Classical Music for Aficionados

Well, you did have the luck of Quebec schools ,

My luck was I never had to go American High School . (no joke) 

 No rvpiano  but not bad for 5 .


https://youtu.be/QMgbwtiLwBo?t=4

Nobody could come close to Boskosky with Strauss .

I am am Opera Lover because we get the greatest melodies from the
greatest of instruments , the human voice, in that genre .

https://youtu.be/5TUtRRfAOMs?t=3
https://youtu.be/F5q7113ACWA?t=2

The Ultimate in Music by 3 artists touched by God .
I've been to over 2, 000 live classical concerts , only in Opera does the audience
break into tears .

In Vino Veritas

Thanks rv !  Just going to hunt it.
Received my GRAMOPHONE .

On cover. "Alfred Brendel at 90: looking back over a glorious career" .

No secret, I am a fan of Brahms .Not just for his music but for the man his self . At one time or another I’ve read most of the books written on him in English and back in the day a few in German .I like to think I have some understanding of this very complex man.

I have run across a recent recording of his Piano Concerto No 1 .that I believe shows the music and the man played as fine as I have heard .
 

Lars Vogt/Royal Northern Sinfonia Ondine ODE1330-2
I could go on and on but one word will do, sensational !
P.S . Also perfect renditions of Four Ballades ,Op 10

Jim, looked   up the Shotts and Dykehead and right you are !Now if they could meld  their pipes and the Field Marshal Montgomery drums ...............

Well rv, old buddy and Great Leader , if there is any little bit of Bruckner
you might tolerate ,
 my guess it might be this little bit .(for Bruckner) .

https://youtu.be/iOTzCgMxy_o?t=1

Because  station in St Paul is having a LvB week.
It feeds a lot of other stations.

And the Royals bug off to Bonny Scotland .
They should kick them back to London .
I have a feeling , just a feeling mind you , that the "city"" sees Wall Street going down and they becoming again what there were in Imperial Days .
Need Brixit for that dream .

Indeed , he was a man’s man !
Jim , just read the wee frees delusions .

What a bunch of nuts !
About time Alex Salmond   got justice .

I knew  Pipers and Drummers that did and more ,Jim .

My youngest Aunt was an excellent Highland dancer .
Came in 2nd at the greatest Highland Games in North American , Maxwell. Ontario , damn near deaf .

I would think a Band from Ayr must be a good one.

God Blessed me in all that , hear well as ever and have 20/20 no glasses
well in my eighties , was 20/10 in my youth , came in handy as a Infantryman .

simao, I need to get after that .

I’m clueless why , but I have heard "Peer Gynt" a least a thousand times
and yet every time seems like the first time . Only piece that does .

Hang in there rv .
https://youtu.be/lSii-jC6-Uo?t=2

Well Jim , looking at your medical  chart you are a tough old bird even for
a Scot . Folk with Scot DNA usually are . Even a 75 percenter like me
has walked away from things others have not .
You may have more time than you think !
The inevitable came  to me once in the form of a near-death event . I was near the  end of a bright and warm tunnel when my Grandfather
  came out with raised hand  and told me to go back, my time was not
 yet here.

For a long time I was puzzled why I was so calm . Talking to others with them as well  , a Lady said "Because you were in a place were fear does not exist "   "Be not afraid "is the most  used phrase in the Bible  and I saw why.
In any event few humans appreciate true beauty  as well as you and that
alone is a life lived well .

 yours ,
Len

P.S.  What Uni does your girl work at ? 







even

Here is a recent outing that reminds me not  to  argue with Rattle.
He is beyond genre , very wise and intelligent as well .

https://youtu.be/xCwGLFSSzY0?t=6

Here is a piece for you Jim  that proves even a rainy day can be beautiful.
Gonzalo Rubalcaba is a  Cuban Jazz artist with classical training .
No less a musician than Simon Rattle has said he is the best pianist alive.

https://youtu.be/EmuZhxWgmuE?t=3

Speaking of wisdom Jim you have hit the proverbial jackpot .


IMO the greatest thing that can happen to a man, any man , in the great sweep of things is to be blessed with a loving Daughter !!!

Well , I hope he makes it OK .As half of Harley St will be at his bedside he should make it alright .

There are other things .


https://youtu.be/3smZkpqXYHs?t=2

Pure Genius


https://youtu.be/wkGQivw-2eY?t=3

Other side of Rameau with powerful French band .

https://youtu.be/RKvd4tMkFHc


And his clavecin magic .https://youtu.be/NK3-URQntcg?t=2

Or from God himself .

