W. A. Mozart: The Overture to Don Giovanni.
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What are you listening to? Part III
- Thread starter S.B.G
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I was on the phone to a newspaper today about a subscription issue and they briefly put me on hold... and I was treated to a very clear transmission of a Mozart piano concerto in the meantime (K537, Coronation). It was like a drink of cool water in this horrid August heat, so of course after that I was off to my library to fetch up more Mozart piano concerti for the lunch hour.
Which just adds to the confusion, in my opinion. That said, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, and probably isn't much of a real debate here. Nice to see interest in such topics, though.
Song #4 on that album is awesome.
How lovely, a company with some taste, and what a pleasant and unexpected surprise.
Yesterday, I, too, heard a Mozart Piano Concerto - the Piano Concerto No 21, (K467). Gorgeous.
Mr Mozart is perfect for late summer early autumn days.
Just now, am listening to Piano Sonata No 16, K 545 - Allegro, Andante, and Rondo
Just now, am listening to Piano Sonata No 16, K 545 - Allegro, Andante, and Rondo
Brilliant - I love Rachmaninov; do enjoy.
And, @LizKat, thanks to your post of yesterday which reminded me that I haven't listened to this in an absolute age, I am now listening to the inestimable Mr Mozart - with the Piano Concerto No 26 (Coronation) K537.
I played some classical music for my mother today; of all of the pieces I played (some mentioned in a number of earlier posts), she really enjoyed The Ride of the Valkyries. (Richard Wagner).
Which just adds to the confusion, in my opinion. That said, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, and probably isn't much of a real debate here. Nice to see interest in such topics, though.
Song #4 on that album is awesome.
Yes, it is incredibly oppressive-sounding and thick with foreboding.
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https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/voirshn/616084625
Listening to the latest offering from Any Major Dude With Half A Heart. This week he has gifted his readers with another CD length collection. This weeks is:
Any Major Originals: The 1980s
A collection of original songs that saw success from other artists in the 80's. He has put together some really good originals, (like Iggy Pop's "China Girl", which saw great success when covered by Bowie). I really look forward to his weekly music offerings. There is always something new (to me) and unique. All timed to fit on a CD. Go get it and remind yourself to check back next Thursday to see what's new!
Any Major Originals: The 1980s
A collection of original songs that saw success from other artists in the 80's. He has put together some really good originals, (like Iggy Pop's "China Girl", which saw great success when covered by Bowie). I really look forward to his weekly music offerings. There is always something new (to me) and unique. All timed to fit on a CD. Go get it and remind yourself to check back next Thursday to see what's new!
his 27th is incredible!
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i'm adding a 5 disc set of all his piano sonatas now
I too really like that, even if Americans should probably think twice of it for its once and still employed purpose, literally the coronation of your lot's kings and queens...
But that never stopped me listening to Mozart's K537 so why stop at the crowning of a Holy Roman Emperor?
Must admit the ceremonies attending the placing of crowns do seem to inspire some memorable music. However,,, but there I shall stop going down this road lest I politicize the thread.
At the moment I'm listening to very seasonal music: Anonymous 4's wonderful 1998 recording of A Lammas Ladymass: 13th and 14th Century English Chant and Polyphony.
About Lammas, the wheat festival:
Lammas Day (Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, "loaf-mass"), is a holiday celebrated in some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere, usually between 1 August and 1 September. It is a festival to mark the annual wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop, which began to be harvested at Lammastide, which falls at the halfway point between the summer Solstice and Autumn September Equinox.
The loaf was blessed, and in Anglo-Saxon England it might be employed afterwards to work magic: a book of Anglo-Saxon charms directed that the lammas bread be broken into four bits, which were to be placed at the four corners of the barn, to protect the garnered grain.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lammas
The loaf was blessed, and in Anglo-Saxon England it might be employed afterwards to work magic: a book of Anglo-Saxon charms directed that the lammas bread be broken into four bits, which were to be placed at the four corners of the barn, to protect the garnered grain.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lammas
I too really like that, even if Americans should probably think twice of it for its once and still employed purpose, literally the coronation of your lot's kings and queens...
But that never stopped me listening to Mozart's K537 so why stop at the crowning of a Holy Roman Emperor?
Must admit the ceremonies attending the placing of crowns do seem to inspire some memorable music. However,,, but there I shall stop going down this road lest I politicize the thread.
.......
