# "Composer Albums"



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I thought this would be a fun experiment. As most of you are probably aware, in non-classical genre's of music, unlike the classical genre where numerous CD's coming out with titles like Bruckner symphonies 7 and 8 or Mozart complete string quartets, the songs of the band or whatever are compiled into albums and then the album is named with a (hopefully creative) name that describes the general message or feel of the songs on the CD.

So what I was thinking is I thought it would be fun to come up with "albums" for classical music. So here's what to do:

1). Pick a composer
2). Arrange some, or all, of that composers works into separate "albums" based on when they were written, taking stylistic changes in the composers music into account. These divisions are often blurry and are going to be subjective. There is no reason you have to stick with the divisions that are often accepted in academia. For example, Beethoven's "early period" is established as basically anything before the Eroica, but you can divide his early period into multiple "albums" if you think he made enough stylistic change within that established period to warrant the division. 
3). This is the fun part. Now that you have a good number, or all, of the composers works arranged into the album, come up with a creative album name that you think describes the music of that period. It would be interesting too if you explained your choice of name.

I'll give an example. I will do one for Mahler, since I am so familiar with his output and he has a relatively small output so it is easy to work with.

First album

*Gustav Mahler: The early years*:

Piano Quartet
Blumine

This one should be fairly obvious...

Second album

*Fields of love, fields of rage*:

Songs of a Wayfarer 
Symphony 1

Apparently, the songs and the symphony were inspired by a thing he had for some lady, I don't know her name or anything...but ya. You can tell Songs of a Wayfarer is definitely a "broken heart" song and it shares thematic material with the symphony. I picked the word fields because as I remember the songs of a wayfarer have a lot of "field imagery" as well.

Third Album

*Spiritual Realms*:

Wunderhorn Lieder
Symphonies 2-4

Picked this name because it reflects the fact that Mahler's music at this time was very much focused on mystical and spiritual ideas about death, having to do with very spiritually religious themes.

Fourth Album

*Strands of Realism*:

Ruckert Lieder
Songs on the death of children
Symphonies 5 and 6

Reflecting Mahler's stylistic turn towards more abstract music as well as a more realistic, less mystical view on death.

Fifth album

*Nighttime ambiguity* (single):

Symphony 7

This symphony has many references to the night, as well as being one of his most tonally ambiguous symphonies.

Sixth Album

*Polarity and synthesis* (single):

Symphony 8

Eh, this one is kind of a stretch. But since Mahler uses two entirely different sources for the material (Traditional latin text and Goethe's Faust) and puts them into one symphony it kind of fits.

Seventh Album

*Of life and death*

Das Lied Von Der Erde
Symphonies 9 and 10

This one doesn't need an explanation I think.

Ok! your turn!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Bach: The Marijuana Album

Goldberg Variations arranged for pan pipe ensemble. 

I don't know if I did it right.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Bach on Acid

Rzewski: Variations on El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

*Brahms: Death's Sweet Embrace*

Tragic Overture
Deutsches Requiem

Easter egg: Op. 119


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

*The Sound of Silence*

Cage: 4' 33"

Enjoy!


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

I would participate seriously, but I has no imagination.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

violadude said:


> Apparently, the songs and the symphony were inspired by a thing he had for some lady, I don't know her name or anything...but ya. You can tell Songs of a Wayfarer is definitely a "broken heart" song and it shares thematic material with the symphony. I picked the word fields because as I remember the songs of a wayfarer have a lot of "field imagery" as well.


Johanna Richter. She was a soprano at Kassel when he was conducting there, wearing a beard so he wouldn't look like the upstart teenager he was. Mahler definitely had a tendency, throughout his pre-Alma career, to fall for his sopranos.

And I will play the album game later today, but now I must go make pies!


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

*Dvorak: Witches and Goblins*

Polednice, Op. 108 
Vodnik, Op. 107
Also Opp. 109-11, but they're less important.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*Bartok: The music of exile*
(final period - his last few years in USA)
_Concerto for Orchestra
Viola Concerto
Piano Concerto #3_

*Dvorak: A Bohemian abroad*
(His stay in the USA)
_String Quartet #12, American
Sym. #9, From the New World
American Suite_

*Hindemith: The "New Bach" comes to America*
(1940's in the USA)
_Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes of C.M. von Weber
Pittsburgh Symphony
String Quartet #6_

*Copland: Giving wartime America a much needed boost in morale*
(works from about between 1940 - 1945)
_Fanfare for the Common Man
A Lincoln Portrait
Appalachian Spring, ballet
_


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

*W. A. Mozart: Please Teach Me*
K. 1 - K. 100

*W. A. Mozart: Something New*
K. 101 - K. 200

*W. A. Mozart: Amadeus For Sale*
K. 201 - K. 300

*W. A. Mozart: Salzburg Road*
K. 301 - 400

*W. A. Mozart: Joey II's Lovely Hearts Court Musician*
K. 401 - K. 500.

