The Classical Thread.

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James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Andreas Waldetoft who composes for Paradox games has some pretty nice stuff.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2013 06:08

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 00:08

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

david crosby posted:

Does anyone have any recs for a good recording of the complete Schubert piano sonatas? The Brendel set looks good, but it's not all the sonatas, so I was thinking of going for the Wilhelm Kempff set. I'm not familiar with most of them if that is important.

I'm pretty satisfied with the price and quality of the Kempff DG set. Schubert is a boss.

Stay away from Naxos. I started looking at what they have and before I know it, I bought $500 of music. :v:

One guy I've really been enjoying is Gabriel Faur�. His piano and chamber works are pretty amazing.

James The 1st fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Aug 16, 2014

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 21:14

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Jan posted:

This has been bugging me for a while, and I'm worried I already know the answer but... Is there any trick to using Google Music All Access to discover new classical recordings without having to dredge through hundreds of these:

So far, the best I've found is to research by orchestra as well as composer, but that requires some prior knowledge of what you're looking for. I guess between the London, Berlin and Vienna orchestras, you can find just about any orchestral recording but that's still just the tip of the iceberg.

What you do is go a classical seller like Arkiv as they have a really useful and organized search database for what's on CD for pretty much every composer.
You can also look at records like Naxos and Chandos, they cover the more neglected music that the big labels ignore and avoid repertoire duplication in their catalogs.

I pretty much enjoy all music from medieval chant to the the minimalists. Expect for Schoenberg's school of atonal junk.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 02:40

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Mederlock posted:

Will do!

Went to the Edmonton symphony Orchestra last night, they started with a Bach chorale prelude on the sweet rear end organ which was awesome, and then we were treated to Stephen Hough on piano for Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, followed by a short Sibelius piece and Nielsen's 5th symphony. Nielsen's 5th was sorta weird but really loving cool. This is like the 4th time I've ever gone to see classical music live and I think I'm hooked. My wallet is going to hurt next season...

Nielsen's symphonies are really dang good and cool, don't know why they aren't more highly regarded.

James The 1st fucked around with this message at 05:56 on May 31, 2015

# ¿ May 31, 2015 05:53

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

krampster2 posted:

Arise, wake up from the dead once more oh classical thread.

In the past 8 months or so I have really taken to classical music to the point where now it's almost all I listen to. Although I'm still annoyed at the narrowness of my listening, I haven't discovered that much so in the hopes of doing so here is a short list of what I really loved, stuff I listened to again and again, the cream of the crop in my opinion. Can anyone recommend music based off my taste? I find it so drat hard to discover new music for some retarded reason.

listen to all of Beethoven's symphonies. But make sure to take it slowly and not all at once.
His supposedly weaker symphonies are still amazing.
The piano sonatas are also fantastic. Don't forget the concertos as well, more amazing stuff. Beethoven is totally badass.

Also Saint Saens symphony 3 with high volume, it will knock your pants off. I highly reconmend Faure, his music is so beutiful.
Dvorak is really good, especially symphonies 7-9, his Requiem, and of course the Cello Concerto. Tchaikovsky's orchestral works are great, I really enjoy them. You can't go wrong with Brahms either, especially his chamber music.

I've been listening to a lot of Brittish composers lately, there's a lot of good ones like Vaughan Willams (one of the great masters in my view), John Ireland (nice piano concerto), Holst (The planets!), Delius (cool impressionist music), Walton to name some.

James The 1st fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Jun 13, 2015

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 12:40

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Quantumfate posted:

And if you like brahms at all (I love Brahms) absolutely look into not only the aforementioned Dvorak, but Robert Fuchs as well. Fuchs was a composer Brahms admired, and it's evident enough.

Fuchs is the type of composer I really enjoying finding. He's no master like Brahms obviously, but his music is still pretty dang solid and deserves to be heard more. There's a lot of composers like that for example, Felix Draeske or Charles Villiers Stanford are some more obscure guys I've found to have some pretty good music. That's what I love about indie labels like Naxos Chandos and CPO, they like putting out stuff from lesser known composers.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2015 04:14

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Quantumfate posted:

This was all absolutely fantastic, and the kind of stuff I was really looking for. I quite appreciated it! I have been listening to and working my way through everything here this past week. The more music I discover, the more I wish I had a greater understanding of it- so that I could actually describe what I enjoy, or to follow along with others. Eh, it's enough that it's enjoyable I suppose.

