Classical Music for Aficionados

@inna      I am a European, are you insinuating that I have no brain ?
I find that extremely insulting.

**** Their culture is "how am I doing " , Ours is " how are we doing " .****

Interesting comment coming from a learned professor, but to assume that in music making this is necessarily a “problem” is a mistake, IMO. I assume that he was speaking about the concept of “ensemble”. Yes, in any ensemble small or large, it is important to think as one and feel phrasing as one when necessary....but, not at all times and certainly not at the total expense and subjugation of individuality. Unanimity of musical concept is of paramount importance, but individuality at appropriate times is equally as important; otherwise a performance runs the risk of being very bland. The key to good ensemble playing is knowing when to ask oneself “how am I doing”, and when to ask “how are we doing”. The great ensemble player knows how to strike the right balance between the two.

The comment is particularly interesting because it goes counter to what is one of the main differences in the training of players in Europe vs the US. First, neither European nor American conservatories have a clear advantage nor superiority in all areas of training one over the other. The main problem in the US right now is probably that there too many fine conservatories for the number of jobs available. Importantly, the main difference is that in European conservatories professors tend to overwhelmingly be natives of the country where the conservatory is located. American conservatories have much more diversity in their teaching staff and the various European playing traditions are well represented; and their influence (and others) came together to create the “American” school of playing.  There is no reason that the very relevant idea of the advantages and richness that are the result of diversity should not apply to music making; just as exists bias against it.

As usual, there is danger in generalities. Just one example of the opposite view:

https://nyconcertreview.com/articles/the-european-string-quartet-tradition-in-americathe-henschel-ku...

Europeans simply have no brains to be brainwashed. You are confused, schubert.

If memory serves , It opened in Dublin because in Enlightenment London
in the early 18th century a theater drew more than a Church , as it did in "Founding Father" America,
When it got such a great opening in Dublin they thought it would be safe in London . And as you know and I approve Handel told then what would
happen if folks did not shape up.

I listen to it 2-3 times a year and a Bach Cantata every morning .

I would guess that God would like Black Gospel just as much .In the Army some of my NCO’s took me to various AME Churches .

I came away with something I still believe .The "Black Church Ladies " are the backbone of Christianity in the USA.


White Americans are largely brainwashed, far more than any Europeans . One thing comes to that, the death of Democracy .
.

they have a slight problem , very slight and one they
one they do not know,
Their culture is "how am I doing " , Ours is " how are we doing " . 

I would not consider that a "problem".  Besides, without American Individualism, there would be no Jazz improvisation.  Reminds me when I taught in the Army electronics / Missile school, we had courses that were 'self-pace', and others that were 'lock-step'.  The Europeans have always been "Lockstep".

400 year Catholic Classic:
However, this SB loves Handel's Messiah.  Not quite 400 years old, but, Just recently got a new CD of Messiah.   Will post tomorrow.   I listen to it year round.   I understand it premiered in Dublin instead of London to avoid a religious ruckus.  You probably know the details better than I do.

Cheers

P.S. rok , no sweat , Takacs  are among the very best.

rv, I love the Schubert D960 (like everybody) and as you know there
are many very good renderings of same .
I’ve had about 20 over the years.
l know I have a Germanic bias and I would say this guy this perhaps
not the best technical player but this 1967 recording is the most "Schubert" of the bunch . Tell me how foolish I am please .https://youtu.be/TrRSQboCGxQ?t=16
Guy is Wilhelm Kempff

rok , Understandable a SB would not get a 400 year
Catholic Classic .


Though I did not Study Music at Munster I did drop in a class about Music often .
The Prof was VERY learned and a pleasure to hear. One thing he said talking about String Qts. has stuck
with me.
He said never get angry at the North American groups , they have a slight problem , very slight and one they
one they do not know,
Their culture is "how am I doing " , Ours is " how are we doing " .


Beats me .

@frogman:

Thanks for the info.  I was just about to call on you. :)

Cheers

Sometimes, a double bass. Still other times, piano or a wind; sometimes a third violin. Generally speaking and re nomenclature, whatever the fifth added instrument, that is the type of quintet that it, technically, is referred to as. Schubert’s Quintet D. 956 is, technically speaking, a “cello quintet”.

One of my favorite Quintets. Brahms Clarinet Quintet. The great Harold Wright, clarinet. One of the best examples of what players today may refer to as an “old school” clarinet sound. Light and free, with a lot of “smile” in the tone; as opposed to the much more dense, darker and less flexible approach that is in vogue today. Beautiful player.

https://youtu.be/VK5ycY0vYzg

https://youtu.be/Dn_wzYVhmQg

https://youtu.be/fdLyQPlC_Vs

https://youtu.be/AE9LDwFGN5k

I recently received  Schubert String Quartet, D-956, by The Takacs Quartet.  I have not listened to it yet.  All these folks are just great.

