# The Classical Music Confessional



## Serge

OK, I'll start...

I am not really into that "classical" period music thing. I understand it - it's coherent, granted - but I just don't quite "dig" it.

Also, I used to hate chamber music, but, to think about it, it was also the classical period music most of the time, I believe. And now I just don't think that much about it. What a relief!


----------



## clara s

confession "heard" carefully

and what it's the period of music now prevailing in your preference?


ps by the way, when you hear John Cage's 4΄33΄΄, it's better to listen it in the countryside,

and not outside a Power Plant


----------



## Serge

I like pretty much everything and anything as long as I can play along.

But I didn't intend this thread to be about me. I mean, who cares really. It's a big world, but maybe some other people can help themselves here as well.


----------



## Freischutz

All fugues can just fugue off as far as I'm concerned.


----------



## Serge

Freischutz said:


> All fugues can just fugue off as far as I'm concerned.


Hahaha, that's the spirit! (Not that's I subscribe to the opinion.)


----------



## Ukko

Serge said:


> OK, I'll start...
> 
> I am not really into that "classical" period music thing. I understand it - it's coherent, granted - but I just don't quite "dig" it.
> 
> Also, I used to hate chamber music, but, to think about it, it was also the classical period music most of the time, I believe. And now I just don't think that much about it. What a relief!


Hmm... I suggest psychoanalysis. In the meantime, avoid music of any kind, in fact any repetitive sounds; your sanity is at stake. [maybe it's already too late]


----------



## maestro267

Beethoven is where my music starts. Before that, it's quite boring. I love the unpredictability of music since Beethoven, and the larger orchestras. More colours in the composers sound pallette, especially in the percussion section.

I'm still not into chamber music though. Some pieces I like, but nearly every time I choose something to listen to, I want to hear a work for full orchestra.

Historically informed performance of earlier music sucks the emotion out of music. And it's often done in the wrong key.


----------



## Serge

Naw, I'm very sane. I just drink too much. But again, this ain't about me.


----------



## Serge

Yes, Beethoven's Third! What a breeze of fresh air!

That and some dude's way before him...


----------



## SiegendesLicht

I used to find solo piano music absolutely boring. Now there are periods when I can't get enough of it.


----------



## hpowders

I used to find Bruckner boring. I still do.


----------



## beetzart

Bruckner and Scarlatti, all day, everyday. (Next week I may introduce Beethoven or Brahms but Bruckner will always be there.)


----------



## Bulldog

I don't like the use of trills as an ornamental device in repeats, and I generally detest vibrato.


----------



## hpowders

You are absolved, mein sohn.


----------



## Blancrocher

i have enjoyed listening to lang lang


----------



## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> i have enjoyed listening to lang lang


Say 10....... and 16 ........ :lol:


----------



## Frasier

Blancrocher said:


> i have enjoyed listening to lang lang


That is indeed a sad confession but as you use the past tense, your penitence is noted!

Me? I think Mahler is a bad composer. Far too neurotic.


----------



## hpowders

Frasier said:


> That is indeed a sad confession but as you use the past tense, your penitence is noted!
> 
> Me? I think Mahler is a bad composer. Far too neurotic.


Please indicate technically what Mahler does incorrectly that would make him a bad composer.


----------



## Serge

hpowders said:


> Please indicate technically what Mahler does incorrectly that would make him a bad composer.


Could that possibly be on the emotional level? Just saying...


----------



## GGluek

I find listening to a Bruckner scherzo like watching Sisyphus.


----------



## hpowders

Bruckner scherzos can be quite lugubrious. I prefer Mahler's lilting Landlers myself.


----------



## Mahlerian

Frasier said:


> Me? I think Mahler is a bad composer. Far too neurotic.


I don't even know anymore what people mean by that term in reference to Mahler, because they always back it up with false statements like "he sticks completely unrelated things together without any rhyme or reason."


----------



## Serge

I think that means the effect he has on people.


----------



## hpowders

Mahler was obsessed with his mortality, which permeated his music and if that ain't neurotic I don't know what is.

Not liking Mahler because his music is neurotic is a valid reason for disliking it.


----------



## Serge

hpowders said:


> Mahler was obsessed with his mortality, which permeated his music and if that ain't neurotic I don't know what is.


Yes (for what I know and I know nothing), but wasn't Bruckner kinda the same in that sense? Yet entirely different music!


----------



## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> Mahler was obsessed with his mortality, which permeated his music and if that ain't neurotic I don't know what is.
> 
> Not liking Mahler because his music is neurotic is a valid reason for disliking it.


Compared to Wolf and Rott, Mahler was quite a stable person. He only ever suffered an emotional breakdown once, after the revelation of his wife's infidelity, and despite his infamous dictatorial stance on the podium, he was well respected as a professional conductor and theater director because he was able to work with singers and musicians in order to draw out the best possible result.

His music overwhelmingly ends in major keys. Are there neurotic aspects in it? Sure. Sudden shifts of mood (that nonetheless serve structural/musical functions), a tendency towards individualism and subjectivity, and yes, a few funeral marches, but these are not the only aspects of his music, nor does their presence imply that something is by Mahler, necessarily. The funeral march in Beethoven's Eroica, for example, was the model for the one that opens Mahler's Second (and even the one from Bruckner's Fourth, also in C minor).


----------



## starthrower

It's no use, Mahlerian. This thread like numerous others here is not about music, but about people constantly flaunting their likes and dislikes.


----------



## Serge

starthrower said:


> It's no use, Mahlerian. This thread like numerous others here is not about music, but about people constantly flaunting their likes and dislikes.


What do you need to prove? That Everybody Likes Mahler? OK, go ahead, prove it. Here or anywhere.


----------



## Cosmos

I also don't care for the classical era. Mozart's ok sometimes, but overall hit interesting. Haydn is worse, he puts me to sleep. I don't like the sound of older/period instruments. And I find Brahms' music to be empty of passion


----------



## Mahlerian

Serge said:


> What do you need to prove? That Everybody Likes Mahler? OK, go ahead, prove it. Here or anywhere.


Not at all. Everyone is entitled to like and dislike whatever they please. I don't care for Rachmaninoff in general.

But saying you don't like Mahler's music _because_ it's formless and cobbled together without any real purpose is like saying you dislike water because it doesn't have any oxygen in it. It doesn't make any sense.


----------



## Serge

But you can't breeze on water. Does that make any sense?


----------



## GreenMamba

starthrower said:


> It's no use, Mahlerian. This thread like numerous others here is not about music, but about people constantly flaunting their likes and dislikes.


Yes, that seems to be the point. That it's dubbed a confessional suggests posters at least have some awareness that it the failings might be on them and not the composers.


----------



## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> Compared to Wolf and Rott, Mahler was quite a stable person. He only ever suffered an emotional breakdown once, after the revelation of his wife's infidelity, and despite his infamous dictatorial stance on the podium, he was well respected as a professional conductor and theater director because he was able to work with singers and musicians in order to draw out the best possible result.
> 
> His music overwhelmingly ends in major keys. Are there neurotic aspects in it? Sure. Sudden shifts of mood (that nonetheless serve structural/musical functions), a tendency towards individualism and subjectivity, and yes, a few funeral marches, but these are not the only aspects of his music, nor does their presence imply that something is by Mahler, necessarily. The funeral march in Beethoven's Eroica, for example, was the model for the one that opens Mahler's Second (and even the one from Bruckner's Fourth, also in C minor).


Folks may be startled by the mood shifts in Mahler; can get quite angry at times, dare I say neurotic? Case in point-the adagio of Mahler's 4th Symphony.

Doesn't bother me. I'm used to it. But a newcomer to Mahler; surely one can see someone a bit taken aback by it.


----------



## hpowders

starthrower said:


> It's no use, Mahlerian. This thread like numerous others here is not about music, but about people constantly flaunting their likes and dislikes.


Isn't that the whole point of this thread?


----------



## dgee

Frasier said:


> Me? I think Mahler is a bad composer. Far too neurotic.


Says the guy rocking a Lulu avatar


----------



## hpowders

dgee said:


> Says the guy rocking a Lulu avatar


Yeah. Excellent observation!


----------



## GGluek

hpowders said:


> Bruckner scherzos can be quite lugubrious. I prefer Mahler's lilting Landlers myself.


Less lugubriousness, than watching it build as if it's going somewhere exciting, than just as it looks like it's going to climax, watching the rock tumble back down to the bottom to start all over.  (especially the Fourth and the Seventh)


----------



## hpowders

Exactly as Mahlerian says. Like whomever you wish. Nobody is forcing any composer down anybody's throat.
You don't like Persichetti; I'm over it in a nanosecond.....maybe three.

Why take any of this stuff personally?


----------



## hpowders

GGluek said:


> Less lugubriousness, than watching it build as if it's going somewhere exciting, than just as it looks like it's going to climax, watching the rock tumble back down to the bottom to start all over.  (especially the Fourth and the Seventh)


My problem with Bruckner is he simply didn't know when to quit. I guess in the late 19th century they had a lot more time to sit there and listen.
As for the scherzo movements, they simply sound tedious to me.
This is a guy who had absolutely no sense of humor and it shows!

But if you like him, fine. I'm completely at peace with it.


----------



## Serge

hpowders said:


> This is a guy who had absolutely no sense of humor and it shows!


He didn't need to have any. His music was serious and in a good sense. Like cosmic or eternal, for instance.


----------



## Manxfeeder

maestro267 said:


> Historically informed performance . . . is often done in the wrong key.


Ha! I love it!


----------



## Manxfeeder

[Slouching into the analyst's couch] Though I took four years of organ lessons and got to where I could play Bach to the point that I was using both feet on the pedals in counterpoint, I don't like classical organ music. I can't figure out why.

I also hate wide vibrato from female singers, but vibrato from males doesn't bother me. I don't get that, either.


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> I used to find Bruckner boring. I still do.


Hah! ..........................


----------



## Ukko

Katheen Ferrier can make me weep. Probably a good thing she ain't around to capitalize on it.


----------



## Serge

Blancrocher said:


> i have enjoyed listening to lang lang


Not to be confused with K. D. Lang, of course. Which I did.


----------



## Oskaar

My confession is, like I have confessed a number of other threads I CANT STAND BEETHOVENS SYMPHONIES! I would like to! I feel like an ugly beast unlike every others.