I wouldn't worry about it, there's not really much you can talk about why you like a piece of music. Music is something that has to be heard.

James The 1st fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jun 24, 2015

# ¿ Jun 24, 2015 04:01

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

krampster2 posted:

You're probably right but I'm just not that into instruments without fixed notes, when I played the viola I remember having a pretty terrible sense of pitch. Any Instrument with fixed notes that gets interesting music written for it will do for me.

On an unrelated note I've been listening to Dvorak's Requiem recently, it's fantastic and definitely going on my favourites list. I don't know why it isn't more widely performed outside of the Czech Republic. Well, other than because it's 100 minutes long.
Thanks James The 1st for the rec!

You're welcome. It's pretty badass isn't it?

Some other requiems that I think are really good are Faure's and Durufle's. Beautiful singing.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 14:58

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

opus111 posted:

Its difficult to choose mozart but i would start wth symphonies 39, 40 and 41 and his 'Haydn quartets'. Also his piano concertos - all of them. I like Mitsuko Uchida's, personally. As for operas, I would go for Figaro.

You forgot the Requiem! But otherwise, this a good recommendation. The piano concertos are awesome. I also really like the wind concertos. And of course the Requiem.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 20:33

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Wyw posted:

I think the problem I have with Mozart is that a lot of his stuff is overplayed, you could go to your local orchestra or music school and there will always be Mozart playing. I only have three Mozart recordings and they are all his operas. (since there is no decent opera hosue near me and classical singing is deteriorating) You could go anywhere if you wanted to hear Mozart. There are so many composers that fell out of style, and for no good reason. The reason magic flute is played is because its very showy and flashy. People will hear someone sing the queen of the nights aria and go wild. I think cherishing lesser known composers now is more important than ever.

I differently agree that there are a lot of good to great composers that get neglected because the orchestras and big labels don't really go outside the big names. Lucky some of the indie labels like Naxos and CPO are willing to do so.
But I don't really see how being overplayed makes a composer not as good and not worth listening for someone that's not familiar with their work.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 04:38

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Wyw posted:

Yeah if unfamiliar you're right, I never did say Mozart was a bad composer. But big name labels, especially DG can be loving disgusting.

I don't understand labels like DG. Why do we even need like 100 different Beethoven symphony cycles? Beethoven is totally awesome, but there's good stuff out there by composers like Carl Reinecke and Georges Onslow just to name a couple, that get ignored. Why do we need box sets of the great conductors that have passed away, are living conductors not good enough or something?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 16:36

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

cebrail posted:

Why would it have anything to do with quality? If the 100th recording of a Beethoven symphony sells 10 times as much as a Reinecke symphony, it's not a tough decision. Universal is a corporation, not a non-profit for the promotion of classical music. At least DG isn't putting out cheap crap, that alone puts them near the top of classical labels.

I do tend to rant at the reality of the constraints capitalism places on the music companies.

Personally, while I find that enjoyment of a piece music does go up the more I know it from repeated listening; I also greatly enjoy finding new music.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 19:36

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

krampster2 posted:

Does anyone else find classical music to be a little too quiet sometimes? Don't get me wrong I fully understand the importance of a diminuendo, if everything's a crescendo then nothing is and all that. Although I just don't get the reason for sections that can go on for minutes sometimes where the whole orchestra plays pianississimo or something; what's the point of music if I can't hear it?

I listened to a Bernstein recording with Chicago Symphony of Shostakovich's 7th recently and large portions of it were completely inaudible. I had the volume set so that the crescendos were loud enough to damage my hearing but even still some parts of it I could not hear at all. Of course I don't to change the volume myself, I'd rather listen to a piece as the composer intended.

Sounds more like a problem with the recording or possibly your sound system. Recordings by nature aren't the same as listening live, and they can miss things sometimes. You can also try messing with your sound system equalizer settings to bring out the quieter sounds.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 03:03

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

firebad57 posted:

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I think it's really worthwhile to do some research on how Serialist composition works if you want to start to understand the music of Boulez and his contemporaries.

I'm on the way out, so I can't fully explain at the moment, but since they essentially used (simple) mathematical processes to generate most of the pitches in the music, the lack of melodic "direction" makes sense.