I always thought when a Quartet went from Quartet to Quintet, they added a second Viola.  Seems as if they added a second Cello on all the performances we have posted or discussed.

The Easter music: I'm more of a "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord" type.   But it was beautifully sung.

Cheers

Speaking of Easter you could hardy do better than this Masterwork !


https://youtu.be/FjJ02agjjdo?t=1
Seldom do you hear a perfect  rendering of  any anything , esp. one as big as this one is complicated and 400 years old.
 To my hears this is perfection

As I sit listening, I came to the conclusion that God was not doing
nothing for his two utmost composers of sheer beauty , Mozart and the even younger Schubert .

He just could not bear any longer to not have them by his side .

AMEN !
Beyond all doubt this is the best Chamber piece ever . Period .

Also pretty much agreed the Emerson Qt. has the best notation of any.


Not to say one is better than another, but I think this group has a tat more soul .Just a small matter of taste ,https://youtu.be/Dc3iX7x73JY?t=1

Schubert: String Quintet In C, D. 956 - 3. Scherzo (Presto) - Trio (Andante sostenuto)

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

From the Notes:  "During the five years preceding his early death, Schubert wrote seven masterpieces of chamber music -- Of these, the last, and arguably the finest, is the Quintet.  The unanimous appreciation for this composition is epitomized by the comment of W.W. Cobbett in his Cyclopaedia of Chamber Music: "nothing so ideally perfect has been written for strings as this inexpressibly lovely work." --- Martin Chusid

Cheers

Good Info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6nkuORHvIY

Cheers

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 - 3. Rondo. Vivace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTRA8LqpDYc

From the Notes:  "The earliest ideals for this Concerto were jotted down in a sketchbook by Beethoven in early 1804. -- The work was performed for the first time, by Beethoven, in March 1807 at a private concert at the palace of Prince Lobkowitz  -- The first public performance eventually took place on 22 December 1808, at a large benefit concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.  The concert was organized by Beethoven himself and consisted entirely of works of his not previously heard in public, including the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and parts of the mass in C."

Just think, if you were not at the concert, you just didn't hear this music. 

Cheers

For a long time I have listened to the various Requiem’s of the Great One’s during Lent.
Till last year I did not even know that Dvorak had one and it come up to
the best .

I doubt if anyone will listen to a 90 minute Religious Masterpiece , but if I’m wrong , this is the all Czech best one . Choirs are from Heaven as is the norm in the Musical Powerhouse that is this little land.


https://youtu.be/I8OT2HVx23g?t=8

P.S . The only audiences with many young people eating up Classical I have seen are Prague and Budapest .

Franz Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 101 in D major "The Clock"
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Warner Classics

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

From the notes:

..."At most he could be called the Father (though not the inventor) of the classical symphony, who paved the way for Mozart and Beethoven. ...We need to remember that Haydn was already twenty seven when George Frideric Handel died in 1759 -- the same year that Haydn composed his first symphony. And when Haydn died in 1809, Mozart had already been in his grave for nearly twenty years. Beethoven completed his sixth symphony in the year of Haydn’s death, and Schubert would compose his first symphony four years later."

I just love the factoids. Remembering the chronological order in classical music is tough.

Cheers

Franz Joseph Haydn
String Quartet Op. 71
The Griller String Quartet
Vanguard Classics

This interpretation is out of the race of comparison between less or more...

Heartfelt and moving....

Vanguard was owned by a group of real music lovers who made nothing but the best out of love. Of course that got them to financial death .

If I see a Vanguard for sale , any Vanguard, my wallet goes into auto no matter what it is or how much they want . Period .

Here is a fine Vanguard with Rameau who seems to me the most neglected Great in USA .

https://youtu.be/Vazk7Ixzz7Y?t=1

Franz Joseph Haydn
String Quartet Op. 71
The Griller String Quartet
Vanguard Classics

Quartet In B-flat Minor, Op. 71, No. 1: III. Menuetto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJ3ud6BMHQ

Quartet In B-flat Minor, Op. 71, No. 1: IV. Vivace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nqbAayZpzs

Quartet In D Major, Op. 71, No. 2: III. Menuetto (Allegro)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BURIF3F4vck

Quartet In D Major, Op. 71, No. 2: IV. Allegretto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEG5fnudsRo

Cheers

Exactly what I thought .Years ago. I liked those " dynamic ’ moves etc,now I think they just get in the way. I had The Complete Sonatas but
tend to gave a record away to young people just starting to try Classical .

