It’s everyday
My friend
It’s all of life
My love
We love each other and we live
We live and love each other
And we do not know what life is
And we do not know what a day is
And we do not know what love is.

Quel jour sommes-nous
Nous sommes tous les jours
Mon amie
Nous sommes toute la vie
Mon amour
Nous nous aimons et nous vivons
Nous vivons et nous nous aimons
Et nous ne savons pas ce que c’est que la vie
Et nous ne savons pas ce que c’est que le jour
Et nous ne savons pas ce que c’est que l’amour.

This poet wrote many things, including the script of one among the greatest movies ever made.
You might have heard of it, maybe even seen it: “Les Enfants du Paradis”, in English “Children of Paradise”, where “Paradise” here means the second gallery, with the cheapest seats in a theater, the ones highest and farthest away from the stage; the “children” being the poor students and others who could not afford better seats, but loved theater and were famously boisterous during performances.
It was made by a courageous group of actors, directors, producers that were fooling the Gestapo, dangerously skirting war-time restrictions during the occupation of France, to get permission, often under false pretenses, to obtain what they needed to make this movie, while gainfully employing in hard times many Resistance fighters and also Jews, mainly as extras:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Paradise

The same poet also wrote the lyrics of one of the saddest and most famous of love songs.
A true classic in the full sense of the word, it can be found earlier in this thread, and here, sang in French and English by Edith Piaf, with the full power of her extraordinary voice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2s2tPORlW4

By Eric Clapton, in English:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKT8rBvS3gQ

And in French, by Yves Montand:

https://impossiblepoems.blogspot.com/2014/10/yves-montand-prevert-dead-leaves.html

The poet’s name was Jacques Prévert.

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Today, in the news: a muse of a generation is gone.

But not forgotten:

Olivia Newton-John: Dead at 73.

Requiescat in Pacem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Newton-John

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Fred

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And now the good news: I have found this beautiful performance of one of the most beautiful songs of this and any time:

Delibes: Opera “Lakmé” – Duo des fleurs (Flower Duet), Sabine Devieilhe & Marianne Crebassa, and the period-instrument orchestra Les Siècles under its founder, François-Xavier Roth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ZL5AxmK_A

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakm%C3%A9

Generations come and go, their passions and works for a while remembered, then largely forgotten; but something that seems the most fragile of what they leave behind tends to endure, those things that have this attribute: great beauty.

To me, this is one of the deepest mysteries. But I suspect one imperfect answer might be this: that a true work of art casts a powerful, unavoidable and enduring spell, an enchantment, on our minds, if these are at all susceptible, regardless of when, where and who we are.

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Thanks indeed, Oscar. As many of the comments mention, one of the most beautiful songs in the classical repertoire, and this is without doubt the supreme version. Stunning, just watched and listened three times in quick succession!

Garth

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Here is another wonderful version of another beautiful duet, the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann, (Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour)

This again features that most talented mezzo Marianne Crebassa, this time with a singer I am not familiar with, Fatma Said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTyxSjeSfCE

Garth

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OscarCP

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While we are still on the subject of beautiful and deeply moving performances of great opera songs, there is one that, for me, is very special as sang by this woman, this great artist, this soprano with a unique voice that went silent for ever, so long ago.

It lasts some seven minutes and is one aria of one opera.
When I saw and heard for the first time her singing it, in this video, and every time I see and hear this again, I am moved close to tears because of how she sang it.
She did not have a perfect voice, but a slightly harsh and sometimes wobbly one she did not particularly like, this elegant and strangely beautiful woman, who sang so admirably in spite of her real-life disappointments and tragedies, and all we have here is a ghost made of ones and zeroes, a digital copy of an old film recording brought back as image and sound with a machine — the ghost of her singing one day, many years ago, in a world now mostly gone that fewer and fewer of us still remember.

Maria Callas sings “Casta Diva” (Bellini: Norma, Act 1)
with the Orchestre de l’Opera National de Paris, Georges Sebastian conductor.
Recorded live at the Palais Garnier on the 19th of December 1958.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-TwMfgaDC8

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And more about Maria Callas, her voice problems, her audience (not always appreciative), her influence, her legacy, her legend:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/1997/may/05/maria-callas-far-from-perfect-terrence-mcnally

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Callas

The last performance:

Tosca – ‘Vissi d’Arte’ aria, at Covent Garden 1964

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk5KrlxePzI

“Vissi d’arte”, “I lived for art”, indeed.

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This is something I came across recently and want to share with others with a similar experience in their younger days:

Brahms: ‘Academic Festival — Musikkollegium Winterthur, conductor Karl Scheuber and male chorus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SHYrK9Hnq0

According to the YT accompanying notes: “The recordings were made in 2014 to mark the centenary of the opening of the Zurich University’s new building in 1914.”

“Gaudeamus igitur” (Let us rejoice), its first stanza, as usual, sang here at the very end, is the name of a very old song in Latin that was the anthem of my undergraduate alma mater and of many other universities, at least back then. Listening to it today brings me back to those intensely lived and, where I was then, politically turbulent days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudeamus_igitur

It begins in a not all that rejoicing mood, but this lightens up further on, as this sample shows:

Gaudeamus igitur,
Iuvenes dum sumus,
Post jucundam juventutem
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus.

So, let us rejoice
While we are young.
After a pleasant youth
After a troublesome old age
The earth will have us.

….

Vivat Academia,
Vivant Professores,
Vivat membrum quodlibet,
Vivant membra quaelibet,
Semper sint in flore!

Long live the academy!
Long live the professors!
Long live each student;
Long live the whole fraternity;
For ever may they flourish!

Vivant omnes virgines
Faciles, formosae
Vivant et mulieres
Tenerae, amabiles
Bonae, laboriosae.

