I would like to start a thread, similar to Orpheus’ jazz site, for lovers of classical music. I will list some of my favorite recordings, CDs as well as LP’s. While good sound is not a prime requisite, it will be a consideration. Classical music lovers please feel free to add to my lists. Discussion of musical and recording issues will be welcome.
I’ll start with a list of CDs. Records to follow in a later post.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. Chesky — Royal Phil. Orch. Freccia, conductor. Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Vanguard Classics — Vienna Festival Orch. Prohaska, conductor. Prokofiev: Scythian Suite et. al. DG — Chicago Symphony Abbado, conductor. Brahms: Symphony #1. Chesky — London Symph. Orch. Horenstein, conductor. Stravinsky: L’Histoire du Soldat. HDTT — Ars Nova. Mandell, conductor. Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances. Analogue Productions. — Dallas Symph Orch. Johanos, cond. Respighi: Roman Festivals et. al. Chesky — Royal Phil. Orch. Freccia, conductor.
All of the above happen to be great sounding recordings, but, as I said, sonics is not a prerequisite.
The singing is great of course, but listen to the strings! I have never heard it played like this before. Like an old 3D movie, it just jumps out at you. Love it.
Handel - Messiah (Stephen Layton)
stroll down and click on part 2 -- at 1:33:01 why do the nations so furiously rage together?
my gut still says Putin is more dangerous than ping-pong .Belarus is his test .
I don't think either one is a military threat to the U.S. We are in a class by ourselves when it comes to military power and the ability to project that power.
I think Putin wants influence in the world and a buffer between Russia and NATO in Europe. He is also a master at sowing discord within Europe and to a lesser degree in NATO. He has a talent for seeing the weak links. He even tested the U.S. in Syria but 2 or 3 hundred Russians were missing from morning formation the next day.
Ping-Pong is more of a economic threat. They too want more global influence. But, we could always stop buying their stuff and educating their elites. Geography
works against them. Few friends and bases outside of the country.
And last, but not surely not least, we have the 1st Cavalry, and they don't. :)
I am sure the troops are just fine, however they do have a serious and I mean serious problem with the senior officer corps.
The last three Canadian equivalents
of our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have been relieved of command for sexual misconduct. Three in a row! These are their highest ranking officers in uniform. Their special ops Chief was also relieved for sexual misconduct. One Admiral has been accused of RAPE by a fellow female officer. All of this in the past few years / months.
A few years ago, a full Colonel, their best and brightest Air Force Officer, he flew the Queen around Canada during her visit, was commander of their largest Airbase, was convicted of two murders of young women, one a female airman under his command. He also burgled many houses and took selfies of himself while wearing the underwear of the women of the houses.
They do have an anti-military socialist government and it shows. But, when you have a border with a friendly superpower, you tend to get sloppy.
I consider myself a Christian, with no church affiliation though...
I like choral religious music a lot...On par with Bach.... 😊 For me Josquin Des Prez is a musical god, and Tallis and Obrecht ,Gesualdo and too many others to be named...
Between Hildegard of Bingen and Bach the number of musical known geniuses COMPOSERS by me exceed the number of geniuses composers i know of in the period beginning AFTER Bach till our day ...
And sometimes so good a modern genius is , it does not move me like an old one....Glass whom i like a lot is not a genius on the level of Schutz or Vittoria or Schubert or Bruckner...This is clear...But it is also clear how Glass inherited from the growing seeds of these master in him....His music make sense in this history not out of it....I will place Glass with Villa-Lobos for example and others great modern masters...Neither walk in the shoes of the past giants but they are admirable and original pupils at least and own a merit which is related to compositional and fusional techniques which are relatively new in their scope....
It is perhaps the opposite for the number of great musicians compared to composers in this century, i feel there is more geniuses playing musicians now more than ever.... Demographic? Technological succeess of music diffusion and reproduction? With the communicating interpenetrating cultures now , written music has receded in favor of improvisationnal playing and fusion....jazz was the begininng of the modern era for me....
A great % of my music collection is more improvised music than european written one....Some tanbur master may rival Bach on his own ground....Ostad Elahi for example....
