Dead-Composers Society

[Lux Apollo]

Louis Spohr - Fantasie in c-moll

 

[AC Benus]

Louis Spohr - Fantasie in c-moll

 

 

 

First time listening to this… I like and am intrigued by what I perceive to be a 17th century sensibility in the introduction section. I’m reminded that some critics of Gluck’s music commented on his Age of Reason elements, so I suppose some ‘ancient’ music was well known even in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. 

 

 

Thanks for posting this; I’ll have to give it a few more hearings.

Edited January 2, 2017 by AC Benus

[Lux Apollo]

Some New Year's Day selections for you... Enjoy!

 

 

1) Strauss II's Champagne Polka:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZXC_x6bqLQ

 

 

2) Katchaturian's Masquerade Suite:

 

[AC Benus]

Some New Year's Day selections for you... Enjoy!

 

 

1) Strauss II's Champagne Polka:

 

 

 

Polkas are fun to dance...

[Parker Owens]

With the snow swirling around outside, I feel like this....

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtgLCUuJEV8

[AC Benus]

Sorry, guys…I'll listen to your new postings soon…

 

 

I've been trying to shake off the January doldrums, and felt a bit of highly masculine music is called for. Enter the Gloria from Cherubini's coronation mass for Charles X.

 

What to say about the wunderkind of Luigi Cherubini…? A survivor comes to mind first. An Italian who made his first splash in Paris in 1788 with a royal opera, not only eked through the revolution but positively thrived with his pro-people Lodoïska in 1791. The fame and national-hero status he gained from it is the only thing that saved his neck during the terror. Fortune stuck again as Napoleon shunned him and his work, but he found a position at the Academy and weathered that. Re-enter the Bourbons and he was chosen to write the coronation mass of Louis XVIII.

 

The man's career spanned a period where he strongly influenced everyone from Mozart to Verdi, and in fact, had his last stage triumph in 1833 with Ali Baba, at the height of Rossini's popularity.     

 

 

Messe solonnelle pour le courennement de Charles X (1825)

 

Gloria

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0mVqaAd4oY

Edited January 11, 2017 by AC Benus

[AC Benus]

….And this serenely beautiful piece as well…one of the offertoriums from the same coronation mass

 

 

O salutaris hostias

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt826GIIvxQ

Edited January 9, 2017 by AC Benus

[AC Benus]

With the snow swirling around outside, I feel like this....

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtgLCUuJEV8

Oh, you snuck it in… I see your skating, and offer a number from his first album (1956, I think…?) for you in return. Gershwin's Looking for a Boy

 

This piece highlights his playing method and the almost unearthly way his right and left hands sound like two completely different performers at work.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJYOlTU4nu8

[Lux Apollo]

Some snowy piano music by Debussy (even though it's switched to freezing rain here today... Bleh!):

 

From the Children's Corner suite, 'La neige qui danse':

 

 

 

(As a quick aside, most performers use abundant pedal, but many feel that you should use little - and only half damper when pedal is indicated - otherwise the snow turns into a drizzle more akin to 'Jardins sous la pluie' from Estampes, so I have chosen to show this version where little pedal is used)

 

 

Now 'Des pas sur la neige' from Book 1 of the Preludes:

 

[Parker Owens]

I am consistently delighted with the range and breadth and depth of the music shared here. I am especially indebted to all of you who help me grow musically. Thank you.

[Lux Apollo]

I am consistently delighted with the range and breadth and depth of the music shared here. I am especially indebted to all of you who help me grow musically. Thank you.

 

I agree. I love all the sharing of great stuff, bringing me back to a place I'd mostly left behind in the mess of my PhD studies. Thanks for starting this, A.C., and to everyone who has contributed!

[Parker Owens]

Some snowy piano music by Debussy (even though it's switched to freezing rain here today... Bleh!):

 

From the Children's Corner suite, 'La neige qui danse':

 

 

 

(As a quick aside, most performers use abundant pedal, but many feel that you should use little - and only half damper when pedal is indicated - otherwise the snow turns into a drizzle more akin to 'Jardins sous la pluie' from Estampes, so I have chosen to show this version where little pedal is used)

 

 

Now 'Des pas sur la neige' from Book 1 of the Preludes:

 

 

I was especially struck by the juxtaposition of music an visual images in the second selection. Each phrase considered, measured, like a move on the chessboard; and all in the wintertime of our lives....a poem in a few deft images. And did the camera foreshorten the length of the performer's fingers, or is there hope for stubby fingered musicians after all?

[AC Benus]

I agree. I love all the sharing of great stuff, bringing me back to a place I'd mostly left behind in the mess of my PhD studies. Thanks for starting this, A.C., and to everyone who has contributed!