Long live all maidens, (*)
Easy, beautiful!
Long live also older women,
Tender, lovable,
Good, hard-working.

Etc.

(*) Here, while ‘virgins’ is the strict translation, ‘maidens’ best fits what follows.

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GarthP

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Chick Corea, who died last year aged 79 and was active until near the end of his long and exceptional life, was one of the great pianists of the last 100 years.

To be more precise, he was a jazz pianist, one of the best, who played in the course of his long career with Jazz musicians, composers and players that, just like him, were often both and a list of their names is a roll call of the very best. He was also a composer and player of classical music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Corea

In the years 1989 – 1981 he teamed up with two other remarkable musicians: bassist John Patittucci and percussionist Dave Weckl, forming the trio called “The Akoustic Band.”

Then they were their different ways, to get together years later for a performance at the San Javier Jazz Festival, in Spain, on July of 2018. This is the video of their concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJzHpRmtbC4

Program:

Morning Sprite – 02:06
Japanese Waltz – 14:47
That Old Feeling – 23:58
In a Sentimental Mood – 33:45
Life Line – 45:40
On the theme of sonata by Scarlatti – 58:50
You and The Night and The Music – 1:03:29
On the main theme of Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.”

In the video, when Corea begins playing a Scarlatti sonata and later, when he starts with the theme of the first movement of Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez”, and in each case the trio then comes together and they start accompanying and improvising, one can appreciate and admire both the technique, musical imagination and professionalism of the three musicians.
And also one can see and hear a clear example of a main difference between classical music and Jazz:

Classical music players, including the conductor, if there is an orchestra, perhaps singers, maybe also a chorus, they make a composition’s performance their own by the way they decide to play its notes, fixed in the score, but not in their artists’ minds, while soloists can improvise, if they so choose, during the cadenzas of a concerto: Those are relatively short periods where only they play and the rest of the musicians remain silent, or perhaps the strings punctuate the soloists melody marking a rhythm with a few repeated notes bowed or plucked. So they are both performers and creators, but the latter in a limited way.

Jazz players first play, briefly, a recognizable theme from a composition as written, then improvise around it for the rest of often long pieces, so in terms of classical music one could say that they play really long improvised cadenzas. And when so playing, they are both performers and creators in more or less equal parts.

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1959J.S. BACH, Chaconne (from Violin Partita in D minor No. 2 BWV 1004) — Andrés SEGOVIA,  solo guitar — 1959

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGt9AFlIPY

For those who know and love music, enough said.

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Fred

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This must be J.S.B’s most popular composition and one of the most popular ever by no matter who. It probably has been played more often than the national anthem of (any country).

Out of a zillion of YT videos of the “Air”, I downloaded more than two years ago this one and tonight was trying to figure out, long after the deed, who the players were.
Well, my labors have been recompensed with the finding, just now, of the same video in YT.

With only 75,471,624 views since posted Jan 25, 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrVDATvUitA

J.S. Bach: “Air” from the 3rd orchestral suite in D minor; BWV 1068, 2nd movement. Compagnia D’Opera Italiana (*).

And this brings me to the second most popular work ever (**) by no matter who:

J.S. Bach: Adagio from the Oboe concerto in D minor BWV 974.
(As arranged by Alessandro Marcello for piano, but performed here for piano and cello)
Who are the performers in the video is unclear.

With barely 35,117,606 views since July 17, 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ywL_zokELE

Enjoy!

(*) Also known, after a commonly played arrangement by the once famous violinist August Wilhelm, as “Air in the 3rd String”, the lowest pitched string in the violin, and as “Air on the G String.” (Which has served as the excuse for too many vulgar jokes.)

(**) There are those who dispute this, arguing that in No. 2 is Pachelbel’s Cannon.

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GarthP

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Oscar,

I might agree that Bach’s “Air” is somewhere close to the top, but very much doubt his Adagio is anywhere near. There are many candidates for top spots, and everyone will no doubt have their own choice, but without a reasoned choice supported by evidence it is nothing but a personal opinion. Views on Youtube is simply that, a choice of those who watch Youtube.

I don’t personally believe Bach is the most popular composer, preferring Mozart and Brahms, even (horror) Wagner, but that’s only me.

Another way of looking at things is that used by BBC Music Magazine, who asked critics to vote on the top 50 recordings of all time, with the following first 12 recordings. Part of the difference is down to the recording artists, obviously, and you would need to see the reference for all the details (below) but the result is valid in a different way, I suggest.

https://www.classical-music.com/features/recordings/50-greatest-recordings-all-time/

 

1. Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelung
2. Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos 5 & 7
3. Britten: War Requiem
4. JS Bach: Goldberg Variations
5. Puccini: Tosca
6. Elgar: Cello Concerto
7. Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
8. Ravel/Berlioz: Shéhérazade/Nuits d’été
9. Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos 4-6
10. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
11. JS Bach: Cello Suites
12. Beethoven: Late String Quartets

 

Of course, with no Mozart, I have difficulty accepting this as ‘correct’ either!

 

Garth

 

 

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Just thinking
Has anybody an idea what the stearing influence of the algoritms are that present you the “taste” of youtube e.a.
There might be many interesting thoughts about these algoritms and influencing.

* _ ... _ *

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Fred: ”  There might be many interesting thoughts about these algoritms and influencing.”

The use of “Algorithms” (mainly this word is used to mean “AI”, that is some kind of pattern-recognition neural-network algorithm) is a recent development on Websites such as Google’s and, hence YT, while some of the videos have been available for a decade or more.

So the software-induced biases are probably only in the content that appears in the tiles on the right sidebar, not in what videos are available (if one really looks for them). Because either they are available, or they are not. Or sometimes they are, but later become unavailable, for example when someone who owns the copyright of a video’s content withdraws the permission for this video to be available.

