Which pianist do you recommend ?
Sgouros i imagine... I do not know him ... Thanks for this feed back ... I will listen ...
Liszt: Seven Transcendental Etudes
Let's talk music, no genre boundaries
This is an offshoot of the jazz thread. I and others found that we could not talk about jazz without discussing other musical genres, as well as the philosophy of music. So, this is a thread in which people can suggest good music of all genres, and spout off your feelings about music itself.
Showing 50 responses by mahgister
The same goes for me with the astonishing comparison between two versions of the Well tempered Klavier of Bach i loved...
The Version of Vladimir Feltsman is the one i loved the most for the same reason compared to the magnificent perfectly controlled version of Andras Schiff: There is plenty of others great versions of the klavier... I do not claim to know which is better... None is.... But i prefer those which is more akin to what i perceive as an internal gesture time dimension ....But i did not loose my pleasure listening the others as reading any major poets as Rilke for example dont erase the pleasure to read minor but good one ... Feltsman : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhpUeXI1fBs&list=PLzI6BT2ZG_AdecV0laI3t5kYmAl8bhSnf
Schiff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFnwy1xtFRk&list=PL1gAgJIplj-ksyosRdPE_-4FVlkp2oIbo
Here two i enjoy these two versions the most compared to others...but my favorite is Feltsman ....
I walk four hours each day and i listened music (mostly Bach) on my Hidizs dap with excellent farsoo kph40 headphone Koss clone ... I enjoy all Bach interpretations...I had at least 15 versions of "the art of the fugue" , probably the greatest musical work ever written. Interpretations i enjoy the most save the Felstman or Schiff one, is with Marriner orchestra or with Ristenpart...But i like them all ...
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When we speak we create our own time gesture... Now listen Nikolayeva playing "the art of the fugue" by Bach, it seems she speak and not only use the notes as notes but as vowels and consonants in a prayer ascending like a song ... Compare this with "perfect" Gould version which i like a lot too ... But here Gould played the notes not as words of a prayer singing but more as notes linked with an external timing in a perfect control percussive gesture for sure ...( we feel like Nikolayeva playing is more an improvisation instead)
It is my personal perception.... Anybody can feel otherwise for sure... Nikolaeva : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOCSBnCvOOQ&list=RDLOCSBnCvOOQ&start_radio=1
Gould: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAwgP7wpCYM&list=PLfdMKJMGPPty3BvGUEGJeCidp-lJsk_xF
Remember : i enjoy the two musicians here. But one seems more ascending in the depth... |
Nikolayeva as Yudina plays with a timing gesture internal to mucic which emerge only with her playing specific gesture ( in some works near his soul not in all works) ... The musical time dimension is for me the spiritual content of the music, the yeast that makes bread rise... Nikolayeva in Shostakovitch is at home, she created his own "time" inside this music (not measurable because linked to his gestures life) she dont go after one time external to the music as many mere virtuoso may do : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d94DLBjTfZo&list=RDd94DLBjTfZo&start_radio=1
Here i will propose 2 versions of Bach violin sonatas i love, but one which is soundwise"perfect" with an "external" reading of time but a perfect articulation by Helen Schmitt who i admire a lot and listen often... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltg6HjRPDu4&list=OLAK5uy_ntxYVtHBa0xdlGCh6PAv1FIn6orW2BXyk
And the irrepleacable version over even perfection because born from an "internal" time gesture, then a spiritual force emerging and flowing as the eternal beginning of the world... Beware because the violonist recorded it two time and only one is at the peak, the 1952 version with a less well sound but an eternal godly heart beat. This version i did not listen so often because it is a too sacred occasion and i wait to be in the state of total awareness ( i use Schmitt walking outdoor she is magnificent) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFjpvZefMpA&list=RDYFjpvZefMpA&start_radio=1
These two exemple of playing demonstrated well the huge difference between internal time born from the musical gesture himself and a gesture so perfect it could be (Schmitt) but which use an external time... Any playing in any instrument by every musician at any time may varies in levels of spirit content and this distinction between internal time and external time gesture is not clear cut. But if we use top supreme interpretation into these two categories using the same work we can feel it clearly...
It is the same thing in Nikolaeva almost impossible to rival version of Shostakovich preludes for piano , most other pianists compared to her use an external time with their gesture , not an internal time gesture like a flowing pulse which cannot be reduced to rythm,beats,etc like an individual gesture walking expression is unique for each individual, or writing gesture expression in graphology ...
Music like poetry cannot be taught at the end, only awaken in individuals..
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The second part of my first Moondog album bought exactly 51 one years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBGtgoVPLs&list=PLtVo042bfbJjxkMT-4_DGyQ193vnEWsrj&index=30
Moondog taught me what is Earth rooted music few years before i discovered earth music ....