No-seriously. I understand the greatness. My reactions can be connected to that I struggle wit the illness depression. It can be a physical and psycological responce. But I find him hammering repeated strong temas, repeat dull melodies till you puke etc. I feel that he is schizofrenic prisoned between classisism and romantism. I feel that he must make layer over layer with drama till you ( I ) break down under the burdon of these layers and his schizofrenia.

No it is said :tiphat:


----------



## GreenMamba

hpowders said:


> My problem with Bruckner is he simply didn't know when to quit. I guess in the late 19th century they had a lot more time to sit there and listen.


They didn't have television or the internet.


----------



## hpowders

GreenMamba said:


> They didn't have television or the internet.


Thanks to my cable provider, a lot of times I don't have cable or the internet either!


----------



## Bulldog

hpowders said:


> Thanks to my cable provider, a lot of times I don't have cable or the internet either!


With that in mind, you can now go about trying to be a Bruckner.

By the way, you gave me the best laugh of the day!


----------



## Serge

I hate operas!

Wait a minute, that's not a confession...


----------



## Serge

And yeah, add all the "angelic" kind of music to the list - like chorals and stuff...


----------



## Guest

This is sort of a confession, I suppose. 

I enjoy a decent bit of music from Alan Hovhaness though I always get some vibe from him like there's something "superficial" about most of it. That being the case, I view him as a sort of classical "guilty pleasure" of mine (though I personally don't believe in the whole guilty pleasure idea).


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

I rarely listen to Stravinsky, once the Le Sacre du Printemps fascination wore off I unintentionally "underrated" his music forever. After his Russian period he sort of became a parody of himself, quoting his own rhythms and noises while writing in every other musical style there was. I don't dislike him, I just no longer find his music "substantial" enough.


----------



## bigshot

My confession is that I think most people have limited tastes in music... or just plain old garden variety bad taste. Especially the ones that think they have very refined tastes.


----------



## tdc

..........................


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

I compose my music using wasps coated in red and black ink


----------



## hpowders

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I rarely listen to Stravinsky, once the Le Sacre du Printemps fascination wore off I unintentionally "underrated" his music forever. After his Russian period he sort of became a parody of himself, quoting his own rhythms and noises while writing in every other musical style there was. I don't dislike him, I just no longer find his music "substantial" enough.


I agree. He was a one trick pony as far as I'm concerned. Over-rated.

I confess that when I want to listen to a 20th century Russian composer, I will turn to Prokofiev every time. Seriously under-rated.


----------



## Itullian

I think there's only one thing wrong with Bruckner's symphonies.
They're too short!!!


----------



## PetrB

Bulldog said:


> I don't like the use of trills as an ornamental device in repeats, and I generally detest vibrato.


Just omit those devices when composing, and instruct your players, "N.V."

Problem solved.


----------



## PetrB

Frasier said:


> That is indeed a sad confession but as you use the past tense, your penitence is noted!
> 
> Me? I think Mahler is a bad composer. Far too neurotic.


As a criterion, "_Far too neurotic_" must put Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich parsecs past Mahler into the bad to abysmal composer's bin, then!


----------



## PetrB

Serge said:


> I think that means the effect he has on people.


Uh, the man is dead.


----------



## violadude

Confession #1: As I've stated other places on the forum before, I am incredibly bored by discussions of this recording or that recording of a piece of music. Strange because discussing various recordings or versions of a piece of music is a big part of "classical music culture". I'm just not into it for whatever reason. I actually get kind of frustrated when I see a new thread on TC about a particular piece of music and nearly the whole thread is about different recordings of that piece rather than a discussion of the piece itself. 

I actually kind of wish that every composer would come back to life and just say which recording of their compositions is the best one so I can just stop wondering about it once and for all. 

Confession #2: Mediocre Romantic Era music is the worst kind of mediocre music IMHO. At least with mediocre Baroque or Classical Era music, even if the composer has nothing interesting to say there are still concrete structures and themes to rely on and it doesn't try to do anything crazy to make up for its dullness. Mediocre Romantic Era music tends to be buffed up with ridiculous amounts of fluff and excess nothingness to make up for the lack of interesting material and it makes it much harder to listen to than a mediocre piece of any other period. I feel the same about Neo-Romantic pieces too.

Confession #3: I used to really like searching out obscure, lesser known composers. While I still enjoy that from time to time and I have found a few obscure composers that I really value now, I find that as I listen more and more to Classical Music my tastes converge more and more with the list of "greats". The only era this is not true of is the late 20th/early 21st century, where the official "cannon" is a lot less clear. 

Confession #4: I'm thankful that I like music from every era of music and whenever I hear someone dismiss an entire era or style of music I want to give them a big hug and tell them how sorry I am to hear that. 

Confession #5: "Moonlight Sonata" pisses me off. Sorry...

I like the second movement though.

Confession #6: It kind of bugs me when people read too much biographical information into a particular piece of a composer's music. Especially when it's done in an academic setting.

Confession #7: I'll admit, this is a very petty confession. But I am a little bit miffed that it's significantly harder to get people to "like" your post in the "Currently Listening" thread if you don't post a big huge picture of the CD cover from the CD you are listening to. Actually, although I love when people say a few words about what they are listening to, I find the concept of a whole thread where people just list what they're listening to without expanding on it at all a little bit vapid to be perfectly honest.

Confession #8: There are certain words that I've come to despise when used to describe classical music. "Epic" is one of those words.


----------



## PetrB

GreenMamba said:


> Yes, that seems to be the point. That it's dubbed a confessional suggests posters at least have some awareness that it the failings might be on them and not the composers.


I suppose there is that aspect where you confess, do little or anything about that which was confessed, and then continue to go about your business unchanged. Remember, it is not therapy, with a goal to change


----------



## violadude

maestro267 said:


> Historically informed performance of earlier music sucks the emotion out of music. And it's often done in the wrong key.


Er...It's not in the "wrong key". The standard A of the Baroque Era was lower than our standard A is today.


----------



## PetrB

maestro267 said:


> Historically informed performance is often done in the wrong key.





Manxfeeder said:


> Ha! I love it!


I know! The extreme naiveté makes the unintentional comedy worthy of adding new depths to the meaning of ironic


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> i have enjoyed listening to Lang Lang





Serge said:


> Not to be confused with K. D. Lang, of course. Which I did.


... or Tu Long, another up and coming Chinese piano prodigy. (Tu Long's cousin, Sum Ting Wong, also started out as a piano prodigy, but the promise died early.)


----------



## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> This is sort of a confession, I suppose.
> 
> I enjoy a decent bit of music from Alan Hovhaness though I always get some vibe from him like there's something "superficial" about most of it. That being the case, I view him as a sort of classical "guilty pleasure" of mine (though I personally don't believe in the whole guilty pleasure idea).


Sorry, Dudes & Dudettes, liking Hovhaness _is_ a major guilty pleasure -- akin to really liking all the "God-Chord" soundtracks of the epic Biblical films of the 1950's.

Because, yes, Virginia, it is that cheaply pseudo-mystical tawdry 




www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VE9TwcwhbY


----------



## Oskaar

violadude said:


> I actually get kind of frustrated when I see a new thread on TC about a particular piece of music and nearly the whole thread is about different recordings of that piece rather than a discussion of the piece itself.
> 
> I actually kind of wish that every composer would come back to life and just say which recording of their compositions is the best one so I can just stop wondering about it once and for all.


I second your confession and opinion, but disagree. A forum like this must be a perfect place for actually discussing different interpretations, since a work gives a performer and conducters big room to set their own artistic stamp on it. And we are different as listeners. Dont let such discusions frustrate you. Just ignore them.


----------



## violadude

oskaar said:


> I second your confession and opinion, but disagree. A forum like this must be a perfect place for actually discussing different interpretations, since a work gives a performer and conducters big room to set their own artistic stamp on it. And we are different as listeners. Dont let such discusions frustrate you. *Just ignore them.*


I do this, in addition to being frustrated.


----------



## SilenceIsGolden

Yeah, I have a confession. I find that I actually _like_ just about every major composer, or can at least always find something worthwhile in most of their music. And by major I mean not only the most obvious, but even well-known and well-respected composers that are perhaps less popular (like Hugo Wolf). Of course I have my preferences, but I never feel like I'm _wasting my time_ with any of their music, or even actively _dislike_ pieces that I find less interesting. I think they all offer a unique voice and a distinct sound that is very much worth hearing. Shrug.


----------



## Oskaar

violadude said:


> "Moonlight Sonata" pisses me off. Sorry...


I get physicly ill of it. Dizzie, and want to throw up.


----------



## Morimur

Confession: I find it somewhat annoying that someone who enjoys the music of Beethoven, might also be a fan of, let's say, Paul McCartney. Of course, that's my problem but in my mind I think: How can this person be a fan of one of the greatest musical minds of all time and then go back to McCartney?