Without an ad blocker, YT shows in the bar a mixture of adds and suggestions for other videos to watch. In the present case, and because I use an ad blocker, only of musical performances and, sometimes, of Jazz, or Bossa Nova, or whatever else I have been watching videos of recently in YT. Mixed with some of movies, because of a few old movies I have watched there. Or performances by an artist I have watched in other videos. As I am a fan of Hillary Hahn and of Martha Argerich, for example, I get often their performances “recommended” on the right bar,  among others of different artists.

But these recommendations keep showing up for a while and then stop, if I don’t follow them for a while.

So the YT software “remembers” what I have seen and uses that to make suggestions as to other things I might like to watch.

As to ads, experimentally not using the ad blocker, I see quite a few, all of which have nothing at all to do with me. That selection must be based on what Google, that owns YT, knows about my shopping preferences and needs that, as far as I can tell both from the YT ads and those in Google itself, is nothing much at all.

Since this a thread dedicated to music, here is an appropriately 21st-century Electro-Pop mini-selection based mostly on computer algorithms (but probably not AI):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSd8FINIyaM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msSc7Mv0QHY

For some more details:

https://spinditty.com/playlists/Best-Electropop-Songs

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Fred

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Fred,

As Oscar said, Youtube remembers what you watch, and offers accordingly, so long as you are content to allow Google to do that. It is possible to stop that happening, but then one tends to get a mixture of what other people like and which is often ‘rubbish’ so far as I’m concerned. I am careful not to allow Google free rein on most things, but allow YT to offer more of what I like.

If you want more information on the YT algorithms, that is available if you want to get more into the detail.

Try this for starters:

https://www.shopify.co.uk/blog/youtube-algorithm

It contains details of a research paper (and link) published by Google engineers which goes into much more detail still.

Garth

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OscarCP wrote:

So the YT software “remembers” what I have seen and uses that to make suggestions as to other things I might like to watch.

Thanks Oscar. It was and is merely a lack of knowledge and some interest. I just want to know more about the YT phenomenon. Of ourse there is no doubt that the profiling business is busy with all these YT users too as extension to googles enormous databases.
And with the professional interests in privacy and security in mind, I couldn’t/cannot find specific studies and yet there will become legislation in various countries.

To me you are the master in finding and presenting very good music via Youtube that can be played so easy.
Thank you!

* _ ... _ *

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OscarCP

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A long time ago, three young musicians played a string trio nicknamed “Ghost”, because of the beautiful and eerie slow second movement.
This recording is the electronic ghost of that Ghost:

Beethoven – Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1 “Ghost” — Jacqueline du Pré, cello; Daniel Barenboim, piano; Pinchas Zukerman, violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReZeyI8Z5wk

Time passes, beauty endures:

“Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.”  Oscar Wilde

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” Anne Frank

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Fred

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I found this today by chance. The first composition in this recording is already in this thread, but the second one is not.

Here is one concert by each of two composers in the, by then, late Edwardian Age, written towards the end of World War One (“The War to End all Wars.” If only!).

The performance was in 1965, when the soloist was just 20 years old. She had another two decades and two years left to live. And eight still being able to play.

Then she was one with kings and counselors, with Bach, Beethoven, Dvorak and Mozart, with Elgar and Delius, returning, same as them before her, to being part of the same dust from distant stars where we all come from and to which, some day, we all shall return.

Elgar – Cello Concerto, Delius – Cello Concerto in E minor: Jacqueline Du Pré solo cello, with (1)  Sir John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra and (2) Sir Michael Sargent and the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra. Both recorded in 1965, remastered in 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcABXRl-IvQ

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This is unique
(“The War to End all Wars.” If only!) If this were true …

* _ ... _ *

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I saw a BBC TV film about Jacqueline Du Pré a couple of years ago, but I don’t think it is available on Youtube unfortunately. However, there is a similar but shorter documentary which is available, and it is well worth watching – so enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvPza4XosW4&list

What comes over so well is her absolute joi de vivre (“exuberant enjoyment of life” which says it all, really) as well as her sheer musicality.

N.B. There is a comment immediately beneath the credits (from Christine Newland who apparently knew her well) also worth reading, which adds another perspective to the actual film.

Garth

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Died of MS at age 42, how terrible and tragic

* _ ... _ *

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Garth, Thanks for linking that film. I seem to remember seeing it on the right bar of YT’s window and paying no attention, because I thought it would be another mawkish remembrance of her.

Fortunately, I was wrong. It is a wonderfully spot-on film, made by Christopher Nupen, who was also in charge of some excellent films of her performances, for example of Beethoven’s “Ghost” trio with Barenboim and Zukerman that I have linked earlier in another comment.

Three things that impressed me:

First her playing really well, not with a cello but with a grand piano and without a score in front of her, what I think was a long fragment of a Mozart piano sonata, and Barenboim pointing once at her hands (that were out of the frame, so one could not see what she was doing at the keyboard), and quietly saying: “Cello fingering!”

Then a clip, at the very end of the film, of her playing the finale of the Elgar with her then, or soon to be, husband Daniel Barenboim, as the conductor.

Finally, Barenboim recollecting how she played the cello and saying that she was “a musical conversationalist”, meaning that she made her cello speak, or better still, that she spoke through her cello.
Or, to be even more precise, that she made her cello sing, or that she sang through it, opera arias, passionate and dramatic, or quiet and serene.
Sing opera, that is what she did when playing her cello.

The film stays on the surface: her looks, her friendly smiles, her laughter, her effervescence; how the music sounded, the sheer physicality of her performances, playing not just with hands and arms, but with her whole body, while mostly keeping an expression of ferocious concentration on the task at hand, as it is clear when watching that last clip of the Elgar.