Well, as with the play MacBeth (which I have long thought a clever piece of political brown nosing on the part of a bright playwright trying to win favour from the court of a new king, and crafting and drafting plays which were contrived to offer reassurance to a King who may have harboured doubts as to the legitimacy and antiquity of parts of his ancestral line), Handel may well have had a bit of a political agenda (or was just indulging in a spot of plain brown nosing) with this piece of music (written for the coronation of George II in 1727).
After all, from what I have read, Handel seems to have been somewhat similar to Mozart, a man with a dislike for expressing habits of deference, and reluctant to see himself as anyone's social or intellectual inferior.
Certainly, he did leave Hannover - at short notice, or no notice - to avail of better opportunities and a more cosmopolitan atmosphere in London, something which is said to have irked the Electors of Hannover, his employers, who, to what must have been Handel's dismay, wound up as crowned Kings of England (and the rest of what had just become the UK) in 1714, a few years later. Bridges needed to be built and relationships repaired (on both sides) and - apparently - were.
And there is the story of Eroica symphony.
Yes, you are absolutely right: Coronations and music - even when the music is sublime - may well be uneasy bedfellows for all sorts of reasons.
Fascinating.
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Listen to 1st song released from Cher’s ABBA cover album. Awful.
Heard Fernando from Mamma Mia earlier, that was no good either.
But with all that auto tune on Gimme, gimme, gimme! It only showed she can’t sing
anything else then the songs written for her. It only showed, she have a really flat voice.
I have liked some Cher in my life, but this was really bad.
On the positive side, I listened to ABBA all night working.
I even appreciate Agnetha’s and Frida’s voices more now. They are really extraordinary.
SOO awesome together.
So looking forward to the 2 NEW ABBA songs coming later this year.
Heard Fernando from Mamma Mia earlier, that was no good either.
But with all that auto tune on Gimme, gimme, gimme! It only showed she can’t sing
anything else then the songs written for her. It only showed, she have a really flat voice.
I have liked some Cher in my life, but this was really bad.
On the positive side, I listened to ABBA all night working.
I even appreciate Agnetha’s and Frida’s voices more now. They are really extraordinary.
SOO awesome together.
So looking forward to the 2 NEW ABBA songs coming later this year.
Samuel Barber selections for me today.
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 / Dover Beach / Hermit Songs / Andromache's Farewell
This album has great performances of some well known Barber compositions. Not every day one can end up with Eleanor Steber, Martina Arroyo, Leontyne Price, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Schippers & NY Philharmonic, Juilliard String Quartet and Samuel Barber himself on one disc.
Steber commissioned the Knoxville piece, based loosely on a text by James Agee that ended up as preface to one of his books.
Andromache's Farewell is a scene from the 415BC Euripides play The Trojan Women. All blustery and tender at once, Arroyo is magnificent as the widowed Andromache addressing her young son Astyanax after learning he is about to be thrown to his death from the walls of the city of Troy -- since the Greeks fear he will otherwise grow up to avenge the death of his father, Hector, whom Achilles has slain. It's amazing how many times Euripides' entire play has been produced or adapted in modern times, never mind all the musical settings of Andromache's tragedies and triumphs. But it was certainly the very essence of Greek tragedy...
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 / Dover Beach / Hermit Songs / Andromache's Farewell
This album has great performances of some well known Barber compositions. Not every day one can end up with Eleanor Steber, Martina Arroyo, Leontyne Price, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Schippers & NY Philharmonic, Juilliard String Quartet and Samuel Barber himself on one disc.
Steber commissioned the Knoxville piece, based loosely on a text by James Agee that ended up as preface to one of his books.
Andromache's Farewell is a scene from the 415BC Euripides play The Trojan Women. All blustery and tender at once, Arroyo is magnificent as the widowed Andromache addressing her young son Astyanax after learning he is about to be thrown to his death from the walls of the city of Troy -- since the Greeks fear he will otherwise grow up to avenge the death of his father, Hector, whom Achilles has slain. It's amazing how many times Euripides' entire play has been produced or adapted in modern times, never mind all the musical settings of Andromache's tragedies and triumphs. But it was certainly the very essence of Greek tragedy...
W. A. Mozart - Piano Concerto No 20 in D Minor: K 466, (No 2 - Romance).
I'm up for that. Here's a performance from the Green Mountain Project..
-- a couple of excerpts from L'Orfeo, including "Vi ricorda, o boschi ombrosi", performed by Zachary Wilder and the Ensemble Clematis. btw I have Clematis' album Monteverdi & Rossi: Balli & Sonate, which is wonderful and includes the works performed here.