----------



## Guest

PetrB said:


> Sorry, Dudes & Dudettes, liking Hovhaness _is_ a major guilty pleasure -- akin to really liking all the "God-Chord" soundtracks of the epic Biblical films of the 1950's.
> 
> Because, yes, Virginia, it is that cheaply pseudo-mystical tawdry
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VE9TwcwhbY


And PetrB validates me once again


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> Confession #1: I am incredibly bored by discussions of this recording or that recording of a piece of music. I get frustrated when I see a new thread on TC about a particular piece of music and nearly the whole thread is about different recordings of that piece rather than a discussion of the piece itself.
> *Hear, hear! lol.*
> 
> Confession #2: Mediocre Romantic Era music is the worst kind of mediocre music IMHO. Mediocre Romantic Era music tends to be buffed up with ridiculous amounts of fluff and excess nothingness to make up for the lack of interesting material and it makes it much harder to listen to than a mediocre piece of any other period. I feel the same about Neo-Romantic pieces too.
> *Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you, and Amen to that, brother!*
> 
> Confession #3: I used to really like searching out obscure, lesser known composers. While I still enjoy that from time to time and I have found a few obscure composers that I really value now, I find that as I listen more and more to Classical Music my tastes converge more and more with the list of "greats". The only era this is not true of is the late 20th/early 21st century, where the official "cannon" is a lot less clear.
> *A developing 'learning curve' about repertoire as you have put it is normal *
> 
> Confession #4: I'm thankful that I like music from every era of music and whenever I hear someone dismiss an entire era or style of music I want to give them a big hug and tell them how sorry I am to hear that.
> *Bravo!*
> 
> Confession #5: "Moonlight Sonata" pisses me off. Sorry...
> *I'm certain you mean overexposure and far too many dreadful student and autodidact performances, and those egregious treacly new-age arrangements... so... Yes!*
> 
> Confession #6: It kind of bugs me when people read too much biographical information into a particular piece of a composer's music. Especially when it's done in an academic setting.
> *Amen to that, Brother!*
> 
> Confession #7: I'll admit, this is a very petty confession. But I am a little bit miffed that it's significantly harder to get people to "like" your post in the "Currently Listening" thread if you don't post a big huge picture of the CD cover from the CD you are listening to. Actually, although I love when people say a few words about what they are listening to, I find the concept of a whole thread where people just list what they're listening to without expanding on it at all to be a little bit vapid to be perfectly honest.
> *I don't feel much for getting 'likes,' but you are spot on about the pictures being a Pavlovian draw *
> 
> Confession #8: There are certain words that I've come to despise when used to describe classical music. "Epic" is one of those words.
> *aYep 'n' aYep.*


This was a little freakish, i.e. Most of it I could have written and it would have come out near the same 
If we ever met, it could be boring, i.e. because at least here we agree on so much... but if we do ever meet, I owe you at least a shot and a beer, and a coffee if you want.


----------



## violadude

PetrB said:


> This was a little freakish, i.e. *Most of it I could have written and it would have come out near the same *
> If we ever met, it could be boring, i.e. because at least here we agree on so much... but if we do ever meet, I owe you at least a shot and a beer, and a coffee if you want.


Haha maybe I've been reading too many of your posts! 

Well, agreement doesn't have to be too boring


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> Haha maybe I've been reading too many of your posts!


I doubt it. You've always struck me as being of those about whom people would say "He is his own man."



violadude said:


> Well, agreement doesn't have to be too boring


----------



## lupinix

I've had enough of feeling ashamed because of what I like, or feel, or think, or do, or believe, just because most (or at least certain) people don't. In my opinion it is nothing but ridiculous, everyone is different, has other priorities, makes different choices and so on. Moreover, if one really thinks that people should be ashamed for liking and disliking the wrong things, would that mean one also thinks that people should be proud when they do the right ones?! To me that actually sounds a bit sick, especially when it includes oneself, but maybe that's just me. It doesn't matter what people think anyway, as long as they won't trouble me with it (by forcing their opinions upon me or looking down upon or attack me in any way, etc)

When someone askes me what I think of something out of seemingly sincere personal interest, of course I'll give my opinion. 
If it isn't to his liking or he feels personally offended or something stupid like that, it is his problem. The questions he asks me are his responsibility, and his risks for that matter. 

If no one asks me my opinion, then it depends on two things. I like to talk about things I like, the combination of a (to me) nice topic with (to me) nice social contact makes me happy, simple as that, so if I like something I want to talk about it. 
If I don't like it, it depends on something else. If something is really hurting me or making me feel bad or limiting me, then I will eventually have to do anything about it, mostly this includes talking about it. For instance (simple example) I really can't handle smoke well, so if someone that smokes indoors and invites me a lot to his place I should tell him that. Or at least, I should ask if he would mind to gather someplace else, but he will probably ask why anyway. It is MY problem though, so he should never take it personal. I don't want him to change his lifestyle.

With music however this is (at least almost) NEVER the case. If I simply don't like anything, whether it is the Brandenburg concertos, Turangalila Symphony or Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, why would I care to talk about it? I just stop listening to it, luckily there's a lot more music out there you will like if you get to know it (sometimes even from the same composer). If something musical really hurts you in any way, which is a very rare if possible experience, then mostly the one to blame for it is you for taking the risk of listening to something, for not pushing the stop button as soon as you notice you might get serious problems from it. No one forces anyone to listen to anything, and no one should.

I too have in the past sometimes complained about certain pieces of music or composers, but more and more I'm starting to realise I was only complaining because I felt bad at disliking it, which is the real problem: not disliking anything but feeling bad about disliking anything. If this tension builds up enough, eventually I might even feel a desire to scream "I HATE THIS MUSIC!", but I don't really hate the music - not even people that like it, I'm actually happy for them if I'm honest to myself - but at that moment I DO hate the fact (or the possibility) that some people will (or might) hate ME (or otherwise don't accept me, look down upon me or see me as a threat to themselves or mostly their meaningless pride) for not liking (or liking for that matter) a piece.
So I won't have to complain about pieces again 

I just had to express myself on this  
Don't see it as anything more, of course I don't think this is the "right" way of doing things, just the way I'm atm most comfortable with 
but if people will think about this and want to discuss it or anything or give their opinion or maybe even own totally other "way of doing things"  then I would be interested. And though I have absolutely no hope of doing anything for anyone else than myself, I would really be glad if this post would coincidently make someone that is usually ashamed a lot for musical preference, feel better, or something....

BTW sorry if this is a bit off topic


----------



## hpowders

Never feel ashamed for standing up for what you think, believe and feel.

As for me, I will assert my belief in pithiness until they carry me away.


----------



## hpowders

Yes, PetrB.

Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich.

Not exactly The 3 Stooges in the laughs department.


----------



## Vaneyes

My name is Vaneyes, and I'm a Delius, Rachmaninov, Enescu, Ginastera, Poulenc, Honegger, Roussel, Rawsthorne. Mompou, Severac, Myaskovsky, Scriabin, Berio, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Nono addict.


----------



## hpowders

That must have taken incredible courage.


----------



## Centropolis

My confession is that I've bought many CDs that I have not listened to yet. I simply bought them just for the sake of thinking that I should have it. Haydn complete string quartets for example.


----------



## Piwikiwi

I've been too lazy to get into 12 tone music.


----------



## violadude

Centropolis said:


> My confession is that I've bought many CDs that I have not listened to yet. I simply bought them just for the sake of thinking that I should have it. Haydn complete string quartets for example.


I do that all the time. Especially if they are lesser known works/composers. I get pressured into buying it because if it goes out of stock I might have to wait another 10 or 20 years for a chance to hear whatever is on that CD 

Hell, if it's obscure enough it might even be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Hopefully once digital media is perfected and "officially" replaces CDs more or less, then recordings will be allowed to stay on the market indefinitely.


----------



## hpowders

I've been too human to get into 12 tone music. Humans simply aren't that perfect.


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> I've been too human to get into 12 tone music.


Unfortunately, Anton We-borg doesn't like your attitude, sir.


----------



## Oskaar

I've been too ignorant to get into 12 tone music.


----------



## Centropolis

violadude said:


> I do that all the time. Especially if they are lesser known works/composers. I get pressured into buying it because if it goes out of stock I might have to wait another 10 or 20 years for a chance to hear whatever is on that CD
> 
> Hell, if it's obscure enough it might even be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
> 
> Hopefully once digital media is perfected and "officially" replaces CDs more or less, then recordings will be allowed to stay on the market indefinitely.


Another reason I buy into new CDs is that I noticed when recordings are reissued in a new boxset, the cheapest is the get it right away. The price slowly goes up once they are released and until it gets out of print....then it's way too much money to spend. Then they re-issue it under a different label....it's cheap again.

One of the most fascinating things about my experiences with buying classical CDs is that you can spend $100 on a set that's out-of-print from 10 years ago, or spend $20 on a newly remastered same set same performances.


----------



## violadude

Centropolis said:


> Another reason I buy into new CDs is that I noticed when recordings are reissued in a new boxset, the cheapest is the get it right away. The price slowly goes up once they are released and until it gets out of print....then it's way too much money to spend. Then they re-issue it under a different label....it's cheap again.


Freakin marketing schemes!


----------



## Oskaar

I have one more confession: I adore ABBA (Me an my daughter have some great moments together)


----------



## Centropolis

oskaar said:


> I have one more confession: I adore ABBA (Me an my daughter have some great moments together)


I like Peter, Paul and Mary because I listen to them when I was a kid with my dad. How is that for a confession!?


----------



## PetrB

Vaneyes said:


> My name is Vaneyes, and I'm a Delius, Rachmaninov, Enescu, Ginastera, Poulenc, Honegger, Roussel, Rawsthorne. Mompou, Severac, Myaskovsky, Scriabin, Berio, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Nono addict.


Hello, Vaneyes


----------



## hpowders

violadude said:


> Unfortunately, Anton We-borg doesn't like your attitude, sir.
> 
> View attachment 36849


Same expression my dad had just before he told me "GET OUT!!!!!


----------



## hpowders

I like string playing and singing, devoid of all vibrato. My other qualities are fine, however.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> I've been too human to get into 12 tone music. Humans simply aren't that perfect.


If too perfect is something you wish to avoid, steer far clear of Mozart and Stravinsky.


----------



## violadude

PetrB said:


> If too perfect is something you wish to avoid, steer far clear of Mozart and Stravinsky.


If Stravinsky is perfect and serialism is perfect, what does that make Agon?


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> If too perfect is something you wish to avoid, steer far clear of Mozart and Stravinsky.


Stravinsky, easy. Mozart, no.


----------



## hpowders

violadude said:


> Unfortunately, Anton We-borg doesn't like your attitude, sir.
> 
> View attachment 36849


And personally, I don't quite give a damn.


----------



## Oskaar

Centropolis said:


> I like Peter, Paul and Mary because I listen to them when I was a kid with my dad. How is that for a confession!?


Oh that was one hard to beat....


----------



## Centropolis

oskaar said:


> Oh that was one hard to beat....


"Puff, the Magic Dragon"...anyone? No?