And also astute observation of history has proven that the instinct toward the "sacred" when no more satisfied by genuine traditional religions oriente itself towards cults, uncontrolled irrational fears and idolatry and sometimes worst : new abominations and unrecognized and hidden "religious movement" like transhumanism....
I think we live in an era where listening music is no more only a "cultural" activity, but also no more only a religious activity either...
It is more nowadays a conscious spiritual activity ...With all the reproducing technology, music is no more confined to be a social or familial event only....
We are listening nowadays not the sound only, but the effect of the sound traveling through our body to our heart and from our heart to our "seeing"....This fact is reflected in the musicians playings and the listeners alike...
We listen not the music style so much sometimes than the effect of the music on our own Body/heart/brain...These are 2 different complementary way to listen...
One is a cultural and a nostalgia habit, the other is a search of meaning more than a leisure...
Minimalism, dodecaphonism, gong and hymalayan bowls, or any "new sounds world" attract us now...They are the signs and symptoms of the new "aperspectival integral era" in musical history for the philosopher Jean Gebser...
Music is emotion yes, but also a " new meaning" we can "see" for the first time in history and which can push us toward a new kind of emotion or a new level of emotion...
It is a good thing sometimes to forget our own taste and go at risk....Muting the crocodile so to speak....
At the end music is an initiatic mystery....An introduction to the invisible cosmos seen through the internal eye : the ears...
Personally i discovered music with Bach very young...After that at mid-life with Scriabin and Bruckner and Mahler....They changed my way of "seeing" music...
In the last 20 years i discovered that all written music and unwritten one is played by musicians...
I listen musicians now more than music.... 😊
Then i can listen any genres or styles, because i listen more the musician effect on me than the music he choose to play....
Music is like some plants at the origin of many religious experience a way to open our consciousness...And music is more subtle in his action than LSD or psylocibyn but no less potent on a life long period....
This is the reason why music is also a fundamental social and cultural,spiritual and therapeutical need and a "drug" only music can give for the best or for the worst...
Music is like an economical "spatial ship" to explore the stars or our own metabolism ...Nothing less for me....
Re recent comments about the minimalist movement (Glass), evolution in music…..and television.
If one gives any credence to the notion that any art form’s relevance can be judged (some would say should be) by how well it portrays the time of its creation, the question of greatness is put in a context where it becomes, if not irrelevant, pointless to compare to geniuses like Mozart and Bach; greatness, the likes of which we will probably never see again. While I’m generally not a fan of this type of relativism, it is certainly true that evolution does not necessarily mean “better”. However, in this context it is also true that it doesn’t necessarily have a to mean “worse”.
Came across this interesting Belgian chamber ensemble that I think is a pretty good example of minimalism meeting today’s genre-crossing and globalist attitude:
Never did this before , but just made the best buy in my 50 years in audio. Crutchfield is selling KEF 150’s at $350, these wear a great buy at normal $550. I bought them because for 20 years I always had KEF’s .Hardly need more speakers . Bought these little pups on Friday , Crutchfield sent them UPS on OVERNIGHT , no cost ! Had them up noon here, Listening to some great Phil Woods right now and these tiny pups are filling a 21/14 room with my Croft 45w amp .
A bit harsh on top but sweet on mids and clean at 60 bass . And that’s with 30 minute break-in . One thing I don’t like is they seem to not use banana’s . They are well built and jazz seems to be their wheel-house .
Just thinking someone else could use them .(not mine ) .
I enjoyed my Nyiregyhazi Lizst LP for a good while but, yeah, he’s not exactly for the long haul.
I think we must not judge E.N. on the same scale than most others contemporary pianists...
Sometimes a genius put the scale balance himself and created it and accept to be weighted only by his own standards...
Being a "romantic" player means, in the case of E.N. like it was for Liszt , of which he was almost a direct pupil, means i said, not a "rendition" of written music like it was written from the sheet information, not at all...
It means recreating the works for the TIME moment actually in process, to WORK and transform the listener soul and consciousness willing it or unwilling...
It is first an intense ceremony and it is a beautiful possible experience only in a secondary manner...
No intense ceremony can be produced WITHOUT to some level the active conscious/subconscious participation of the listener... If a beautiful object wait passively there to be seen for example, a loving woman need an active embrace...Love is not an esthetical experience only...
