Immortal Beloved

I was watching a little of The Five Thousand Fingers of Dr. T and was astounded when I found this. I took a screen grab.



KidCam

I re-listened to Mahler’s Symphony #1 withe Claudio Abbado and the Kraut Philharmonic. Did Gustav get a little Klezmer music in there?

Upon the second listening, I am willing to anoint this as an…



Your trusted Expert on Good Taste gives no credence to reputation, only to what he hears. And quite in contrast to what a lot of top-name composers seem guilty of, Mahler (at least in this one) wasn’t banging away as if he had a note quota to meet.

For example: Although I don’t necessarily like everything that Beethoven has done, he does always seem to be trying to say something, even if I’m not sure what. Unlike some top names, he doesn’t seem to have a note quota, just banging out notes to fill the air.

And this is said in context of something that should be obvious but is probably not something many people think about: If you took “Mary had a little lamb” and scored it for a symphony orchestra, it would sound pretty good (or at least grand). So I think it’s very easy for composers to hide that they don’t have all that much to say inside of Big Orchestra Music.

That’s certainly not what Mahler is doing in his Symphony No. 1. Nor is that the case with his more heavy Symphony No. 5. The latter was too much for my taste, but he wasn’t just bangin’ on a bongo like a chimpanzee, to quote Dire Straits.

And as lovely (or at least as familiar) as the theme is in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, aside from that theme (which has too much treacle for me), to my ear he’s just filling a note quote with the rest of that concerto. Brahms' piano concerto didn’t do too much for my ear either.

On another subject, there are a couple of videos on Amazon Prime with host/conductor George Marriner Maull and The Discover Orchestra of New Jersey. One is Bach to the Future which is from 2003. I’ve only just started the second one, Discover Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Autumn and Winter, from 2013.

I’m going to assume there are more in this series and I’m probably going to want to watch more of them. The one he did on Bach, although slow-paced, certainly was good in terms of education and music appreciation. Bach stuffed his songs full of technique and things and you pretty much do need to sort of “stop the tape” and take a look at what’s going on and have it explained to you.

The Vivaldi one, produced 10 years later, has obviously upped the production values. I’ll report back on this overall presentation. But I certainly might want to try to find more of these.

One of the important things about classical music is that a piece can fit your mood. And as everything else a first taste might not suit, that is a reason I use to go back and review and in the case of the 4th give it repeated listening. Felix is a master orchestrator and his work with strings is the best of the romantic composers, but he still retains the notable Germanic styling. That is not to say the 4th is his best work. I think the 5th and 6th are far superior. the 4th fits itself in with Midsummer Night's Dream. It is light and airy and was composed about the same time.

The Brahms symphonies are altogether another matter. There is never any reason to think that they are not Germanic from the first cord to the last. Brahms like Mendelssohn was a master at orchestration and could fill a room with music with even a chamber orchestra. Brahms waited until he was quite old before writing his first symphony. He claimed that Beethoven had mastered the art and there was nothing for him to do better.

Interesting trivia on Brahms, he hated cats and is reportedly to hunt them around his neighborhood with a bow and arrow.

In this The Discovery Orchestra look at Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, it’s interesting having George Maull take you through Vivaldi’s liner notes, showing you exactly what Vivaldi intended the passages to be portraying.

I didn’t need to know that in order to like the music. And his The Four Seasons is splendid, a truly great archetype for what classical music can be at its best. But now that he’s explained it, it adds something to the piece. And, in this case at least, he’s not just intellecutalizing. They have Vivaldi’s actual notes and it’s kind of cool to match his story with how it played out musically.


So, yeah, I see what you’re saying although if done well, there is something to be gained from stopping the tape.

Also, perhaps modifying my aversion to “heavy” somewhat (or having run into some “heavy” that musically makes more sense), I was getting a bang out of listening to Leif “fall in the forest” Andsnes’ Sibelious: Piano Pieces.

It may be asking too much to want my classical music to sound like more than just another combination of droned orchestral notes. But when I find something that perks my ears up, I’m astonished and quite pleased.