Approaching her like that was wise. Because trying to go deeper would have been a mistake, attempting the impossible: plumbing the mystery underneath.
How does one try to explain the inexplicably and extraordinarily unique?
What was it in her that made her the best cello player in living memory; perhaps the best one that ever lived?
She played, she let sublime sound fly from the cello to us, trough the air, through time, through recordings. And the rest was, and is, and shall always be silence. And a smile.

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GarthP

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Following on my previous comment, I want to add these remarks:

The historical performance of Schubert’s  “The Trout” by du Pré, Barenboim, Zukerman, Perlman and Metha mentioned in the video linked by Garth, is available in the  Part I of this thread, here: the trout

There and in the clips in “Garth’s video” one can see that, as I have already mentioned, she played with her whole body. But it was, I think, more than that: she danced with the cello even when she always had to be sitting in a chair while playing.

As already pointed out, also in Part I, she created with her performance of the Elgar with Barbirolli and the London Philarmonic, when the recording was distributed and heard in much of the world, a tremendous enthusiasm in gifted people, women in particular, to play the cello and inspired many of them, to go on to become professional classical musicians and make a career of it.

In the video one can see that she is often the only woman on stage during a performance. This was normal back in the sixties and seventies. Nothing can be more different today.

And all because of that Elgar recording with Barbirolli, that inspired a true and benign revolution in music. She was not the only one who opened the way to women so they would go from sitting down in the audience and quietly listening, to being up on stage in numbers and playing. Yes, others widen and straightened the course where the impetus for change did run, forcing doors open to many women to become musicians, some of them also extraordinary ones. But she certainly, perhaps without even trying, set off metaphorically a bomb that brought down the damn of a wasteful and ridiculous tradition implicitly accepted as normal until then, a tradition that had been holding back so many gifted ones behind it.

She did so much, she achieved so much, both at a very young age and in the short time she had left of her career. How extraordinary, talented, lovely and inspiring a person she was. And one who continues and shall continue to inspire with the example of her memory.

In Memoriam Jacqueline du Pré.

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The Archduke:

Beethoven dedicated his trio Opus 97 to his then protector and financial supporter, the Archduke Rudolph of Austria (who was also a Catholic priest and, at that time, a Cardinal-Archbishop). So this trio for piano, violin and cello has come to be known as “The Archduke.” It was one of the most famous and successful compositions of his middle period. He performed it in its premiere and in a repeat performance some days later.
Or rather tried to, because his deafness had advanced to a point where he could not follow the other instruments well enough or hear what he himself was doing at the piano with enough clarity.
The resulting performance did not impress the audience.
So it is famed that at the end of the second movement, during the repeat performance, he got up, left the stage and did not come back.
And never played the piano in public again.

Here there are two impressive performances of this most impressive work, by each of two groups of great artists with different ideas as to how to play it:

Beethoven: The Archduke, Piano Trio Opus 97 — Wilhelm Kempff, piano; Henryk Szeryng, violin; Pierre Fournie, cello.
Year of recording: 1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mrfy_D9JVE

Beethoven: The Archduke, Piano Trio Opus 97 — Daniel Barenboim, piano, Pinchas Zukerman, violin, Jacqueline du Pré, cello.
First recorded probably around 1965, this recording was released by EMI Records in 1980

https://www.google.com/search?q=trio+the+archduke+du+Pr%C3%A9&source=hp&ei=r5ERY5GSH

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Further up I mentioned that, at least to me, when du Pré played her cello, it was as if she was singing opera arias with it.

Well, here is someone with can do that with a flute:

Bellini: Aria from the opera Norma – Arr. by Craig Leon – Casta Diva · James Galway, flute · London Symphony Orchestra · Klauspeter Seibel conductor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua9dZo1MJOo

OK, he is not Callas, who was, in my opinion and also in that of people that know a lot more about opera than I do, the best Norma ever. She owned “Norma” and others, Caballé, Joan Sutherland, Kiri, etc., just had to accept that they would never be as good Normas and then go on stage and do there the best they could. Which wasn’t really that bad, just not nearly as good as when the part was sang by “La Divina.”

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/16/90495326/love-among-the-druids-bellinis-norma

https://studybreaks.com/culture/music/maria-callas-worlds-greatest-soprano/

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GarthP

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(Sir) James Galway is perhaps the greatest ever exponent of the flute, and has been hugely popular for many years here in the UK.

He was principal flautist for firstly the London Symphony Orchestra, then the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and finally the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He became known as “The Man with the Golden Flute”, both for his performances but also for his actual golden flute, and is credited with elevating the status, stature, and performance standards of his instrument.

There are many biographies available, here is just one:

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/james-galway

There are also numerous performances and masterclasses on Youtube, but I wanted one which gave an idea of the man himself, as well as some select performances. This is a documentary showing his life and origins, as well as his musical life. A great film for sure, and a great player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6rh4I_fSEw

Garth

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Garth: I was kidding. Of course I knew of James Galway.

Interesting documentary, and there he explains that connection between playing an instrument and singing. Funny enough, there is the part, towards the end of the documentary, a clip of a master class, I think it was, where a young woman is playing in her flute the melody of what the soprano sings in Verdi’s aria “Addio del Passato” from “La Traviata” (*), and he corrects her, explaining that many would play that by just blowing in the flute, but it would be better if, instead, she did with hers what a singer does when singing the aria.

Another thing that got my attention was in the part about him playing crossover, where the commentator mentioned that he played with “The Chieftains” in Ireland. And I told myself: I must listen to that!