E.N. passionnately hated with all the power of his soul concert touring, his abandonning of his carreer and the paying price is testimony for that...He never practice nor even own a piano for decades...He afford one when he can between his 10 wifes he must successfully feed before paying for a decent room with a piano.... He lives a life of misery and glory at the same time... We must read about his life to understand😊
A sacred ceremony cannot be a concerts string of repeated same works.... E.N., like Liszt was, according to the history and legend, way more than a pianist reproducing some work, it was a theurge recreating the link between God and man....
Then comparing him to the average great pianist is meaningless...A volcanic eruption does not compared to a mountain so great the mountain is....
It is easy to point to some " imperfections" of his playings... But to repeat a great french poet René Char, "imperfection is the peak"....No one ever played at the end of a broken chain, with so much power at his own risk...NONE....
Like seeing an angel is terrible, and was, saying Rilke, like seeing "death",listening E.N. is not at times tasting a beautiful piece at all...It is being transformed by the event, willing or unwilling, by going for it or going back with contempt and fear or hate away from it.... So is God or a volcanic eruption, some throw themselves in the crater others panicked or only careful and cautious go back and retreat in more pacified water....
I know a "frogman" but i am embarassed to say that i dont know what frogman first law is...
The Frogman's first law states: There is a perfectly good and logical reason for every situation you may find as pertains to the music, the players, the composers, and their success / popularity, or lack thereof.
For example, there is a reason why Mozart is Mozart, and old whats his name,
Stockhausen is Stockhausen.
There is a reason why The Marriage of Figaro is what it is, and why Satyagraha is what it is.
So there is no reason or room for argument.
And to think, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach etc...... did it all without the help of paid mass media hype.
Music is not there to be loved only , like we love our most precious esthetic values and chosen love one or our childs...
Music is to be thought of like a "mystery at play" in our body and mind and soul, and we must wait for a new surprizing and sometimes troubling revelation each time ....Music teach us something and is not only an esthetical possession by our feeling, it is also an ethical an spiritual education of the will, a yoga... ...
But we must be ready...
I was ready to welcome Philip Glass....
This music is at the genius level of Wagner not so much by creating something ideologically "new" like in the Wagner purely "german" case, but by reinitializing ancient spiritual experience in the brain/heart stratas of all humans....
I listened Satyagraha this night and i was not disappointed at all...
I dont know which one i prefer, i will say that Akhnaten seems more formally mature and i think was written 4 years after Satyagraha...
Anyway the music in Satyagraha is like in Akhnaten , incantatory, but at a level near gripping ectasy...
Then like meditation and silence could be boring to some, a ritual could be insupportable for unprepared listener... And to appreciate these operas we must see and lived immersed through them anyway...It is not works written to be evaluated at distance by esthetical values on a performance scale, it is a world revelatory of the deepest and the oldest stratas in the human mind.... It is way more intense work than only a merely beautiful work.... They are more like therapeutical catharsis....They dont move you by touching feeling only , they grip you completely at the level of the will...
Glass created here more than a mere "art" work but reach the level of Bach passions, which are way more than an exercise in musical style....A spiritual event is not a pleasurable distraction....( By the way here i dont say that Glass has the musical genius mastery of Bach, no one have this mastery in occidental history for me, i only say that this 2 works of Glass may be impactful in the future like Bach passions were in traditional christianity, they own this potential)
History is throwd in the cosmos like in very ancient religion and is based on experience not on dogmas as much...This feeling of Akhnaten pervade also satyagraha... The force of the will here is a cosmic event not only a human free choice...
We must listen very carefully to appreeciate this opera which is thought to be like in Wagner, a worldwide event impactful ceremony, a bit like the spiritual musical ceremony to save the world in Scriabin idea ....
No direct use of classical Indian music permeate the work, instead a telluric inspiration coming more from very old rythms or hypnotic varying melopea remind me of pre-historical tales......
This music grip us and is designed to do so like in trance ceremony, or probably the rythm in ancient mysteries...
This music is created by Glass and suggest to me that the consciousness level of the artist put him on touch with the common spiritual ground of any religion : the pure experience of the sacred...