There is many Moondog albums here a treat for our ears especially for those who stay with their childhood: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtVo042bfbJjxkMT-4_DGyQ193vnEWsrj |
Peter Pringle is a multi-instrumentist who sang in ancient languages and -play with the ancient instruments , his youtube chanel is a gem : An ancient love song from Egypt:
He sing here an hymn of the creation of the world on an ancient Egyptian harp (reconstructed ) begin at 7m 30 s : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miNd08mhuAw&list=RDmiNd08mhuAw&start_radio=1
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Akhnaten is a masterpiece... Why ? Because Glass whose music root is also born from the music of his older friend Moondog, the street musician who learned music from the Arapaho tribe, Glass succeeded in recreating the tremendous power of the Ancient Egypt religiousness.. in his life , whose i read written by Philostratus, Apollonyos of Tyana , a seer known in all the world in the time of Christ, travelled in India and all around the known world, but he said according to Philostratus that no one is as religious as the Egyptians... Glass summoned as a magician something over time coming from the life of Akhnaten and his music ressuscitated the powerful faith of the Egyptian... i learned how think the Egyptian reading 50 years ago Schwaller de Lubicz in his huge book analysing the Louxor temple ( Lubicz predicted the Sphinx age on the spot seeing water erosion way before geologist Robert Schoch) ... Glass music contain something of this vision... it is miraculous not just a mere opera...
What is extraordinary also is the life of Omm Sety (Dorothy Eady) a reincarnated priestress of Abydos temple of Sety and lover of the pharaoh for which she was killed, Omm Sety hate Akhnaten and his story is better than all thrillers i ever read...And his Story ring true, Dorothy Eady was an egyptologist of the highest order self trained ... read the search for Omm Sety by Jonathan Cott ...i read it in one day few hours ...Stunning and true story... If you want to know why Omm Sety hated Akhnaten you must read the book of Cott... This book is the greatest love story by the way i ever read... Hollywood must do a movie here...I believe Omm Sety is real not a fake, she knew too much... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trj5dsNWgJ8
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There is many multi-instrumentists but i did not know anyone who created so much good albums in so original music and the language in which he sing in all his albums... It is not rock or pop but completely original music language .... The only other one artist multi-instrumentist and composer i worship like Micus who created many original music and was an inspiration and a personal friend for a genius as Philip Glass is Louis Thomas Hardin aka Moondog ...The "Vicking of the 6th street" ... A street blind musician of genius... A set of albums i own too and one in particular i listened to for 50 years : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqrSklQdVo0&list=RDdqrSklQdVo0&start_radio=1
his story in 15 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neLfKmGHwgo
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I own 22 albums of Stephan Micus He play all instruments in all of his albums, makes all the voices... He composed songs in a language he created himself ... This is the first song of the "garden of mirrors" : "earth" A genius rooted in the earth in the age of uprooting ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zeeVbIBeE&list=RDf2zeeVbIBeE&start_radio=1 He will not be on any pop chart or any "hit parade" ...
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At worst we can listen to them on youtube... music matter more than sound and youtube is not perfect but listenable...I prefer youtube than paying for streaming and buying a streamer... And what exist on cd if i love it i can purchase it or reach to it... It is impossible to hear the 200 songs of Peter Deunov on a cd or with streaming, it does not exist but on youtube, not only a great musician but a spiritual seer and a real one ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRsEy4SstE&list=PLTNypuLgY9fEdocDWHrOUhytEIvK0GxhZ&index=71
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Thanks for your patience with me and for your musical intelligence ... i understand your point about Scriabin...It is an acquired taste , most people are not born loving Scriabin...
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An American pianist, Joseph Villa, who died too soon able to play Scriabin in his own fluid way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prLYVTBOPPk&list=RDprLYVTBOPPk&start_radio=1
I participate on this excellent public thread and i propose music for all those reading it not just for you, and i understand if you cannot hear all of what is suggested here ...I apologize if my posts disturbed you and because you are the OP i can stand still and mute if you prefer so ...
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I love Sun Ra, Chet Baker, and Bill Evans, among others because there is something spiritual in their musical expression...Not because it is jazz... If it was only show even extraordinary show i will loose interest... You cannot listen for a show so good it is hundred times without being bored... Music with spiritual content never bore if you repeat it ...
Here the not well known music written by a Bulgarian spiritual seer, Peter Deunov, 200 songs free ...I dont have this except on youtube ... It is powerful listening with joy as the main core : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGM-akmf4GA&list=PLTNypuLgY9fEdocDWHrOUhytEIvK0GxhZ&index=2
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It include Christianity or any other cultural expression... Some didgeridoo is sacred music for me as well as Hildegard of Bingen ...
And no i did not grow in Russia. I love Russian musicians especially their pianist school and vocal tradition ...
For me i love musicians more than music. musicians are music... It is why i dont bother with styles or genres but more about specific musician ... Any music rooted in spirit or rooted in the Earth soul is sacred music and i love it more than anything else ... As an exemple by Michael Nyman and some fabulous Indians musicians :
Sangam part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM21rkt09Wc&list=RDKM21rkt09Wc&start_radio=1 part 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGXWprHynaM&list=RDiGXWprHynaM&start_radio=1 part 3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMneS1AH-ag&list=RDNMneS1AH-ag&start_radio=1 |
You are a cool soul and a wise guy... I think we had pretty much expressed our perspective clearly to one another ... I dont see what to add... We will stick more to sound and music ... And if philosophy comes back again i will keep it shorter ...
