OK, IM sitting here listening to beethovens 9th, on reproduction instruments. Its a great piece of music, his later symphonies are very well balanced in terms of strings and woodwinds, many composer get too heavy on brass or strings, so you end up with wailing cats or annoying overblown farting noises.
Anyways, the 9th is brilliant, good tunes in every movement, emotion, pace, etc.
So, any other comments on beethoven?
Or what about other symphonies? Dvorak? Mahler? Sibelius?
Why do you like some of them, and the best ones?

Brahms 2nd does it for me, ive played in it, its great tunes etc, but one of my friends prefers his 4th symphony for some reason.

I actually set out to listen to Brahms' 2nd today, but could not find the CD, a Karajan recording that also had the 4th on it.

I have played in the 4th, and while it was only in the 4th movement, as I am a trombonist, I got a lot of sitting around to time to think about the symphony. What is great about this symphony is that no idea is over-used...while new motives are contantly being introduced, there is a remarkalbe cohesion that ties everything together. Not a note is wasted. The 4th movement is probably the pinnacle of the symphony, and of Western music in general.

It is a variation on a melody from a Bach piece which serves as a ground base, and while there are 30 different variations, the flow is so perfect that you can't even realize that there is a variation going on. The contrast of emotion in the 4th is another aspect of it that I like- the 1st movement is sort of alive but subdued, with some hints of the energy to come, the 2nd movement is floating and comforting, the 3rd movement is energetic to the point of bubbliness, yet still very direct, and the 4th movement is at once lyrical, floating, energetic, engaged and firey. Absolute genious.

The ninth is very well balanced in all respects, and is one of only 2 Beethoven symphonies to actually use the trombone, so it obviously has a dimension of power that the other symphonies (besides the 5th) lack.:D I've always been nagged by what seems like a either a ton of quoted melodies or famous melodies that have been quoted from the 9th by other people. I have no clue what it is, though.

I really like Shostakovich symphonies- especailly the 5th and 10th. The 5th covers the entire spectrum, from agitation, to sarcasm, to grief, to glory. The 3rd movement is incredibly moving in the way that it related directly to the Soviet people, as sort of a communication of shared grief that was delfected from the Soviet microscope by the ending.

Mahler....I have only heard the 1st, which is I guess just a framework for the "Mahler Symphony" and not representative of his total creativity. The ending is explosive and dominated by brass ( same as with Shostakovich 5) but it is so tasteful and well-proportioned that it isn't hard to listen to. At all. I love it. The 1st time I listened to it was after I realized I'd had a recording lying aboout on a bookshelf for like 6 months and hadn't realized it. I was sort of drifting off to sleep during the 3rd movement, and when the 4th started, I had some sort of a seizure. Not really. The eighth sounds interesting, if only for the massive instumentation...4 choirs, double winds, 8 horns, mandolins, etc.

The symphony I most despise is Schumann's 4th...it does have some cool trombone parts but sitting through the scherzo is boring as hell. It's the same idea hammered away over and over again for about 300 bars, repeated, and then the trombones have to play, so in rehearsal, I have to sit through the enitire thing. It's awful.

Anyhow, I really like symphonies.


:D

Originally posted by guthrie
OK, IM sitting here listening to beethovens 9th, on reproduction instruments. Its a great piece of music, his later symphonies are very well balanced in terms of strings and woodwinds, many composer get too heavy on brass or strings, so you end up with wailing cats or annoying overblown farting noises.
Anyways, the 9th is brilliant, good tunes in every movement, emotion, pace, etc.
So, any other comments on beethoven?
Or what about other symphonies? Dvorak? Mahler? Sibelius?
Why do you like some of them, and the best ones?

Brahms 2nd does it for me, ive played in it, its great tunes etc, but one of my friends prefers his 4th symphony for some reason.

Dvorak is one of my personal favourites. i especially like his works in From the New World (pretty much all of them :D). i like beethoven and bach (especially the classic piano). glenn gould is great too.

i have found there are two kinds i like best. the strong, emotional classics (of which there are many) and the soft background classics (the kind you'd hear at a snobby party) . i've found that when one tries to integrate these two, you end up with a most unpleasant medium!

