What are you listening to right now? (VOL I)

Elgar's Enigma variations - delightful. I'd forgotten how much fun it is.

Ian

Voice of the Beehive "Let It Bee". Really good fun to listen to.

quote:

Originally posted by Earwicker:
Beethoven, Hammerklavier: Brendel (live). Enough to make other pianists shut up shop!

EW

Yes, one of the more telling and individual interpretations. I can�t but agree fully with you.

quote:

Originally posted by Earwicker:

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik H:
Is there a more beaytiful concerto for violin, violins or even any instrument?

Bartok No.2 for me please! Alban Berg's concerto also has a lot to offer.

I suppose the Brahms D major is probably the finest concerto ever written, however.

EW

Yes, I agree with you, that these are among the greatest violin concertos, but they can´t be compared directly to the Bach concertos,- too different styles. I wouldn´t like to miss any of them, except perhaps the Berg concerto. I don´t understand his language, maybe time will prove to be beneficial.

Dear EW,

pe-zulu really beat me to it. I was at concerts of the Berg twice in a fortnight a few years ago. I find it listenable, unlike most of the Second Vienese School. But I guess I am going the other way now. Back from Bach into the mists of time! Mind I would never be parted from Brahms or Sibelius, among the moderns. Perhaps I might add that I believe modern music starts with Wagner, so that you should not think I am being ridiculous!

And I have to say (pertaining to a discussion elsewhere) that I am no particular fan of the Organ Symphony, but I think music of any type which brings pleasure to people is fine, even if I don't care for it!!! The problem for me is that I am like a puppy dog. I can't contain my enthusiasm, and I love to see it in others! Even if I don't share their taste! So don't think me a tetchy git now will you!@!@!! I don't really think you are tendentious, either!

All the best Fredrik

E.S.T. They're playing Wellington next Thursday as a one off N.Z show and I'll be there.

Rick.

Gorillaz (first album, self-titled)

Steve

quote:

Originally posted by Ricky Dasler:
E.S.T. They're playing Wellington next Thursday as a one off N.Z show and I'll be there.

Rick.

Rick

E.S.T are one of the most exciting live bands you will see. I saw them in London a few years back and it was one of those shows that stuck in your mind for quite a while afterwards. Very exciting and dynamic. Enjoy the show - I see them myself next Wednesday in Sydney.

Adrian

Bob Seger and T.S.B.B. - Live BulletR/M. Excellent.

Howard

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik H:
Dear EW,

pe-zulu really beat me to it. I was at concerts of the Berg twice in a fortnight a few years ago. I find it listenable, unlike most of the Second Vienese School.

I think most opponents of Mr Schoenberg's serial "tone row" method of composition can still find a place for their hearts for Berg's violin concerto; certainly its depth, scope, and even superficial beauty are a benchmark in 20th century composition, hence its pre-eminence among modernist works.

By the way, if you guys are getting into violin music in D minor by J.S. Bach, I suppose you'll know the D minor chacconne? If not then you're missing out; it makes the D minor double concerto sound like the sugar plum fairy!

EW

Dear EW,

I have Grumiaux playing the big chaccone! [Used to have the boy Menuhin's recording, but not now]. I LOVE it, but keep it for very special occasions, as it deserves. I think sometimes one is in the mood for the private side, and more often in the mood for the public. And as I have said a hundred times before, there is something in Bach for everyman and lady! I have found no Bach I find intimidating, and I LOVE it all. I honestly cannot explain it, but it seems the deepest AND most straight-forward (emotionally, and not formally of course!) music there is. There is no sudden realisation of some weakness. He was a great humaine man. A lovely man, I would think from the way he kept his familly, and the music he wrote. I reckon you can also feel the gentle, kindly man behind Haydn'e creations too. Mozart strikes me very differently, and Beethoven seems to at least have been boorish (Of course he was, but I knew the music before the biographies!), just from a good deal of his output, which is not to suggest I don't like it. Walton was a nice man too, I reckon, especially perhaps when one listens to it next to Elgar's music, which shows a timid creature who was out to impress, in comparison so much of the time. He was at his greatest in his apparently least significant creations in my view, though I leave out the Enigma variatios, which are wonderfully open and grand too.

I adore the music of Sibelius, but he seems to me as a person, inscrutible.

I am sure I write rubbish, and will be thought mad. I'll stick with old Bach and Haydn, for they have no opinion on the matter...

All the best, dear EW, from Fredrik

PS: I am not really an oponent of Mr Schoenberg (or the rest of the Second Vienese School), or anything in music. It is doubtless my loss that I shall never find the time (or the necessary will) to try to undestand a completely new musical language. The old language was natural, and I think the Harmony of old Bach is the most clear example of Abstract Art having a meaning that is actually universally comprehensible. Maybe I aam wrong in this as well, but I think not. Bach's music catches the heart everytime, I find, with people who know no Art music of any sort, but who are immediately attracted by a carefully sellected starting point from his oevre.