His operas , all of them, but i know just 2 for now,remind me of the "Passion genre" in occidental musical history....And after all Christ has revealed also the most intimate human experience with God on the world stage for ALL and each humans not for a few chosen one...Satyagraha is the " passion" for justice and freedom....
Glass made history with these 2 works....
It is not moving melodies who will stay in your ear, it is complete transformative ceremony designed to rewire the brain...
I'll chime in and report my love for the music of Philip Glass. He is a great composer. While his earlier works -- such as the operas Akhnaten and Satyagraha -- are perhaps his best-known, and I enjoy them, I particularly love later works, such as the opera Kepler.
Kepler is an astonishingly beautiful, rhythmically forceful and impactful opera. The CD of Kepler is well worth a listen -- it rocks!
Glass's opera Orphee is also one of my favorites. It is based on Jean Cocteau's great film, Orpheus, but in my view, arguably surpasses the original (just as Verdi's Otello arguably surpasses Shakespeare's Othello).
Other great Glass works include his 8th Symphony, his cantata Itaipu, and his first violin concerto (get the Kremer version). Much of his best work is unfortunately not available on Qobuz, but is readily available on CD. I strongly recommend a 2017 recording streaming on Qobuz -- Vikingur Olafsson's record of Glass Piano Works.
@frogman -- I enjoyed my Nyiregyhazi Lizst LP for a good while but, yeah, he's not exactly for the long haul. As much as I love a bit of self-indulgence, he went a bit over the edge. And am I nuts, or did I actually see him live in L.A.? Maybe at the Ambassador Auditorium?
There is two people here who publicly say they loathe Wagner and Liszt. I happen to love both those composers for the music they wrote but I hate Wagner as a human being so am I wrong to say that now?
Perhaps i overreacted reading your post jim
It is alas! my passionate temper again....and i think i was too much enebriated by this Glass opera i was just going out of it...
I sincerely apologize to you and i perfectly understand that between friends we are not in the obligation to think the same about any composer...
Some people think that music must continue to ’evolve’. And this is true. Most things do evolve. However, ’evolve’ does not mean ’get better’.
No genre that I am aware of has always gotten better. Some, like Classical are performed at a higher level than they were previously, but this is due to better recording technology, better trained players / conductors, better instruments in general... etc but the compositions are not getting better. Same applies to Jazz, Rock, Pop, Blues, spirituals, and others. Remember, the Bell Curve still rules.
BTW, I said Glass put me to sleep because it really did. :)
Cheers
Also, remember The Frogman’s First Law.
Truly great post!
Thanks very much....
First i want to apologize to you because i read your past post out of your context and place and misread it in my context and place...
I misread your intention, then i apologize....
Your post is really great observation...
Music in occidental consciousness history has evolved not toward always the best and the better ,sometimes for the less and the worst....It is particularly evident in our times...
The reason linked to this deep fact is a loss of creativity on the spiritual ground...
However in spite of these facts some geniuses stay hidden or veiled because their spirit participate more, of a relatively long history, or of a too much distant future...
Some people think that music must continue to 'evolve'. And this is true. Most things do evolve. However, 'evolve' does not mean 'get better'.
No genre that I am aware of has always gotten better. Some, like Classical are performed at a higher level than they were previously, but this is due to better recording technology, better trained players / conductors, better instruments in general... etc but the compositions are not getting better. Same applies to Jazz, Rock, Pop, Blues, spirituals, and others. Remember, the Bell Curve still rules.
BTW, I said Glass put me to sleep because it really did. :)
Thanks i will wrote about satyagraha tomorrow or in next few days...
I am fascinated also by the person of Akhnaten and also Gandhi and for sure Einstein...
What is surprizing also is the fact that Glass has written operas about Kepler and Galileo...
I am fascinated by Kepler, because he was a true master astrologer amd not only one of the greatest modern astronomer... He is an extraordinary mix of the modern consciousness of the individuated separated "i " and of the consciousness of the past participating " I"...
I want to know how the composer resolved and express all this mix in his music writing....
For Gandhi satyagraha i feel before listening to it that the composer will use "hypnotic" influence of Indian classical music which i love dearly...
There is two people here who publicly say they loathe Wagner and Liszt. I happen to love both those composers for the music they wrote but I hate Wagner as a human being so am I wrong to say that now?
