Classical music [Youtube Clips]

[krissieslut_au]

The very sexy Valentina Lisitsa playing Rachmaninov preludes

 

[peter123]

These Young People do a great Job........

 

[ihno]

@ ihno
Lovely Post!!! I've never heard of Aumann before...

Thanks.
It's from a great cd I introduced before:

http://www.gayheaven.org/showpost.php?p=1439460&postcount=460

I like both works and performance.

Another great one is the Requiem by Abbé Vogler from 1805/06:



This is not available for me in Jirmeny, it might work for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SrMeEfejkU&list=PL5QArmMxa_IEtWOiqDC9rFd1aL0WsEhw1&index=33

 

[jjjack]

Prokofiev sunrise

One of the 20th century's most valuable gems---playful, magical, primordial---it ends like most acid trips: worshipping the sunrise. You know, like The Sopranos episode where Tony goes to Cali to take peyote.



Wonderful rhythmic vitality and originality. Just before climax, we see the sun's first rays in the harps and xylophone, followed by the orb itself in the french horns. Not the best orchestra in the world, but it's gotta be the most physically beautiful. Look at all those musically talented studs! And while we're feasting our eyes on their faces, the excellent film editing schools us on the evolution of P's fantastical orchestration. Geez, even the flautists are macho. Another piece I've been listening to since I was a 19-year-old druggie.

 

[jo12sh]

Never expected to find this thread here. I've got a number of hours of listening and a bunch of thanks button presses ahead of me, but wanted to leave something first.



Technically jazz, but there's probably not a jazz composer with a more orchestral style out there than Charles Mingus.

 

[jjjack]

little Russian

A little Russian wins in Budapest:



A heart-melting performance to what is probably one of John Williams' best tunes, certainly his most sorrowful. The conquering spirit come to life---this little wisp on ice. More like floating than skating. Note the subtle beginning, with its oversimplistic moves and the haunting look back.

 

[edkiko]

great

 

[jjjack]

fukk me, beat me, make me write bad music

Cannot get enough of these studs! Imagine the passionate faces they must be capable of! Yeah, I’m “sick” that way---LOL. With Abbado at the helm, this treat is all the more miraculous.



Tchaikovsky’s Sixth (dubbed “The Pathetique”) is like the peak of Romanticism---and the end of it. Arguably the most beloved symphony of all, judging by the frequency of its performance. Premiered in 1897 with the composer conducting (in St. Petersburg). Just days later, Tchaikovsky was dead. Evidently, he made a few corrections in that brief time, so the true premier of its final form was at his memorial service. He considered it his best work. Whether that is true or not, most certainly it has never lost its monumental power to move.

The final theme is impossibly hopeful and despondent at the same time. Even without knowing about T’s death, you feel the coda's devastation. It’s hard to imagine a march more rousing than the 3rd movement---great wake-up music! Invigorates the spirit and catapults it to the sky. Regarding the 2nd movement, when has anything more clever been written in 5/4? The main theme is the star of the 1st movement. One of the most memorable themes ever composed. Everyone knows it and can easily reproduce it. However, despite the Pathetique’s irreplaceable entrenchment in the musical canon, its NYC premiere, in the very late 1800s, did not go so well. One critic snarked, “It’s difficult to be sentimental on the bass drum.” LOL! Too bad he’s not around now to see what a dipshit he was.

Hard to believe, I know, but there is one mostly ignored Tchaikovsky symphony that I like even better than this one. Stay tuned.

 

[jjjack]

kudos

Must add that, besides being a major icon of musical art, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth surely epitomizes the bipolar social lives gay people were forced to live in the past. The wet blanket of inequity probably shrouded nearly every endeavor. Life in Russia is unimaginably difficult for gay people NOW, let alone in the 1890s.

This reminds me of the time Elizabeth Taylor (rest her soul) said, “Without gays, there would be no ART!” That’s paraphrased. I think she said it in an interview with Larry King.

We should be very proud that so many gay-induced and gay-inspired works stand at the very pinnacle of human achievement.

 

[jjjack]

The Manfred Symphony (4th mov. transcription)

This is a transcription (for two pianos) of the 4th movement of my favorite Tchaikovsky symphony (“The Manfred”), based on Byron’s epic poem of the same title.



I post this before the entire symphony only because it lends so much clarity to the score (and possibly even Tchaikovsky’s compositional process at the piano). As a percussion instrument, the piano is especially suited to the astonishing rhythmic variety and ingenuity of this work. It really rocks. The slower passages and glissandos, however, are much more suited to the instruments for which they were actually written (strings, harp, etc.). Brass and woodwinds cannot be simulated either. But I haven’t yet found an online version of “The Manfred Symphony” that I like better than Riccardo Chailly’s with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebuow Orchestra, which was my introduction to this work quite some time ago. That recording begins with a combo of woodwind sounds so unique and exotic I thought I was listening to an ancient Dutch pipe organ—and indeed, the final bars of this final movement are scored for a gigantic triple fortissimo pipe organ right at the point of Byron’s apotheosis and death (or death and apotheosis, according to one’s individual interpretation). Note the allusion to Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”

Though much of the 4th movement recapitulates themes from the 1st movement, in the end, after the organ enters, Tchaikovsky’s writing seems to peter out (which is O.K., because the entire work is 55 minutes long). It’s as if his creative faculties can only address turmoil, angst, and other beclouded cirstances, not heavenly peace (a la J. S. Bach). Of course, that is just bullshit, but I’m talking about the way the final bars feel. No doubt this dissipation is intentional because, at that point, Manfred’s drama has bitten the dust.

