The Classical Music Guide Forums

johnshade

I hope that they cannot settle on Thielemann with his reactionary repertoire and nationalist political views. I like Thielemann and have several of his orchestral and opera CDs. I don't believe that his repertoire will hurt his chances, but his politics are not politically correct. (It seems his op...

johnshade

lennygoran wrote:This is just too much to swallow.

I have had to swallow so much of this eurotrash; today it's refreshing to see an original, intended staging.

johnshade

The most overrated composer? Shostakovich.

johnshade

Yes. I am almost certain the cartoon refers to the Karajan EMI set with Schwarzkopf, Ludwig, Otto Edelmann, and the Philharmonia recorded in 1957. Side eight would contain the final trio and duet.

JS

johnshade

This cartoon was in the New Yorker several months after Karajan's Der Rosenkavalier LP set was released. Do any of you remember the public reception of these discs?

: cartoon.JPG (31.92 KiB) Viewed 5878 times

johnshade

In 1947, while rehearsing his music in London. Strauss jokingly said to the orchestra, "I know what I want, and I know what I meant when I wrote this. After all, I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class, second-rate composer." In my opinion, Strauss is only second-rate to his belov...

johnshade

~
I rented the movie yesterday. The plot was very thin and, as composer biopics usually are, there were many historically inaccurate scenes. I did appreciate the portrayal of Beethoven as reasonably compassionate rather than as an over-the-top grumpy old man.

johnshade

-
My favorite base is Kurt Moll. Some of his outstanding performances are Magic Flute, Rosenkavalier, and Tristan und Isolde.
-

johnshade

Corlyss_D wrote:I have to speak up for the French.

The great soprano, Janet Baker (British) sings Berlioz (French):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3IqNUoMtPM

johnshade

My favorite soprano in lieder is the late, great Lucia Popp,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhdN1x4k ... ed&search=

johnshade

~ You will not find more beautiful music than the "Four Last Songs" (German: Vier letzte Lieder ) by the German composer, Richard Strauss . His other songs (lieder) are also wonderful, especially Opus 10 and Opus 27. His songs are primarily for soprano; some accompanied by orchestra, others by pian...

johnshade

~ You will not find more beautiful music than the "Four Last Songs" (German: Vier letzte Lieder ) by the German composer, Richard Strauss . His other songs (lieder) are also wonderful, especially Opus 10 and Opus 27. His songs are primarily for soprano; some accompanied by orchestra, others by piano...

johnshade

~
César Franck, Symphony in D Minor. I don't know why I thought of this, but many years ago I listened to this music very often. Today I never listen to it. I must pull it out, listen, and see if "I have outgrown it". Do any of you like the Franck symphony?

johnshade

But I also have a special fondness for the work of Rodzinski who, IMHO, never really got his due at least after his passing like many other conductors. A couple of interesting thing I remember about Rodzinsky: (1) Upon Koussevitzky's recommendation, Bernstein was appointed assistant conductor of th...

johnshade

Lance wrote:Rodzinski/New York PO (Columbia)

~
I bought this LP in 1956, one of my first classical recordings. I played it hundreds of times. Since this version was so ingrained in my mind, I have never heard a recording I liked better.

Lance, do you remember this recording?

johnshade

Thielemann conducting Brahms Symphony No. 1 and Beethoven Egmont Overture. Available May 8, 2007.

johnshade

That being said, I like a lot of 20th century stuff that's (mostly) tonal while pushing those boundaries: R. Strauss Mahler Prokofiev Scriabin Shostakovich some Stravinksy Wolf . I agree with your choice of Richard Strauss (considering his 15 operas and 200 lieder as well as his orchestral music). ...

johnshade

...that peaked my interest, until I read it was some kind of updated bastardization. I agree with you about updated basterdization sometimes called Eurotrash. I have seen a few operas performed and have a few DVDs with updated staging. The worse case of this I have seen is an early DVD I bought of ...

johnshade

IMORTALS . Bach . Mozart . Beethoven GENIUS FIRST CLASS . R. Strauss . Haydn . Brahms . Wagner . Schubert . Tchaikovsky . Rachmaninoff . Liszt . Stravinsky . Mahler . Dvorak . Haydn . Elgar . Debussy GENIUS . Schumann . Handel . Ravel . Moussorgsky . Mendelssohn . Chopin . Verdi . Prokofiev . Hande...

johnshade

diegobueno wrote:I don't know what the heck sniffy frou frou is.