*** I loathe no composers, or musicians, Ervin Nyiregyházi for example ,or any other musician 😊 even if i had my own taste, choices, or habits...Loathing reflect more about us than about the music itself....
And loving Glass dont impede my love for Mozart "Cozi fan tutte" for example... ***
An open mind to all music is the path to a deeper and more complete appreciation and understanding of the greatness of the truly great.
”The interest of the composer Philip Glass in Gandhi dates back to his first visit to India in 1966. In composing his second opera, Glass did not want to paint a historical portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. Instead, his intention was to use Gandhi’s involvement in South Africa in the years between 1893 and 1914 as an outline of current global political and religious problems. In South Africa, Gandhi formulated his thesis of passive resistance and civil disobedience known as “Satyagraha” or “dedication to the truth” as a reaction to discriminatory governmental measures aimed against the Indian portion of the population, such as the deprivation of voting rights.”
I will not call a one line post with no explanation with the words " i loath it" an especially friendly and polite reception... Usually when someone post something i dont like so much i dont take my time to only say i loathe it WITHOUT EXPLANATION...
You site Mozart , can you honestly say that Philip Glass’s music is as good as Mozart’s or to take it even farther Bach !
Your argument is ridiculous, no composer is beside Bach for me or over Mozart....Must we only speak about Beethoven, Mozart,Bach and no more about Scriabin, Sorabji or Busoni or other geniuses way smaller than Bach?
Then Glass being way less important than Bach or Monterverdi must stay in the closet?
I think I have earned the right to loathe one or two modern composers.
I dont like Stockhausen at all, but i will not wrote "a one line" loathing post against another poster who love him and take the time to explain why he love him...i will pounder his arguments and reflect about our different perspectives... It is called educated thinking...
Then dont confuse the right to your choices with politeness...It is a public thread or a closed private club?
And the ability to play an instrument dont give any more weight to your post or opinion than to mine , because the ability to listen is not less important...
I will never take personal an explanation opposite to something i defend , but a one line loathing post is what? A personal attack, or if it is not one, it is mimiking one... At your age you certainly feel what i speak about without a necessary drawing...
If you need a drawing think about that :
Do you think that your one line loathing exercise give to me the taste to wrote about satyagraha tomorrow?
Hey, in this semi-modern era it's easy to search down whatever piece of music you're curious about and give it a couple minutes listen. I'm not saying, of course, that it's 100% okay to judge Glass or his generously scaled opera entirely from a brief encounter, but it will lend you at least a glimpse of the sound world that Glass creates. If you find that world to be inviting (and I'm confident you will), dip your toe in a bit more.
There is no need for you to take it personally , I am not slighting you I am only saying that I loath him and I don’t expect you to like all the music I like. You site Mozart , can you honestly say that Philip Glass’s music is as good as Mozart’s or to take it even farther Bach ! I will go on to say that no modern composer can equal or better the quality or consistently the amount of music both Mozart or Bach wrote. Oh by the way I do not have delicate tastes I have been playing diverse musical instruments for many years. When I was young I played Bagpipes in a pipe band until I was twenty and at the same time I played classical guitar for 40 years along with the Renaissance Lute until my 60s when diabetes robbed me of my feeling in my fingers thereby making me stop playing and causing massive depressions for a number of years because it had robbed me of my greatest pleasure . I think I have earned the right to loathe one or two modern composers. Oh and I have listened to them as I have an enquiring mind and Qobuz and I still don't like them. Do not get me started on Stockhausen.
I loathe no composers, or musicians, Ervin Nyiregyházi for example ,or any other musician 😊 even if i had my own taste, choices, or habits...Loathing reflect more about us than about the music itself....
And loving Glass dont impede my love for Mozart "Cozi fan tutte" for example...
Then if someone take the time to express loathing about something, new, unknown, and perhaps about something he is not curious or ready to discover, perhaps the loathing is less useful than he think....
I dont remember loathing any kind of musical genre, even heavy metal...
I loathe too much decibels though....
Must i erase my recommendation ? Yes if too much people here loathe it...
By the way i dont remember to take my time to wrote hard words about a recommendation of music here or elsewhere because it is not abolutely pure "delicacy" to my fragile and sensitive taste....I guess i can chew much than some....
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
