Classical music [Youtube Clips]

[ihno]

You're welcome, gorgik.

I so much love Zelenka, since I discovered him two years ago or so. This Missa votiva is so wonderful, esp. the Gloria and the ... okay, the whole missa is just great.

I've also found the "missa a tre cori" by Antonio Lotti, who was a contemporary, an opera composer at the court of Dresden, where Zelenka also worked, along Heinichen and Hasse. The Lotti mass is unfortunately not at youtube. But soo great!

 

[gorgik9]

@ ihno

Thanks again! So my guess is Zelenka is just about mid-18th century, correct?

 

[ihno]

Zelenka was five or six years older than Bach. From beginning up to middle 18th century.

I'll write a bit about him today or tomorrow, what I find interesting about him.

 

[njames]

Classical music

How nice and refreshing. Talk of requiems! You can't beat Mozart's for the dramatic but have you heard the lovely Faure? When it comes to just the piano there's a brilliant Deutcher Gramophone recording of Debussy's etudes. It's a delight.
Love, James.

 

[ihno]

Thanks, njames.

Talking of Mozart's Requiem, if you know more sacral works of this time you'll see that it was maybe more common than individual.

Listen to the Requiem by Michael Haydn, Joseph's brother, which was written 20 years before Mozarts around 1770 (I think) and is purely breathtaking!



It's stylistically very similar to Mozart's, but also reminds of Joseph Haydn and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.

In baroque times - a generation earlier - Requiems were usually works indicated to to represent the power of the deceased. They were not sad works in a modern or romantic way or works with a soothing character like the German Requiem by Brahms. So you had "happy" Requiems in c-major like this one by Hasse, who was the chief composer at the Saxon Court:



This Requiem from 1733 is by the czech composer J.D. Zelenka, who was also at the Saxon Court but who had to stand back behind Hasse:



It's very festive, with "timpani and trumpets" (which is still a saying in jirmen "mit Pauken und Trompeten") and from today's view much better than Hasse's.

The requiems by J. Haydn and Mozart follow the strain where the music gradually turned from "outer" reasons more to the inner side.

 

[gorgik9]

@ ihno

Truly magnificent:thumbs up::thumbs up:! First all the wonderful 18th century music, and then a small but splendid lecture by professor ihno:applause::applause::applause:!

It doesn't get any better "in jirmen",does it? :thumbs up::cheers::thumbs up:

Skitbra, helt enkelt!!! (And thats NOT in jirmen...thats frekkin Schwedisch...)

 

[BigBenni]

Josef Strauß - Chatterbox

 

[gorgik9]

@ ihno

Thanks to you ihno, I've just found a new musical favourite - Zelenka!

So god, so beautiful, so everything!

:heart:

 

[xxbaxxx]

Moonlight Sonata! <3

 

[ihno]

Before I start my ihno-is-a-Zelenka-fanboy-praise I think it would be good to explain a bit about church music first. I know some are interested in knowing a bit about the background, so here it is, although simplified:

So – you might ask: What is a church? A church is often the biggest building in the village, often with a tower and there is pub nearby.

Sacral music, missae and the Requiems/death masses of the 18. century were based on a plain counterpoint (antic style) like Palestrina has written.

Some examples:
This is 15th century, Ockeghem:


Late renaissance, Palestrina:


So it’s okay to say that this traditional choral music was the main ingredient.
Around that ground other music was placed.

With Mr. Bach it sounded like this. He didn't use Palestrina but a choral of Martin Luther „Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”:



What Bach used to do with it:


Italian Style, Vivaldi's Magnificat, which is just magnificent. Different and influenced Bach and Zelenka a lot:

 

[haiducii]

Music history

Dear ihno (& others),
thank you for sharing all these interesting things about classical music.
Very interesting reading :thinking: Keep on posting, please
I will regularly attend your class of music history...I promise

 

[gorgik9]

Dear ihno!

I think your work in this thread is so good the only thing I can say is the plain old : Thank you very much!

Only on GH!!!

 

[ihno]

Thanks, my friends, I'm happy if you like it.

Jan Dismas Zelenka was a bohemian composer born in Lounovice in 1679. His father was a musician. We don’t know too much about him, we don’t even a picture of him. The picture you get, when you google for him is actually Mr. Fux.

Like Vivaldi and Bach Zelenka got forgotten and was only rediscovered after 1975. His work survived in the Dresden library – so we mostly only have, what he wrote at and for the Saxon Court. His catalogue has around 250 numbers, though I think we have only 150. 100 are lost. The oldest work we have is from 1709. Only 50 of the works (or so) have been recorded on CD so far.

In 1710 or 1711 Zelenka became a player of the contrabass in the band of the Royal Court of Dresden under August II. Dresden was a centre of good composers at that time. There was Johann David Heinichen, the Court-Composer/Bandmaster. This is a concert of Heinichen, which is in the Italian style:



Heinichen was often ill, so Zelenka often acted in his place. Heinichen died in 1729.

Zelenka was a real late starter, who only began to compose after he was around 30/40. Between 1716 and 1719, during a stay of the Saxon Prince in Vienna, he had the opportunity to take lessons from Johann Joseph Fux, who was a master in the art of counterpoint - the art of harmony - and basso continuo, another foundation of baroque music.



Fux

 

[ihno]

Now to Zelenka – his orchestral/chamber/non vocal music. Zelenka started composing on a larger scale after 1720.

Zelenka wrote quite a handful of orchestral works (which was quite a new thing in 1720): “Ouvertures”, Capriccii, Concerti and some “simphonie”s. The names were not yet that specific at the time.

Those works were to be used like Handel’s Concerti grossi or Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and the four Overtures: Music for theatrical breaks or just as background music. The word “Capriccio” (pleasure) illustrates that quite good.

This is a piece I posted before, which shows one of his characteristics: Zelenka was rather fond of disharmonics, something Italian too, putting little notes who don’t “belong” or doing brutal modulations (change from one tonality to another).

So his music still makes you ask “is there something wrong?”
Like with Capriccio No 1 in D Major ZWV 182



Listen from 0:49 – you can hear it very easily at this point but if goes through many of his works. It still sounds odd – imagine how I may have sounded 300 years ago.

The work is supposed to be written in 1717. Most of his orchestral works were early works, he didn’t write much after 1730 but this again is a bit unclear to us.

This a fantastic overture, those were played before some theatre-play, the word was also used for a Suite:



A sinfonia:


Next time (maybe ) something about the sacral music.

 

[ihno]

Did you know that there is a recording of all Bach-cantatas in JAPANESE out there? I tried to find it at youtube but if they are out there, the description might be in japanese too...

This I found:

 

[creslinwest]

Church music and Zelenka

Thanks ihno for your overview of church music. I loved the gratias agimus tibi from the Missa Votiva and had a quick look over at youtube and found the a video of the entire work and I'll have to set aside some time later for a listen through.

I have always loved Renaissance church music and this is one of my favourite motets. Nesciens Mater by Mouton.

 

[Tom]

I just discovered this group. Love them. Amici

 

[sunandmoon]

An example of Ukrainian baroque choral music

 

[revilo]

feelin

:thumbs up:

right!

 

[roamer]