~
For what it's worth, my dictionary has these definitions:

sniffy: [Colloq.] disdainful
froufrou: [Colloq.] excessive ornateness or affected elegance

Does this have anything to do with attaining fluency in one's craft?

johnshade

~ I pulled out of my collection three recordings conducted by him by composers he is not normally associated with -- Bartok, Liszt, and Strauss. I have several versions of the Bartok and Strauss. The works are Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta .......... I like Bernstein's version better th...

johnshade

~ I recently read a biography of Leonard Bernstein. It's hard to believe that he has been dead for almost 17 years. I pulled out of my collection three recordings conducted by him by composers he is not normally associated with -- Bartok, Liszt, and Strauss. I have several versions of the Bartok and...

johnshade

~
Try this sample of Dittersdorf:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5_W1oY7VHNU

~

johnshade

Fidelio for the Beethoven fan. If you like his symphonies and concertos you can enjoy his opera. ~ I don't know about this. I love Beethoven, especially the piano sonatas and other chamber music, and Beethoven's symphonies and concertos are unsurpassed. Fidelio, however, is well down on my list of ...

johnshade

Carmen The Marriage of Figaro (or Don Giovanni, or Cosi fan tutte) The Barber of Seville La Boheme ~ I nominate Don Giovanni (less complex than Marriage of Figaro and more exciting than Cosi -- although I personally like these equally as well). Reasons this opera is accessible: - The action is fast...

johnshade

-
I listen to classical music that I evaluate and select as true art: like great literature, paintings, sculpture, and archecture. There is a certain something that comes over one; it is an unnameable delight and appreciation as one experiences great art.

johnshade

Actually, there is no question that the refusal of a corporation to hire females is a clear violation of Austrian Civil Rights law which even the VPO has admitted. . (a) If the VPO is illegally commiting a wrongful act why are they permitted to give concerts in Austria? (b) Is the VPO violating a c...

johnshade

I just visited the Weiner Philharmoniker web site and under "internal matters" they announce three new members. Their pictures indicate that all three are male. Well-known conductors apparently are not boycotting the orchestra. For the coming season these conductors are scheduled to appear: Daniel B...

johnshade

.
An excellent article on R Strauss, Strauss's Musical Landscapes, by Leon Botstein who has been a champion of known and little-known works of Strauss.

http://www.americansymphony.org/dialogu ... tstein.cfm

johnshade

. "Frühling" (Spring) -- one on R Strauss's glorious Vier letzte Lieder . In dusky vaults I have long dreamt of your trees and blue skies, of your scents and the songs of birds. Now you lie revealed in glistening splendour, flushed with light, like a wonder before me. You know me again, you beckon t...

johnshade

Jack Kelso wrote:You would probably also enjoy Felix Draeseke, a fine Wagnerian symphonist. Jack

Thanks for letting us know about Draeseke. To tell you the truth I have never heard of him and I though I knew German music of this era well.

http://www.draeseke.org/

johnshade

I have just ordered this book from Amazon: Richard Strauss's Orchestral Music and the German Intellectual Tradition The Amazon review states the book breaks new ground in Straussian studies. Youmans (Assistant Professor of Musicology at Penn State University) provides a provocative investigation of ...

johnshade

Perhaps some of the operas contain that "certain spirituality", which could also be defined as a "struggle from within". The tone-poems are blessed/cursed with a supreme confidence that can only be described as "Straussian". I love them, though.....Jack Jack Kelso, I have been thinking about Straus...

johnshade

-
I actually own this cd. Not bad. It is the most bizarre cover I've ever seen.

johnshade

Intergamer wrote:...of course I can love Beethoven's music, as it is utterly sublime.