So I looked around and found this, that I put here so others can hear it as well:

Traditional Irish music : “The Chieftains” & James Galway :”Roscommon / Toss The Feathers”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpMZLi_KS9o

 

(*) Here  sang by Renata Tebaldi:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed7TLET6yVo

And by someone I never heard of before, but I am very impressed by, now that I did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7aFrVKb4yI

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GarthP

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People are free to add here comments as they please, as long as they are relevant
And, in the meantime, I continue to add mine, on what I like best. Here, one last time:

More “Addio del Passato”, but first a word of warning: please make sure you have some candles and matches, because playing this recording at night could blow all the fuses in your house.

Verdi La Traviata, Addio del passato — Maria Callas, live al Teatro alla Scala — 1953(*) (audio) e 1958 (foto)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmcG8fcVWkk

And here two arias from when she had the flu and sang “Traviata” anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNBFVfzx1rE

And this is a good documentary on her difficult and remarkable life:

Maria Callas: biography of the legendary opera singer | Music Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRpzRSy_tvE

(*) Probably before loosing weight, with her original voice still unchanged.

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She was the “Chiarina” (“Little Clara”) depicted in the short but memorable piece by that name in her husband’s masterpiece for solo piano “Carnaval”, which is a series of musical sketches of events and personalities present in at least one occasion the Schumann’s were at Venice’s famous Carnival.

A prodigy pianist and already very successful in this profession as a young woman, she married Robert Schumann, with whom she had 8 children, and both cooperated in what was a true family musical enterprise. In those years, she was also a prolific composer for the piano, orchestra and choral music. After Robert died in a mental asylum in 1856, she never composed again, but transcribed instead to the piano the works of her husband and those of the artists of her circle: Brahms and the violinist Joachim, among others, and also taught the piano at a conservatory in Frankfurt and continued performing in public at the piano.

But she was not an ordinary woman in other ways as well:
During a military uprising in Dresden in 1849, where she was living at the time, she went into the city, braving a group of armed men that tried to stop her, to bring out three of her children that were left there with a nanny while she was away on a concert tour. Then she went out of town with them, running the same gauntlet again.

For those who would like to know more about her music, here is what might be a complete performance of all her compositions for the piano:

Clara Schumann – Complete Piano Works + Presentation: Jozef De Beenhouwer, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhDFHqOLgeQ

And to learn about her and quite the life she had, one can read this very interesting article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Schumann

Clara Schumann, nee Wieck, at age 15 and the beginning of her public career:

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I have listened several times to the recording of the complete works for the piano by Clara Schumann (see my previous comment) while otherwise busy, hearing it play as part my background, at others while giving it my full attention. Either way, the more I’ve listened to it, the more I’ve liked it.

Now here is something of a jewel both of performance and of mostly clean-sounding conversion from old vinyl at 33.3 rpm to electronic recording — and possibly all of these pieces on vinyl, in turn, converted from the originals on shellac at 78 rpm:

Chopin – 51 Mazurkas — Arthur Rubinstein, piano.
Recorded in 1938-39, at London. Remastered in 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r92pHa9VGzk

Both this and the Clara Schumann are very long recordings, so they can be listened to in more than one session.

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While of late and suddenly occupied with “sad stories of the deaths of kings” (*) (or, in this case, of a queen), I am moving now on to something that cheers me up: my favorite performers:

Those who have been following this thread, would have noticed that I have favorite musicians that I have mentioned here, with links to YT samples of their performances, more often than any others. There are some I also like very much, but have not commented on here, mainly in popular music. I am including them also in the lists below.

And as it happens, the great majority of the classical music performers, and I am not including orchestra conductors here, just soloists, are women.

So who are your favorite musicians?

 

Mine, Classical, roughly in order of first appearance — several of them virtually contemporaries of each other:

Rubinstein, Arthur – pianist.
Calas, Maria – singer.
duPré, Jacqueline – cellist.
Perlman, Itzhak – violinist.
Argerich, Martha – pianist.
Barenboim, Daniel – pianist (and conductor).
Uchida, Matsuko – pianist.
Domingo, Plácido – singer.
Hahn, Hilary – violinist.
Benedetti, Nicola – violinist.

Popular music soloists — several also composers and songwriters:

Armstrong. Louis – cornet and singer.
Piaf, Edith – singer.
Parton, Dolly – singer and guitar.
Aznavour, Charles – singer.
Charles, Ray – piano, singer and saxophonist.
Waller, Fats – piano.
Guthrie, Woody – singer and guitar.
Springsteen, Bruce – singer and guitar.
Franklin, Aretha – singer.
Bob Dylan – singer, guitar, harmonica.
Davies, Miles – trumpet.
Marsalis, Wynton – cornet.

(*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W79o9ff-HSY

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My favourites:

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

 

Glasgow Orpheus Choir

Günter Kallmann Choir

 

Simon Rattle – conductor

Georg Solti – conductor

John Barbirolli – conductor

 

Luciano Pavarotti – singer

John McCormack – singer

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf – singer

Jesse Norman – singer

Kathleen Ferrier – singer

 

Jacqueline du Pré – cellist

Joshua Bell – violinist

Daniel Barenboim – pianist

Vladimir Ashkenazy – pianist

Gervase de Peyer – clarinettist (and conductor)

 

Garth

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OscarCP

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I don’t have favorite classics music musicians (but I do have favorite composers)

I do have favorite none classics singers, bands, musicians :

Number one : The Beatles.
Number two : PRESERVATION HALL Jazz Band.

Duke Ellington
Louis Armstrong
Gary Moore
J J Cale
Glenn Miller
Jacques Loussier
Jimi Hendrix
B.B. King
Joe Cocker
John Lee Hooker
Mabel Scott
Oscar Peterson
Red Nichols
Red Garland..

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OscarCP

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Thanks. I left out bands and orchestras and conductors, because was only listing soloists.

And here is one more (*), famous for gaining the admiration of multitudes and then disappearing without leaving a trace:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6rBK0BqL2w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpASSx0ecTU

Otherwise, here are some groups and orchestras I’ve really liked:

Popular/Folkloric:

Beetles.