Especially for Boulez, who used those processes to generate every aspect of the music (so-called Integral Serialism).

I'm sure Serialism is pretty clever, but it's still drat ugly. Kind of like the brutalist architecture of the time as well.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2016 17:21

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Woolie Wool posted:

Are there any good Romantic-style tone poems from after World War II, or did it die out entirely in favor of atonal/modernist stuff? My appreciation for classical ends around 1920 and I'd really like to hear music that picks up where Respighi, Rimsy-Korsakov, Sibelius, Novak, etc. left off. I can't do modernism, serialism, or socialist realism.

And since I mentioned Novak...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkex73-zw5s
I grew up in a family that listened to classical music and had never even hard of Vitezslav Novak before, he's quite good and it's puzzling how he ended up so obscure (although Austria, Germany, and Russia playing hacky-sack with his country certainly wouldn't help).

Not really tone poems, but some good modern tonal composers that I've listened to a lot: Carl Nielsen (awesome Danish composer, great symphonies), Ralph Vaughn Williams (probably the best British composer), George Enescu (quite modern, but didn't follow the atonal route), William Walton, Howard Hanson (a great American composer who stuck to the good old romantic tradition when it wasn't cool), Kurt Atterberg (who is crazy neglected),Francis Poulenc, Arnold Bax, Malcom Arnold, and William Alwyn.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2016 02:24

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Southern Heel posted:

I am going through the 'How to Listen To, And Appreciate Great Music' Learning Company course, and I am flabbergasted at the complete lack of equivalent guidance for pieces available publically.

Typically, the narrator will describe the artist and era and go over the form of the piece (and divergence) as well as the themes musically, interpretively - and finally listen with you, pointing out major sections. For example,

in Beethoven's 5th he compares with Haydn : lyrical classical theme versus fundamental romantic. How the first movement is made of sequenced and inverted motifs, the lack of meaningful cadence . How that transforms with polphony, sequencing and return - with the original them being truncated more and more to a death - overall how the major and minor themes can symbolise life and death's struggle against each other.

in Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture he describes the themes: Hymnal, Conflict, Love and Sighing - how they play out in a symbolic retelling of the Shakespeare play and just WHY that G# stab in the Coda is so bloody important.

THIS is interesting and THIS gives context and understanding to the music we listen to - and yet there is almost none of it to be found as far as I can tell, except in the most dry and soulless musical scholarship articles. WHY do we not have this kind of information as guides on YouTube more obviously? I have had to seek this out myself after struggling through dozens of 'video of orchestra' and flat audio files, and I can only think it would allow more people to

That's the great but also challenging thing about music, you as the listener are the one that creates the context. It kind of ruins the experience of hearing music if someone needs to tell you that you need to feel sad at this point and then triumphant at the next.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 22:29

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

Southern Heel posted:

^ No, it is a $9 audible book, but I see your point to a degree, but the same could be said about any instructional video or free-to-air documentary.

Interpreting the Revolutionary Etude - yes. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik? Of course - it is music that is meant to be interpreted. However, huge swathes are written very deliberately in what they are conveying (that the funeral theme from Symphony Fantastique by Berlioz is infact Deus Irae) or contain a specific formal technique - such as the format of a Fugue, which REQUIRES one to know what is going on -otherwise there is no understanding of that part, and a significant aspect of the music is lost.

Sure, if you listen to 'Heard it on the Grapevine' in Swahili you could get the sounds, but a huge part of that song is a story - and a story which in concert music is as far as I can see, cloistered in libraries and music appreciation courses.

Don't take my comment the wrong way, it is generally a good thing to be able to know the music's background and structure and what the composer might have said they were trying to do. There's also a distinction between doing a musical analysis (for example, how the melody developed or is it a fugue, and so on), and added extra musical interpretations like "Beethoven's 6th has a thunderstorm." You don't need to know about the thunderstorm in-order to get the drama behind the symphony. You also don't have to think you aren't understanding the music if you can't picture a thunderstorm in the 6th, because music doesn't communicate concrete things.

James The 1st fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Feb 11, 2016

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 02:32

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 00:08

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

A lot of his stuff is cool, I like his concertos.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2017 05:16

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > The Classical Thread.