----------



## clara s

violadude said:


> Confession #1: As I've stated other places on the forum before, I am incredibly bored by discussions of this recording or that recording of a piece of music. Strange because discussing various recordings or versions of a piece of music is a big part of "classical music culture". I'm just not into it for whatever reason. I actually get kind of frustrated when I see a new thread on TC about a particular piece of music and nearly the whole thread is about different recordings of that piece rather than a discussion of the piece itself.
> 
> I actually kind of wish that every composer would come back to life and just say which recording of their compositions is the best one so I can just stop wondering about it once and for all.
> 
> Confession #2: Mediocre Romantic Era music is the worst kind of mediocre music IMHO. At least with mediocre Baroque or Classical Era music, even if the composer has nothing interesting to say there are still concrete structures and themes to rely on and it doesn't try to do anything crazy to make up for its dullness. Mediocre Romantic Era music tends to be buffed up with ridiculous amounts of fluff and excess nothingness to make up for the lack of interesting material and it makes it much harder to listen to than a mediocre piece of any other period. I feel the same about Neo-Romantic pieces too.
> 
> Confession #3: I used to really like searching out obscure, lesser known composers. While I still enjoy that from time to time and I have found a few obscure composers that I really value now, I find that as I listen more and more to Classical Music my tastes converge more and more with the list of "greats". The only era this is not true of is the late 20th/early 21st century, where the official "cannon" is a lot less clear.
> 
> Confession #4: I'm thankful that I like music from every era of music and whenever I hear someone dismiss an entire era or style of music I want to give them a big hug and tell them how sorry I am to hear that.
> 
> Confession #5: "Moonlight Sonata" pisses me off. Sorry...
> 
> I like the second movement though.
> 
> Confession #6: It kind of bugs me when people read too much biographical information into a particular piece of a composer's music. Especially when it's done in an academic setting.
> 
> Confession #7: I'll admit, this is a very petty confession. But I am a little bit miffed that it's significantly harder to get people to "like" your post in the "Currently Listening" thread if you don't post a big huge picture of the CD cover from the CD you are listening to. Actually, although I love when people say a few words about what they are listening to, I find the concept of a whole thread where people just list what they're listening to without expanding on it at all a little bit vapid to be perfectly honest.
> 
> Confession #8: There are certain words that I've come to despise when used to describe classical music. "Epic" is one of those words.


weeeeeeell

how did you keep all these secrets for so much time inside you? hahaha

really now, the rest OK, but confessions 1 and 5?

The various recordings are the magic "wand" that gives spice to a musical piece,

and keeps the game going.

Moonlight sonata is a legendary piece that deserves more respect,

it has grown generations...


----------



## Ingélou

There are so many composers - famous ones too - of whose works I know none or only one. I won't fess up which ones though - it would be too boring, like shooting fish in a barrel.


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> And personally, I don't quite give a damn.


You should...he has eye lasers.


----------



## violadude

clara s said:


> really now, the rest OK, but confessions 1 and 5?
> 
> The various recordings are the magic "wand" that gives spice to a musical piece,
> 
> and keeps the game going.
> 
> Moonlight sonata is a legendary piece that deserves more respect,
> 
> it has grown generations...


I actually don't like the various recordings thing, personally. That's one thing I prefer about non-classical music, there's a definitive recording for every piece so I don't have to worry my brains out about whether I'm actually hearing what the original artist intended me to hear.

I have plenty of pieces and composers to explore without having to resort to different recordings to keep things not boring 

And about the Beethoven, ya I see your point. I just think so many of his other sonatas are much better but people rave on and on about the Moonlight.


----------



## hpowders

Not me. I hate it along with that cursed 8th symphony.

There I said it!


----------



## clara s

Vaneyes said:


> My name is Vaneyes, and I'm a Delius, Rachmaninov, Enescu, Ginastera, Poulenc, Honegger, Roussel, Rawsthorne. Mompou, Severac, Myaskovsky, Scriabin, Berio, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Nono addict.


you are forgiven Vaneyes

but do not do this again


----------



## Oskaar

Centropolis said:


> "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...anyone? No?


Eurovision song contest-addiction...


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Not me. I hate it along with that cursed 8th symphony.
> 
> There I said it!


at last

you finally had a true confession


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> weeeeeeell
> 
> how did you keep all these secrets for so much time inside you? hahaha
> 
> really now, the rest OK, but confessions 1 and 5?
> 
> The various recordings are the magic "wand" that gives spice to a musical piece,
> 
> and keeps the game going.
> 
> Moonlight sonata is a legendary piece that deserves more respect,
> 
> it has grown generations...


I read that Beethoven was annoyed at the Moonlight's popularity; stating that he wrote much better sonatas.


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> at last
> 
> you finally had a true confession


I have even more, but they are a bit too atonal for human ears.


----------



## EdwardBast

hpowders said:


> Bruckner scherzos can be quite lugubrious.


"Elephantine galumphing" is the expression one of my professors used in describing them.


----------



## hpowders

EdwardBast said:


> "Elephantine galumphing" is the expression one of my professors used in describing them.


Sounds like the professor and I are on the same wavelength.
Believe me, I have tried to like him, but it's similar to the idea of trying to fit a size 11 foot into a handsome size 10 shoe. There comes a point when one simply must give up and move on to the next shoe.


----------



## hpowders

violadude said:


> You should...he has eye lasers.


Why didn't you give me a heads up before I wrote that post?
I'm not worried. He'll never find me.
He won't, right?


----------



## hpowders

This is really a good thread. For the first time in years I seriously feel that with my posts here, I am on an express train to heaven.


----------



## Itullian

And I believe he loved his 8th symphony.


----------



## Haydn man

A few confessions about composers
I find myself unable to listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons anymore ( too much exposure)
I find Tchaikovsky clumsy at times especially the way he can never seem to end a movement without a stuttering climax
I don't think I am ever going to get Bruckner it's just too long but will keep trying
Haydn is rubbish and he wrote the same symphony 104 times 

PS. One of the above may not be true


----------



## clara s

violadude said:


> I actually don't like the various recordings thing, personally. That's one thing I prefer about non-classical music, there's a definitive recording for every piece so I don't have to worry my brains out about whether I'm actually hearing what the original artist intended me to hear.
> 
> I have plenty of pieces and composers to explore without having to resort to different recordings to keep things not boring
> 
> And about the Beethoven, ya I see your point. I just think so many of his other sonatas are much better but people rave on and on about the Moonlight.


you are wrong here

take Shostakovich violin concerto no 1

First listen to Leonid Kogan with Kondrashin or Svetlanov as conductors

so intense performances and recordings

exceptional

Then listen to Maxim Vengerov with Rostropovich conducting

so beautifully played violin

Finally listen it with David Oistrakh with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting

such deep understanding of this music, really outstanding sensation

and tell me after listening all three, have you gained more?


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> I have even more, but they are a bit too atonal for human ears.


you may proceed

we are used to atonality and other systems


----------



## hpowders

Haydn man said:


> A few confessions about composers
> I find myself unable to listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons anymore ( too much exposure)
> I find Tchaikovsky clumsy at times especially the way he can never seem to end a movement without a stuttering climax
> I don't think I am ever going to get Bruckner it's just too long but will keep trying
> Haydn is rubbish and he wrote the same symphony 104 times
> 
> PS. One of the above may not be true


Ha! Ha! Funny post! I'm with you on Four Seasons and Bruckner.


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> you may proceed
> 
> we are used to atonality and other systems


Ha! Ha! Only in a confession booth, Sister clara s! 

That's like a TV interviewer, "Come on, It's just you and me here."


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Ha! Ha! Only in a confession booth, Sister clara s!


hahaha

Hildelgard von Bingen would be more appropriate you think than sister clara s?


----------



## Oskaar

violadude!!! 

Take a violin performance.

You have the work
You have the violin maker
You have the Artist
And not at least you have the perceptor, you and me!

That is what I really like about music in general, and classical music in special: Explore thous thousand of variables, and not at least reflect over why something hit you deep inside, and something not.


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> hahaha
> 
> Hildelgard von Bingen would be more appropriate you think than sister clara s?


She hasn't answered any of my posts in years. I've written her off.


----------



## Oskaar

I love this thread! Senseity, and sometimes a smile. We are into something important


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> I love this thread! Senseity, and sometimes a smile. We are into something important


This may be my only thread for the rest of my life.

I feel the guilt just dissolving away....


----------



## Piwikiwi

I'm too lazy to get into 12 tone music or mahler/strauss/ bruckner


----------



## hpowders

I'm too lazy to answer you.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> She hasn't answered any of my posts in years. I've written her off.


shame

where the good nuns have gone?


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> shame
> 
> where the good nuns have gone?


Hopefully to a much better place.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> This may be my only thread for the rest of my life.


good for you

up to now, I have not felt yet ready to confess here

where is the booth?


----------



## Oskaar

This can be the BIG hangout thread. Hope it stays active!


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> good for you
> 
> up to now, I have not felt yet ready to confess here
> 
> where is the booth?


We can always use PM's in a dire emergency. :angel:


----------



## Oskaar

clara s said:


> good for you
> 
> up to now, I have not felt yet ready to confess here
> 
> where is the booth?


We can wait... ( for soething BIG, hehe)


----------



## hpowders

^^^Speak for yourself. I'd like to hear it.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Centropolis said:


> "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...anyone? No?


No. Just say no, Centropolis...


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> This can be the BIG hangout thread. Hope it stays active!


Yes. We can come here to hang out our dirty laundry.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> We can always use PM's in a dire emergency. :angel:


24 hour emergency booth

I feel lucky


----------



## hpowders

hpowders said:


> We can always use PM's in a dire emergency. :angel:


A sort of "cyber-confessional booth".


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> 24 hour emergency booth
> 
> I feel lucky


Yes!!! And if hooked up to my iPhone, I will hear a bell-like "ping" every time you want to confess, 24/7! :tiphat:


----------



## clara s

oskaar said:


> We can wait... ( for soething BIG, hehe)


of course it will be BIG

always to astonish the audiences hahaha


----------



## hpowders

What audiences? I'm not telling anybody.

Confessions are confidential.


----------



## Winterreisender

Just recently I was listening to a CD of Byrd's choral music and it took me about an hour to realise that I just had the first track on repeat mode.


----------



## DeepR

I have "conducted" a number of favorite symphonic pieces while sitting on my couch, at night with all the lights off and volume way up and I must have looked like a total idiot while doing it.


----------



## hpowders

DeepR said:


> I have "conducted" a number of favorite symphonic pieces while sitting on my couch, at night with all the lights off and volume way up and I must have looked like a total idiot while doing it.


 Georg Solti looked like a bundle of awkward nerves when he conducted, but he got results anyway. So maybe, it's not so bad.