Well, maybe this is as good a place as any, but I like it best when our little exchanges are commented on.... I guess a 'board' is just where stuff is pinned, but a 'forum' is where ideas are shared  

 

I do try to listen and comment on everything, although sometimes I fall way short, so apologies. I too appreciate having my musical knowledge broadened. A new day, a new piece (at least). 

 

Thanks, guys  

[Parker Owens]

Oh, you snuck it in… I see your skating, and offer a number from his first album (1956, I think…?) for you in return. Gershwin's Looking for a Boy

 

This piece highlights his playing method and the almost unearthly way his right and left hands sound like two completely different performers at work.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJYOlTU4nu8

 I so enjoyed listening to your Guaraldi Trio selection - it is easy to forget how much great music he made; Charlie Brown seemed to put a fence around him. Anyway, thanks a ton - I loved it!

[Lux Apollo]

I was especially struck by the juxtaposition of music an visual images in the second selection. Each phrase considered, measured, like a move on the chessboard; and all in the wintertime of our lives....a poem in a few deft images. And did the camera foreshorten the length of the performer's fingers, or is there hope for stubby fingered musicians after all?

 

Then you might like Barenboim's whole video going through the whole first book of Debussy's Préludes, and a couple other selections:

 

[Parker Owens]

So much to think about in this hour of music and discussion. I was especially taken by the comment on the connection and translation of language in to music....

[Lux Apollo]

Barenboim is the real deal.

[Parker Owens]

Was thinking about Barenboim, and then about Debussy...and came to the realization that Debussy played for and knew Liszt, who was (reportedly) blessed by Beethoven. What a chain of acquaintance....

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0FbQZCsYXVg

[AC Benus]

Was thinking about Barenboim, and then about Debussy...and came to the realization that Debussy played for and knew Liszt, who was (reportedly) blessed by Beethoven. What a chain of acquaintance....

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0FbQZCsYXVg

 

The Liszt and Beethoven connection is more direct. Both were composition students of Antonio Salieri, and in fact Liszt was his last major serious student.  

[Lux Apollo]

Haydn also taught Beethoven for a time - they connected when Haydn made his way through Bonn on the way to London, and again when Haydn was journeying back. Major lineages indeed!

[AC Benus]

I hadn't heard about Haydn, but I know when he was 17, Beethoven's father obtained a letter of introduction for him to Mozart in Vienna. I'm not sure he ever recorded the afternoon from his perspective, but Mozart and his wife were entertaining the day the overly-serious young man from Bonn showed up.

 

The kid was nervous. Although the intention was for Beethoven to get taken on by Mozart as his student, he had received a letter from home that morning saying his mother was gravely ill. All he wanted to do was fly back to Bonn, but he met with the maestro anyway.

 

Later, Mozart's wife recorded the happenings. The boy showed up looking pale; Mozart read the letter and asked him a few questions; he then led him into the other room. The party heard the boy playing. First one of Mozart's piano concertos; then a second. Finally they heard some passionate music they took to be the young man's original composition.

 

After Mozart agreed to take him on as a student, saying his playing of his music was a little flat, but shone when he performed his own, the young man left, saying when he returned to Vienna he'd make the arrangements.

 

As soon as he was gone, Mozart turned to his guests and said: "Keep your eye on that boy. He's going to make a very big noise in the world."

 

By the time student-Beethoven had returned to Vienna, Mozart was dead.

 

He interviewed and was selected by Salieri as a student. Incidentally, I know Beethoven was very, very fond of his liebermeister, calling Salieri one of the nicest and most considerate men he'd ever met.    

 

---

 

I'm in no way a fan of Beethoven, but I believe I've read his first Piano Quartet dates from the time he was about 17 years old, so here it is

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr0hc1J4tU4

Edited January 17, 2017 by AC Benus

[AC Benus]

Today is Mozart birthday, so I thought I'd share something you're not likely to have heard. His hauntingly eternal Masonic Funeral Music. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okFlNAl7HQQ

[Parker Owens]

Today is Mozart birthday, so I thought I'd share something you're not likely to have heard. His hauntingly eternal Masonic Funeral Music. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okFlNAl7HQQ

 

Thank you for sharing this. It was unfamiliar to me. It reminds me of Beethoven in its character; meditative, deliberate, somber. So perfectly apt. A wonderful piece.

[AC Benus]

Some Hasse

 

Digli ch'io son fedele

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nra11oLXr8w&list=PLE1DBB332A058848E&index=2

[Parker Owens]

Some Hasse

 

Digli ch'io son fedele

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nra11oLXr8w&list=PLE1DBB332A058848E&index=2

 

Under what rock have I been living that I have missed this? So lovely in its baroque simplicity.