Classical music and musicians

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It plays OK with Windows Media player ~ It's a midi file!

I've just started listening to classical music. Does anyone like Liszt? Sonata in B minor is great, in my opinion.

mic:
I like Liszt's B minor Sonata, but a lot of his other compositions are virtuosic showpieces that sound pretty but quickly deteriorate with further listening. I don't dislike them, but I try to avoid listening to them too often.

Even though I haven't listened to many of his pieces, I think I agree with that, since I wasn't very interested in his others.

I recently went to see an excellent string quartet: the Endellion string quartet. Does anyone like Bartok's string quartets? I thought they were interesting; however, I need to listen to them a few more times.

My favourites are Arvo Part, Berlioz, Haydn, Sibelius and Vaughan Williams, I've gradually started to find listening to non-classical music more and more difficult, hehe...

They're apparently some of the best of the genre, although I haven't been able to fully get into them yet. Although I suppose Bartok's style hardly compares to composers of previous generations so I may be listening to them with messed up expectations.

I've already described elsewhere under this topic some of the music and musiciansI love listening to (Baroque/Bach/Glenn Gould etc) but I have just been listening to some recordings a friend gave me for Christmas, which are marvellous but might not be to everyone's taste ... they are recordings made some years ago by the countertenor Russell Oberlin.
Maybe the countertenor voice is an `acquired taste '....a lot of people I know don't much like it; some say it sounds like a woman's voice, which I do not agree with as it has a different quality and resonance. Oberlin in particular had (he's still alive although long retired!) a most beautiful voice, of great clarity and richness. And unlike most other countertenors, he did not use the falsetto technique; his was a "natural" countertenor voice.
It seems a lot of the countertenor repertoire is from early music and from the Baroque period(which I love). The recordings I have been given include medieval songs, songs by Dowland, and Handel arias.
Does anyone else enjoy listening to countertenors?

yes, me!

try the Credo from Vaughan-Williams' Mass in G. sublime...

Wow, what a quick reply! Do you recommend any particular recording?

I don't own many Vaughan-Williams recordings. But I do love his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

LOL - synchronicity....

i've heard a few recordings and they'e all wonderful. best V-W ever is The Lark Ascending. as i'm absolutely hopeless at describing emotional stufff (even my therapist has given up on asking me how i feel), i can't actually tell you much about it. except that i cry when i hear it. Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martins in the Fields is by FAR the best version ever, with Iona Brown on violin solo.

Ah, I have to confess than "The Lark Ascending is not one of my favourites....probably because of its very free form (which is what you would expect, given that it imitates a soaring lark!) ... I tend to like more formally structured music, hence my fondness for contrapuntal stuff.
But as for violin solo .... what about Bach's unaccompanied violin partitas? I have a CD of these played by Arthur Grumiaux. Such richness, such soaring there ! I believe he played a Guarnarius violin, which had a most marvellous full tone..... Music should have a sense of ecstasy, so it seems that you stand outside yourself and become one with the music; not just hear it as a physical sound. Or does that seem too fanciful? I'm not too good at describing the emotional effect of music. either. But then,music is a non-verbal experience so perhaps its not surprising that it is so hard to convey in words!

Glenn

absolutely! ask me about Avro Part's "Summa" (the instrumental, not the vocal) - the best i can ever come up with is, "gnrmmph!"

Hmmmmmm. Gnrmmph, indeed?
I'm not sure how to pronounce that ... and since I can't hear it, only read it, I'm not sure what it says about the work in question; but I take it that it says something GOOD ! !! !

"As for performers, I have a particular passion (= obsession, perhaps!) for the playing of the late Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould "
Me too!

Your avatar. Thats from An Art of the Fugue. I recently prchased a copy on VHS. It's a little worn and has Japanese subtitles. Still I was happy to pay $100. for it Watched it about 8 times already.