----------



## mmsbls

1) I've never understood people disliking works because they are too popular or played often. I adore Vivaldi's Four Seasons and love to hear it whenever I do. Beethoven's 5th symphony is simply spectacular, and the Moonlight Sonata is a stunningly beautiful piece of music. Pachelbel's Canon is lovely. I could hear these works once a week for life and still get a thrill from hearing them. (Note: I can understand cellists having negative reactions from having played Pachelbel's Canon).

2) There are some modern notable composers whose works I simply can't figure out how to understand/appreciate/enjoy (e.g. Xenakis). While this may be true of many people, I still feel that in some sense I have failed.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

I really don't get a lot of late romantic music: Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and the like leave me cold. I'm also not over fond of classical and romantic symphonies and concertos (with some notable exceptions).

However, my OH's taste runs to, well, symphonies and concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Bruch, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov. I feel I should suggest more shared listening, but I am weak...


----------



## techniquest

> Just recently I was listening to a CD of Byrd's choral music and it took me about an hour to realise that I just had the first track on repeat mode.


Oh, that's just so sweet - what a lovely post.



> I have "conducted" a number of favorite symphonic pieces while sitting on my couch, at night with all the lights off and volume way up and I must have looked like a total idiot while doing it.


I've been known to do this as a form of exercise - call it 'conductor-obics'. It's usually Mahler or Shostakovich, but I have been known to wave my way through the Rite of Spring and Ravel's 'La Valse'. I even bought a couple of cheap batons off of ebay...(how sad?).

Here's a real confessional. I have sat through Mahler 2 and been reduced to tears at the end of a really good recording; a complete blubbering heap. 
Also, someone a few pages back said that they find Bruckner boring; so do I. I simply don't get him at all.


----------



## Haydn man

Got the flavour now for more confessions
I sometimes deliberately vote for the 'wrong' option in polls cos it feels more dangerous and I can then argue with myself!
Yes, I too have waved my arms at the speakers in an approximation of conducting, damn orchestra seem not to take any notice of me however hard I stare at them when they miss my directions
Good thing this confessional and so pleased it is confidential


----------



## Itullian

I confess I love Un Giorno di Regno by Verdi. One of his very first operas.


----------



## Guest

I often "play around" with the "width" of semitones, depending on their function.


----------



## trazom

DeepR said:


> I have "conducted" a number of favorite symphonic pieces while sitting on my couch, at night with all the lights off and volume way up and I must have looked like a total idiot while doing it.


Can you look like a total idiot if nobody sees you doing it, though? that's one for the philosophers.

My confession is I love jumping on the backyard trampoline while listening to my favorite pieces. It really is the best kind of high.


----------



## Kivimees

I'm too innumerate to get into 12 tone music.


----------



## Taggart

Kivimees said:


> I'm too innumerate to get into 12 tone music.


If God wanted us to move beyond a pentatonic scale, he would have given us six fingers!


----------



## Piwikiwi

Taggart said:


> If God wanted us to move beyond a pentatonic scale, he would have given us six fingers!


Well he gave us 10^^


----------



## moody

mmsbls said:


> 1) I've never understood people disliking works because they are too popular or played often. I adore Vivaldi's Four Seasons and love to hear it whenever I do. Beethoven's 5th symphony is simply spectacular, and the Moonlight Sonata is a stunningly beautiful piece of music. Pachelbel's Canon is lovely. I could hear these works once a week for life and still get a thrill from hearing them. (Note: I can understand cellists having negative reactions from having played Pachelbel's Canon).
> 
> 2) There are some modern notable composers whose works I simply can't figure out how to understand/appreciate/enjoy (e.g. Xenakis). While this may be true of many people, I still feel that in some sense I have failed.


Well OK,join the failure club---it's quite big.


----------



## moody

Winterreisender said:


> Just recently I was listening to a CD of Byrd's choral music and it took me about an hour to realise that I just had the first track on repeat mode.


I think that says it all !


----------



## hpowders

I confess that my favorite Beethoven symphony is the Pastoral and that the Fifth and the Ninth aren't even in my top three of the nine.


----------



## Chris

When renaissance polyphony comes up on the car radio my left index finger fires a reflex stab at the off button faster than a frog's tongue flicking at a passing fly. I'd rather listen to tyre noise.


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> If Stravinsky is perfect and serialism is perfect, what does that make Agon?


A little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll (_but with castanets_.)


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> A little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll (_but with castanets_.)


I'm a sucker for both castanets and Casta Diva. That either makes me eclectic or disturbed.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that hearing Bach's solo keyboard works on the piano is painful to my ears. Complete blasphemy.
That goes for the Goldberg Variations, French and English Suites, WTC and Keyboard Toccatas and Partitas.

It's Bach on the harpsichord or no Bach at all!


----------



## PetrB

1.) My head falls into my hands with despair every time I read about music where melody is first and foremost mentioned. 

2.) I have come to cringe when I hear music being spoken of primarily and / or only in terms of melody and harmony. 

1 & 2.) I am conditioned to instantly despise hearing 'melody' whenever mentioned 

3.) I despair for all those beginning piano students who are studying with a teacher who uses "The Chord Method." 

4.) I weep when those beginning piano students have to ask: 
"How do I play with both hands," or, 
"How do I add pedal / expression." 
-- and if they have a teacher, I secretly want that teacher summarily executed without benefit of a hearing or trial.

5.) I pity any player who can not sight read commensurate with their technical playing ability, and again, if they have a teacher, want that teacher summarily executed.

0.) But usually, I keep these things to myself


----------



## Guest

Here's a confession:
In my past life, I once disagreed with PetrB. I have since seen the error in my ways.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I cannot listen to Haydn's The Creation in English; only German.


----------



## bigshot

I've never seen the movie Amadeus, and I have no plans to ever see it.


----------



## Ingélou

Winterreisender said:


> Just recently I was listening to a CD of Byrd's choral music and it took me about an hour to realise that I just had the first track on repeat mode.


That reminds me of the time when I was in my early teens and organising my little sister's games with dolls. We decided to stage a dolly Royal Marriage, and have them march up the aisle (actually the kitchen table) to the strains of Eine kleine Nachtmusik. We wondered why we seemed to be having to hurry them along in an undignified manner but it didn't dawn on us till afterwards. We'd put an LP, 33rpm, on at a singles, 45rpm, speed.
Real virtuosos, that orchestra!


----------



## Ingélou

PetrB said:


> ... But usually, I keep these things to myself


Don't be so sure! :lol:


----------



## Ingélou

arcaneholocaust said:


> Here's a confession:
> In my past life, I once disagreed with PetrB. I have since seen the error in my ways.


I'm one of those who daren't post till I've seen what PetrB thinks; or who daren't post because I *know* what PetrB thinks!


----------



## Guest

I eagerly await PetrB's new book, which should shed some insight on his seemingly nebulous views towards film scores. I read the PetrB canon specifically so that I can be wrong less often (and ideally, right once in a while!).


----------



## Guest

After all, a regurgitated opinion is generally more reliable than one's own misinformed views!


----------



## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> I eagerly await PetrB's new book....


Not in my lifetime, and not in yours -- unless someone chooses PetrB as a _nom de plume,_ -- and true to form, I think they would be a fool to choose that name, (that is, if they want to be taken seriously


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Centropolis said:


> I like Peter, Paul and Mary because I listen to them when I was a kid with my dad. How is that for a confession!?


I like The Seekers for the same reason - gulp!


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Centropolis said:


> "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...anyone? No?


Yup! trendy students from the local teacher training college came to our primary school and taught it to us - its about the only thing that was pleasant or interesting that I can remember from my primary school


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Forgive me, Posters, for I have sinned. Through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault ..... (and accepting that I'll get a barrage of disapprobation for this lot) but ..... I hope for forgiveness of my sins and the resurrection of the lost souls (like me) 

I have a long list of dislikes:

1. saxaphones

2. harmonica music

3. solo flutes

it gets worse ....

4. jazz (hmm - well, rather than explain why I can like some bits, and as a mark of slovenliness, its easier to have a blanket refusal - hangs head in shame!)

5. erm - a big one here - American composers - Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, Thomson, Barber .... its not because they are American, its just that I don't like their music - (ducks and hides from the arrows)

6. most 'modern' music - er, difficult to define, but .... no, its safer not to do so

7. the opening squawk of the clarinet in ..... yes, in that!

8. recording artists who try to sell their records with their bodies

and to finish off with a complete bit of illogicality ..... CDs on the Decca label (I know! But it is a confessional)

so, I'm off to light a candle, throw a few coins into the collection plate and say a lot of prayers to St Jude - Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases

oh - and this is not intended as a serious position statement (in case you couldn't tell already!)


----------



## BillT

OK ... I'll confess! I really don't like work any more. These high school administrators are really losers. I can BARELY wait another 11 weeks until I can retire and spend 'all' my time listening to music.

- Bill


----------



## clara s

Headphone Hermit said:


> Forgive me, Posters, for I have sinned. Through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault ..... (and accepting that I'll get a barrage of disapprobation for this lot) but ..... I hope for forgiveness of my sins and the resurrection of the lost souls (like me)
> 
> I have a long list of dislikes:
> 
> 1. saxaphones
> 
> 2. harmonica music
> 
> 3. solo flutes
> 
> it gets worse ....
> 
> 4. jazz (hmm - well, rather than explain why I can like some bits, and as a mark of slovenliness, its easier to have a blanket refusal - hangs head in shame!)
> 
> 5. erm - a big one here - American composers - Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, Thomson, Barber .... its not because they are American, its just that I don't like their music - (ducks and hides from the arrows)
> 
> 6. most 'modern' music - er, difficult to define, but .... no, its safer not to do so
> 
> 7. the opening squawk of the clarinet in ..... yes, in that!
> 
> 8. recording artists who try to sell their records with their bodies
> 
> and to finish off with a complete bit of illogicality ..... CDs on the Decca label (I know! But it is a confessional)
> 
> so, I'm off to light a candle, throw a few coins into the collection plate and say a lot of prayers to St Jude - Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases
> 
> oh - and this is not intended as a serious position statement (in case you couldn't tell already!)


this was a unique sample of artistic confession

you are definitely forgiven and you may proceed with Holy Communion hahaha

but a question, why you don't like Gershwin or Copland? they have written distinct music


----------



## Headphone Hermit

I don't know, Ma'am - - - - or I do, but recognise the indefensibility of my view

:lol:


----------



## PetrB

BillT said:


> OK ... I'll confess! I really don't like work any more. These high school administrators are really losers. I can BARELY wait another 11 weeks until I can retire and spend 'all' my time listening to music.
> 
> - Bill


_Hang in there!_ Often said, the best revenge is living well, but add to that living long enough to retire and enjoy that in good health -- my wish for you.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

This can't be a confessional for me, because everyone knows my inclinations/disinclinations. Finding *secrets *about me would be unusual, yes...