It's hard not to find something to like in catalogues as big as those of Bach and Beethoven. Still, to me even the best of it sounds... well, old. Music has come so far since then. They seem so rigid in their harmonic and rhythmic structures. Even the format of the movements is practically a formula.

I don't find music that really touches me until the late 19th century and the 20th. Satie, Prokofiev, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Debussy. The Romantic era, and whatever they call what came after it.

My favorite composers are Ralph Vaughan Williams and Richard Strauss. They both lived and composed right up into the early years of my life, and they both created works that explain how music was able to go off in a different direction without abandoning the influences of what came before. Ravel, Gershwin, Villa-Lobos, and Copeland. John Cage and Philip Glass. The obsolescence of the symphony as a template, as well as of the symphony orchestra and what we call "classical music." The ascendance and legitimacy of popular music, especially jazz and its mutations. The ability of rock and roll to survive for fifty years and still surprise us with fresh motifs.

My favorite pieces by my two favorite composers are "The Lark Ascending" by Vaughan Williams -- an unstructured composition for solo violin and chamber orchestra written in the l890s that could represent the entire Romantic Era and do it justice. And "Metamorphoses" by Strauss -- I suppose it's technically a symphony but the junctures between the movements are easy to miss. It's his eulogy to the Germany that, as far as he was concerned, died in WWII, as did his own soul when he realized that it was no longer possible for an artist to live in a world outside of politics. It also could serve as a eulogy to the symphonic form. Many of the "symphonies" of the mid-20th Century were actually film scores.

Vaughan Williams's output was fairly consistent as he matured. Music that was unmistakably "English," with Celtic folk melodies popping up, the echoes of palace balls, and long contemplative passages rendering the pastoral English countryside, complete with its sheep and barrows, into tone paintings.

Strauss grew and changed with the nation he loved and lost. He worked in Switzerland during the worst of the Nazi years and returned to the sundered ruins of Germany to write the closing chapters of his life's work and die. "Also Sprach Zarathustra," with its unbridled hopefulness and stark modernity, was composed in the 19th Century but ironically became famous as the soundtrack for a movie about the 21st. His late works, such as "Death and Transfiguration," still showcase his mastery of the "modern" style with their irregular rhythms, odd orchestration, and strategic disharmonies, but the hope is gone.

Sure I love "Bolero," "Rhapsody in Blue," and "Scheherezade," a loyal fan of 20th Century classical music, and I'd say the same thing about Tchaikovsky as I did in my opening statement about Bach and Beethoven: it's hard not to find something to like in such a rich repertoire. But for me, Vaughan Williams and Strauss are the musical scribes of the era.

Firstly, the lark ascending is brilliant. It sounds roughly like larks as well. HAve you heard his fantasia on a theme by thomas tallis? Its just as good, i reccommend it. Vaughn williams spymphonies are worse though. They work, but arent quite so good with tunes and variations, yet are in a way obviously more modern.

I suppos emy weakness is tunes, thats why Brahms second appeals more to me than his fourth. I find the older stuff whose technical terms I have forgotten, say like Telemann and handel a bit repetitive, which is the nature of the music, which means its more for background and relaxing, but to get things up its louder tuneful pieces I like.

I have only Glass's colour symphony and adam zero on a naxos CD, i like the symphony, Adam zero i skind of ok.

"It's his eulogy to the Germany that, as far as he was concerned, died in WWII, as did his own soul when he realized that it was no longer possible for an artist to live in a world outside of politics."

I would disagree. There has always been problems with politics and music, but it helps when it takes you a month to get to thecocmposer, instead of 6 hours.

I think also of Edward Elgar as very english, if you listen to his Cockaigne overture for example. And his chello concerto was very very depressing when I was playing 2nd horn in it aged 19.


"i have found there are two kinds i like best. the strong, emotional classics (of which there are many) and the soft background classics (the kind you'd hear at a snobby party) . i've found that when one tries to integrate these two, you end up with a most unpleasant medium!"\

That sounds about right. A good example might be Haydn symphonies, he wrote mroe htan a hundred i think, but back then symphonies were quite short and more intimate for playing indoors as background music. Then in the 19th century tehy really took off.