I will recommend a genre i dont know how to characterise ...( is this heavy metal ? ) A fun listen i used few times few years ago to test my system /room ... I learn to like their albums and hear it time to time ( i had all their albums) but especially this one :
The revolutionary army of the infant Jesus , "a rumor of angels " album ... I dont like any rock or heavy metal "band " music usually much to stay polite... But there is exception for anything in my case even " heavy metals" ( i dont like) save some album ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIKHQS6LC9A&list=RDRIKHQS6LC9A&start_radio=1&t=83s
The youtube video describe this as "experimental dark folk"... Funny ... For me it is rythmic waves light metal music ...
By the way if you had a non optimized system it will not translated well in your system/ room and instead of clear rythmical waves of sound you will have a puddle ...
It posted this because nobody reacted to my Sorabji posts .... A genius which propose pieces impossible to listen without total concentration on a long time span... Perhaps a kind of "rock band " i like will create a more satisfying impression ... Anyway it is always spiritual music which is my best "genre" through all genres and cultures .... Bach or Australian didgeridoo are spiritual music content for me : " a sound creating a felt change in consciousness"... If something dont create a change in my consciousness i throw it in a trash bin ... (most music albums sold ) But we are all different and for you it can be an album i dislike who create this change in consciousness ...
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I apologize if i had been too blunt and direct... I dont doubt that you think about these ideas very seriously... But nothing of what you wrote surprised me as really new ... i read Tao of physics and Gaia long ago too ... Entropy is a subject very deep and puzzling even for geniuses : «John von Neumann famously advised Claude Shannon to name his information measure "entropy" because "Nobody knows what entropy is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage". Von Neumann recognized the formula’s connection to statistical mechanics and that its conceptual ambiguity would provide a strategic benefit in discussions about the new field of information theory.»
If Von Neumann dont know what is entropy i doubt that just refering back to "creative feminine force" will solve the problem...
An unknown genius wrote a book about entropy and the cosmos, William James Sidis at 20 and predicted from his ideas black hole 14 years before Chandrasekhar works: https://www.sidis.net/animate.pdf i can use A.I. to give a resume of this book i read in awe 25 years ago: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-is-william-james-sidis-th-q1KgmH9RQ8efSgVIpLkDyA
We all need a grid perspective to figure out the world and our place in it. For me the feminine/masculine polarities the way you used them in the post about physics above cannot explain the world and history and certainly not physics... Mathematics is not even enough if we want to begin to understand the world... We need spiritual insight way over feminine and masculine sex differences... Now we can mathematise this polarity in more abstract forms than feminine and masculine as Russell did after the Chinese in the deep Yi-King book ...Or we can use this polarity in a non sexual integrated way as Swedenborg did ... A spiritual thinker has done it among few others : Walter Russell : «Russell’s cosmogony was described in A New Concept of the Universe,[19] where he wrote that "the cardinal error of science" was "shutting the Creator out of his Creation."[20] Russell never referred to an anthropomorphic god, but rather wrote that "God is the invisible, motionless, sexless, undivided, and unconditioned white Magnetic Light of Mind"[21] which centers all things. "God is provable by laboratory methods," Russell wrote, "The locatable motionless Light which man calls magnetism is the Light which God IS."[22] He wrote that Religion and Science must come together in a New Age.[23]»
Swedenborg has described an holographical vision of the universe emanating from the God central sun : «In Swedenborg’s cosmology, Divine Love and Divine Wisdom are the fundamental attributes of God, manifesting in the spiritual world as a sun that gives forth heat (Divine Love) and light (Divine Wisdom).» As you can see wisdom is the masculine element , love the feminine element which together makes one angel reflecting God main attributes... Swedenborg was one of the greatest scientist in history not only a mystic.
Now i will give you my own idea about the world. It is not rooted in biological sex distinction. The finite in time cannot imagine the infinite but the infinite out of time can "remember" the finite which was created by him. I believe in God as explanatory source of sciences as well as history as history of our consciousness transformation and birth in God or in the source spirit... The best book on this is Gebser book. "the ever present origin"... this book instead of being obsolete as you claimed predicted 75 years ago the actual state of the world... I could have quoted Rudolf Steiner the seer, scientist and Goethe scholar. I read 200 books of him but i doubt that it will interest you. Then i picked up Gebser but you discarded it as "obsolete" .. :) |
is there some sound experience able to elevate the conscious level out of our robotic body and robotic mind ? It seems some music were used as such in many spiritual culture... An example will be given with the Barabar cave in this astounding documentary : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RJ3Epd_SXk&t=2958s
Dont miss this documentary.... It is related to sound experience, ancient history, and almost superhuman technology... It is factual not speculation by the way ... If you know some piece of music able to elevate the conscious level by the way sounds is used you can suggest it here ... All music in a way or another may elevate the consciousness level if someone is prepared to live the experience , but some music are designed for this in a very peculiar way ... Music is for me not just pleasure but change of consciousness ... it is not just about our taste but about a higher truth if we change ourselves et prepare to receive it ... music help and cure or makes us ill ...