What could be more sublime than the piano sonatas, especially the slow movements.

johnshade

Because they bloody well are. Nothing Beethoven ever wrote is as cool ... I am also a long time admirer of the six SQ. I like No. 5. I think it was written during the period that he wrote MSPC and the Sonata for two pianos and percussion (one of my favorite works of any composer). Bartok's composit...

johnshade

-
An orchestration by Respighi that has not been mentioned is his delightful arrangement of five of Rachmaninoff's Études-Tableaux piano pieces.
JS

johnshade

Actually, I wasn't referring to his character. There's a certain worldly materialism that comes through in his orchestral works, perhaps a lack of pensive modesty. It's hard to express "what I don't hear or feel" in this man's very attractive and voluptuous style. In this sense, he's the opposite o...

johnshade

Didn´t Richard Strauss consider himself "a second rate composer, but a first rate second rate composer" ? Yes, he said this in rehearsals in England when he was in his 80s. He said it in jest, but he considered Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner as first-rate composers. Re: His spirituality. He was not ...

johnshade

If I was looking through a bin of CDs to buy (and didn't know the recording), these are a few of conductors I believe I could trust: Abbado, Barbirolli, Beecham, Bernstein, Böhm, Davis Colin, Dorati, Gardiner, Karajan, Kleiber Carlos, Klemperer, Kubelik, Monteux, Reiner, Rodzinski, Solti, Szell, Tos...

johnshade

greymouse wrote:Maybe the heavy orchestration of Strauss is too much for me.

I disagree. Just to take three examples. What makes the operas, Salome, Elektra, and Die Frau ohne Schatten so wonderful is the orchestration of these works by the master of orchestration, R Strauss.
JS

johnshade

Gleen Gould who wrote that R Strauss is the greatest musician of the 20th Century. Gould often played transcriptions from Strauss operas for his own enjoyment and also recored some of Strauss early piano works. As a young man Gould said he went through his "Heldenleben" period. He was serious about...

johnshade

.
I have enjoyed his Tchaikovsky symphony cycle for years. I have his Heldenleben DVD. He seems like a nice man as well as a very good conductor who goes excitingly by the score.

johnshade

Intergamer wrote:Richard Strauss is my third favourite composer at the moment.

It was the all-knowing, all-seeing, late, great pianist Gleen Gould who wrote that R Strauus is the greatest musician of the 20th Century. Don't let the phlisitines tell you differently.

johnshade

I've considered starting at the beginning and working my way forward chronologically, as we are doing in the class, but I have had some trouble finding out about early composers and finding recordings of their music. When I started my interest in classical music some forty years ago, I found music ...

johnshade

. I believe that I have almost all of the recorded works of Bartok and Richard Strauss and I have a great collection of Beethoven and Mozart (so much, so much). I don't ignore other composers, but I do not know a lot about the music before Bach and after Bartok. I am also addicted to different versi...

johnshade

But none of them, not Mahler, or Strauss, or Schoenberg, failed to realize that he lived in the shadow of Brahms. From: "Strauss's Musical Landscapes" by Leon Botstein It was in a world preoccupied with such mania for musical factionalism, in which radical and irreconcilable camps and schools of th...

johnshade

---- In the early 1900s, Bela Bartok was impressed with the music of Richard Strauss, especially Zarathustra and Heldenleben. He even made a piano transcription of Ein Heldenleben and played it in Vienna in 1902. By the time he made commercial recordings as a pianist, Bartok was certainly not under ...

johnshade

karlhenning wrote:...German Requiem is highly inspired, and much endears me...

I too am very fond of Ein deutsches Requiem. Is this not program music?

johnshade

Brahms? ... he penned a much higher percentage of "absolute" (i.e., non-programmatic) music than others of his generation. Are you implying that absolute music is superior to program music? Opera is ultimate program music. In my opinion Mozart's greatest music is his operas. There are many composer...

The Classical Music Guide Forums

Search found 103 matches

Re: Berlin Philharmonic Prepares to Vote..........

Re: Cosi Just Too much To Swallow

Re: Most Overrated Composer?

Re: New Yorker Cartoon

New Yorker Cartoon

Re: Richard Strauss - An Underrated Composer ?

Re: classical songs.

Re: BBC Music Magazine Awards Announced

Re: Bernstein: How good a conductor?

Bernstein: How good a conductor?

Re: Strauss

Re: Clementi and Beethoven -- Can you love Beethoven?

Re: Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Re: Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Re: Learning about Classical Music