Some of the best.
Mirella Frenzi with PavarottiVienna Phil / Herbert Von Karajan
Victoria  de los Angles
Covent   Garden Orchestra/Rudolf Kempe



Renata Scotto , EMI Great Recording  /Rome Orch, Sir John Barbirolii



Interesting  Naxos  CD with the words of the greatest aria ever written
read in English and then song in Italian .https://youtu.be/CkzkGn5KIq8?t=8

This is another treasure from Jussi and Victoria and Pucccini.
This is a not so hard to find , a "Great Recordings of the Century""from La Boheme .
https://youtu.be/PRHuqqEk3Bk?t=2
I recall a long TV interview with Pavarotti. Interviewer asked the big guy about this and that tenor , what he felt about then , what he has learned from etc . The perpetual smile of the big guy never left his face.When he asked Pavarotti how he compared him self to Bjorling , his face turned dead and he said , "Do not ask me that Question , I am only human ’". He wasn’t joking .

Pushed to the wall this is  my favorite , THE best duet I have ever heard ,The fantastic de los Angles and the greatest singer I have ever heard ,Jussi Bjorling  .   Opening aria ,
This is on  an old LP that was lost by me in a move . Never found other (sob)
I'm a combat vet and not much gets to me .
I've seen Butterfly live at least 20 times and have cried every time, not teared , cried . Along with all the women and half the men.https://youtu.be/5TUtRRfAOMs?t=2

A little known fact . Puccini wasn't picking on Americans,. He was a liberal  who was against the Italian Fighting for colonies in North Africa .If he used an Italian Navy man he wanted to the Opera would be banned .

Because Puccini said so . He wanted  to use a North African setting butUS Navy  wasn't there and  and making a Italian would have got him in
jail .

I knew  about Perry when I was ten years old .

Although I have sheet music on the way and have studied this ,
this is where  rv  has me  .
If you chose to  learn this you can you can be a great composer too !

https://youtu.be/iBB9UDpLfIA?t=2

As Mozart 227th Birthday comes to an end , here is one of his greatest 
pieces  with the solo  played by the greatest  musician I have  ever heard,
both live and recording  .

https://youtu.be/3zzKzH-Wp1A?t=4

I’ll just mention a dozen or so works that everyone agrees are basic to the Classical repertoire.
Over the years I’ve noticed that many come to Classical through smaller
pieces so I’ll start with them .
Used to be some PBS stations would have a listener poll of their favorite chamber(small) works every few years .

Time after time the top choice was Schubert’s Quintet in A "The Trout", a complement of sting trio with added piano and double base .
One of my favorite recording is Rudolf Serkin and company on Sony Classic SMK46252, this has the added gift of also having one of the other masterworks, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet .
As with all I mention there are many good recordings of everything, the listener
reviews on Amazon are usually helpful .

A string Quartet that has some of just plain beautiful music ever written is
Claude Debussy’s Quartet in G minor Op.10 .
A wonderful recording is by the Guarneri Quartet on RCA, coupled with the great Ravel Quartet in F as is often the case with the Debussy .

My favorite work for the Violin and Piano duo(a lot of peoples favorite duo) is
Cesar Franks , Violin Sonata in A .
Of the perhaps 7-8 thousand recordings I’ve owned if I could have only one for the rest of my life, I’d choose the one of this by the great Korean artist Kung Wha Chung on violin and the stupendous Romanian pianist Radu Lupu .
They bring out the French elegance of this masterpiece in a way that is rare .
.I seldom say anything or anybody is the "greatest" , but this is the greatest
recording I’ve ever heard so there -LOL .

In the bigger Orchestral works a piece I have easily heard a thousand
times and yet remains ever fresh in my ears is something Norway’s greatest composer Edvard Grieg wrote as incidental music for the play "Peer Gyynt" by Norway’s greatest playwright Henrik Ibsen .
A great recording of "Peer Gynt’ is the San Francisco Symphony under Herbert Blomstedt , London 425 448-2 .

Two works by one of the greatest and IMO most original modern composers , the great Czech Leos Janacek, that seem to catch the fancy of new listeners are his "Sinfonietta" and his "Slavonic Mass" .
Strong powerful works that go from the beautiful to the brutal in a flash
that always sounds that’s as it should be !
He writes his music to fit the Czech language so you want a Czech band for these , the Czech Philarmonic/Sir Charles Mackerras are the go-to
for these .

A concerto that everyone seems to like is the "Concierto de Aranjuez" by the modern Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. A guitar work that is just plain fun .
A nice recording of this is Carlos Bonell with the Montreal Symphony under
Charles Dutoit . There are a lot of wind solo’s in this and at the time the Montreal winds were to die for .

Concerto’s they everybody dies for are the "Brandenburg Concertos ’ by J.S, Bach , the daddy of them all .
The 6 encompass the entire Baroque concerto grosso literature with constantly changing patterns and players playing both leading and supporting roles that many of the great jazz artists have gone to school on .
My fave is the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra / Tom Koopman .
.
For solo piano great piece to start with is Robert Schumann’s "Carnaval".
Artur Rubinstein made nice work of this on RCA .

