Premier Rock Forum

I was inspired by a suggestion on this long dead thread to start a classical music dialogue.

Many of you fine folks whom I've met in person have asked me about certain composers or periods. I'm more than happy to answer questions or provide suggestions.

I would also like this to be a discussion of our listening experiences and impressions. Since much of this music is "pure", meaning totally abstract, it tends to be much more open to personal interpretation than song based "narrative" music.

Okay, I feel compelled to start out.

I've been listening to Beethoven's 3rd/Eroica Symphony lately, and I mean a lot. Especially the opening movement.

In the past I had always brushed this one off in favor of others, such as 5,6,7, and 9, of course.

This one is doing something special for me though. It seems to embody a sense of profound courage and spirit of renewed self-confidence that fits really well with where I feel myself to be in my own life. This would seem to fit with the general interpretations of the meaning LvB was implying in the work (though I'm not a composer going deaf just as his career it taking off).

The recording is the Zinman/Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich on the Arte Nova label.

Janet Cardiff has an art peice called "The Forty-Part Motet," for which she recorded, individually, forty choristers singing Thomas Tallis' Spem in alium. In exhibitions of the peice, forty speakers are ranged in a circle in a room, each playing a single track of a single singer. The tracks are synchronized, and I believe that they were recorded simultaneously, so what you hear is a reproduction of one performance of the peice complete with the conductor's instructions, preparatory shuffling of sheet music, throat-clearing, etc.

Spem in alium is pretty early English polyphony from the 16th century, and given the relatively simple ways in which counterpoint and harmony were used by Tallis' contemporaries, is a real leap forward. It was designed for eight groups of five singers, with each group occupying a different chapel in a cathedral. The different lines being sung by each group wind in and out of each other, sometimes gradually coming together in unison at louder moments, after which they fall away from one another and tangle themselves up again. It's not just a simple fugue but eight choirs wandering around each other as melodies and harmonies coalesce and disintegrate.

The complex effects of this already-delirious peice are brought out even more by Cardiff's deployment of it; single voices leap out or recede, mistakes become glaring, and without the customary heavy reverb of a cathedral mushing out the inconsistencies you hear what is very much forty individuals that happen to be singing the same peice. What "unison" means, and the difference between a single voice (or a single vocal line) and many voices, is pretty much up in the air. Stay in the room for a few iterations of the work (it's about 10-12 minutes long) and you don't really know if you're you or someone else, or what that might mean, anymore.

When it was being exhibited here a couple of years ago I went back to the museum four times in a two-month period. Not just Not Crap, but disorientingly cool. Coming home on the bus you'll be so shattered as to try to pay multiple fares for your fragmenting and recombining selves.

Dear geiginni,

As a child I was enthralled at different times by two pieces of classical music: Debussy's L'Après-midi d'un Faun and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (esp. the Dies Irae, which freaked me out severely at age eleven). Based on this very small sample, can you make any recommendations for me now? Any period is fine.

Thanking you in advance, I remain,

ctrl-s

I have had a fairly lengthy obsession with the Lithuanian composer Peteris Vasks.

The Kronos Quartet recording of String Quartet #4 would be a good place to start.

My 'classical' tastes are fairly limited (Reich/Adams/Webern/Schoenberg/shostakovich) so I'm not really equipped to accurately describe Vasks.

In other news, I'd say that anybody wanting a CRAP-free entry to contemporary composition could do no better than random Kronos Quartet recordings. I know that music-snobs can be a little...snobbish about KQ, but fuck 'em.

Hey - Leo Brouwer writes some great compositions for classical guitar. Check out Elogio de la Danza, my personal favorite.

A year or so ago, I went to my first symphony. It wasn't actually my first, but it was my first as an adult and one that I wasn't forced to go see/hear. They played Sybellius' 7th, something by Shastakovich and LvB's 7th. The former caught my ear because it was really creepy with some neato swells, but not over the top like a lot of the Russian stuff I'd heard as a kid. LvB's was amazing. It was almost like the first real rock show I'd been to. Bass Hall in FW is great, and the bass had my balls shaking. It was very cool. I went out the next day and bought both LvB's 7 and Sybellius' 7. Neither recording was anywhere near as compelling as I remembered. I dug through some of my mom's old CDs and listened to another of LVB's 7. Same result.

My questions: How do you know what versions to get? Is this just a function of live music being better? And also, it seems that the mixing of these 3 CDs is very low volume-wise. I know it's not made for people who crank their music, but it does need some bite, no?

Please advise.

ctrl-s wrote:Dear geiginni,

As a child I was enthralled at different times by two pieces of classical music: Debussy's L'Après-midi d'un Faun and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (esp. the Dies Irae, which freaked me out severely at age eleven). Based on this very small sample, can you make any recommendations for me now? Any period is fine.

Thanking you in advance, I remain,

ctrl-s

Well, if I were you I'd check out more Debussy. Trios Nocturnes, Le Mer, and Images are all good. The recordings done by Boulez on DGG and Haitink on Phillips are both excellent. Also, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe offers much of the mood of L'Apres... including the classic antiquity inspiration. Munch's recording with the BSO on the RCA Living Stereo label is definative.

If you like the Dies Irae section of Berlioz's, you should check out Liszt's Totentantz (Reiner/Janis on RCA Living Stereo is good) and Rachmaninof's Symphonic Dances, both which make use of the Dies Irae theme.

mr giennieni

did any classical composers die when they were 27.

maybe from absinthe overdose or a blunderbuss to the head.

seriously.

Lemuel Gulliver wrote:My questions: How do you know what versions to get? Is this just a function of live music being better? And also, it seems that the mixing of these 3 CDs is very low volume-wise. I know it's not made for people who crank their music, but it does need some bite, no?

Please advise.

Live music is always better. Especially live unamplified music, as you are really hearing the natural sonories and dynamic range of the instruments. Having a top notch orchestra like the CSO ensures that you're going to get a performance that "does justice".

Most classical recordings are done in true stereo (2,3, or four mics) without any compression or eq'ing. To preserve the full dynamic range of the performance the session is recorded with a reference to the loudest part of the music, resulting in the rest of the music seeming quiet. Turn up your stereo, expecting of course, that the loudest parts will play quite loud - and have "bite".

In terms of knowing which recording of a particular piece to buy, much of it comes down to taste. Often reviews will lead you to the proper ends. There are many reviews online, which along with a forum like the Good Music Guide, should give some direction.

Otto Klemperer is often regarded as the greatest conductor of Beethoven, though his recordings predate stereo and some even Hi-fi. Some good modern conductors of Beethoven include Zinman, Solti, Haitink, but others will have their opinions as well.

Boulez is an excellent conductor of 20th century music; Debussy, Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Varese, etc...

James Levine is excellent with the really contemporary stuff.

Solti, Dorati, and Fisher are great with Bartok as well.

Sir Colin Davis is great for Haydn.

Feliz Slatkin is good for "American" composers like Barber and Copland.

In general, some of the conductors that show up regularly in my collection are:

-Dorati
-Haitink
-Boulez
-Solti
-Rattle
-Reiner (one of the best IMO)
-Kondrashin
-Dutoit
-Jarvi
-Kubilek

The only conductors offhand that I really don't care for are van Karajan and Maazel. I hate Maazel. Stay away!

Hope that gives you a start.