Rolling Stones.

Santana.

Duke Ellington and his Orchestra.

Los Fronterizos.

The Chieftains.

Astor Piazzolla and any of his “New Tango” several quartets, sextets, octets.

The Weavers.

Classical:

NBC Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini  conductor.

Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan conductor.

The Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy conductor.

New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conductor.

Concertgebou Orchestra, Bernard Haitink conductor.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner conductor.

West-East Divan Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim founder and conductor.

Quatour Ebene.

Quartetto Italiano.

Borodin Quartet.

Budapest String Quartet.

Melos Quartet.

American Quartet.

Klavier Trio Amsterdam.

 

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_S

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GarthP

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The problem is, I suppose, we could extend this process considerably, with many more (great/talented/gifted/skilled – name your own adjective) musicians. Some will excel occasionally, some will do that more persistently, like say Barenboim or Ashkenazy, and then there are the few really great musicians who come once in a lifetime. We will all know of them, and have our own choice for, I suppose, personal or interpretive reasons, but should never forget that “comparisons are odious” as Shakespeare said. No truer than in the art of music.

Garth

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Throughout a long life and with some still to come, I have been very much interested in, even passionate about music of all kids, so to make a comprehensive list of what I like or have liked would not be very practical. Or even that interesting.

Now, Garth: I don’t see a problem here. We have mentioned some of our top favorites, and others might join in later with theirs, if they care to.

And I think that’s about the size of it.

Still, along with several million others, I am intrigued about Tina S.

And since I am here:

Schubert: String Quartet No 14 “Death And The Maiden” — Amadeus Quartet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmPos393bRo

(Written near the end of the composer’s life, who knew it was coming.)

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I often start the day in my living room/home office by listening to some classical music, something no much more than 15-minutes long, and finish my day the same way (with a different piece). I do have by now, after years of collecting them, several hundred videos of compositions I like of many different lengths.

Among those I play at the start of my working day, there is one I listened today and wish to mention here.

It is a highly evocative composition that makes me feel like I am, as sometimes did when I was a boy, lying on my back on a grassy prairie while the wind was sending waves of grass ahead of itself and past me, as it does the waves of a sea. While in the sound of the wind, as it rose and fell, I thought I heard the breathing of the world:

Vaughn Williams: “A Fantasy After Thomas Tallis.”

It has been linked already in this thread here: #2451449

 

And about Tallis, with a short sample:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Tallis

Thomas Tallis: Spem In Alium – Tallis Scholars, singers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-ZAAi4UQQ

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GarthP

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I was extremely fortunate once to hear a live performance of this supreme Tallis piece in a church in Perth, Scotland. No special performers, just the local choir – although widely augmented from nearby similar choirs and soloists – spread around the church, in all the naves, front and back. The glorious sounds literally surrounding us, how wonderful.

And then, at the end, after a short interval, they did it all again! Their excuse, if one was needed, was that it seemed a shame not to take advantage of all the available and willing participants.

Garth

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OscarCP

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Little about the private life of Tallis seems to be known with any certainty, starting with when and where he was born.

Listening to his music is both delightful and humbling.

A great creative talent in a gloriously creative age.

I found this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5fYXDsh_YU

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It has been a while. Time for some more Sibelius?

I think this is a good one:

Sibelius – Symphony No 3 in C major, Op 52 – Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iPYeALbp50

Alternatively:

Sibelius: 3. Sinfonie ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Jaime Martín Conductot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg5-lNMgq6c

Is it interesting that Frankfurt, a town of bankers, has one of Europe’s leading orchestras?

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An impressive and unusual performance and an even more unusual story of a series of tree Concerti and one “Concerto/Sinfonia” by Antonio Vivaldi, with interpolated (?) singing parts and all beautifully done by “La Serenisima” Italian Baroque ensemble from Manchester UK.

The singer, soprano Mhairi Lawson, deserves special mention for her excellent and appropriately dramatic interpretations.

(“La Serenissima” = “The Most Serene”, Venice’s traditional epithet.)

This video has received 1,681,281 views and no thumbs down in 10 years, so it might not be all that bad.

Antonio Vivaldi (Composer), Adrian Chandler (Conductor, Performer), Mhairi Lawson (Soprano), Sarah McMahon (Performer), Gareth Deats (Performer), La Serenissima (Orchestra)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbKy7EqKG4k

And about Manchester’s “La Serenissima”, Vivaldi’s long lost works, their rediscovery in the 1970’s and the “La Serenissima” ensemble leader Adrian Chandler role in all this:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/21/la-serenissima-review-vivaldi-manchester

Excerpt:

“La Serenissima review – priceless Vivaldi scores like you’ve never heard them”

“It might come as a surprise to learn that the third largest collection of Vivaldi manuscripts belongs to Manchester. How these priceless scores came to reside in the city’s Henry Watson Music Library is a fascinatingly convoluted tale involving the acquisition by Charles Jennens, the librettist of Handel’s Messiah, of manuscripts purchased – by weight – from a bankrupted Italian cardinal.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that this stack was discovered, by Michael Talbot, to contain 12 previously unknown violin sonatas and the only fair copy of The Four Seasons bearing the evidence of supervision in Vivaldi’s own hand. Appropriately, it was the Manchester Four Seasons [version] that Adrian Chandler’s ensemble La Serenissima elected to play with the part-books proudly on display in the foyer.”