Greenskeepers: Pleetch

Fredrik,

Are you familiar with the Elgar violin concerto? I can't imagine he wrote it to "impress" and it's certainly one of his best compositions - arguably finer than the 2nd Symphony and certainly better than "his" 3rd!! Sadly most recordings of it miss the point, but Sammons, Heifetz, and more recently Sitkovetsky have done it justice; apparently Tasmin Little has a great interpretation of this masterpiece that's yet to find its way onto disc...

EW

Cream's Reunion Concert at the Albert hall. I was there for one of the nights and despite what is said in another thread I thought it was a fabulous concert, to which the CD does full justice.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik H:
I have Grumiaux playing the big chaccone! Bach I find intimidating, and I LOVE it all. I honestly cannot explain it, but it seems the deepest AND most straight-forward (emotionally, and not formally of course!) music there is.
I am sure I write rubbish, and will be thought mad.

I have got it too. Grumiaux is one of those timeless musicians who like Walcha and Klemperer defined his own musical style, and added an individual and most often monumental perspective to the music.
Of course you don´t write rubbish, I always find basis for afterthought in your post.
Kind regards,

Porcupine Tree - Signify

Chris Rea's new mega set of Blue Guitars. 11 CD's & 1 DVD & I'm on the first CD now. Will let you know when I finish the lot!!!

So far, so good.

An unconditioned electrifying evening with the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet

Just enjoying the silence...

Wolf, Morike Lieder: Schreier, Engel. Incomparable music, incomparable tenor.

Wolf, Mignon Songs: von Otter, Gothoni. Words are inadequate!

EW

quote:

Originally posted by Earwicker:
Fredrik,

Are you familiar with the Elgar violin concerto? I can't imagine he wrote it to "impress" and it's certainly one of his best compositions - arguably finer than the 2nd Symphony and certainly better than "his" 3rd!! Sadly most recordings of it miss the point, but Sammons, Heifetz, and more recently Sitkovetsky have done it justice; apparently Tasmin Little has a great interpretation of this masterpiece that's yet to find its way onto disc...

EW

Dear EW,

I went to school for five years only half a mile from the Elgar Birthpace Museum, at the Firs, Broadheath... One of the most cherished musical childhood memories I have is carrying the HMV Album No 164 of the Elgar Concerto (all twelve sides!) with the boy Menuhin playing under the composere's direction. The LSO in highly attentive accompaniment! I played the whole set through on one of the great man's gramophones... I walked up on my own, one Saturday afternoon. That would not be a reasonable thing to attempt nowadays I suspect. Can you imagine what the School Inspectors would make of it! Now I love that performance. I now have those very 78s (I could not possibly remember the no otherwise!), BUT the performance I love the best is the Sammons... No modern recording gets nearly so close, for me, to the wistful almost will-o-the wisp nature of it. But it now strikes me as almost shapeless as music, and terribly indulgent. Yes that is my problem. I look back on a time when I was more an artistic romantic, but all our tastes change over the years. Not musch romantic music still catches me like it used to, but the depth of some music is FAR deeper for me than it was then, so that my favoured listening and study has moved towards it. I remain curious about ALL music, but no longer prepared to spend twenty years trying to fathom it! I did that with the Missa Solemnis, and I adore it now, but used to find (as a child) it quite impossible, at much the same time I would have placed Elgar above Schubert in my affections! Misguided child!

I would still enjoy going to a concert of the Elgar. The last time was in Hereford Cathedral with Tasmin Little who plays it just right I think! As an interesting observation from the composer himself, he really disapproved of Heifetz' reading*, but I shall not trot out why, but suggest you read JN Moore's Elgar A Creative Life, which sheeds a very balanced but never-the-less fascinatingly probing view of Elgar the composer and Elgar the man. Not a hagiography or a demolishion job, but a deeply probing biography of the man by someone who is more than obviously a great Elgar fanatic, but not blind to the man's problems as well. I am sure it will be in any good library. I think it is over 50 GBP now.

Fredrik

*PS: I see that I covered this in my Thread, First Concertos, which has returned to circulation, and where I stated exactly what was Elgar's view of Heifetz the musicican (as opposed to violinist technician) really was, so you may care to have a look at it...

Rammstein -Mutter and Enya - Rain ---
Rammstein are good innit
Jag

Zappa: The man from Utopia

Regards form Slovenia,
Bostjan

Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd - Reaction in G from Rotterdam October 12, 1967

An 80's session via Lp:
George Michael - Faith
Roxy Music - Avalon
Depeche Mode - Construction Time Again...

tee hee