Yes, just compare the "Tannhauser" overture, which is still rather beautiful, with that second section of the Eroica. There's no comparison. Wagner writes pretty, relaxing music, but Beethoven just destroys the listener.

Wagner's attempts to achieve dramatic tension sound forced to me, whereas with Beethoven it seems like a natural outgrowth of his stormy personality. Glenn Branca once said that Wagner just sounds like Muzak to him. I'm inclined to agree somewhat, although the "Ride of the Valkyries" is still damn impressive.

My wife is obsessed with this piece, and out of all the different performances I've heard of it (Heifetz, Perlman, Oistrakh, etc.) I like this one the best. Stern is a bit looser with his playing, but he has more of a feeling for it. Imperious.This is from the Bell Telephone Hour presents Great Violinists DVD. That performance is from 1959. Unfortunately Stern never performed it for a recorded session anywhere else.

Love this thread, I'm learnin' stuff. Hey Geiginni, what do you think I should do with this? I just edited together some random piano I played, and I like it - I'm half way through transposing it to guitarhttp://www.sendspace.com/file/33jwe0

A few Youtube treats. Wasn t sure where else to post these:

This might sound weird, but i'm looking for classical 45's that i can play at 33 rpm's. I've been looking for stuff by Wagner and in general pieces that are pretty glacial already. It's hard to find something that specific.

Riff Magnum wrote:This might sound weird, but i'm looking for classical 45's that i can play at 33 rpm's. I've been looking for stuff by Wagner and in general pieces that are pretty glacial already. It's hard to find something that specific.Egdon Heath by Gustav Holst is a short piece but starts in a way that might work for you. It's one of my favorite compositions at regular speed, anyhow.

I figure this would be the best place to ask, so I will...Geiginni, are there any minimalist classical pieces you could recommend me? Although I'm not at all well versed in classical music, I don't think I have ever heard any minimalist pieces out of what I have heard.I'd love to hear some.

I seem to recall some kind of rumor that Nicolas Szczepanik's 'Please Stop Loving Me' was just him slowing a section of Carmen (? Brahms? I forget what) down so much so that it created the ambient effect you seem to be describing.Does anyone else remember this, or know what I'm talking about?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap5SxGRuAOQ

ERawk wrote:Riff Magnum wrote:1009 wrote:Riff Magnum wrote:This might sound weird, but i'm looking for classical 45's that i can play at 33 rpm's. I've been looking for stuff by Wagner and in general pieces that are pretty glacial already. It's hard to find something that specific.Egdon Heath by Gustav Holst is a short piece but starts in a way that might work for you. It's one of my favorite compositions at regular speed, anyhow.Thanks. That piece is pretty awesome on its own, i agree. The intro might work if i could find it on 45, but i'm really looking for something really slow and ambient. I used to have a bunch of old Wagner 78's, but i think they've been lost during our last few moves.You want to get zonked while the Lohengrin Vorspiel is in the background, don't you?Heh. I like it. You're going to be hard pressed to find classical 45s. The good ones are very expensive audiophile fetish collectables: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?Genre=Classical&\_sacat=0&\_from=R40&\_nkw=%22classic+records%22+45&\_dmpt=Music\_on\_Vinyl&Speed=45%2520RPM&rt=ncOr, they're going to be hard to find, low quality RCA 2, 3 and 4-disc album releases from between 1949 and 1951, when RCA was pushing 7 45RPM as its only release format. By 1952 they had thrown in the towel and all classical releases were on 12 33.

bigc wrote:I seem to recall some kind of rumor that Nicolas Szczepanik's 'Please Stop Loving Me' was just him slowing a section of Carmen (? Brahms? I forget what) down so much so that it created the ambient effect you seem to be describing.Does anyone else remember this, or know what I'm talking about?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap5SxGRuAOQI've heard of this. It seems to be a fantastic way of taking an interesting 5 minute piece of music that I might listen to multiple times in a row, and making it into a boring-ass 50 minute piece I'd never want to hear again.