Wagner's Ring Cycle

Originally posted by AttilaTheHorn
>Recordings of Dennis Brain are not that difficult to find. His famous recording of the Mozart concertos (he made others too) were made in 1953 and have never been out of the catalogues. Not even Sinatra can match that. His recording of the Strauss and Hindemith concertos have probably never been matched, and his one of the Schumann Adagio & Allegro as ...[text shortened]... his more than 100 symphonies. A composer's choice of key can be a topic for deep discussion.

I am intrigued by key signatures. Indeed transposing works to a different key would change their character entirely. Gustav Klimt, I believe, painted something titled, study in white. When someone commented about how there was hardly any white in the painting, he retorted "it's like expecting Brahms symphony in F to be one long, endless F". Beethoven's C#minor quartet is unimaginable in any other key.

I am always encouraged by the fact that despite not reading music I have been able to enjoy music by patiently listening to a work over and over until I learn to like it. Does anyone know of a self teaching method for music reading? It would be fascinating to once and for all understand what I love to hear better by looking at a composer's thought process.

Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht is a happy discovery from having explored dodecaphony from attila the horn's insistence that I expand my musical horizons. Quite an impressive work of music. Wanted to openly thank attila the horn for steering in this music's direction.

The single movement comprises five sections that correspond to the structure of the poem on which it is based, with themes in each section being direct musical metaphors for the narrative and discourse found in the poem. As such, the piece is one of the first examples of program music written for a chamber ensemble.

The original score called for two violins, two violas and two cellos. In 1917, Schoenberg produced an arrangement for string orchestra (which was popular for composers to do at the time), and further revised in 1943. There is also a version for piano trio by Eduard Steuermann. The string orchestra version is the most often recorded and performed. The work also served as the basis for several ballets.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht is a happy discovery from having explored dodecaphony from attila the horn's insistence that I expand my musical horizons. Quite an impressive work of music. Wanted to openly thank attila the horn for steering in this music's direction.

The single movement comprises five sections that correspond to the structure of the po ...[text shortened]... the most often recorded and performed. The work also served as the basis for several ballets.

Concerto for string quartet, also by Schoenberg is quite remarkable!

Originally posted by AttilaTheHorn
Yes, Beethoven was totally stone deaf by about 1816, but that doesn't mean he didn't hear what he wrote. He heard every single note, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to write it. I can hear a piece of music in my head just by looking at the music on paper, and naturally Beethoven could too. It takes a lot of training to be able to do that (and of c ...[text shortened]... like his 9th Symphony and the late quartets without being able to hear, but he heard it all.

I can recognize and play in my head most of the standard symphonic repertory and much of the chamber repertory after hearing but a few notes. Most composers have a distinct sound based on how they orchestrate.

You say training allows you to hear the music by looking at the page -- I cannot do this. I would like to.

Tell me how you would advise an older person to train to hear music from the page. Assume they cannot read music at all.

Perhaps once I knew all this .. but I've been "inactive" for a long long time.

In fact, I cannot find any but fragments of the pieces I know I wrote. Clear evidence that I continue to decompose ...

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Concerto for string quartet, also by Schoenberg is quite remarkable!

Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms Piano Quartet is also remarkable.

Try Ravel's Violin Sonata No. 2 with David Grimal, accompanied by Georges Pludemacher.

Heard this in live performance at the French Embassy here in Washington DC.

Grimal has an amazing athleticism, tremendous energy and precision.

The Ravel piece is very funny and meant to be so.

Originally posted by Scriabin
Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms Piano Quartet is also remarkable.

Try Ravel's Violin Sonata No. 2 with David Grimal, accompanied by Georges Pludemacher.

Heard this in live performance at the French Embassy here in Washington DC.

Grimal has an amazing athleticism, tremendous energy and precision.

The Ravel piece is very funny and meant to be so.

Thanks for the recs. I, like you, cannot read music. If I could I am sure I could train myself to hear it in my head. I will try and teach myself to keep the mind agile. I notice, as I get older, I can appreciate music's subleties better than when i was younger. I doubt serioulsy I would have appreciated Wagner as a teen.

I love Ravel. Very witty when he pokes fun at styles or other composers. I love La Valse. It's too bad he is better known by his most hated work. Master orchestrator like Rimsky-Korsakoff.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Thanks for the recs. I, like you, cannot read music. If I could I am sure I could train myself to hear it in my head. I will try and teach myself to keep the mind agile. I notice, as I get older, I can appreciate music's subleties better than when i was younger. I doubt serioulsy I would have appreciated Wagner as a teen.

