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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

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

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

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

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

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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Fred, OscarCP

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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OscarCP, Fred

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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Fred

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

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

Thanks indeed, I had never heard Offenbach’s Jacqueline Tears, and what a beautiful piece it is.

Garth

Oscar,

A comment and a different link suggests that the singer is Dolores Arriaga.

Garth

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OscarCP

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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OscarCP

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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migongo, OscarCP

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