*W. A. Mozart: Terror*
K. 527

*W. A. Mozart: Harbinger of Romanticism, Forcaster of Dodecaphony*
K. 550

*W. A. Mozart: Suck It, Bach!*
K. 551

*W. A. Mozart Ft. Süßmayr: Man, That 20 Second Fugue was Difficult to Complete, I Better Just Copy the First Movement and Get this S*** Over With!*
K. 626

*F. X. Mozart: Under The Shadow of a Giant*
Complete Works


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*R. Strauss: Everything old is new again, or The years of intimate recollections*
(works after World War II)
_Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings
Four Last Songs
Oboe Concerto_
(actually, I've got all these three on THIS my favourite album/recording of this composer's music by far)

*Janacek: An old artist and his young muse*
(his works written in the wake of his friendship with Kamila Stosslova, a married woman 20-30 years younger than him)
_Diary of the One who Disappeared, Song cycle for tenor, alto, three female voices, and piano
String Quartet #1, The Kreutzer Sonata
String Quartet #2, Intimate Letters
In the Mists, for solo piano_
...and many other works

*Schnittke: Shards of broken glass, broken memories*
(works in the 1970's, during/after his time of his first stroke, after deaths of his mother and also his mentor/colleague Shostakovich & also the gradual decay of the USSR under Brezhnev)
_Piano Quintet_ (1972-6)
_Sonata for cello and piano _(1978)
_Stille Musik for violin and cello_ (1979)


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Carl Orff - Greatest Hits, Vol. 1

1. O Fortuna
2. O Fortuna
3. O Fortuna
4. O Fortuna
5. O Fortuna (the remix)
6. O Fortuna
7. O Fortuna (mono)
8. O Fortuna (reprise)


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

*Never Mind the ********, here's Stravinsky*

-Le Sacre du Printemps
-Petrouchka


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*Liszt: Premonitions of death & visions of eternity*
(some of his late works)
_La Lugubre Gondola I & II, piano solo_
_At Wagner's Grave_, piano and string quartet
_Ossa Arida G.55, _motet for male choir and organ

*Rossini: Sins of my old age*
(his words used to describe his later music)
_Solo piano works
Sacred choral works_

*Carter: Indian Summer*
(music composed from his eighties onwards)
_Violin Concerto
Clarinet Concerto
Gra, solo clarinet (dedicated to Witold Lutoslawski on his eightieth birthday)
String Quartet #5
Dialogues for piano & chamber orch.
Mosaic for harp & chamber ensemble._
(& many others)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*Debussy: Mapping things to come, from the next decade to beyond*
(music of his last 10 years)
Chamber music - _Sonata for violin _(his final work), also the _Cello Sonata _& one for flute, viola and harp
Piano music - Second book of the _Preludes_ for piano solo, & things like _En blanc et noir _for two pianos, pushing boundaries further and further (eg. employment of dissonance)
The three final ballets, most notably _Jeux_, the only one which he was able to orchestrate.

*Bizet: From the Classical to the Romantic*
(early works)
_Symphony in C
Te Deum_

*Gounod & Weber: One year, two symphonies each for these two operatic composers*
Gounod - 1855, symphonies Nos. 1 & 2
Weber - 1807, symphonies Nos. 1 & 2


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

I'm going to stick With Mahler, but I'm going to use the nicknames came up for each of them. I keep Resurrection the same

No 1: Spring
No 2: Resurrection
No 3: The Worldly Monster
No 4: Dreams of a Child
No 5: The Transition
No 6: Irreproachable Consequence
No 7: A Child's Forest
No 8: The Otherworldly Monster
No 9: Acceptance & Resignation
No 10: The Unfinished Epilogue


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

I also see the Brahms symphonies as seasonal

1. Winter
2. Spring
3. Summer
4. Autumn


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

Saint-Saens - Carnival of the Animals
Strauss - Don Quixote
*Pet Sounds*

Puccini - La Boheme
*We're Only In It For The Money*

Schumann - Kreisleriana, Carnaval, Fantasie, Davidsbundlertanze
*The Piper at the Gates of Dawn*


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