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I will illustrate my point about the "I" transcending the robotic or the tribal ego as well as the daimonic ego with a quote about consciousness because the ego robotic or possessed is not conscious... Only the transcendent Christic "I" or Atman is conscious ... «“Consciousness may behave like an attentive supervisor who keeps an eye on everything that is happening but intervenes only when it realizes that the automatic processes could be inadequate to handle the situation.” - Federico Faggin physicist designer of the first INTEL processor and mystic |
All history is driven by archetypes and rooted in them...
Once this is said,the fact that there exist a mother achetype and a father archetype does not means that all physics could be reduced to these underlying archetypes.. ( we can easily class everything in yin and yang that does not means that physics is yin or yang )
In my own thinking as an exemple, we have three sides: the materialistic social tribal and now robotic ego,& the daimonic (Plato)"possessed" "inspired" isolated ego, but also the free thinking "I" which result & manifest as a balance & controls between the other two sides. History describe the emergence of this third Christic component.
As you see instead of using your feminine and masculine polarities, i use three symbolic forms or achetypes : the material (feminine) the mind (masculine) the transcendent "i"...
My reading is as much good or as much bad as yours...
 Instead of a feminine physics , why not a physics integrating the two polarities in a higher dimension ?
A Goethean physics as described by Henri Bortoft in two books ...
If i consult A.I. dont doubt he will obey my prompting biases and confirming my perspective as it did with your schematics...
A.I. is not truth... It is a confirming biases tool so useful it could be it dont think ....
There is plenty of people saying A.I. helped them and confirmed their view right now...
If i prompt A.I. about my view as i just described to you i can also wrote a physics description ( encompassing biology and psychology ) as good as your own with my three perspectives archetypes of the "ego " instead of yin yang or feminine /masculine ...
In my physics perspectives the observer must be himself transformed in the act of observation.He then cannot observe a feminine or a masculine physics out of himself.
In a word you are "not even wrong".
It can be helpful for you to contrast a feminine physics with a masculine physics but i doubt that it will be productive... It was already done long ago by the way ...I read the "tao of Physics" by Capra 50 years ago , he contrasted newtonian physics (masculine ) with Quantum physics (feminine ) and all your description correspond to his own...
i prefer Goethe who goes deeper ....
The great thinker Gilbert Durand classified all imaginative archetypes...(" Structure anthropologique de l’imagination " a total masterpiece translated in English which i read 55 years ago, i recommend it to you and be assured this book is not obsolete )
The imaginative cosmos is a tree with three main branches with one branch which is double ( the three musketeers are 4 ) ... Then not just a feminine/masculine simpler classification ... Our bodies male or female support the same workings functions and are complementary not opposite...
Jean Gebser i recommended to you described in his 600 pages book how consciousness is transformed by evolution/history dynamically. he does not use a simplistic binary classification... You decided without reading it that his book was obsolete ... Ask A.I. if his book is obsolete and why ?
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A.I. tailor his answers according to the user prompts.. To please the user A.I. will distort facts... There is no feminine physics nor masculine physics... There is no physics science whose experienced content is rooted in sex or in biology... For sure psycho-acoustics for example can distinguish between female and male biases in sound perception. A female is more sensitive to high pitch (bablies crying ) than males for example... But there is no physics and mathematics sex oriented sciences... A.I. helping or not .. Ask any serious physicist... I am sorry to be blunt...
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Now what about the future of music and of the threefold free social fabric ? We are not ready nor mature enough in our societies for the technology that was dropped on our heads... If you think that technology is marvellous, remember the Amish reply about why they dont use automobile : " We only use tech that will not break our loving caring social fabric "...Between becoming a cyborg or staying a non fanatical Amish, my choice is done... What is the future of "popular" industrial and commercial music ? A musician on UBI (universal Basic Income ) will not be more happy and those loosing their jobs either because UBI is first and last digital control and freedom loss not mere free money... A non working man, non contributing man, is no more a citizen but a useless eater ...Oligarchs will draw the same conclusion: we are too much, too polluting and who need us ? Musk said it will be abundance free for all ...It makes me smile thinking about his "naiveté" or worst, i dont know... Technology is not wisdom for sure ...Science is not Knowledge but less than knowledge and informed by it, knowledge is not technology but way more , Love is the beginning and the end of wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge paired with love.. Ai Can now Fully Produce YOUR SONG!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl2_mp0h8b0 part 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS-QHyC7JcM part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkfK33UTVHU
Perdomo was using Suno A.I. But this young man now suggested that there is better than Suno : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_ibwqKKao
The truth is simply evident : What power mankind will delegate to a.I. mankind will had the consequence that mankind loose his ability to create it again in himself from himself.. If you compute by asking A.I. the answer how will you learn to compute with your head efficiently ? If you wrote no more, how this will affect thinking gesture ? Etc... There is a price to pay, when no human jobs are needed anymore in the social fabric, the threefold social fabric (Culture-politic-economy) is reduced to one layer of control and the "citizen" exist no more only a useless eater exist. |
A 8 minutes piece of piano for those who do not know young Sorabji genius : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8HVI_9eJU4&list=RDB8HVI_9eJU4&start_radio=1 |