Ooh I know! I used to be scared of listening to Prokofiev, before I became aware that he was a tonal composer.  this was... years ago...


----------



## Serge

I think that people who call classical music "opera" do so just to **** me off. Works every time.


----------



## Serge

I only give $5.00 per month to a public classical music radio station. That's all I can afford.


----------



## TitanisWalleri

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 2 years since my last confession...
I 
HATE
JAZZZZZZ! 
I also hate anything before Romanticism.


----------



## Guest

PetrB said:


> Not in my lifetime, and not in yours -- unless someone chooses PetrB as a _nom de plume,_ -- and true to form, I think they would be a fool to choose that name, (that is, if they want to be taken seriously


Oh PetrB. If you were any more modest, you'd have a place in the Mighty Five!


----------



## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> Oh PetrB. If you were any more modest, you'd have a place in the Mighty Five!


I you were any more attentive / obsessive in regularly naming another TC member, you might have a place in the Stalker's Corner.


----------



## Guest

I have long since graduated the Stalker's Corner.

Would you prefer not to have a protege?


----------



## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> I have long since graduated the Stalker's Corner.
> 
> Would you prefer not to have a protege?


Thanks, but I already have a pet


----------



## Guest

Oh...I see...so we'll have to be "just friends".


----------



## hpowders

TitanisWalleri said:


> Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 2 years since my last confession...
> I
> HATE
> JAZZZZZZ!
> I also hate anything before Romanticism.


Not a crime. Just don't move to New Orleans and you should be okay.


----------



## Oskaar

I have a confession: I could not stop listening to this repeatavly for 3 hours yesterday.

link

*Name: Angelina Jordon
Age: 7
Occation: "Norske talenter" ( Norway`s got talents )*

Expect som physical reactions watching this.


----------



## Oskaar

starthrower said:


> It's no use, Mahlerian. This thread like numerous others here is not about music, but about people constantly flaunting their likes and dislikes.


I like reflecting over what I like and dislike, in interactivity with other people to. Helps me understand myself, and how I can use music as medicin and a sourch for better life quality. Much more interresting for me than music theory and intellectualizasjon, that I will never learn, get or remember. And what is this forum for?


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Headphone Hermit said:


> it gets worse ....
> 
> 4. jazz (hmm - well, rather than explain why I can like some bits, and as a mark of slovenliness, its easier to have a blanket refusal - hangs head in shame!)





TitanisWalleri said:


> Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 2 years since my last confession...
> I
> HATE
> JAZZZZZZ!


Psyncopanalysis is very good for this, gentlemen...


----------



## Oskaar

Winterreisender said:


> Just recently I was listening to a CD of Byrd's choral music and it took me about an hour to realise that I just had the first track on repeat mode.


Something like that have happened to me to. So dont trust my quasi-emotional deep-analyzes of music.. Confession: I was listening to a chamber work of mozart, dont remember wich, the music sounded good, I posted in currently listening, could not find anything on the web... suddenly I heard/understood that some kids or students had lured themself into spotify :lol: Neat and pretty, but absolutely amateurs...


----------



## Oskaar

Ingélou said:


> I'm one of those who daren't post till I've seen what PetrB thinks; or who daren't post because I *know* what PetrB thinks!


I confess that I dont know who PetrB is....


----------



## Oskaar

I also confess that I am week for smileys


----------



## OldFashionedGirl

I confess that I can't stop listen to the Battle of Ice from Prokofiev's cantata Alexander Nevsky.


----------



## hpowders

Yeah. I love Prokofiev!


----------



## Oskaar

I have another confession: I layed wakeless last nigh, a bit irritated over a post. Who and when doesnt matter. The poster complained of some peoples way of describing music, and exampled it with the word *epic*

I hope this is a forum for everybody, not only the musical scolared and intellectual. That could be in fare of me finding the word *elitism*.

I have for long wanted to express my feelings and experiences for classical music, but finding words is difficult in general and in special because Norwegian is my mother language. But I am trying, and feel that I am doing bether. I dont know a #### about music theori, and will feel free to use the words I find suitable for expressing my experiance. *Epic* might be a good word for us normal people. Everyone might understand that.


----------



## Serge

On occasion, I find Schoenberg too conventional. That is when I like him.


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> I have another confession: I layed wakeless last nigh, a bit irritated over a post. Who and when doesnt matter. The poster complained of some peoples way of describing music, and exampled it with the word *epic*
> 
> I hope this is a forum for everybody, not only the musical scolared and intellectual. That could be in fare of me finding the word *elitism*.
> 
> I have for long wanted to express my feelings and experiences for classical music, but finding words is difficult in general and in special because Norwegian is my mother language. But I am trying, and feel that I am doing bether. I dont know a #### about music theori, and will feel free to use the words I find suitable for expressing my experiance. *Epic* might be a good word for us normal people. Everyone might understand that.


Well, the intellectuals find each other and they are happy debating each other.

You do just fine, Oskaar! Having a background in music theory is not a pre-requisite for having something meaningful to contribute on TC.

Some of the most stimulating posts I have encountered on TC were from seemingly average folks who simply love the music and it shows.


----------



## Serge

I plead ignorance!


----------



## TurnaboutVox

oskaar said:


> I have for long wanted to express my feelings and experiences for classical music, but finding words is difficult in general and in special because Norwegian is my mother language. But I am trying, and feel that I am doing bether. I dont know a #### about music theori, and will feel free to use the words I find suitable for expressing my experiance. *Epic* might be a good word for us normal people. Everyone might understand that.


Oskaar,

I really enjoy your posts. I especially like the passion about music you convey, and your curiosity to discover new works and composers. I wouldn't have the confidence to do that in a second language.


----------



## PetrB

OldFashionedGirl said:


> I confess that I can't stop listen to the Battle of Ice from Prokofiev's cantata Alexander Nevsky.


Just your mention of it makes me 'hear it.' LOL.


----------



## Ukko

oskaar said:


> [...]
> I have for long wanted to express my feelings and experiences for classical music, but finding words is difficult in general and in special because Norwegian is my mother language. But I am trying, and feel that I am doing bether. I dont know a #### about music theori, and will feel free to use the words I find suitable for expressing my experiance. *Epic* might be a good word for us normal people. Everyone might understand that.


Unfortunately, I suspect that - beyond a vague feeling of recognition - the majority of 'epic' users are using the word inaccurately. I'm not an 'epic' user for some reason, but when I Googled on the word I found:

ep·ic
ˈepik/
_noun_
noun: *epic*; plural noun: *epics*


*1*. 
a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.

synonyms:heroic poem; Morestory, saga, legend, romance, chronicle, myth, fable, tale 
"the epics of Homer"



the genre of epic poems.
"the romances display gentler emotions not found in Greek epic"

a long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time.
"a Hollywood biblical epic"

synonyms:long film; More_informalblockbuster _
_"a big Hollywood epic"_





_adjective_
adjective: *epic*
*1*. 
of, relating to, or characteristic of an epic or epics.
"England's national epic poem _Beowulf_"

synonyms:heroic, long, grand, monumental, Homeric, Miltonian


That's pretty much what I thought it meant. The "Urban Dictionary" on the other hand, says that "everything is 'epic' now."

So... feel free to use the word, Oskaar, but don't assume that anybody will know what you mean by it.


----------



## Serge

To me _epic_ means "large in scale". Not that there's anything wrong with it...


----------



## Morimur

Confession: Why isn't Stockhausen as revered as Stravinsky? 'Gruppen' was perhaps the most important piece of the late 20th century. Why don't people recognize that? It irks me.


----------



## hpowders

^^^One of the many hot topics being debated at water coolers throughout the USA between 9AM and 5 PM.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Winterreisender said:


> Just recently I was listening to a CD of Byrd's choral music and it took me about an hour to realise that I just had the first track on repeat mode.


Try Vivaldi as I believe he wrote the same concerto 500 times :tiphat:


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

bigshot said:


> I've never seen the movie Amadeus, and I have no plans to ever see it.


You should as like Equus it is worth a watch imo and benefits from a really good BluRay transfer. It's a little OTT at times but a long way removed from something like Russell's Lisztomania.

It's important to experience something before being critical and to be open-minded I always find. I saw the movie at the cinema when it first came out but don't recall how well or badly reviewed it was by "classical" music magazines though reviews of most things are personal in the final analysis.

Once upon a time I thought all amplifiers sounded the same and that loudspeakers were the most important part in a hi fi rig but now I know different and look at any reviews with an open mind regarding my CD player as the most important bit but still within the confines of a balanced system.

I changed my opinion on hi fi and that open-mindedness I've never regretted so why not adopt the same attitude and give Amadeus a go as 30 mins or so in you'll know and can always switch off if it proves that awful an experience for you.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Piwikiwi said:


> Well he gave us 10^^


8 and 2 thumbs to be a pedant :lol:


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

BillT said:


> OK ... I'll confess! I really don't like work any more. These high school administrators are really losers. I can BARELY wait another 11 weeks until I can retire and spend 'all' my time listening to music.