The 2 boxes nobody gets are the Beecham a Last 6 Mozart Symphonies/Royal Phil /odysey/and all Schubert Piano Sonatas /Willhelm Kempff./DG We both know that and most don’t that a German is best with Germanic , etc,
etc.
To my hears the most important case is Czech .Any Czech PO / Supraphone I see, I buy, knowing all is well, if you’ve not been to Prague go,.If ever possible again that is .

Schubert, I own Schnabel’s The Complete Sonatas. If I’m not mistaken, his is the first ever release of the entire cycle. I like the recordings very much. Obviously, a brilliant musician. Actually, I find quiet a few similarities between his and Perahia’s Appassionata. Schnabel’s sense of the architecture of a work is pretty amazing. He did not exaggerate the dynamic contrasts and the climaxes occur in their proper musically logical place. IMO, many players treat the work as a Romantic work when it is squarely in the Classical tradition; hence the frequent, what I refer to as, “excess” of dynamic contrast. This, in spite of the liberties that he took by deviating from classic sonata form.

Thanks for the reminder; it had been a while.

I can not tell a lie, well not often.
My old brain remembered I have a Op57 I haven’t heard in at least 10years . A wonderful Germanic ( he’s Austrian) jewel .

My opinion of this guy is he doesn’t play LvB , he is him.
https://youtu.be/-_DIl_vmj0M?t=14

**** a soulful poet ****

Precisely.

Poetry and no excess:

https://youtu.be/FjLu0j6mIPQ

Nobody can deny that Uchida is a great Artist , I have many of her Schubert CD’s and have heard her live Schubert .
To my bystander ear Perahia does everything all at once , floats and is hyper-serious at the same time , a soulful poet .

rv, it is the same with a soldier , after 10 thousand rounds go downrange without a miss , you just do it .

This is the only  op 57 I own , Its old and fast and I make no claims other than I love it .
https://youtu.be/CcIdgp-vLgc?t=2

Lenny and Ochida being prime examples. No one can feel that much passion, instantly on command.

Have you ever make love with someone you are confortable with?

The public disapear for some artist which are only with themselves and their own "daimon", and the feeling which  inhabit and haunted  them for a work they feel already for a long time is not "on command"....It is like jazz players mimics and odd gestures singing behind and tapping feet....

Excellent point about the instruments of Beethoven's day.  But thankful we have the modern instruments.  Esp the brass.  I can only imagine that modern ensembles sound much better, with the ability to more faithfully recreate the composer's intent,  than those back in the day.

The excess that bothers me, is the body language and facial expressions of some of the players / Conductors.  Lenny and Ochida being  prime examples.  No one can feel that much passion, instantly on command.

Cheers

Excellent comments and excellent versions of this great work.  Not to disagree with any of them since we all have our favorites and reasons why, but simply food for thought:

While much is sometimes made of the sudden and dramatic dynamic contrasts being indicative or symbolic of the composer’s own personality, I think it is relevant to keep in mind that when Beethoven composed this work, no piano existed that would allow a player to take those contrasts to the extremes that some modern interpretations of the work take them.  Beethoven’s instruments simply did not have the power of a modern Steinway or Bosendorfer.  In that context, some of the choices made in some interpretations sometimes strike me as a bit of dynamic excess.  

Mahgister,

As a pianist I can tell you you are right.
When you play, it’s a sort of disembodied feeling.
The notes disappear and the music comes out from your insides.

The latest, Greatest Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the History of the Whole World.

If you disagree, see my guru. He lives in Brooklyn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfnbe6JI6s

Cheers

For sure Levit so good it is dont own the integrated phrasing of Moravec, making of some words an only one sentence...

The notes must never succeed one another, but vertically must surge toward the transcendental meaning that will going down incarnating itself in the sound like the soul in a body ...

Moravec get it for me.....All is done way before the first minute of playing...

How is it possible for a human being to play piano at all?

Probably only by forgetting completely how to play and only feel an emotion not through the fingers but in spite of them, or better, without them....

It is only my opinion, feel free to say your own.....









https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ex7ZVaSVCE

The latest, Greatest Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the History of the  Whole World.

If you disagree, see my guru.  He lives in Brooklyn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfnbe6JI6s

Cheers

Can’t think of a better Op.57.  Appassionata, indeed.  I welcome other opinions.  

https://youtu.be/ACB2a7dOHmU

I loved Perahia's performances of the Mozart Piano concertos - but Mitsuko Uchida's are in a class of their own.

