A Classical Education

[zembla]

Off-topic in another thread I asked:

[elektro80]

[zembla]

I got hold of and played Prokofiev/Nevsky and Pergolesi/Stabat Mater this morning. Very interesting indeed.

Jim

[mosc]

[elektro80]

[mosc]

I try to read most of them. It's almost impossible to keep up with everything. Especially when my mother board is broken and I can use the audio interace.

Actually, I'm a big Haydn fan. His music is consistently excellent.

[elektro80]

[mosc]

[zembla]

Hmmm this classical stuff is tricky. 20,000 versions of everything. Can someone recomend a performance of "The Soldier's Tale" to get? With or without voices, trio or septet??

Jim

[Stanley Pain]

if i had to introduce any musician to "classical" music i would probably suggest Bach's unaccompanied 'cello suite.

get the Pablo Casals recordings and the Yo-Yo Ma recordings and alternate each part of the suite between to the two recordings.

if you don't get it by the end of that experience, you never will.

[seraph]

[mosc]

[elektro80]

nahh.. it is Paganini.

am kinda multitasking here at the moment. I was thinking about some stuff by paganini that Liszt transcribed for the piano. And partly inspired by this Lizst wrote a series of extremely interesting piano pieces.

As for the Soldier´s Tale, my Deutsche Grammophone vinyuls are in storage right now. I will check my lists here later on and find a pretty decent recording. ..btw.. BBC has a page on Stravinsky.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/profiles/stravinsky.shtml I think they have a section of a DG recording there. Listen!

Re Andrei Nevsky by prokofiev. This is music for a film by Sergei Eisenstein. What you should listen to is the suite which is slightly different from the film score ( and better ). The battle on the ice sequence has inspired many ambient comsposers these days. There is a decent Telarc recording that has the right energy. The playing is however sloppy at times, but as I said the energy is great.

[elektro80]

Eisenstein´s film is pretty decent, but AFAIK there are no properly restored versions available on DVD. A rather decent and complete version was available to european TV stations in the 60s ( I saw this version too ) but I have been told that this version is now lost. The DVD that I do have has rather mangled audio track.

Trivia: Eisenstein presented later a theory on film music partly based on his own groundbreaking work on Andrei Nevsky. Filmstudents have to suffer through this, but musicians will understand ASAP that Eisenstein is talking bullshit.

[elektro80]

It seems that the DG recording I am thinking of is out of print.
This is digusting!

http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/

[zembla]

I have got hold of a Scottish National Orchestra version of the Prokofiev - "Battle on the Ice" was the bit that leaped out at me.

Back on known territory listening to Mingus "Blues and Roots" now

Jim

[Nodular]

I love classical music and often listen to it.
I think there are many ways to begin.
If it helps, I started listening to Giocchino Rossini's "Barbiere di Siviglia" at the age of 5/6 (I think it's been a good start point). Then Beethoven' symphonies (5 -> 6 -> 9 -> 7 -> 3) and the "KlavierKonzert" (4 & 5).
I had problems with Mozart's instrumental music at the beginning, but loved immediately "Don Giovanni" and "Die Zauberflöte".
Then I started to listen to contemporaries.
Ravel's "Bolero" and his transcription of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" have been a good introduction.
I proceeded with Stravinsky and a whole new world opened.
I feel that one should always listen to every Stravinsky work, for it's where future music will have to start from.
The strange thing is that Stravinsky auditions allowed me to return to Bach ("Die Kunst der Fugue", "Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin", "Clavicembalo Ben Temperato", "Musical Offering BWV 1079", "Goldberg Variations"), Händel ("Concerti grossi op. 3 Nos. 1-6, HWV 312-317", "Musica sull'Acqua - HWV 348-350", "Music for the Royal Fireworks - HWV 351"), Haydn ("String Quartets H III 1-83b", "Pieces for Mechanical Clock (Flötenuhr) H XIX 1-32", "Incidental Music H XXX") and Mozart (...hard to choose, but "K581 - Quintet for Clarinet & Strings", "K550 - Symphony No. 40", "K551 - Symphony No. 41 Jupiter", "K522 - Divertimento for String Quartet & 2 Horns - Ein musikalischer Spass", "K504 - Symphony No. 38 Prague", "K626 - Requiem"), but also Domenico Scarlatti (all harpsichord works), Pergolesi (already said, "Stabat Mater"), Monteverdi (all Madrigali books - from whom it all begun).
Most of last discovers regard romantic period again:
Schubert ("Der Tod und das Maedchen", "A Trout", all quartets, everything for piano), Shumann ("Kinderszenen"), Chopin (Preludes, Nocturnes, Polonaise), Beethoven ("piano sonata op. 111 " - his last piano work - if you can find Brendel's version, you'll be glad)
This sonata along with Stravinsky's Ragtime and Petruska (possibly the piano version) have been most incredible surprises for me as they seem music of today.
This is what I suggest to start from.

[mosc]

[elektro80]

Trivia: I wanted to have piano lessons at an early age because I wanted to learn to play like Alfred Brendel. I had heard some of his 50s recordings and then during the 60s he recorded the complete piano works of Beethoven for Vox. I still have some of these discs. Those are excellent. I can recommend the full Vox Beethoven series but I don´t know if this has been reissued on either Decca or some other label. Brendel is with Decca now.

I have serious problems with Beethoven´s symphonies. The piano and piano /cello stuff is more like it. Brendel´s recording of the piano and cello stuff is quite good. There is in fact another Brendel playing cello with Alfred on this one. Cool.



I also think he does a good job on the Schumann fantasy thingie issued in 98.

[Dovdimus Prime]

Nobody has mentioned Debussy. This is all wrong.

[mosc]

Debussy is very dreamy. I find it hard to believe that some critics called his music noise when it was first heard. It sounds very tame today. Van Gogh never sold a painting either.

[deknow]

...if we are going to mention paganini on this list, then we must bring up the maestro alex gregory's "paganini's last stand" ...clips can be found at http://www.doaneperrypage.de/mag-pls.htm

the album cover is alex pissing on steve vai's and yngwie malmsteen's graves!

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[orczy]

Here's my list of stuff that I play to the uninitiated:

Orchestral:
Sibelius: Tapiola
Debussy: Nocturnes
Vaughan Williams: Symphony 3
Bruckner: Symphony 8

Opera:
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande

Lied:
Wolf: Goethe Songs
Mahler: Ruckert Lieder
Gorecki: Symphony 3 (yes, it is a symphony, but for the vocal. Many people have problems with classical voices in my experience)

Chamber:
Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht

Piano:
Liszt: Sonata in b minor
Debussy: Preludes
Chopin: Nocturnes

Harmonium:
Karg Elert: 12 Impressions

I don't really go for concerti that much.

Yep, the last one is a gag really. (But if you do want classical harmonium, this is the place to start)
PS: note, no Haydn. In fact nothing really pre 1840! (maybe some of Chopin's Nocturnes may be slightly earlier)

[Dovdimus Prime]

Is the Common Practice Era not an important part of getting to know classical music? Can't I persuade you to slip in Haydn's Cello Concerto or something...? Or good old Mozart's good old 40th?

Good work on including the lovely lovely Ralph VW. Don't know the 3rd Symphony. Will purchase a copy as soon as I've finished this current course of self-flagellation. No. 5 blows my skull to bits. I've already said that before. But now I'm saying it again.

[orczy]