Video’s Playlist:

Concerto for Violin, Strings & Continuo in B Flat, RV 370 Allegro
2 Grave
3 Allegro
4 Sento Il Cor Brillarmi in Petto from la Costanza Trionfante Degl’amori E de Gl’odii, RV 706
5 Hai Sete Di Sangue from la Costanza Trionfante Degl’amori E de Gl’odii, RV 706
6 Amoroso Caro Sposo from la Costanza Trionfante Degl’amori E de Gl’odii, RV 706
7 Concerto for Violin, 2 Violoncellos, Strings & Continuo, in C, RV 561 Allegro
8 Largo
9 Allegro
10 Concerto/Sinfonia in E for Strings & Continuo [Allegro]
11 Andante E Pianissimo
12 Allegro
13 Concerto Senza Cantin [Without E-String] for Violin, Strings & Continuo in D, RV 243 [Allegro]
14 Andante Molto
15 [Allegro]
16 Dolce Fiamma from la Fida Ninfa, RV 714
17 Alma Oppressa from la Fida Ninfa, RV 714
18 Concerto for Violin, Strings & Continuo in Eb, RV 254, Allegro Poco
19 Largo
20 Allegro

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I have been trying for sometime, on and off, to remember where I first heard the haunting theme of the dramatic background music in Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai”, one of the movies great dramatic epics with one of the best battle sequences ever filmed.

Well, it is first heard right here, briefly being taken up by the oboe and the flute four minutes after the beginning of this truly electrifying performance of this work, later by the violins, and so on:

Jean Sibelius: Symphony No 1 in E minor, Op 39 – Orchestre de Paris, Paavo Järvi, conductor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCIw_4oJ4Gg

Compare to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ1TOratCTo

So: a giant of cinematography (who made famous adaptations of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and “King Lear” to a Japanese historical context) and a giant of music (who wrote music with some of the most relentless earworms) both coming together in spite of time, distance and death: how perfect!

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[@] OscarCP special for you
Some beauty and relaxation for these stressfull times….

Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83: II. Adagio assai

https://youtu.be/dt1TZj1DnfU

* _ ... _ *

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GarthP

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To [@] GarthP too , ofcourse.  Got this tip of a friend and I love this peace.

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Ravel “Pavane pour une infante défunte” 1922 {piano rol}
.

.
https://youtu.be/tn6_yT9SKpM
.
..

* _ ... _ *

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GarthP

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goodmorning @GarthP what a beautifull peace of emotion is this, I do hope this Pavane will get to @OscarCP  and he will revive
Regards Fred

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Indeed it is, one of my favourite pieces. And to hear it in that lovely clear and laid-back manner by Ravel himself, that is a bonus. Thanks very much for posting it, Fred.

Garth

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Fred

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[Fred]

 

Thinking of people being in exile by the goodpeople,

like Edward and many others….
*       *       *

 

Music to listen while warm at home in one of those cold Autumn nights:

Dvorak – Song to the Moon, from Opera “Rusalka”  – Rita Streich Soprano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuKYGJPb6I

 

Delius  On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring – Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Conductor: Sir Neville Marriner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xHIhcstxUM

 

Debussy Petit e Suite –  Tapiola Symphonietta – Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAUmXvspYTA

 

Dvorak American Quartet – The New York Philharmonic String Quartet
(The slow 2nd movement, in particular)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrqgMrwG4i0

y

 

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• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Fred.

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GarthP

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Don’t cry for me Argentina

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hMvlRvizLEM

.

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Amash

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Thanks indeed Fred, what great music. I have said before Rita Streich with Rusalka is one of my very top favourites in music, so great to hear it – twice so far today! Delius is a top composer for me and I know well all his music, so that’s another plus. Debussy has some wonderful music, and Petite Suite is a favourite, but I don’t know the orchestra or conductor, so good to hear and see that performance. The American is one of the most attractive string quartets, and these performers are superb; that viola sound is quite something – just listening now as I write this.

Lovely autumn day here in Scotland, sun shining bright, wonderful music – what could be better?

Garth

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Fred

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Well, when you ask so freely; can you put Put in between 6 planks please?

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I hope that our friend o s c a r will find the inspiration to extrapolate soome of the suggestions. But my contributions seem to be blacklisted. So will it be vaporised in this section too? Who will tell what the allmighty has in mind?

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I wouldn’t bother with the planks, just the deed!

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Fred

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Léo Delibes – Lakmé

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/110243-000-A/lakme-de-leo-delibes-a-l-opera-comique/

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GarthP, Fred

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Beautiful..   Thank you Alex5723, I know at least one exiled person whom will appreciate this guesture

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Alex5723

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Hmm, somethings are still working, oddly enough? We’ll see in a moment, when I submit this, and then how long it stays.

So: From exile, I want to thank Frank, Alex and Fred.

And any one else who feels like contributing good music here: don’t overthink it: do it!

By the way, this is really by now also a self-imposed stay away, that I am starting to enjoy, oddly enough. Probably because there are so many things relentlessly landing on my plate these days I have, as it used to be said, at least when I was a boy: “I have not even time to scratch myself.” (Almost).

But just now that I have three minutes:

Claude Debbusy: The Submerged Cathedral – Unidentified pianist (maybe called Rosseau)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJILQWePbt4

Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs (complete), Gundula Janowitz, Karajan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANdPoigJ_qw

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde – Präludium und Liebestod | Waltraud Meier, Daniel Barenboim & WEDO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4bqRlNSQQE

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Fred, Alex5723

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Beautiful.. Thank you Alex5723, I know at least one exiled person whom will appreciate this guesture

So: From exile, I want to thank Frank, Alex and Fred.

I’ve been out sick. What the heck have I missed?

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cyberSAR wrote:

Beautiful.. Thank you Alex5723, I know at least one exiled person whom will appreciate this guesture

So: From exile, I want to thank Frank, Alex and Fred.

I’ve been out sick. What the heck have I missed?

I do hope you are feeling better now.