Guthrie:
Firstly, the lark ascending is brilliant
Yes! Oh my stars yes.

OK, IM sitting here listening to beethovens 9th, on reproduction instruments. Its a great piece of music, his later symphonies are very well balanced in terms of strings and woodwinds

Beethoven....what is there to say about his enchanting with piano keys? The 9th is beautiful. All his work is. He makes you feel the moon over Germany. You picture his many lovers; he has you literally imagining him looking down on the moonshine cast on his lover's pale skin and composing as he's fondling.

Dvorak! "Adagio"- put it on late at night and I swear you can see the hanging gardens of Babylon. Its heaven. All his music is, what I've heard anyway. Bach's "Air" has me thinking of angel hair. And Handel has me almost crying for things lost.

Ever heard the "Thieving Magpie"? It literally sounds like a clever bird about to steal your lunch. In fact, Rossini has this knack for making all his music sound naughty.

Sibelus? Never heard of him. Englighten please.

I don't think there's anything in this world that can move like the classics. Music back then was gold.

Says Fraggle:
My favorite composers are Ralph Vaughan Williams and Richard Strauss

Since its a Strauss behind that Oddyssey tune "Thus Spratch Zarathrusta", in honor of of Neitzche's work, then the man makes me hurl. So no, I don't like him. Chauvanist manpig.

Jean Sibelius, 1865- 1957 "A figure of the greatest importance in the music of Scandinavia and in the late romantic symphony, was born in finland, of Finnish acnestry, but educated first, as befitted his scoial position as the son of a doctor, in Swedish. It was at school that he acruired his knowledge of Finnish literature, and parituclarly his fascination with the ancient sagas in which the legends of his country are recounted"

cribbed from the sleeve notes of the naxos recording of Finlandia and the Karelia suite. Hope its enough to be going on with. His symphonies bring to mind vastness, and great acres of woodlands ruslting in thew in the wind and so on. very good.

I dont know much about the composers. So your likely being a bit harsh on Strauss. But my little coffee table biography of beethoven i picked up second hand doesnt mention many lovers, are you sure he had loads? ;)

But my little coffee table biography of beethoven i picked up second hand doesnt mention many lovers, are you sure he had loads?

Well maybe not loads, but many biographers contend he had women swooning like dried up old housewifes. Don't blame them...he gets my thighs and loins roaring also.

His.........uhm, music that is. Of course.

His symphonies bring to mind vastness, and great acres of woodlands ruslting in thew in the wind and so on. very good.


hmmmm......*sniff sniff* the vasntness of woodlands and the rustle of leaves...windy solace......the smell of burt wood in late autumns and the graying of skies. Sibelius sounds yummy.

"hmmmm......*sniff sniff* the vasntness of woodlands and the rustle of leaves...windy solace......the smell of burt wood in late autumns and the graying of skies. Sibelius sounds yummy."

Well, its Finland, which i believe has lots of lakes and insects and im not sure whether they are pine trees or larch trees.

Considering that this thread started out being about stodgy old :) Bach and Beethoven, the talk seems to have shifted to much more modern composers. Bring 'em all on: Sibelius, Handel, Elgar, Dvoøak. (Gotta spell that right or my mother's Bohemian ghost will haunt me. She even taught me how to pronounce that simultaneous R and ZH sound.) (Dammit, the hooked R doesn't print right! Where did they get this character set, Walmart?) And Rimsky-Korsakov, Schumann, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, and all the rest.

The "Age of Aquarius" is so vaguely defined in astrology (when exactly did the "sign" of Aries become closer to the constellation of Aquarius than to Pisces?) that it can just as easily be said to have started in the late 19th century as in the mid-20th. That makes more sense to me, since that's when the frenetic pace of progress that the influence of Aquarius is supposed to have engendered really began. Electricity, automobiles, and airplanes; psychology, economics, and linguistics; naturalism, free verse, and the Harlem Renaissance; every scientific and cultural discipline exploded with new motifs and new lines of study. Music went through the same explosion: romanticism, jazz, minimalism, blues, country, and eventually rock and roll.