I love Ravel. Very witty wh ...[text shortened]... too bad he is better known by his most hated work. Master orchestrator like Rimsky-Korsakoff.

I thought when I was much younger that Ravel's complete ballet Daphnis and Chloe was one of the greatest of all 20th century works of music.

Now that I am much older, I still think so.

Originally posted by Scriabin
I thought when I was much younger that Ravel's complete ballet Daphnis and Chloe was one of the greatest of all 20th century works of music.

Now that I am much older, I still think so.

Indeed a great work. Yet nowhere near your namesake's magnus opus: Poem of Ecstasy. Quite a remarkable composer. I go back and forth between eras. The repertoire is so vast. One work at a time. Sometimes one style at a time. Sometimes one specific setting. Partial to sacred music. I like the Stabat Mater as set to music by various composers. Also love oratorios both on sacred and secular themes. Sometimes I explore requiems. You should give Beriloz' massive requiem a try. None of the other French composers influenced music at large as much as Berlioz.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Indeed a great work. Yet nowhere near your namesake's magnus opus: Poem of Ecstasy. Quite a remarkable composer. I go back and forth between eras. The repertoire is so vast. One work at a time. Sometimes one style at a time. Sometimes one specific setting. Partial to sacred music. I like the Stabat Mater as set to music by various composers. Also love o equiem a try. None of the other French composers influenced music at large as much as Berlioz.

I am indeed fond of the Poem of Ecstasy -- in my youth I used it to seduce coeds.

As for requiems, my favorite is that of Faure. I'm also very partial to Peleas and Melisande and various chamber works. I'm also fond of Cesar Franck.

I found myself wishing today more music had been written in the style of Ravel and Debussy. I very much sympathize with the fatigue over conventional, romantic, tonal music early in the 1900s -- but I think classical music took off in an unfortunate direction, leaving the stage, as it were, for other types of music.

Now, I find it difficult to listen to a lot of what I feel is baroque hackwork -- as well as a lot of other 19th music where composers simply emulated one another and within their own oeuvre merely produced variations on the same basic piece of music, like Rossini overtures.

The tonal aspects of music is not what bothers me. It is the tired old forms that like corsets constrain too many compositions into same sounding, boring tripe.

Scriabin's music was not of consistent quality, but it was not boring. He was an unbalanced man, exactly the sort who can produce amazing breakthroughs of creativity while at the same time being rather out to lunch.

Wagner is another example. His shows rival any popular entertainment today and tapped into the mythological heart of the zeitgeist using very original, if well over the top, musical ideas. Yet he, too, was a detestable nutcase, always in debt, irresponsible, faithless, egotistical and, well, a lot more in that vein. No matter -- he wrote some great tunes and one can separate the man from his work.

All in all, however, I confess that I prefer the music of Brahms.

Originally posted by Scriabin
I am indeed fond of the Poem of Ecstasy -- in my youth I used it to seduce coeds.

As for requiems, my favorite is that of Faure. I'm also very partial to Peleas and Melisande and various chamber works. I'm also fond of Cesar Franck.

I found myself wishing today more music had been written in the style of Ravel and Debussy. I very much sympathize with ...[text shortened]... e the man from his work.

All in all, however, I confess that I prefer the music of Brahms.

No disagreement there. Indeed some works are mere tripe. Brahms is pretty exceptional. I cannot think of a single bad work of his. Some obscure Schumann is pretty remarkable. His oratorio on Faust is remarkably interesting and different.

Cannot get too hung up on the boorishness of some of the great ones like Wagner or even Beethoven. Odious behavior, yet he wrote like no other. The more I listen the more I admire the artistry of the man although he is garrulous at times. The Russians created great opera in the 19th. I love that there are such subtle differences between composers depending on where they came from. You can almost smell Bohemia in Mahler, etc.

Pelleas et Melisande is unique. I never could get into Faure's requiem, but love everything else he wrote. Opera is my greatest love and almost every 19th century Italian wrote more than credibly. Rossini is purely for the stage and very enjoyable if you understand at least a smattering of Italian. Don't knock him too hard until you hear and rehear William Tell. The overture is pretty banal. The rest of the work is quite glorious and different.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
No disagreement there. Indeed some works are mere tripe. Brahms is pretty exceptional. I cannot think of a single bad work of his. Some obscure Schumann is pretty remarkable. His oratorio on Faust is remarkably interesting and different.