A marvellous video about speakers done like musical instrument : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTCtitxkNvc A Speaker Built Like a Wind Instrument: 50 Years in Pursuit of Perfect SoundI like it because i discovered many years ago in my first dedicated audio room that system/speakers/room/ears are one musical instrument or one very complex resonator ... Now the thread is about music... Sound and music are one we can distinguish them perfectly but we cannot separate them... In speech sound and meaning are perfectly distinguishable but we cannot separate them... It is possible to appreciate Bruckner 5 th symphony about the "meaning of life" like an NDE experience translated into music (it is my perception of this symphony) from your phone with bad earbuds, but it is easier to pick this meaning on a very good system/room for a better meditation on this very complex but very deep masterpiece. It is the only Bruckner symphony with a perfectly completed finale with his eight symphony, a finale putting all pieces or preceding movements together as ONE using a breathtaking masterful fugue in the finale ...An experience you cannot forgot especially after the second very meditative listening....it is impossible to understand this symphony at first listening save if you are a genius. I am not. It takes me the second listening to "see" the "movie" clearly so to speak ... I like Celibidache 5th spiritual depth ...Celibidache make the orchestra speak not only doing music but telling a story...It is real cinema... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOTzCgMxy_o&list=RDiOTzCgMxy_o&start_radio=1 |
I dont give a damn about trends we must be conscious of ... I am interested only by individual musicians not so much by trends : be it jazz, classical, or Persian and Indian etc... Some trends even repulse me even if the musician is a good one... Sorry ( Commercial or industrialized Pop and rock etc ) I look for individual musicians genius, nevermind the culture or musical language... for example: i dont like the Opera genre , but there is many operas i love a lot to death... Same is true for jazz, or even classical... Who can rival Bruckner or Gesualdo genius ? Very few and they are in the great names ... I dont like symphonic music but i love Beethoven and Bruckner till madness or Schumann fourth or Mahler etc or Robert Simpsons ( A genius not even well known ) etc ... I dont like quatuors... But Beethoven quatuors are pure transcendental music ... I finally understand i like musicians more than music itself...Some are Godly...
How many musicians can direct Schutz music ? Not much... Try Mauersberger Schutz "Geistliche Chormusic " , i listened to it near 1000 times... How did i know the count ? Easy: i wrote for 4 years a project and i listened to Schutz each night when writing for 4 years with Bach various Choral pieces and Klavier ... I dont like Schutz as much alone as the musician Mauersberger able to recreate the musical time dimension rythms and pulse behind the written score. The creative rythms in Schutz is here in this work a perfect mix of German depth and weight with the Italian wings and "lightness of being ". There is no one who can catch this paradoxal mix as Mauersberger directing the Chor...Incredible and strong as the stronger addictive drug after one listening, because like in the 7th symphony of Beethoven we feel the creative pulse of the Cosmos and human heart as One. Music is ecstasy not just fun...Spiritual transformation not just leisure... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnZQ0EPuNqk
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I think audio-b-dog is right here. If i had not already a huge amount of files i will stream... I am not motivated to do it because i had more music than most people here... But it is useful to stream a new composer or album before deciding to purchase it ... I dont need it but most people need it... Myself i use youtube to listen a new musician, if it please me i go for the files...
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I began with a friend help converting cd to flac format near 20 years ago at its beginning . I went on with this method, now i bought files or i convert... It is impossible for me in my small house to store my books collection. all on digital files now nor my music collection... I am lucky i had no need for any storage now save my 600 paper books essentials what is left from my huge personal library...I own more book files than i could read for one thousand years... Same for music... Streaming ? Never ... |
Music exist in speech as its root.. Then music has no need for a goal as a tree roots has no goal save to sustain life... We are the tree. Our roots dont have goal no more than our feet. But we speaking walking trees we speak or do music to "change our own consciousness level"... Music is not just leisure, pleasure,but a sacred moral duty as speech itself. This is the spiritual content of music. Music is more about a higher consciousness level, not about "taste" so much...But because we are all different, we "taste" different flavors and stick to them.It is why thread as this one matter, we must go out of our own habits and explore other realms...
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It seems that a new version of the "mount Everest" of piano work, the Clavicem Ballisticum of Sorabji was recorded and rival Ogdon majestic madness with a more deep analytical insight in the piece... I will buy it for sure... I have 20 box of Sorabi music... The clavicem box is 5 hours ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PCCGC3nFBU&list=PL9GK1dCgxUgxk-Aej5ibP6ntEdOSQq9xX Here an article of Gramophone about it :
I doubt it will beat Ogdon madness but i love too much Sorabji to let it go ...
By the way the Top Sorabji box is the incredible Ullen 100 transcendental studies 7 cd ... It is what is the heart of Sorabji for me : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsunU1Jyigk&list=PLRs_FxzJLU50ArgMv2Ykm9IUsELIYwoML If the clavicem is Mount Everest of Piano by the difficulties the transcendental Studies are Mount Erebus in Antartica, so varied, so strange, so fascinating , it is after for the beginner "perfumed garden" album the box we must buy at all cost if we love Sorabji ... For those who love Book, Roberge has written the authoritative book on Sorabji, 641 pages.the full book is free PDF here : https://www.sorabji-archive.co.uk/books/opus-sorabjianum.php
There is also but harder to find books autobiographical and philosophical written by Sorabji himself ...