Roll over, Beethoven, indeed. Tell Tchaikovsky the news... so he can pass it on to Evanescence and Audioslave.

You should check out Beethoven redone by Prodigy....quite catchy is the mixture of classical fusing with modern and more lesser known genre of techno.

Beethovens stodgy? You jest, surely? Have you got silly old recordings or newer more original ones on period instruments?

Same goes for Back, he wasnt stodgy. Maybe a little predictable....

The prodigy have redone beethoven? Sounds interesting, also a bit sacrilegious, but since ive seen beethoven used in anime twice, they can probably get away with it.

Originally posted by guthrie

The prodigy have redone beethoven? Sounds interesting, also a bit sacrilegious, but since ive seen beethoven used in anime twice, they can probably get away with it.

Sounds quite good....too bad it is too big for me to attch it as a file here.

When did they do it? I have "the fat of the land" and "the prodigy expereince" on CD.

Beethoven was a crazy rebel. He singlehandedly began the romantic era, synthesising the entire period from nothing.

Stravinsky was so revolutionary that he incited riots at the 1914 premiere of The Rite of Spring.

Finlandia, written by Sibelius, was such a popular and nationalistic piece that during the Russian occupation, the censors would be lured out of the theatre after the last piece on the program, lock the doors, and then the orchestra would play it. That, in itself, is a furious act of defiance.

Eh...Evanescance?

:confused:

Originally posted by guthrie
When did they do it? I have "the fat of the land" and "the prodigy expereince" on CD.

Could be their underground stuff that they didn't neccessairly released on a album.

When did we last have riots at a classical music concert? Come to think of it when did we last have riots at any kind of concert that were directly connected with the music?

Originally posted by sargentlard
You should check out Beethoven redone by Prodigy....quite catchy is the mixture of classical fusing with modern and more lesser known genre of techno.

I just downloaded it out of curiousity. It's really good.
Maybe I'll look for the beethoven one if it's there.

posted by Gendanken
Since its a Strauss behind that Odyssey tune "Thus Spoke Zoroaster", [normalized into a single language - FR] in honor of of Nietzsche's work, then the man makes me hurl. So no, I don't like him. Chauvinist manpig.You’re holding Strauss responsible for something that was done with (or to) his music fifty years after he died?

It was one thing for the Israelis to refuse to play Wagner because Hitler liked him and his music brought back bad memories. It would have been quite another for them to call Wagner a Nazi.

posted by Congrats
Eh...Evanescence?Recent arrival on the rock scene, wide appeal without market researching a lowest common denominator. Female vocalist with a versatile band that spins off from the staccato-power-chords-over-infrared-noise school of Korn. Real string section instead of synthesizer. Harkens back to the “concept albums” of the 1970s, each track is a “movement” in a structured composition with dynamics that vary from acoustic ballads to goth-metal. I would imagine that most of us who love rock but also appreciate classical music would gravitate toward Evanescence.

???

I have only heard one Evanescance song, the one that is being played a lot on TRL and the like. Many bands use real strings; as well, many bands also go back and forth from goth-rock to acoustic ballad. I think it's cheezy. I also don't understand why Evenescance would have anything to do with classical music. They are not some sort of modern day masters...at all...

Originally posted by Congrats
I have only heard one Evanescence song.Sorry for misunderstanding your question (marks, hehe) and giving you a treatise. I figured on this thread you might be somebody who's not familiar with the latest rock bands. In any case I do urge you not to judge them on the basis of one song. The whole of the CD is much more than the sum of its parts.I also don't understand why Evenescence would have anything to do with classical music. They are not some sort of modern day masters...at all...Their whole-CD-as-a-composition approach taps into the same part of me that appreciates the more complex themes and dynamics of the symphonic form. But indeed they don't approach the middlebrow faux-classicism of Renaissance or Gentle Giant, for whatever that's worth. I still count those two groups among my favorites, but a whole lot of people hated them and still do.