I hate work but have the morning off, yay. I also now hate you as you've only 11 weeks left


----------



## aleazk

Ukko said:


> Unfortunately, I suspect that - beyond a vague feeling of recognition - the majority of 'epic' users are using the word inaccurately. I'm not an 'epic' user for some reason, but when I Googled on the word I found:
> 
> ep·ic
> ˈepik/
> _noun_
> noun: *epic*; plural noun: *epics*
> 
> 
> *1*.
> a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.
> 
> synonyms:heroic poem; Morestory, saga, legend, romance, chronicle, myth, fable, tale
> "the epics of Homer"
> 
> 
> 
> the genre of epic poems.
> "the romances display gentler emotions not found in Greek epic"
> 
> a long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time.
> "a Hollywood biblical epic"
> 
> synonyms:long film; More_informalblockbuster _
> _"a big Hollywood epic"_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _adjective_
> adjective: *epic*
> *1*.
> of, relating to, or characteristic of an epic or epics.
> "England's national epic poem _Beowulf_"
> 
> synonyms:heroic, long, grand, monumental, Homeric, Miltonian
> 
> 
> That's pretty much what I thought it meant. The "Urban Dictionary" on the other hand, says that "everything is 'epic' now."
> 
> So... feel free to use the word, Oskaar, but don't assume that anybody will know what you mean by it.


I say this with admiration: this is possibly the most epic post I have ever seen in terms of semantic pedantry in an internet forum!. 

The material is not only written in the style of an actual, physical, on real paper dictionary, but also the visual presentation too!!!. 

Really: :tiphat:


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Serge said:


> I plead ignorance!


Ignorance is bliss


----------



## Oskaar

Ukko said:


> Unfortunately, I suspect that - beyond a vague feeling of recognition - So... feel free to use the word, Oskaar, but don't assume that anybody will know what you mean by it.


My post was on the behalf of everybody that are searching words to express their feelings/experiances. If I should use the word epic, I think I woul use it as large in scale" eather pointing of a grandeose end of a symphony maybe, or pointing on my own "grand in scale" experience.

*AND*
I have nothing against the experts use of complex terms and theory, as long as they dont expect me to understand it! (but I am slowly picking some things up.


----------



## Oskaar

aleazk said:


> I say this with admiration: this is possibly the most epic post I have ever seen in terms of semantic pedantry in an internet forum!.
> 
> The material is not only written in the style of an actual, physical, on real paper dictionary, but also the visual presentation too!!!.


I second that!







:tiphat:


----------



## Oskaar

I have to confess: I am waiting unpatiently on new confessions.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Confession: Why isn't Stockhausen as revered as Stravinsky? 'Gruppen' was perhaps the most important piece of the late 20th century. Why don't people recognize that? It irks me.


I confess an unwillingness to disagree with someone who uses as an avitar, a sociopath from the C17 who was prepared to walk thousands of miles to hunt down someone who had offended him so that he could murder him in revenge ( .... oh, and who reputedly murdered his own daughter as well!) 

Oh yes, Lope, oh yes ... you're quite right. Oh yes, Sir, absolutely - so it should do (can't find a smiley for 'grovels in an ingratiatingly subservient manner')


----------



## KenOC

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Confession: Why isn't Stockhausen as revered as Stravinsky? 'Gruppen' was perhaps the most important piece of the late 20th century. Why don't people recognize that? It irks me.


Important to whom? Not to me, certainly. It's importance to me is so tiny, so miniscule, that even to speak of it at all is an exaggeration by definition.


----------



## Oskaar

I have a confession.
I must admit that the look of an artist highly influate my perseption of the music. (In the beginning)

I recently listened to Radu Lupu that looks like Rasputin. In the beginning I felt thretened by all his notes, feeling that he was coming to get me and make my life a nightmare.. After a while I eased up, and started to really like him. He seems a bit uneven, but absolutely worth to explore


----------



## Morimur

oskaar said:


> I have a confession.
> I must admit that the look of an artist highly influate my perseption of the music. (In the beginning)
> 
> I recently listened to Radu Lupu that looks like Rasputin. In the beginning I felt thretened by all his notes, feeling that he was coming to get me and make my life a nightmare.. After a while I eased up, and started to really like him. He seems a bit uneven, but absolutely worth to explore


Rasputin chic. Hairy fellow. Not that there's anything wrong with being hairy.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Important to whom? Not to me, certainly. It's importance to me is so tiny, so miniscule, that even to speak of it at all is an exaggeration by definition.


Blazing flash of the obvious, both Ferde Grofé and Beethoven worlds apart from Karlheinz Stockhausen, but so is Monteverdi worlds apart from any of those. And so it goes, but I thought that should be obvious.

But, idle curiosity, where from the need to say Stockhausen is not important to you?

Anyone following your general drift pretty much could have 100% guessed that from sussing your general tastes. Was the motivation something like my dropping in on the "Why isn't Bruckner Big" thread to simply remind the OP some people don't care for Bruckner at all?

Anyone who likes Stockhausen or a lot of contemporary classical is much more aware, it seems, that many do not care for or are even unaware of the whole lot vs. Bruckner being somewhat assumed to be revered by all.

So is this just yet another gratuitous nugget of contemporary music bashing or did I miss the "confessional tone" of your post?


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Blazing flash of the obvious...


Oh dear, all that because I said Stockhausen wasn't important to me? Blazing flash indeed.


----------



## lupinix

PetrB said:


> Blazing flash of the obvious, both Ferde Grofé and Beethoven worlds apart from Karlheinz Stockhausen, but so is Monteverdi worlds apart from any of those. And so it goes, but I thought that should be obvious.
> 
> But, idle curiosity, where from the need to say Stockhausen is not important to you?
> 
> Anyone following your general drift pretty much could have 100% guessed that from sussing your general tastes. Was the motivation something like my dropping in on the "Why isn't Bruckner Big" thread to simply remind the OP some people don't care for Bruckner at all?
> 
> Anyone who likes Stockhausen or a lot of contemporary classical is much more aware, it seems, that many do not care for or are even unaware of the whole lot vs. Bruckner being somewhat assumed to be revered by all.
> 
> So is this just yet another gratuitous nugget of contemporary music bashing or did I miss the "confessional tone" if your post?


I must agree with all of this this even though I don't personally like the works of Stockhausen that I've heard so far (but I don't care that much about those of Bruckner either, and Stravinsky probably even less than both of them (even though I'm glad of the technical innovations his music has brought forth))


----------



## hpowders

We think alike.


----------



## Itullian

I have never listened to Mahler's kindertoten lieder.
And probably never will.
There's enough heart break in the world.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Itullian said:


> I have never listened to Mahler's kindertoten lieder.
> And probably never will.
> There's enough heat break in the world.


-- You still have to hear Christa though. Ha. Ha. Ha.


----------



## Manxfeeder

Itullian said:


> I have never listened to Mahler's kindertoten lieder.
> And probably never will.
> There's enough heart break in the world.


I've heard it once. With three grandchildren, about to have four, I'm afraid to hear it again. Considering what happened to Mahler after writing it, I'm irrationally paranoid.


----------



## hpowders

I play it on Thanksgiving when the relatives overstay their welcome.
By the second Kindertotenlieder, they are already on the interstate, far, far away!!!


----------



## PetrB

Itullian said:


> I have never listened to Mahler's kindertoten lieder.
> And probably never will.
> There's enough heart break in the world.


Well, there is still about one-third of the world's great music, art and literature for you then, certainly still plenty even with your 'no heartbreak' editors on duty.

But you do seem to revel in opera... so are your editors all sent out to lunch and dinner there... or do you have some rationale for not avoiding La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Rigoletto, etc. ?


----------



## hpowders

beetzart said:


> *Bruckner and Scarlatti, all day, everyday. * (Next week I may introduce Beethoven or Brahms but Bruckner will always be there.)


If I am ever captured by terrorists, I pray they don't utter those words!!!


----------



## senza sordino

Puccini makes me cry every time 
I play "air violin" to violin concerti I'm listening to.
I don't own one CD of Bruckner
I own only one Haydn CD
I play my music too loud and force my neighbours to listen.


----------



## hpowders

senza sordino said:


> Puccini makes me cry every time
> I play "air violin" to violin concerti I'm listening to.
> I don't own one CD of Bruckner
> I own only one Haydn CD
> I play my music too loud and force my neighbours to listen.


Is that you????? :lol:


----------



## KenOC

hpowders said:


> If I am ever captured by terrorists, I pray they don't utter those words!!!


Which (given the topic and the poster's avatar) raises an interesting question. What kind of music would Bruckner have written if he were French?


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> Which (given the topic and the poster's avatar) raises an interesting question. What kind of music would Bruckner have written if he were French?


Daphnis and Chloe but about 45 minutes longer and with a scherzo.


----------



## KenOC

hpowders said:


> Daphnis and Chloe but about 45 minutes longer and with a scherzo.


Extended Prelude to the Afternoon of an Enormously Large Faun (Nowak edition).


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> Extended Prelude to the Afternoon of an Enormously Large Faun (Nowak edition).


He can extend it all he wants. After 2 minutes I'm already in a coma.

Ha! Ha! Yeah. Nowak would cut it down to a manageable 54 minutes.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

I love Bartók, but hate The Miraculous Mandarin.


----------



## Itullian

PetrB said:


> Well, there is still about one-third of the world's great music, art and literature for you then, certainly still plenty even with your 'no heartbreak' editors on duty.
> 
> But you do seem to revel in opera... so are your editors all sent out to lunch and dinner there... or do you have some rationale for not avoiding La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Rigoletto, etc. ?


They're not real.


----------



## Mahlerian

Itullian said:


> They're not real.


Wozzeck was. Can't think of others off the top of my head, though.


----------



## Itullian

Mahlerian said:


> Wozzeck was. Can't think of others off the top of my head, though.


Its a dramatization of a real event that WAS. past.
Singing about the death of children , to me, is different.

I don't care for Wozzeck.


----------



## PetrB

Itullian said:


> Its a dramatization of a real event that WAS. past.
> Singing about the death of children, to me, is different.


...a line from the television series, _Six Feet Under,_ the episode, "Life's Too Short" ~

"You know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow, or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too f***ing awful to even have a name.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

"Olonst" is the best sounding word I could made up for that.


----------



## PetrB

I must confess: I firmly believe that any of those who think that music is math, that the physics of acoustics can somehow prove or dictate that music of one sort or another, this scale, that tuning, this harmony, that harmony, is better, valid, or more of a cosmic musical truth by adhering to those principles are, for the most part, control freak nutters who will never have the least notion of the actual truths of the creative intuitive processes by which so much of the music they like to think adheres to their constructs actually came about.