Male human voice...hmm..no I wouldn't say it regarding cello, I think, but it might be subjective. Interesting thought, Schubert.

Closes thing to male human voice ?

Just want to add what a great thread this is. And thanks to all. For some reason, for me at least, cello works during this pandemic have been the best palliative.  

Any one with even slight interest in Modern Classical needs to go to this
short lesson .

https://youtu.be/WR2TiV6PxTc?t=2

Sitting here with Barbers Violin Con.. , I am thinking what a terrible shame it is that we never asked him to give us a real National Anthem ,one of love and not war .

https://youtu.be/CveX2LjVaw0?t=2


Op.11 is the de-facto one now in times of tragedy

Orpheus10, I don't know what this is all about, but I think you might consider continuing your participation in the jazz thread. It is beginning to feel empty. Besides, founders don't leave, that's not right.

• Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos piano concertos 1-4
• Shostakovich: Piano Concertos 1-2
• Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor
• Bach: B minor Mass  / Otto Klemperer, BBC Chorus & New Philharmonia Orchestra
• Bach: The Complete Organ Works of J.S. Bach
• Chopin: The Four Ballades (Evgeny Kissin -  Artur Rubinstein -  Krystian Zimerman -  Murray Perahia -  Vladimir Ashkenazy -  Sviatolsav Richter -  Emanuel Ax - Maurizio Pollini - Claudio Arrau)

Speaking of Bach , this is rather good for young students .

https://youtu.be/PrIQbadXX74?t=1
Can't say which soloist is the best, both are great and it's a lot easier to get a excellent oboe than a strad .
But I will anyway , that little oboe queen has the soul of a GREAT musician ! She already is one .
Little known in US but Polish schools from k to Medical School are as good as any in Europe . And other places.

Celibidache “Adagio”:  Very fine indeed and different, as you say.  I can’t add to mahgister’s excellent comments.  Thank you, had not heard that.

You are spot-on mahgister !

When I hear the Celibdache Op 11, I am both leaving the earth in peace
and crying for going .

Over 80 I know that to be and I do cry .
And go to a Bach Cantata to dry my tears .
Bach has a in with God . A BIG one !

Frogman; PLEASE look at the Celibidache Op 11.

The Munchner was always a decent orchestra .
What he has done to them is unreal.

Few Days ago I got a glance over the back of Bloomstead  on a DVD .
The players looked like dogs waiting for a bone .
Well into his 90’s and still in demand !

I sat into a rehearsal about 30 years ago with him and the Radio Orch. in
Berlin (one step behind the Phil) .He stood there and asked THEM what they thought for a half-hour !

This is my idea of can not be better , totally different and I weep when I hear this adagio !

https://youtu.be/GbtCChVk0lA?t=3

P.S. Whenever I see Ormandy I think, now there is a honest man .

WOW! i will go look for all Celidache set Barber +Shostakovtich...

Staggering difference between these 2 marvellous interpretation...

In one, Ormandy, my heart is feeling embedded in time, the tragedy is out there again filling me completely like water filled a cup...It is like re-living the event in this life, a living memory which accompanies me...

In the other, Celibidache, the tragedy is there, but completely transcended, and the feeling is now a participating wave in eternity.... It is like living the event after our death revealing all truth about it....

These 2 are the best interpretation i listen to for this Barber masterpiece....Impossible to chose between these 2....

Thanks schubert for the discovery....

Orchestras can be ruthless with a conductor that they don’t like or respect. You are entirely correct. One can pick up on how the orchestra feels about a conductor simply by the way that they welcome the maestro when he walks out unto the stage; and the performance will reflect that. It can be obvious enthusiasm, or just obviously obligatory half smiles. Watch the speed and unanimity (or
lack of) with which the players rise to their feet.  It may be subtle, but always obvious.

To the best of my knowledge I don’t think the Vienna would put up with any Conductor going that far ! I have seen that in live concert.
Not a few think they are the best orchestra in the world , they sure do.I don’t, but so close I would never argue about it .

I may be dreaming but I feel at the opening bars you can see whether
a band is going with a conductor or not .

Look at the Munich Phil and Celibidache or Mazur with his Gewandhaus to see the I’m with you all the way.

Which is why I was not happy when Mazur went to New York.
My late wife and I had seen him a hundred times with his DDR Orchesta, 3 $ in Leipzig .Few know Americans could go around in East Germany no problem .



This is my idea of can not be better , totally different and I weep when I hear this adagio !

https://youtu.be/GbtCChVk0lA?t=3

P.S. Whenever I see Ormandy I think, now there is a honest man .













































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