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I just stumble on youtube version of my favorite "perfumed garden" of Sorabji : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCs0YeBOmOQ&list=RDcCs0YeBOmOQ&start_radio=1 |
Schnabel is recognized as a giant ... But here i repeat what i know and recognized when i listened to him... But you must know that i can only speak for the few musicians or composers i listened a great amount of time... to be short, i am obsessive mind and if i fall in love with a musician i cannot stop listening to him...At the expanse of others... Love has a price or ask for a duty... But you must know that i dont fall in love with many musicians, sometimes i miss or stay indifferent to true great musician...The heart is not neutral... I cannot understand why i love Sofronitsky or Yudina so much compared to others for example, be it Richter or Gilels.. it is a love affair motivated spiritually by my own soul journey... The other reason i see, i dont listen often Beethoven piano pieces and Schnabel is a giant here... I am in love with Beethoven quartets as the key to his soul... I cannot explain it ... Ask frogman, he is a musician and less obsessed than i am, more "objective" in a way and more knowledgeable ...
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My favorite piano Works in the XX Century is Scriabin first, Then Shostakovich second but certainly Sorabji as a third... Sorabji is incredible genius like Scriabin but as much as Scriabin appeared spiritual guide for humanity to me as much Sorabji appear to me as a mad genius whose piece can be irritating obsessive but life changing too ... John Ogdon , a giant pianist i discovered in Busoni Piano concerto created the greatest version of the Clavicem Ballisticum but this is not for all people the works is almost 5 hours , Dont buy anything but Ogdon by the way it takes a mad pianist with ferocious gift to play this piece : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxcD2yo1nlI&list=RDyxcD2yo1nlI&start_radio=1
But the best if you dont know Sorabji the more easy piece and also one of the most beautiful, is "the perfumed garden" and if you dont like this piece you dont like piano : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vE2d28yjI4&list=RD8vE2d28yjI4&start_radio=1&t=14s Or played here by Sorabji himself..: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZs01TevxbM&list=RDVZs01TevxbM&start_radio=1
Musical time in Sorabji escape linear succession not as in Scriabin case which resemble a ladder we ascend or descend from time to eternity and back in one second, but in Sorabji case as a circular complex labyrinth existing in eternity and from which there is no escape no beginning no end, no reason, save the infinite variation itself......
By "hasard" of life i encountered personally the greatest specialist of Sorabji music many times and it enlightened me, i did not knew who Roberge was ..I was in my Busoni Faust discovery ( one of my rare favorite opera and the greatest performance of Dietrich fisher Dieskau with Schubert lieds) and i advocated for it to Roberge who answered me saying he was a musicologist specialist of Busoni as well as for Sorabji and this push me toward Sorabji ...it was 25 years ago ... Here what he wrote : «"Producing Evidence for the Beatification of a Composer: Sorabji’s Deification of Busoni" is an article by Marc-André Roberge published in The Music Review in 1993 (with publication in May 1996) that analyzes the intense and adulatory relationship between composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji and Ferruccio Busoni, suggesting Sorabji built an extensive body of work to elevate Busoni to a saintly status. The article discusses Sorabji’s persistent advocacy for composers like Busoni, who were not initially recognized by the musical establishment, and how Sorabji acted as a champion for them.
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In a complete other order of idea... I can recommend you this music which cured my anxieties and which i listen each time i felt bad: it is not recreational piece nor new age piece but a real healing music repetitive and deeply penetrating : Jonathan Goldman is an expert in meditative and healing music but i tried many of his others pieces so good they are they dont reach to the level of this "medecine musical master piece".. As i said it is not a music to be tasted and appreciated it is a drug pill nothing more nothing less and it work..( it is a mantra grounded in the Christ name ) Dont listen to it in normal time wait till you will need it...We dont eat medical drug in normal time for supper... When i was ill i could not listen my favorite music because i had a weight on my head and heart, only this music could cure me....i used it for 35 years, the first time it was for severe panic attacks and after 20 minutes the worst was behind like a miracle... I dont claim it will cure you but it will help you a lot if you are spiritually or physically ill ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJRpoUk-mpU&list=RDaJRpoUk-mpU&start_radio=1&t=111s |
Now the composer who fear the most Stalin wrote a sonata which is played by the woman who fear nothing save God and whom Stalin admired and never killed : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNnlzyiQRYU
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This video 45 minutes about Scriabin life in Russian (but i listen with auto-translate in English)is well recorded enough and the interpretation are top notch... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZaj1YIHlsA
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Here the goddess Nikolaeva pianist concert : Listen his Ravel and his Scriabin, no ego only music : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6liIhgiSDQ&list=RDV6liIhgiSDQ&start_radio=1
Listen how she played Bach : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pKgAy7SQkE&list=RD_pKgAy7SQkE&start_radio=1
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For me the essence of Shostakovich soul as a musician are his Bach inspired preludes &fugues by Tatiana Nikolaeva...
