|
George Garnett
|
 |
« Reply #2115 on: 14:01:59, 03-02-2008 » |
|
This week I have mostly been listening to:  An utter marvel. I love this man more and more. The performances sound pretty wonderful to me but I don't know enough about other performances, or Schutz performance practice generally, to know how they compare. I don't think I would want them to be any more sumptuous than they are here and can imagine that a more 'austere' approach might be wonderful too. It's been a great discovery. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Stanley Stewart
|
|
« Reply #2116 on: 16:38:50, 03-02-2008 » |
|
Thanks for the lead on the Heinich Schutz, George. Incidentally, following your comments on another thread, last week, I now have a copy of Primo Levi's 'If This Is A Man' in the Everyman's Library series; together with a paperback 'Primo Time', Antony Sher's diary of his 'trachles' in bringing 'Primo' to the stage. From the incidental to the coincidental, I'm now spinning 'Music of the Comedian Harmonists', performed by the Dutch group Frommermann (Channel Classics). The original Harmonists. a charming and witty German ensemble, founded by Harry Frommermann, in 1927, comprised of five singers and a pianist who performed with huge success in the late 20s and early 30s, until forced to disband by the Nazis in 1935. The present group are very stylish in close harmony arrangements which include Friedrich Hollander, Dvorak, Rossini, Porter and Harold Arlen. I gather that a 3 CD set of the original artists is now available and I'm sorely tempted!  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
|
|
« Reply #2117 on: 17:05:33, 03-02-2008 » |
|
This week I have mostly been listening to
Now I've been and gone and ordered it and it's all your fault. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Bryn
|
|
« Reply #2118 on: 17:26:31, 03-02-2008 » |
|
Well wadyano ollie, I emailed the supplier who cancelled the order and refunded the costs to me, advising them that the item was still shown as being available on the Amazon UK website. They have written back thanking me for getting in contact and saying that they seem to have a bug in their system which is automatically, and erroneously, cancelling orders, and would I please re-order, which I have. Let's wait and see what happens.  Well, wadyano now? After re-ordering, the boxed set of Debussy and Ravel piano music arrived. I had not read the listing thoroughly enough and had not noticed that it had but 3 discs devoted to Debussy, and that the Ravel discs included the two piano concertos. Damn it, I thought, I should not have re-ordered the separate disc of the piano concertos and Gaspard ... . However, I then got another email advising that they were unable to complete the re-order, i.e. the same automated system error as the previous order, so I now await a confirmation of a second refund.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel
|
|
« Reply #2119 on: 19:53:04, 03-02-2008 » |
|
 Whatever the other ups and downs in my life, Brahms seems like a fairly constant source of richness, imagination, depth of feeling and just sincerity really. I am listening to this lovely performance of the piano quartets at the moment. There was a thread about Brahms at TOP as a smug and self-satisfied composer, which is really beyond me. He, and possibly Schumann, seem somehow the least appropriate targets of those adjectives that I can think of. Emotionally at least, to me their music feels very often like broken fragments trying to reassemble themselves, and there is a heavy-heartedness lying beneath the music even when it is quite bombastic. It is amazing how differently people can hear things. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #2120 on: 22:00:16, 03-02-2008 » |
|
There was a thread about Brahms at TOP as a smug and self-satisfied composer, which is really beyond me. He, and possibly Schumann, seem somehow the least appropriate targets of those adjectives that I can think of. Emotionally at least, to me their music feels very often like broken fragments trying to reassemble themselves, and there is a heavy-heartedness lying beneath the music even when it is quite bombastic. It is amazing how differently people can hear things.
