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The issue with Bach and emotions is that term emotions is culturally loaded. Bach's music is exploring emotion in a pre-19th century sense in that it is after particular Affects. While emotion in the 19th century means things that we can relate easily with today the notion of creating singular or juxtaposed affects is a bit harder to explain or maybe relate to. I'm of course quite biased, as I am obsessed with Bach, but I find his music to be the most beautiful music imaginable. Not in the way that Ravel or Faure's music is beautiful but in a type of aww inspiring way. For me, Bach's music is emotional in the way a waterfall or a mountain range or a portrait of the galaxy can be emotional. In that sense it is more transcendental. When I play Bach, at the keyboard or on violin or even when just singing along to a cantata, I find myself moved to these laughing/teary-eyed outbursts of pure amazement and joy. I can't really describe it but it is the most overwhelming sense of pure euphoria. The only things that have ever compared are in moments of Brahms and Mahler and these are fleeting at best. Edit: Musical Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fSjuxzEol8 (the first chorus) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIl8u8Xpu7o (bonus for double G on his weird piano/harpsichord) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzFoZftMcU4 (skip to around 5:45 for the face melt) BWV fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 23:47
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 21:01 |
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Cingulate posted:I think I get what you're saying to some extent - but it seems as if you're exclusively considering (and posting links to) a restricted set of what Bach has to offer. I've posted Mache dich, mein Herze, rein from the Passion of St. Matthew before. I don't think this music is somehow too cerebral to be immediately relatable to on an emotional level. (Surely they're also awe-inspiring and cerebral.) I agree with you completely. I just posted those because they were what I was listening to a lot lately. Had it been last week I would've posted the choral preludes, some fugues from the WTC, and some ricercares from the offering. All Bach is good Bach.
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Feb 26, 2015 13:38
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zenguitarman posted:I just sang Mahler 2 and that cadence at the end is loving massive, Goddamn. mahler 2 is life. how are u still living? BWV fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 05:41
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The Bayreuth festival is currently streaming their production of Tannhauser. I find it a bit of a snooze fest but they set design/staging is loving wild and they are currently singing in a burger king with a prostitute, some clowns and a little person. https://www.br-klassik.de/concert/ausstrahlung-1816820.html
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Jul 25, 2019 15:23
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zenguitarman posted:German opera staging is loving crazy. I saw the ring cycle when I lived in Hannover and it was buckwild. The Valkyrie was set in suburbia and the valkyries were on motorcycles, Wotan was jogging in shorts and t-shirt with a bunch of bodyguards and there were a ton of naked people... but I kept looking at the house Siegfried was in and there was this weird growth on the ceiling, and I was like... wtf is that, that kind of looks like... is that... a vagina?? And then Siegfried pulls the sword from it and all this green goop falls out on him and he's singing covered in this vagina goop and Act 1 ends and the whole theater loving erupts in boos and jeers like Rite of Spring style, it was nuts. i consistently find the staging to be the most interesting part of many productions these days. If they're going to be running back the same stuff they gotta find ways to keep it interesting. If anything I'd be open to them messing with the score or plot even but I think that would be a bridge too far for the donor class. A few years back I saw Aida set in some dystopian Argentinian futuristic fascist state and Valkerie set in some 90s American-Psycho style wall street office/boiler room. I actually thought the Verdi one was really good and it was even better to see all the geezers who go for the spectacle and pomp being frustrated that they didn't play it straight.
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Aug 1, 2019 14:51
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Lately I've been spending a lot of time on The Netherlands Bach Society's Youtube page. They post a lot of high quality recordings and often with accompanying artist interviews which are quite good. Their recording of the B Minor mass is the one that doesn't use a chorus but assigns each chorus part to a single singer. I know it doesn't capture the tidal waves of sound that can be created with a larger choir (especially in the big movements like the Kyrie, Gloria, Dona Nobis Pacem) but I think it makes up for it with the clarity of the voicing and the quality of each performer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FLbiDrn8IE&t=2s
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Jun 7, 2020 15:49
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This strange man does metal covers of Bach and Brahms and I am sort of into them in a half joking but actually they are good type of way. Brahms Requiem Mov. 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epwg_bJBAws Bach's Dona Nobis Pacem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA-__X0hW_c (this one legit has clearer voicing then most large choral recordings )
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Jan 14, 2022 05:14
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I've been making way through some Handel concerto grossi and trio sonatas (playing pocket scores on keyboard ) and I'm constantly amazed how deep his bag is. And what I like about it (as opposed to Bach or Corelli even) is he really really knows when he has a killer hook so he comes back to it 2-3 times and really milks it. Plus you can sorta tell in the slower movements how he's teasing out a future aria. Good poo poo !
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Aug 19, 2022 01:55
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Ya'll should see Tar. It has some flaws but Kate Blanchett is amazing as a superstar problematic conductor and it's overflowing with super dorky classical music/conductor/recording reference. Hopefully this starts a trend of more films that thoroughly discuss the appropriate length of slow movements. only real complaint is that when she puts the trumpet player off stage for Mahler 5 she doesn't mention that it was a technique Mahler himself used in other pieces—which she'd obviously know about as someone who recorded them
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Oct 24, 2022 01:53
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Mr. Mambold posted:Releases Jan 18, 2023. It looks like a fascinating film. Did you already catch it in one of the select theaters? Had no idea it wasn't in mass release yet. I caught it at a smaller theatre in Toronto (Varsity). Only 30 other people were there including one guy who was AGGRESSIVELY snoring. It really is so filled with hyperspecific references that I felt bad for the people I brought but they said they liked it anyway.
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Oct 25, 2022 19:46
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One thing I adore about Mozart is the way you think you know where he's going with it but then he does something wonderfully clever and elegant that you never expected but makes complete sense. Other composers may be more moving or affecting but (to me) Mozart delights like no one else. As a result I often find myself chuckling during playing/listening. He also has this tendency to just sneak in these wonderful melodies in unexpected places like the end of a development or in a closing theme; this is especially true in the later piano concerti. I don't know if it still holds up but Mozart's Grace by Scott Burnham really speaks to this. You can find a pdf pretty easily online.
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Feb 26, 2023 00:40
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There is a new recording of Mahler 2 by Semyon Bychkov and Czech Philharmonic. It feels very fresh and he really exaggerates the tempo changes. It's also wonderfully mixed, maybe even especially for headphone listening. It's a piece I used to listen to constantly and so I was pretty amazed by some of the choices he made. The last movement doesn't have the drama of the Bernstein recording but I think the first movement is the best version I've ever heard. Maybe I will go back to it this week and jot down some more notes but definitely worth checking out.
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Apr 15, 2023 17:45
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 21:01 |
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Finally listed to Vikingur Olafsson's recording of the Goldberg Variations from this year and it's already one of my favourite versions in recent memory. His piano is so warm, almost too mellow at the start, but then once it gets going he really makes it his own. It's much less percussive than Gould and you miss the low end in some parts, but on the whole it's a brilliant recording and brings a fresh approach that is always tender and often playful. Very much looking forward to seeing him play the entire set in person come February as he's on a massive tour for it at the moment.
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Dec 31, 2023 03:09
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