She was a friend of Shostakovich and a giant pianist in Russia but almost unknown in the West... His playing flow from the source without any ego interference and the Bach majestic inspiration behind Shostakovich appear and makes him a brother of the German God... As anecdote Shostakovich feared so much Stalin, unlike Maria Yudina who scorned Stalin in his face about his great sins and refuse his money, that he waited sleep each night with a minimalistic luggage waiting under hisw bed in case he was deported in the Gulag... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyURjdnYQaU&list=PLiMumVBefK9IpPgqVqyJ33E4IDGiTK_-U
As an aside, Russian music is so badly known in the West , that the best bio of Scriabin (690 pages) written by an American musician who lived in Russia in 1969 , Faubion Bowers, dont even mention in his first chapter about the history of Russian Music the name of the stupendous genius Dmitry Bortnyansky (1751-1825) one of the greatest choral music composer not only in Russia but everywhere, Faubion Bowers begin speaking about Glinka...But nowadays after the stupendous recording of the Choral concertos by Poliansky it is a marvel to hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54VRvokl77Y&list=PLDML4XZqb7ZHN3VNnLwu__rtYZy8bWfPG
The West ignore Russia...
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Kleiber get the allegretto of my favorite symphony to a new meaningful level...( The greatest musical orchestral movement ever written in my opinion so strong it was in his effect on the soul) I see a seed invincibly pushing rocks to grow... ( i always see music or associate it with images not as a mere poetic expression of my feelings but more like a movie, i can for example wrote a novel about the Bruckner 5th because i listened to it so much and it entered into my imaginative perception as "the meaning of life " itself as we experience it after death , because of the structure of this work especially the final fugue recapitulating and integrating each movement from the beginning. Bruckner rival Bach mastery of fugue here in a way Bach never did.) For me the 7th is the symphony , the art of Beethoven symphony as a creative engine with an irresistible rythm of his own able to liberate humanity from the sleep of inertia , habit, and lack of motives... Music is cure and thought meditation...( the allegretto of the 7th must be able to make some paralysed person to walk again against all odds, which other piece of music can do this? listen to it )
By the way i love Scriabin so much, because all his work motives core is sparking human heart to begin to be divinely creative again as Beethoven was inducing it particularly strongly in the 7th , it is clear as crystal... Beethoven soul (not his style) is Scriabin forebear...A Promethean giant inspiring another one...
«... Scriabin... Where does he come from?
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For orchestra introduction to someone disliking orchestral work : Beethoven 6 and 7 th symphony is impossible to dislike...( you can listen to the movie "Soylent green" as an intro for Beethoven sixth symphony "Pastorale" ) The 7 th of Beethoven is irresistible masterpiece about creativity and how to become creative as life itself (seeds) moving rocks (allegretto) . Once you had heard them buy the 6 th of Bruckner by Karl Bohm among few other maestros choice the most beautiful symphony ever written...Takes off the light and listen... ( The 6th is the only symphony he never corrected and Bruckner was compulsive and obsessed by inferiority complex and corrected hundred times all his works. Curious for the greatest organist since Bach and the greatest symphonist with Beethoven) I prefered choral music all my life over orchestral works by the way... I entered into real orchestral obsession after my 6 months listening of Bruckner non stop ... I am a bit excessive ... |
Great comparison! I like all the pianists mentioned here about Mozart or Chopin... And some others... My favorite Mozart and Chopin pieces though are played by Ivan Moravec ( One of my godly saint pianists). But he never did an integral though just few pieces but very well recorded (Nocturnes) and played with a majestic control of colors... |
In this stunning "Welte Mignon" and "pianola recording" in spite of the limitations of this kind of recording process we can even sense and feel the almost "jazzy" feeling of an improvised spontaneous irruption of another "time" than the physical one, a moment which is neither past nor future,not even momentaneous but more like an irruption of something out of time,a musical motive, in physical time itself... Scriabin himself playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsBoxTpk_dc&list=RDvsBoxTpk_dc&start_radio=1 sonata no3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bstDVo92Io&list=RD6bstDVo92Io&start_radio=1 |
Why playing the notes even perfectly well is not enough playing any composer but fell short in particular in Scriabin... Understanding the motives behind the notes is fundamental, the musical time dimension of the piece is given birth by the way the musician understand the motives... An example of good understanding by a Polish pianist : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-VgyjLS3ok&list=RDeHPFrCJP6c4&index=2
Here also Merzhanov genius shine in Scriabin : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZbmTrEr7v0&list=OLAK5uy_kcBQlc_uGF33KC-Hx9PHSlh_visu4qmls
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A very lucid French jazz pianist about A.I. invasion of music... You can listen with auto-translate in English, "Ultimate danger of A.I., synthesis and predictions" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Zc5z0IRrU
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By the way it was in the course of reading about acoustics few years ago to learn how to set my system /room right that i discovered the recent acoustical science discoveries about human hearing .. ( i posted an article in my above posts ) Then i discovered why and how musical time is not reducible to physical measured time (linear Fourier measures) ... Then i understood something i never understood about the way great musicians and maestro use musical time...(it is very clear if we listen Furtwangler use of musical time compared to some others maestro as maestro Gergiev pointed to in an article i read.My main example is Schuman 4th symphony, because it was my Schumann work of choice) I am also interested by acoustics and linguistic (speech) and the way poets use the time dimension of speech and also its history and evolution..