Cannot get too hung up on the boorishness of some of the great ones like Wagner or even Beethoven. Odious behavio ...[text shortened]... liam Tell. The overture is pretty banal. The rest of the work is quite glorious and different.

oh, I love Rossini. I also like the Beatles, so as long as you like very much the pattern, listening to variations on it isn't of itself a bad thing.

the problem I have is where a composer has a bad pattern which he then varies without achieving anything of interest over a span of dozens of works.

There is something inexplicable to me about Brahms' music. He appears to pare down a progression of tones -- often I hear it called a melody -- such as the opening to the 4th movement of his last symphony. Then he weaves a sonata allegro formula around these skeletal notes. It sounds to me both fragmentary and unified, both classical in its structure and impressionistic in its result.

If you stand within arms length of a Monet, for example, you see mere daubs of paint, albeit laid down in a way that delineates the direction from which the light comes. Stand back and one wonders how the painter saw what he was representing from within arms length so that he knew what one would see after the eye was tricked into blending the daubs into an image.

So it is with Brahms -- look close and the notes are like daubs. But they are arranged within a basically classical structure so as to make a coherent whole. Brahms use of theme and variations is exquisite, and I never have the feeling he is merely quoting himself.

Originally posted by Scriabin
oh, I love Rossini. I also like the Beatles, so as long as you like very much the pattern, listening to variations on it isn't of itself a bad thing.

the problem I have is where a composer has a bad pattern which he then varies without achieving anything of interest over a span of dozens of works.

There is something inexplicable to me about Brahms' mu ...[text shortened]... theme and variations is exquisite, and I never have the feeling he is merely quoting himself.

That's why Brahms is considered a natural progression of the Beethoven ideal and his 1st symph the 10th. Brahms had to rely on his musical guile because the skeletal nature of his tonal progressionwas secondary to his inaiblity to create a "tune". Hence his admiration for Dvorak of whom he said were I to be able to create a main melody as glorious as Dvorak's passing fancies... No knock on Brahms, a true genius. I love his chamber music above all and few choral works are as impressive as his German Requiem.

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
That's why Brahms is considered a natural progression of the Beethoven ideal and his 1st symph the 10th. Brahms had to rely on his musical guile because the skeletal nature of his tonal progressionwas secondary to his inaiblity to create a "tune". Hence his admiration for Dvorak of whom he said were I to be able to create a main melody as glorious as Dv ve his chamber music above all and few choral works are as impressive as his German Requiem.

I must say here that I always have and still do consider Dvorak to be the greatest of the romantic composers of the latter part of the 19th century.

I think he was mistreated for many years and not given his due because of his humble origins. So his music was dismissed as mere folk tunes. Of course, a lot of his early work needed more discipline and less length and repetition. His tone poem the Golden Spinning Wheel is an example of this, although I really like it very much. I think most folks now think Dvorak's greatest symphony his 8th, or perhaps his New World 9th. For me, I think his 7th is his masterwork -- and his Slavonic Dances never wear out their welcome with me. So much of his music is so good to listen to. His star is on the rise here in Wash DC. and his music is much more popular now than it was when I first became a fan about 40 years ago or so.

p.s. I bought the set of symphonies by the London Symphony conducted by Istvan Kertesz. They are old recordings and not technically without flaw -- too much splicing of tape before the magic of digital tomfoolery.

But these are the recordings I first heard and have in my head. I've got quite a few other versions of the same works, but I still return to this set.

I feel the same way about my old EMI vinyl set of Vaughn Williams with Adrian Boult.

Originally posted by Scriabin
I must say here that I always have and still do consider Dvorak to be the greatest of the romantic composers of the latter part of the 19th century.

I think he was mistreated for many years and not given his due because of his humble origins. So his music was dismissed as mere folk tunes. Of course, a lot of his early work needed more discipline and less ...[text shortened]... s set.

I feel the same way about my old EMI vinyl set of Vaughn Williams with Adrian Boult.

Speaking of Dvorak, I just performed his Serenade for Winds over the weekend. I've played it several times before. It's a good piece. I've also played his 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Symphonies several times.