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Thanks @Fred, Yes I am doing better now although I do have a craving for oats and alfalfa

 

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Fred

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Some could not hear the performance of Lakmé recently posted by Alex, because it was blocked in some countries.

This is a famous song from that opera the second act that Sutherland sang very well::

Léo Delibes: Bell Song from Lakmé — Joan Sutherland, Sydney Opera House, 1976.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSC3zkjRcSc

From the same opera, sang by two well-matched singers:

Joan Sutherland & Marilyn Horne – The Flower Duet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ZfYr6oLhA

One more:

Bellini: Norma — “Mira O Norma…Si fino all’ore estreme” – Joan Sutherland & Marilyn Horne. Conductor: Richard Bonynge conductor, Sydney Opera House – 1986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDi815NsruU

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GarthP, Alex5723

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I can’t recall if there have been any examples of Welsh male voice choirs previously, but anyway here is a fine example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsJmLHpJ2lI

This is the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir, perhaps one of the very best, in their performance of that beautiful traditional Welsh love song Myfanwy. A very different type of singing from the operatic style, but one which absolutely stirs the emotions. This is a great favourite of mine from many years back, when I lived in Wales for a few years.

Garth

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Movie : Tár

“Set in the international world of Western classical music, the film centers on Lydia Tár, widely considered one of the greatest living composer-conductors and first-ever female music director of a major German orchestra (Berlin Philharmonic).”

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[Fred]

December 2, 2022.  Unfortunately OscarCP must leave this medium and I post his Coda and greetings in  “Aren’t these the greatest performances of classical music?, -Part II”,
with his very special line in it addressed to:

“Please give my regards to Sky, GarthP, Wavy, Alex and Charlie”.

Saluts to you dear Oscar, who gave us so much joy in classicalmusic listening, Fred.

=========
With kind regards to all who really love inspiring music of any kind, a parting salute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqLTPj9dhM

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Serenade to Music – Original version for 16 Soloists & Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Performers: Norma Burrowes, Sheila Armstrong, Marie Hayward, Gloria Jennings, Shirley Minty, Meriel Dickinson, Alfreda Hodgson, Bernard Dickerson, Wynford Evans, Kenneth Bowen, Ian Partridge, Christopher Keyte, John Noble, John Carol Case, Richard Angas
Conductor: Sir Adrian Boult
(c) EMI 1969 (remastered in 1987)
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 26 in E flat major “Les Adieux” (“The Farewell” Sonata); Claudio Arrau, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJGliWCDVc

==============================

 

corrected:

This is the one for “Serenade”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTMrARJLX6Y

…

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• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Fred.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Fred.

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GarthP, Alex5723, Alice

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Indeed, many many thanks to Oscar, for the truly wonderful selection of music within. I shall miss the interchange of views so much.

Thank you in turn, Fred, for your many contributions to this thread. Not least for that which you chose as an end-piece, the Serenade to Music, surely one of the greatest pieces of music ever composed. One comment on the performance reads “I first heard this in my teens and could not stop listening to it; a lifetime on, I find that same sense of safety and peace within its score” and another, “Thanks for posting this beautiful video, with one of my favorite pieces of music ever written.” How true that is for me.

As a personal matter, the views accompanying the music simply add to my own feelings, as I was born in that same High Peak more than 80 years ago, and whilst I have lived in several other countries, and do so now, that part of England truly counts as ‘home’.

Fred, all best wishes to you and the other contributors to this long-lasting thread.

Regards,

Garth

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Fred

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GarthP wrote:

Indeed, many many thanks to Oscar, for the truly wonderful selection of music within. I shall miss the interchange of views so much. Thank you in turn, Fred, for your many contributions to this thread. Not least for that which you chose as an end-piece, the Serenade to Music

Thank you Garth for the compliments, but Oscar himself has selected this music and Sarenade for this last post of his, in order to keep alive this culture and long lasting classical music that gives people so much joy. Perhaps Oscar stays in touch one way or an other.
May You and all the other contributors to this very good and long-lasting thread may keep this alive for pleasure.

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GarthP, wavy

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Pianist Menahem Pressler has died at the age of 99.

Founding member of and played for 50 years with the Beaux Arts Trio…

https://youtu.be/uILJmZOcg8U

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GarthP

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Thanks Alex, one of the truly great Trios.

Garth

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Fred

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You have excellent taste in music

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GarthP wrote:

Indeed, many many thanks to Oscar, for the truly wonderful selection of music within. I shall miss the interchange of views so much.

Thank you in turn, Fred, for your many contributions to this thread. Not least for that which you chose as an end-piece, the Serenade to Music, surely one of the greatest pieces of music ever composed. One comment on the performance reads “I first heard this in my teens and could not stop listening to it; a lifetime on, I find that same sense of safety and peace within its score” and another, “Thanks for posting this beautiful video, with one of my favorite pieces of music ever written.” How true that is for me.

As a personal matter, the views accompanying the music simply add to my own feelings, as I was born in that same High Peak more than 80 years ago, and whilst I have lived in several other countries, and do so now, that part of England truly counts as ‘home’.

Fred, all best wishes to you and the other contributors to this long-lasting thread.

Regards,

Garth

Did speak with Oscar the other day, he saluts all of you from this “Greatest of Classical Music”

Regards Fred

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GarthP

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Just now stumbled on YouTube on VOCES8, a cappella octet from England.
They sound wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2tFLT5qytwRkvtP73vXJofbcGc4Z_gRz

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GarthP

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What a combination, Voces8 and Whitaker. Some superlative singing in this new release. However, Voces8 are not always quite so serious, so try this for size – how they enjoy their music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9xDt4oduYE

Led in this by Andrea Halsey, who is herself a fabulous soprano.

Garth

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Alex5723

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Apple acquired BIS Records “leading record label for classical music in Scandinavia.”

https://www.bis.se/

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