Says Fraggle:
You’re holding Strauss responsible for something that was done with (or to) his music fifty years after he died?



No, I'm not. Strauss was glorifying a leader of jingoist savages, that curious race of Indo European snobs known as Aryans. So Strauss having known as much and still dealing out such a powerful piece in praise of Mr. Zoraster or Zarathrusta or Zsa Zsa what-have-you makes me not like him.

Has nothing to do with Hitler. I wasn't even thinking about that other jingoist maggot.

Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is amazing.

"Leonard Bernstein once described the ?Fantastic Symphony" as the first psychedelic musical trip, primarily because of the last two movements. In a state of twisted despair, the protagonist tries to end his life with an overdose of opium. But his dose isn?t enough to kill him; the hallucinating results are vividly represented in the spooky and vulgar ?March to the Scaffold? and ?Dream of the Witches' Sabbath.? With haunting, often chaotic music Berlioz shows us an opium nightmare in which the protagonist dreams of his lover?s tragic death and falls victim to the hedonistic wishes of a band of witches."
http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/milestones/990716.motm.symphfan.html

Yeah, the Symphonie Fantastique was really out there. It's hard to believe that at the same time Berlioz was writing this, Brahms was probably writing Hungarian Dances and the like.

About Evanescence....I don't think a concept album is neccesarily symphonic. Or, probably not exatcly a concept album, but rather 'whole-cd-as-a-composition' form. I'd say any good rock album should have that form, as the power of music is pretty much killed without cohesion. Anyhow...I think one band that really approaches the symphonic level is Sigur Ros. Although in their last album they took out a lot of structure, their sweeping, sonics-ahead-of-guitars approach gives them the symphonc quailty.

For what it's worth, I am reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, albeit tediously, and I really don't think (as of yet) that Nietzche was any sort of Jingoist. I think both his ideas and Wagner's music were bastardised by fascist jingoists, and while Nietzche may have been extreme, he was bruatally well-intentioned.

Says Congrats:
For what it's worth, I am reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, albeit tediously, and I really don't think (as of yet) that Nietzche was any sort of Jingoist. I think both his ideas and Wagner's music were bastardised by fascist jingoists, and while Nietzche may have been extreme, he was bruatally well-intentioned.


No, not a jingoist. A fucking genius is more like it. And you're right, he was well intentioned.........why should we subscribe to the moralist bullshit spun by terrified nomads thousands of years ago? Grab your life by the hair and run her dry, says Neitzche. Period. Brilliant. And so true.

Moeran's "Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra". Scrumptious.
Anybody know Moeran?

Fraggle Rocker:
My wife, who was raised Jewish and has no love for Nazis, Aryans, or Nietzscheans (except Tyr Anasazi of the starship Andromeda, of course, he's a cool hunk)

Care to justify your identification of Nietzsche with the National Socialists? (That is, once you google "National Socialist" and realize that it's the same thing as "Nazi")

Didn't think so.

Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is a stunning peice of music. Wagner was a vicious little anti-semite. I'm aware of the recent efforts to "de-Nazify" him.
Bullshit. Read "The Jew in Music". While Wagner cannot be accurately described as a Nazi, he was a rather nasty piece of work in many ways.

Does this mar his work? Is the Tannhauser overture any less sublime?

No human is wholly ugly or sublime, but rather has the most astounding ability to suprise us. The Marquis de Sade writes vile, brutal filth and risks his life to protect a peasant boy. Jefferson writes ennobling documents expressing the highest ideals. He owns slaves.

Why should it suprise us that the artist is capable of both the most beautiful and the most despicable?

Originally posted by gendanken
No, I'm not. Strauss was glorifying a leader of jingoist savages, that curious race of Indo European snobs known as Aryans. So Strauss having known as much and still dealing out such a powerful piece in praise of Mr. Zoraster or Zarathrusta or Zsa Zsa what-have-you makes me not like him.


A bigot is someone who fails to research what he denegrates.

You're a bigot.

Strauss is amazing.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
My wife, who was raised Jewish and has no love for Nazis, Aryans, or Nietzscheans

She hates the entire white race and anyone who accepts modern philosophy?