Last by not least is Vivaldi’s " Four Seasons "
If you wish to hear same in magnificent sound try Nils-Erik Sparf;
Drottingholm Baroque Ensemble BIS CD-275

ghosthouse, 3k remained in Berlin, another 2 k in Vermont , the rest are pushing me out of my small condo in St .Paul .

rvpiano. as a pro I'd appreciate your take . Both of them are spiritual mystics . I always am open to criticism , useful or no .(really) .

charles1dad,
Schubert did more piano duos than any other great composer.
A 4CD set by two fine pianists . Christoph Eschenbach and Justus Frantz
on Brilliant Classics 92858 from HMV originals gives you 4 hours of the best at a cheap price .ADD CD
A dark horse with Evgeny Kissin and James Levine on RCA 8287669283-2
sounds good to me, A DDD recording .one CD .

A cello piece that might be interesting to a jazzman like yourself is Takemitsu's  "Orion " a beautiful piece with piano pizzicatos , very modern classical piece  that could be called avant jazz IMO .

+1 for the Moravec , I heard him play some Brahams live once upon a time , an exceptional  artist .

Al, well you can’t have too many of Op.163 , seems to be the Holy Grail for string players.
I like the Berg/Schiff myself bit I'm not very fussy over sound as a rule .
One I don’t own that I remember had good sound on the ASW label with
the English Lindsay Qt. with a cello player whose name I forget .
My absolute fave is the Hungarian Festetics Qt with the great Belgian player Wieland Kujiken on cello. Arcana label . Hungarian ensembles stay together forever and audiences in Budapest are a tough crowd .Only place I’ve seen in recent times where audiences are mostly young people who are crazy about classical and very knowledgeable !

IMO the trios gave "Barry Lyndon " the greatest soundtrack in the history of
film . If you haven't seen the film you're missing a  treat .

The reason the Jazz post has gone on forever and a day is they link to You Tube  on virtually  every post . That makes it easier for someone to know
 if that's something they might want to purchase or not . Only poster who has done that on here so far is the respected  Mapman .
I would but  have neurological problems that prevent my learning small things . It's hard to recommend specific recording  knowing that one mans
treasure may be another man's trash .

That said, I will anyway .
 Bach is so great that we tend to act as if classical started with him .
 Truth is that from the 11th to 15th century there were  composers at his level  but they wrote  things we don't listen to much today, as in religious
music .

My personal choice as best is Josquin Des Prez  who was Luther's, no mean composer himself,  favorite 
Two of his Masses are sung by The Tallis Scholars on Gimell label CDGIM 206, this was a" Gramophone Record of the Year Award" . 
To get that from the English Bible is  the highest Critical Acclaim !

Claudio Monteverdi is woefully underplayed , his magnificent Vespers are on
 a great recording, Virgin 2x1 5 616662-2  starting the greatest singer
 of period music alive , Emma Kiirkby .  There are many great recording of this , one on BIS has great sound .

Jean Philippe Rameau ,who wrote the book on harmony(literally ) ,
has a nice example of his lighter works on Naxos 8.553746.
Almost anything recorded of him is good really .

Guillaume Dufay a 15th century composer of great eloquence has a fine rendition of his work on Naxos 8.553087 by the Oxford Camerata/Summerly.   Not many dogs on Naxos, for sure the leading bang for the buck label .

John Dowland (1563-1626)  Is surely one of the greatest writers of song in English.
 Sweet recording of that and his lute music on Naxos 8.553326 by Rose Consort of Viols .

Heinrich Schutz(1585-1672) died just before Bach was born .A VERY pious
man who wrote only religious music, he is the equal of Bach in same .
Bach admired him greatly and went to school on him as was usual in those
days and which he freely admitted .
A lovely performance of his Christmas Story()Weihnachtshistorie)
is on Naxos 8.5535514 again with Summerly and his fine Oxford Singers .

Well, I see the Frog has gifted us another example of the art of the link !
Hope more will .
+ 17 on his recommend of the Milstein and the Pittsburgh , neither ever made a bad recording .

Fact, if you brush up a bit on your history you will increase your fun with classical music a lot .
 All music is effected by where and when it was composed  and the language of the composer .

Whilst scurrying around for my Christmas CD’s today I found one I totally
forgot I even had .

"Christmas with Thomas Hampson " + Saint Paul Chamber Orch. under
Hugh Wolff . Teldec 2 73135-2

This is a 1991 recording ,still available, that caught the young American
baritone voice at it’s peak aka Mt. Everest . The SPCO plays about as well as music can be played to further his cause .
Rare for "Christmas" CD’s it is pure class from the first note to the last !