As mentioned elsewhere, D, some of the current crop at TOP seem more interested in laying their own ignorance and prejudices wide for all the world to see than sharing, learning and discussing, which is one of the reasons it has large tracts of threads full of vitriol and axe-grinding at present. It's sad to see, but makes me truly thankful that this board arrived when it did, almost exactly a year ago. Perhaps that sense of yearning, of a life not completely fulfilled which permeates much of Brahms's music strikes a chord of recognition in some which they find uncomfortable: a sort of denial, if you like. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #2121 on: 22:08:23, 03-02-2008 » |
|
To be honest, I'm still grappling with Brahms. I recognise so much of what you say, Daniel and Ron; and I've been forcibly struck with an awful lot of Ian P's passionate advocacy of Brahms in many threads over the months. But, whereas I recognise the genius, admire the craft, am moved on many occasions by the interaction of those things, I still don't quite 'click' with him, as I do with, say, Schumann. There are glorious exceptions to this - much of the late piano music, symphs 1 and 2 (not the others), the concerti, some of the choral music. I don't know. I just need to understand him better, but there's a kind of veil between us.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
Il Grande Inquisitor
|
|
« Reply #2122 on: 22:25:50, 03-02-2008 » |
|
With the rain pelting down outside and all this talk of Brahms, there's only one thing for it:  I'd agree that he's a difficult composer to 'get' - there's not the thrill of Beethoven (I find), but I think it's that sense of yearning, as Ron wrote, which I find heart-achingly beautiful. The chamber music, the clarinet sonatas, trio and quintet in particular, are filled with nostalgia and 'what-might-have-beens' and I'm often happy to wrap myself up in it. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
|
|
|
|
Antheil
|
|
« Reply #2123 on: 22:37:44, 03-02-2008 » |
|
I too don't 'get' Brahms but I find I have PC No. 2 which I will take upstairs and listen to in bed after this rather emotional roller coaster of a weekend.
Sleep well, everyone
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #2124 on: 22:47:11, 03-02-2008 » |
|
martle, It's a case of how the brain's wired, isn't it? The mere fact that the music you yourself produce (well virtually all of it up till now ) has a brighter, more open and optimistic nature than that of Brahms suggests that your mindset is of a different character. Britten famously had a problem with Brahms's music too, much in the same way as others have problems with Britten. The big difference is that you don't use it as an excuse for attacking his music and calling it 'rubbish' (or 'creepy'). I've quietly mentioned a couple of composers whose music does nothing for me from time to time: I recognise their genius or ability, but there's nothing which connects or excites me; my problem, not theirs. There's so much out there that does work for me that I'm quite happy to concentrate on that and (I hope) find more which will push my buttons. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #2125 on: 22:55:06, 03-02-2008 » |
|
Indeed, Ron. I'm very conscious of its being my loss since I do recognise its phenomenal qualities, and I so much want to love it. Perhaps I'll grow into it with advancing age... |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #2126 on: 23:02:41, 03-02-2008 » |
|
I'm rather interested to know what those who don't really 'get' Brahms feel about Schoenberg (any period of his work)?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
oliver sudden
|
|
« Reply #2127 on: 23:04:03, 03-02-2008 » |
|
I don't really get Schoenberg but would certainly count myself among the Brahms-getters. Don't know if that's at all helpful... |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #2128 on: 01:42:10, 04-02-2008 » |
|
I'm rather interested to know what those who don't really 'get' Brahms feel about Schoenberg (any period of his work)?
I've never had the slightest problem with either, in fact they're two of the composers I feel most instinctively drawn to. (That's not meant to sound smug, just to say that maybe you're right to imply there's a connection between the two, since I'm aware they're both composers other people frequently have difficulties with.) Now spinning, incidentally: a very fast 'Comfort ye' which has just segued (via a somewhat noticeable 2 second 'track-at-once' gap, tut tut ) into an almost equally alacritous 'Ev'ry valley'. I'm enjoying this, and am even coming back round to Roderick Williams' voice, I think. Jesus. AndthegloryoftheLordisthismanonspeedorsomething?! |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 02:27:38, 04-02-2008 by time_is_now »
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
oliver sudden
|
|
« Reply #2129 on: 08:46:09, 04-02-2008 » |
|
Ah, sorry tinners, I meant to fix that up before passing it on...  It's just a direct copy of a CD one of the altos gave me. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