What a moron.

Originally posted by gendanken

No, not a jingoist. A fucking genius is more like it. And you're right, he was well intentioned.........why should we subscribe to the moralist bullshit spun by terrified nomads thousands of years ago? Grab your life by the hair and run her dry, says Neitzche. Period. Brilliant. And so true.

I agree. We all should escape those horrible Jewish religions with their constant lying, bigotry and hatred.

i'm suprised nobody (besides me in my earlier post) has mentioned Glenn Gould and specifically his works in Bach's Goldberg Variations. who has it? who loves it? i know i do. it's one of my favourite pieces.

I love Beethoven and Bach, there isnt much to add to that. I also worship Stravinsky's Firebird. Any one else a fan of that here?

Yup, teh firebirds good, depends what mood im in.

Then, id like to take this onto say concertos, adn requiems. for example, benjamin Brittans war requiem is the most spine chilling requiem ive heard so far. Its the standard requiem stuff interspersed with poetry from one of the great WW1 poets, Iforget who. Brittans staccato and modern music fits right in with the subject of the poetry and the mass. its almost horrifying.

Hey, be careful, I dont want my thread carted off to philosophy or something.

Fraggle Rocker:
Your wife hates 70% of the population of India and one of the founders of existentialism?

She sounds more disturbed than moronic.

Well, I thought Beethovens 9th was the anthem of the EU or something.

Fraggle Rocker:
All the major ethnic groups in India are Caucasian and not "Aryan" by any era's definition.

Aryans compose over 70% of India's population. Read and be edified:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCINDIA/ARYANS.HTM
http://adaniel.tripod.com/aryans.htm

So do a couple of Sciforums members. I can see why she stays off of BBSs. I have a thicker skin.

You don't have a thick skin, you're just too dense to recognize teasing.
Fucking Jew. :)

Ahh yes, the aim of the EU, hehehe.

As for Aryans, ive read at least one quite serious website saying that aryans never existed and were made up by victorian white scholars who were looking to fill in the blanks. Google for it if you like, i cant remember where i read this or even when. If i remmeber correctly their arguments made sesne to me, but then hey, so do creation scientists when you dont know the science behind them.

Moonlight Sonata is a very beautiful piano piece.

Originally posted by guthrie
OK, IM sitting here listening to beethovens 9th, on reproduction instruments. Its a great piece of music, his later symphonies are very well balanced in terms of strings and woodwinds, many composer get too heavy on brass or strings, so you end up with wailing cats or annoying overblown farting noises.
Anyways, the 9th is brilliant, good tunes in every movement, emotion, pace, etc.
So, any other comments on beethoven?
Or what about other symphonies? Dvorak? Mahler? Sibelius?
Why do you like some of them, and the best ones?

Brahms 2nd does it for me, ive played in it, its great tunes etc, but one of my friends prefers his 4th symphony for some reason.

I have always found Bach's music to be incredible.

Ok, enough about Aryans. I've been gone for weeks but any o/t posts about race will heretofore be deleted mercilessly.

My favorite Bach piece is definately St. Matthew's Passion. Near the end, I'm not exactly sure where, the whole thing suddenly becomes this beautiful ascending meloding that transcends the piece, and the limiting concepts of Baroque. It's incredible.

I'm listening to the 5th Bartok string quartet right now. Perhaps the most violent music I have ever heard. They way Bartok infuses atonal, chaotic stuff with really sublime, folky stuff is brilliant.

Oh yes! How could I have forgotten Bartok. Magnificent. Twentieth-century music at its finest.

My favorite performance of Bach is still "Switched-on Bach" by Walter/Wendy Carlos. One of the very first synthesizer productions from back in the 1960s. I guess I like everything about his music except the dynamic constraints of the era, which are not his fault. I can deal with the lack of syncopation, the handful of modalities, and even the dah-dah-dahhhh-dum chord progression that ends practically every piece of classical or popular music written before 1880. But the instrumentation puts me to sleep.

Bartok keeps me awake, even if the Moog hadn't been invented yet.