A double treat if you have any German, he sings some in the tongue they were written in in perfect German . In Germany today he is considered one
of the best in the Germanic rep. esp. Mahler’s songs .

newbee, you must have good taste , the Janacek by Firkusny is truly iconic. I wore one out, on my second ..Not totally wrong about  O-10 either .
Al., could not agree more about the Toscannini Brahms .

It bothers me if one jerk  does it but not if the entire audience does it  .
My best moments are when 5 seconds of silence follows the last note .
Some pieces favor this with a great performance and other pieces the audience on the audience on their feet with same .
It is what it is .

It’s so bad with the opera cliquey on "Live from the Met’ I just stopped listening to it .
Opera needs to be seen anyway, it’s half theater after all. .
IMO listening to opera at home is DVD time .

Amen to the vinyl Barbirolli’s Sibelius 2 . I have the album cover in a frame on my wall .

For refined folks in other aspects of life the piece I sometimes recommend as a start is Mozart’s Symphony # 39 , very lyrical and gentle with fantastic clarinet work, as sunny as a day in May .
Best one I have is Sir Charles Mackerras with the Prague Chamber Orch.
Telac CD80148 ,also has Symp.#36 I buy anything Sir Mac does period .

Mozart any lover of classical should have.
Sym.#38 " Prague ". one of his very best + 40 and 41.
Eine Klleine Nachtmusic K. 525
Piano Concertos 9,20,21and 24.
Violin Con 3+5
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola K.364
Clarinet Quintet K.581
Clarinet Concerto K.622
Requiem in D Minor, one I like a lot is Stattskapella Dresden under Peter Schreier , both for performance and sound

And everything else he ever wrote .

The Eiji Oue/ Minnesota "Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances " recording on Reference is , as Frogman has said , a magnificent recording .
The woodwinds on the first 5 minutes make me play just that over and over.
My other favorite , Simon Rattle with the Berlin Phil. has more drive but the
Minnesota winds play better, IMO than the Berlin ones which surprised the hell out of me , and the Minnesota is more lyrical and refined . Berlin percussion is better but its always better than anyone.
That said, there is a triangle bit that the MN player played better than any triangle piece I ever heard .

veriwide100, great post and right you are !
The Lutoslawski -Concerto for Cello is a fave of mine too .
A truly great recording is Rostopovich on one of the EMI  " Great Recordings of the Century " .

newbee, Thanks for the heads-up for the Malcolm Arnold "Dances and Overtures" on Reference . I has that once upon  a time but he had slipped off my radar .
Yesterday I ran across his Symphonies 5 and 6 on Naxos by the National
Symphony of Ireland in a local store .
Some of the best "modern" music one could hope to hear very well played  + great sound . Real power with something to say .

rvpiano, did you already have it or buy it?
Hampton is in the"force of nature " realm on it IMO .

Well I’ll have to buy a new one myself .
Saturday a couple dropped in to wish me Merry Christmas , the wife is German, from Hamburg .and a teacher of German .
I played the Hampson for them and in one of the German sung pieces she started to cry .
Natch, I had to give it to her and was happy to do so.

Thanks again , newbee.

I have the Uuno Klami's stuff and am fond of it .Iceland SO is OK by me !

Not to worry, anyone who loves the Western Worlds greatest artistic triumph gets carried away with the passion of it all ,be strange if they did not. .

Half-Price books is good source, here in Twin Cities they must have a dozen stores and the price is right .
My secret source is Berkshire Records on net .Don’t tell anyone else !

To me the LP always sounds better and easy to find here in stores plus  the 10 Goodwill stores within 8 miles of my abode,
I’ll like some feedback this, to ME the difference I hear is there is no air in the hall
on CD and there is on LP, and for ME, that makes all the difference .
Of course , I might be nuts .

The music of Brahms is often referred to as "autumnal".
Fifty years ago I thought that meant the color of a leaf or something.
Now , in my old age I see it as genius that still draws between the lines, sort of like Rembrandt compared to modern painters who just throw paint
unto a canvas .
Example #1 is his late piano music that is like comfort food to an old man.

Another composer who is an exemplar, to me anyway, is Faure,
the daddy of modern French music .An example is one of his last works the Trio for piano,cello and violin, Op. 120.
The recording I have enjoyed the most is the great American/Israeli violinist
Gil Shaham and Co. , "The Faure Album" CC03 on the Canary label .
I gather Canary is the Family business on the net, though I found mine at Barnes & Noble . I doubt there is a bad recording of it .

That said , the Canary has the advantage of starting with an early great work , Faure’s "Sonata for violin and piano, Op.13 and ending with the Trio
Op. 120 showing his progression from a young genius to an old one .
Faure , died not long after . His last words were to his son. "I did what I could.Now let God be my judge ".