Rich

I have a video copy of that film too (mine has German subtitles!) ...it was the second film about Gould made by the French musician and film-maker, Bruno Monsaingeon, and is in three parts, the last being a straightforward video of Gould making his second studio recording (1981) of the Goldberg Variations. I love watching it, not only for the conversation and Gould's insights into the making of music, but also for the examples of him actually playing, and the sheer ecstasy you see in his face from time to time. Gould believed that the quality of 'ecstasy' was extremely important in making and experiencing music: and by this I think he meant the experience of being taken outside of normal everyday consciousness, of directly experiencing the meaning and beauty of the music, its 'reality' if you like ; I dont think he used the word in its oft-used sense of a kind of exuberant joy. Not that this experience accompanies all music, all the time; but I guess it is something that many musicians strive for, and listeners occasionally feel.
Gould thought that three kinds of people were necessary for the creation of music: the composer, the player(s),and the listener .... who in this age of electronic recording can exercise choice not only in what he hears, and where, but can also to a certain extent choose to modify the actual sound itself.
Some people seem to prefer only "authentic" performances; i.e. not only played on the original instruments intended by the composer, but played in the style he would have chosen. They believe that to perform any other way is to distort the composers intentions, (if indeed , so long after his death, we can be sure what was in his mind!). Other people are happier with more modern interpretations, in which the interpretation of the individual performer, and indeed his choice of instrument , can vary a lot. Gould obviously belonged to this second group - not only were his interpretations very individual, but he played Bach, for example, on a modern piano - an instrument which didn't exist in Bach's time.
I belong to the second group, too, although I don't see why one has to adopt an 'all or nothing' approach to this question. I enjoy "authentic" performances as well. If anyone else is interested in this topic, I could expand on the reasons why, but this particular post is already getting over-long!
But I would love to know what other lovers of classical music think about the "historically authentic performance" debate.

Bach would have approved he didn't even specify which keyboard he had in mind for many pieces.

On the subject of countertenors I really like the sound providing the singer is skillfull enough to keep the sound even across the full range.

I used to be fascinated by castrati ~ I would love to have heard one in full flow!

Glenn,
I think Glenn Gould was a beautiful soul in this world.

I am envious that your Monsaingeon video has the making of the ’81 Goldberg’s. Mine dose not. I enjoy watching Gould play, but most of the time I rather the music send me into that same state of ‘ecstasy’ as I listen to it. For me, this is difficult to do while watching him. The occasional humming and singing doesn’t distract me at all. In fact, I kind of enjoy it.

I basically agree with your thoughts on Gould’s meaning of the word ‘ecstasy’. But how can the journey through ecstasy not build into anything but exuberant joy!? It dose for me. No matter how melancholy, thrilling or intellectual the music. When it dose ‘that thing’, it seems to me, that is when you have complete and utter awareness of being a tiny part of God’s universe. That IS heaven! That IS joy! No. I do not proclaim to know the “what, where and how” of the universe, or if heaven even exists in some actual sense. It’s just that, that is as far as my puny, mortal sensibilities can take me now. It is that ‘striving’ that I think, Mr. Gould was always doing. The 1993 movie Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, for some of its failures, succeeds in conveying this sense of striving.

As for the question of “authentic” performance, I think Gould himself put it best when he said, (I am big time paraphrasing here) “I don’t think Bach would have cared” “I don’t think he cared if the Matthew Passion was sung by 6 or 1600. What was important to him was the WAY they sang it”. “Here was a man (Bach) who transcribed everything…”; “ I think he would have loved the way (??) performed The Art of the Fugue on synthesizer.” I would have to agree with Mr. Gould. But I also enjoy performance on period instruments. The Musica Antiqua of Koln’s rendition of The Art of the Fugue is one of my favorites. But I agree Glenn, there doesn’t seem be any reason to adopt an “all or nothing” approach to the matter. I would like to hear more of your thoughts on this. BTW your post wasn’t too long for me.

Rich