Track 7 starts like one of Chopin’s funeral marches. It’s somber, dark, “heavy.” But it’s musically nice to listen to. There are many other nice tracks on this as well. I haven’t yet listened to it all the way through.

Here’s an example of it, although this is a different conductor and orchestra. And, to my mind, Leif’s piano playing is superior.

They mentioned in that recent Haydn documentary I watched that he made 5000 pounds at one performance in London. I gotta believe that was a lot of money for back then.

No, no one can turn out a masterpiece every time. And the invention of the piano (let alone the inclusion of a brass section) was yuge. The harpsichords and such were relative eunuch instruments compared to the volume and expressiveness of a piano.

But imagine attending a church service with Bach at the organ. Dial that into one of the five “first see” slots on the time machine.

Right now I’m almost finished listening to Debussy Pixels Ensemble. I’d say the first 5 tracks on this were very good, and then he tried to depend too much on WAF (weird-ass flute). It’s sort of like the beatniks meets Beethoven.

But it’s different, original, and generally carries a tune although it screams “experimental music” a tad too much for my taste, at least for an entire album of listening.

Some  thought on Beethoven. 

He was not aristocrat his name is van Beethoven not von Beethoven
His 1st symphony is very much a homage to Haydn and perfectly copies his style
The second symphony is a tribute to Mozart and follows his style.
These two symphonies were intended to introduce Beethoven to symphonic audiences and put money in his pockets. Beethoven never did anything that was not going to improve his image and personal fortunes. After introducing himself with symphonies 1 & 2. He changed style to the Beethoven we know. The third symphony is a radical departure from his previous works of Haydn and Mozart. In length it is a little longer but the use of strings as counterbalance to the bass sections was a serious change to what was then the norm. The 4th is also a change from the 3rd with a complex theme interwoven with several lighter themes. The rest of the symphonies follow this technique with even numbered being more light and the odd numbered seeming more serious. Beethoven, even when he had achieved his goals, was always motivates by money and fame. There was a cost to supporting him in the style that he wished to be accustomed. This was more true as his hearing began failing. That is why we don't have more piano concertos. 

Symphonies 3, 5, 7, 9 are perhaps the best known each introduces a little something new to the art. Symphonies 4,6, 8 are not as well known, except 6 which every kid has heard from the Disney Classic Fantaisa. Don't skip over 4 and 8 they are well crafted and lead the listener to the next more complex odd numbered symphony. 


In terms of buying power this was a the same as $50,000 in that time translated to todays buying power it would be about 5 million dollars. Is it any wonder that Beethoven always held out for cash?
 

Leif “falls in a forest” Andsnes’ Chopin Piano Sonatas was a great success. It was a listening pleasure throughout when I sat down in my chair last night and fiddled with my iPad (multitasking even through the music, although for me it helps to enjoy it).

Whether the Klassical Kungian Rule of “acclimation via experimentation” was the cause, or just Leif and me having the same musical taste, I’m not sure. I suspect that his selections and his skill in playing the pieces had a lot to do with it. The album is made up of Chopin Piano Sonatas No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3.



That’s the kind of experience I like to have when listening to classical music, and I got it with this album. Then Apple Music (a new feature, I guess) kept playing music even though I had not queued any more albums. It played one I had added to the library and had not yet listened to. It features Leif “falls in the forest” Andsnes on keyboard and Ian Bostridge as one of the sweetest tenors I’ve ever heard — even though he looks an old, washed-up and rumpled Oxford mathematics professor. Looks clearly aren’t everything.

This is Schubert: Piano Sonata in B-Flat Major, D.960.

That reminds me that back in the 30’s and 40’s, the entry level for a crooner required that they pay homage to Der Bingle. That’s unsurprisingly how Sinatra started. Crosby exerted a yuge force.

And one can have an existential conversation about whether these preexisting styles were straightjackets or worthy Hard Schools of Musical Knocks. I suppose it depends upon the talent being copied. One could do worse than taking after either Haydn or Der Bingle upon entering the contest, if only to hone one’s skills. There were likely marketing concerns as well. You had to play (or sing) what people wanted and expected — the standard of the time.

Then Sinatra (and Beethoven) became the standard. To many, they still are.