I really shouldn’t be talking about the entrance of the organ (no pun intended), as that instrumental effect, along with many others, is totally imperceptible in this piano transcription. There is a YouTube video that claims to be Chailly’s version, but not all of the movements actually are. The full impact of this symphony is available only in its original rendering.

I might as well add here that it's a travesty to use a shitty organ for this work. Like the Germans and the French, the Dutch have access to some of the richest, most masterfully voiced pipe organs in the world, so that is another factor that makes the Concertgebuow recording so excellent. Unfortunately, many conductors are less than fond of the pipe organ (as just one example, they love to mix down its power in Saint-Saen's Third Symphony, a.k.a. "The Organ Symphony"). Perhaps lack of organ affection is one of the reasons this truly amazing symphony has been mostly ignored. The themes may not be as memorable (or reproducible by the tongue) as those found in "The Pathetique," but I think "The Manfred" is one of T's very best works.

I hope you enjoy this. The entire symphony is an incredible journey.

 

[jjjack]

How can he be this handsome?

Popularly known as Handel's "Largo" (from his opera Xerxes):

 

[clevelandjim]

Must add that, besides being a major icon of musical art, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth surely epitomizes the bipolar social lives gay people were forced to live in the past. The wet blanket of inequity probably shrouded nearly every endeavor. Life in Russia is unimaginably difficult for gay people NOW, let alone in the 1890s.

This reminds me of the time Elizabeth Taylor (rest her soul) said, “Without gays, there would be no ART!” That’s paraphrased. I think she said it in an interview with Larry King.

We should be very proud that so many gay-induced and gay-inspired works stand at the very pinnacle of human achievement.

You can say that again!

 

[bluesam]

Vivaldi

 

[jjjack]

Bwv 42

Sumptuous:



This is Bach depicting Christ’s ghostly (post-resurrection) appearance among the disciples, who are in hiding. The mood is meant to be reassuring, to say the least.

I prefer Suzuki’s version of this aria. Also prefer a countertenor, but the alto has a very nice voice. Her teeth are less than cosmetic, but she’s obviously spent her life honing her craft and offering up something beautiful rather than ripping people off in a dentist’s chair. So she's probably not rich, and like a lot of people these days, her teeth remain unfixed. Such is the world. Fuck it!

 

[puckinla]

faure's requiem.

 

[ihno]

Sumptuous:


I prefer Suzuki’s version of this aria. Also prefer a countertenor, but the alto has a very nice voice. Her teeth are less than cosmetic, but she’s obviously spent her life honing her craft and offering up something beautiful rather than ripping people off in a dentist’s chair. So she's probably not rich, and like a lot of people these days, her teeth remain unfixed. Such is the world. Fuck it!

A nice performance, yes.

For me Koopman's cycle is No 1. Suzuki comes after that. He's a little too hard sometimes. I also like Herreweghe, who always has a special note to his recordings.

As for countertenors: They go a little on my nerves sometimes. It's not very likely that they sound like castratos at all and some are not a real pleasure to listen to at all.
F.e. the Messiah - I have several recordings but none of those countertenors manages to reach Emma Kirky in my fave aria "But who may abide" (yepp, another reason found to post it. )





I think this tenor is a little thin.



I like Yoshikazu Mera, who often performs with Suzuki.

As for the teeth : Why should they be fixed? What you call "not fixed" I call "character". It would be different if they were rotten or dead and getting brown or something. They look alive and healthy.

There is nothing like your own teeth. That women simply has too little space in the jaw so the teeth stand very narrowly to each other. She probabaly also has something like a cross-bite, which makes every change problematic. All in all that's not easily to be turned into a "hollywood-smile", which too often looks artifical and fake.

I also have very narrow standing teeth, which are partially crooked (large 8 and 9 and 7 and 10 crooked like she has) and and had to replace some of them in my front.
I demanded to have the replicas crooked like the original to keep the symmetry and make it look natural. The dental expert ignored my wish with the frist draft and gave me those fake looking perfect ones so he had to do it again. Now nobody notices they're fake. Even I have problems, which one are fake or real.

 

[ihno]

And now to something completely different:

SPRING:

 

[jjjack]

Tchaikovsky as Manfred

The pipe organ is not as strong or rich as it should be here (the part is only a few chords at the end), but it is the Royal Albert Hall, which always coughs up mems of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (2nd version starring Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day). I’ve already talked enough about the Manfred Symphony. Love The Proms!



I digress again, but in The Man Who Knew Too Much, Bernard Herrmann (of Psycho and Vertigo fame) conducts Arthur Benjamin's Storm Clouds Cantata in the movie's climax filmed in Royal Albert Hall. It's very amusing. Full orchestra and chorus build to a grand caesura, at which point Doris Day's scream becomes part of the music. Typical Hitchcock humor. Somehow the piece reminds me of something by Vaughan-Williams. Sea Symphony? It is also scored for full orchestra and chorus with some killer soprano riffs.

Another interesting event happened at Royal Albert Hall during the Blitz. Vaughan-Williams himself was conducting the premiere of his 5th Symphony, and during the 3rd movement (Romanza), the air raid light went on, signaling everyone to evacuate immediately and go underground. The hall had already sustained some bomb damage, but this time no one moved to the exits. They all sat tight despite the risk. That's how much they needed the music! It was a premiere, after all.

Of course, John Lennon also immortalized this venue in "A Day in the Life." Counting holes, etc. LOL. Or was it Fixing Holes? I guess that was another song on Sgt. Pepper's. Some sort of hole obsession on that album.

 

[Oege]

Sinfonia de la Cantate No. 29' van Johann Sebastiaan Bach played by Gert van Hoef a young but excelent organist from the Netherlands.

 

[kphvto]

Beethoven IV and VII

Carlos Kleiber, one of the great conductors of all time, conducting Beethoven in Amsterdam.