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I learned how to optimize my 4 systems one by one... The first one in a bigger room takes me a few years of learning , mainly acoustics experiments.. After that in few months with the basic understanding of electrical,mechanical & acoustical working controls devices and basic tweaks i was able to set and optimize my actual smaller room and smaller system, and my Top headphone and my secondary headphone... There is no relation between the S.Q. of a system/room before and after his optimization process... No relation... Most people buy and plug their system, their only optimization means and tools are upgrades of the gear...( they ignore the three working dimensions optimization process if not completely partially especially the acoustics) But optimization work with what you already own if the synergy bwetween pieces of gear is relatively good... Because if you dont know how to makes the better with what you already own you will not be able to optimize the new upgrade either... My small speakers, modified and optimized are satisfying now, i disliked them when i bought them by the way... My headphone systems the main one the hybrid K340 and the lesser sextett K240 are done also and optimized by modifications and good synergy choices... I dont need to listen critically now at all...My systems reach their peak level performance after optimization.. There is better gear system here by far in great numbers but many are not optimized... A non optimized system at any price will not reach his peak working level... I am glad and happy with the "minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold" i reach with a low cost system... I dont had the budget nor the money to optimize a costlier system... To beat my 1000 bucks system will be easy and i will reach almost high end ( the maximal acoustical satisfaction threshold with 15,000 bucks but my wife will kill me ... I am retired and in a small dedicated room, it could be better in a bigger room which i dont own anymore anyway...) I am not frustrated at all , my goal is reached the day i learned how to optimize anything at any price.. I now live with what i can afford with no envy, proud of the way my peanuts cost system could sound so good... This week i listened for 2 days only Vivaldi "i Musici" complete recording of Vivaldi non stop in ecstasy because the sound was good enough for me to hear the music without being bothered by sound trade-off defects... I then dont need to do critical sound listening anymore... I will do critical listening again if i must optimize another system/room one day... But i am 74 and i dont think i will had a new room and a bigger budget for audio ( it must be 15,000 bucks to really beat my actual system for good in a bigger room with a Choueiri DSP )
For many "critical listening" is a fate and a malediction that curse their enjoyment of music because their critical listening is about the gear piece defects they just bought and they are not acoustically informed to use critical listening as a tool for optimization and tuning ... I learned critical listening when i used it as a tool to tune my 100 Helmholtz resonators in my first bigger dedicated room.. When it was done after a full year of work the result was stunning.. After that no critical listening was needed... I used critical listening again in my last and actual room but now it is done...(it was way easier in this smaller room ) Critical listening when informed is a gift and a tool, not informed by acoustics it is a curse and a recipe for frustration in an upgrade wheel without end...My budget never could afford without end upgrades...
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i felt that Glass Akhnaten is not just a beautiful piece of music... We dont lack beautiful piece of music anyway... I was spell bounded by the way he succeeded to recreate something of the Ancient Egypt spiritually using rythms and words in a way no modern opera never dare to go ... I read about Egypt a masterpiece on the Luxor temple i paid 125 Canadian dollars in 1978 ... A fortune for a book if you use the inflation index but well worth it... This book was an initiation to the deep symbolism of Egypt in two huge books... it gives even to me a key for mathematics understanding when i was young and in need of it... Philip Glass genius shine through this spiritual opera almost a kind of non christian oratorio which is a "felt change in consciousness" (Barfield) when listening to it... As an aside it is the piece of music i used,with the astonishing Lotte Lenya version of the three penny Opera of Weil to test my sound quality ( "out of the head" effect of my AKG K340 hybrid and his bass tones) when i needed to do it ... ( i dont need to test anything now |
You get me right and that makes me happy...
Not only i means that , the oneness of art,religion, technology, but i must remind you the 5 articles i posted above about universals in Timbre perception, and the musical time dimension created by man out of the physical linear time dimension linked to the reason why human beat the Fourier principle or the Gabor limit... |
The first musical instrument is our gesturing body... Our body gesture on the members scale and on the throat/mouth scale ... The two gesture are synchronized then as frogman said the rythm is fundamental... The rythm is not merely something flowing in physical time but something creating his own time dimension... The fist musical instrument is not physical object but body parts synchronising in something which is not speech as we know it now nor singing as we know it now in a separate way but the two as one... Two feet and legs can synchronise with a bone sticking etc Speech and music were conjoined twin never naturally separated but artificially separated by specialization... it is why poetry register made us conscious about the deep root of language in music ... Prose register is only the peak of language iceberg... Methodologically Saussure advocated for the arbitrary of signs maxim , but he guessed that sounds in language are also motivated by meaning in his study about onomatopea... Language is way less known than our science think it is... The greatest linguist since Panini is not even translated in English by the way : Gustave Guillaume which opuses goes near 30 volumes and more to come in edition right now ... ( i studied it 35 years ago ) In the same way acoustics is a deep science which revolution is ongoing right now... but all this is out of topic here ...
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