The moment I feel anyone is fixated upon that maths / physics of acoustics = musical 'truths' thesis, I write them off, feeling they are wildly attracted to music on a visceral level, yet standing on the outside looking in, wildly distrustful of human spirit or the true spirit which spawns creative invention. To me, they are like Hans Christian Anderson's piteous _Little Match Girl_, standing on the street while staring into the window at the brightly lit warm room with its Christmas tree in it while freezing to death in the cold outside.

Thank you. I feel better now.


----------



## clara s

PetrB said:


> I must confess: I firmly believe that any of those who think that music is math, that the physics of acoustics can somehow prove or dictate that music of one sort or another, this scale, that tuning, this harmony, that harmony, is better, valid, or more of a cosmic musical truth by adhering to those principles are, for the most part, control freak nutters who will never have the least notion of the actual truths of the creative intuitive processes by which so much of the music they like to think adheres to their constructs actually came about.
> 
> The moment I feel anyone is fixated upon that maths / physics of acoustics = musical 'truths' thesis, I write them off, feeling they are wildly attracted to music on a visceral level, yet standing on the outside looking in, wildly distrustful of human spirit or the true spirit which spawns creative invention. To me, they are like Hans Christian Anderson's piteous _Little Match Girl_, standing on the street while staring into the window at the brightly lit warm room with its Christmas tree in it while freezing to death in the cold outside.
> 
> Thank you. I feel better now.


I absolutely agree sir with the central idea of your confession

I only have a slight disagreement with the example.

Little match girl had no other alternative but to stay in the cold and stare,

hoping to be invited inside or die in the freezing cold.

The people you are saying, have chosen their stay in the cold,

prefering to keep away from the true "creative intuitive processes", as it is perfectly written.

Confession accepted

Why i can not confess yet here? I wonder


----------



## Weston

I am growing weary of big clanging crashing martial nationlist music overtures and symphonies with lots of cymbals and triangles. Dvorak is kind of boring to me. Sousa is horrible to me!


----------



## clara s

knowing that nobody is in the confessional, and listening to Glazunov's Stenka Razin,

a beautiful symphonic poem for the Cossack hero on River Volga,

I confess without fear

1. I dislike people in every aspect of life (including classical music)

that play it "authority" and do not respect other opinions.

For them, I feel sorry

2. I love to play harmonium. 

I love the sound of classical music from the harmonium, 

cut, staccato, wild, hard.

3. I have to confess that for many years I had underestimated the "weight" of Gustav Mahler's music.

I could not detect the triumph behind the silence, the cry behind the pain.

I missed a lot.

4. My big secret confession now

my great desire has always been to have a musical piece 
written for me by a great composer.

do I ask much?

forgive me If I have sinned hahaha


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> knowing that nobody is in the confessional, and listening to Glazunov's Stenka Razin,
> 
> a beautiful symphonic poem for the Cossack hero on River Volga,
> 
> I confess without fear
> 
> 1. I dislike people in every aspect of life (including classical music)
> 
> that play it "authority" and do not respect other opinions.
> 
> For them, I feel sorry
> 
> 2. I love to play harmonium.
> 
> I love the sound of classical music from the harmonium,
> 
> cut, staccato, wild, hard.
> 
> 3. I have to confess that for many years I had underestimated the "weight" of Gustav Mahler's music.
> 
> I could not detect the triumph behind the silence, the cry behind the pain.
> 
> I missed a lot.
> 
> 4. My big secret confession now
> 
> my great desire has always been to have a musical piece
> written for me by a great composer.
> 
> do I ask much?
> 
> forgive me If I have sinned hahaha


Now was that so difficult, mia figlia?

I'm sure 1/2 of TC will be up all night composing something just for you.

You will sleep better tonight than in a long time. Dormire bene.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> Now was that so difficult, mia figlia?
> 
> I'm sure 1/2 of TC will be up all night composing something just for you.
> 
> You will sleep better tonight than in a long time. Dormire bene.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo-hoo! Next TC composition contest ~ _*Piece for Clara S.*_ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo-hoo! Next TC composition contest ~ _*Piece for Clara S.*_ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Yeah. Nothing atonal. Something Scriabinish or Casta Divaish.
Composers, raise thy quills!


----------



## PetrB

PetrB said:


> !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo-hoo! Next TC composition contest ~ _*Piece for Clara S.*_ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!





hpowders said:


> Yeah. Nothing atonal. Something Scriabinish or Casta Divaish.
> Composers, raise thy quills!


Now, why would we assume that Clara S. has any particular prejudices against any particular style or musical mode, heh?

But, there is one built-in requirement of which I am certain you would approve, duration of competition pieces is almost always brief, so no matter what the pieces are, _they will be kept pithy!_


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> Now, why would we assume that Clara S. has any particular prejudices against any particular style or musical mode, heh?
> 
> But, there is one built-in requirement of which I am certain you would approve, duration of competition pieces is almost always brief, so no matter what the pieces are, _they will be kept pithy!_


Well, we wouldn't want to do anything of Wagnerian length. Might pith her off. She doesn't have all day.

The pieces should exhibit the delicate balance of the mandatory appropriate worship vs just the right amount of pithiness so it doesn't sound like phony devotion.

Not an easy task.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> Well, we wouldn't want to do anything of Wagnerian length. Might pith her off. She doesn't have all day.
> 
> The pieces should exhibit the delicate balance of the mandatory appropriate worship vs just the right amount of pithiness so it doesn't sound like phony devotion.
> 
> Not an easy task.


Ahhh, truly devout but not in the least vain about it. Yes, difficult to communicate in music, since music is about...

Nothing. Ha Haaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


----------



## Serge

clara s said:


> my great desire has always been to have a musical piece
> written for me by a great composer.
> 
> do I ask much?


No, you are almost too timid in your desires.


----------



## hpowders

Perhaps we can resuscitate Delius to write "Mediterranean Sea Drift" for clara s.


----------



## science

My confession:

About 1/5 of the posts on this board or any other classical music discussion group, and a proportional amount in conversation, are about music that someone doesn't like. Perhaps they don't like the composition, perhaps they don't like the interpretation, or something about the recording.

I've almost never been able to relate to any of those posts. I can't think of a recording or a work or an interpretation of a work that I haven't enjoyed. The sole exception is Celibidache's Brahms. I guess maybe other people's experience with so much music is like mine with Celibidache's Brahms.

I understand, though, I think. I understand fiction and movies better than I understand music, and perhaps as a result I don't enjoy most fiction or most movies very much. As I read or watch, I'm constantly noticing things that "shouldn't be there" or ways that it could be improved or something like that. Those things annoy me, and I can't stand to finish such things, and I usually don't bother to start. (A few years ago someone kindly gave my wife and I tickets to see the movie _Inception_, so I had to go... Fifteen minutes or so in I realized basically how the movie would have to end, realized that they weren't going to deal with anything serious or interesting, realized that it was just the newest computer graphics fireworks show, and I asked my wife to let me leave and she did not let me leave. So it all turned out as I'd thought. I apologize to anyone who liked _Inception_.)

I will ruin almost all movies and many books for you if you let me. But the ones that I like, I love.


----------



## Morimur

science said:


> My confession:
> 
> About 1/5 of the posts on this board or any other classical music discussion group, and a proportional amount in conversation, are about music that someone doesn't like. Perhaps they don't like the composition, perhaps they don't like the interpretation, or something about the recording.
> 
> I've almost never been able to relate to any of those posts. I can't think of a recording or a work or an interpretation of a work that I haven't enjoyed. The sole exception is Celibidache's Brahms. I guess maybe other people's experience with so much music is like mine with Celibidache's Brahms.
> 
> I understand, though, I think. I understand fiction and movies better than I understand music, and perhaps as a result I don't enjoy most fiction or most movies very much. As I read or watch, I'm constantly noticing things that "shouldn't be there" or ways that it could be improved or something like that. Those things annoy me, and I can't stand to finish such things, and I usually don't bother to start. (A few years ago someone kindly gave my wife and I tickets to see the movie _Inception_, so I had to go... Fifteen minutes or so in I realized basically how the movie would have to end, realized that they weren't going to deal with anything serious or interesting, realized that it was just the newest computer graphics fireworks show, and I asked my wife to let me leave and she did not let me leave. So it all turned out as I'd thought. I apologize to anyone who liked _Inception_.)
> 
> I will ruin almost all movies and many books for you if you let me. But the ones that I like, I love.


Inception was a terrible film. But what can one expect from such a shallow and limited director. I had to sit through it as well.


----------



## Serge

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Inception was a terrible film. But what can one expect from such a shallow and limited director. I had to sit through it as well.


Yeah, Inception... It's like a pseudo-intellectual pop. No wonder it fooled so many teens.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Even Woody Allen's films have turned into nothing more than eye candy and pastiche romanticism.


----------



## Piwikiwi

Serge said:


> Yeah, Inception... It's like a pseudo-intellectual pop. No wonder it fooled so many teens.


The special effects were amazjng imho


----------



## Morimur

*Why don't people see the greatness of Wolf Krakowsky?*

The man toils in mere obscurity while lesser artists (Ex. Bob Dylan) enjoy ridiculous praise and financial reward. Why are people such mindless Sheep? For the love of all that is true and heartfelt, listen to enclosed song and tell me that the man is not supremely gifted...

*Wolf Krakowski: Tsen brider (וואָלף קראַקאָווסק)
Album: Transmigrations: Gilgul, 2001*

View attachment 37506


----------



## Tristan

Serge said:


> Yeah, Inception... It's like a pseudo-intellectual pop. No wonder it fooled so many teens.


I personally loved _Inception_, though it wasn't as good as _Memento_, in my mind. Both films I've seen multiple times.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Now was that so difficult, mia figlia?
> 
> I'm sure 1/2 of TC will be up all night composing something just for you.
> 
> You will sleep better tonight than in a long time. Dormire bene.


grazie padre

will I be so blessed to have my desire fulfilled? hahaha

did you stay up all night writing notes?


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Well, we wouldn't want to do anything of Wagnerian length. Might pith her off. She doesn't have all day.
> 
> The pieces should exhibit the delicate balance of the mandatory appropriate worship vs just the right amount of pithiness so it doesn't sound like phony devotion.
> 
> Not an easy task.


aha

now you are talking about a music piece dedicated to a muse

the muse inspires and the artist creates

if such a case exists, then the composition flows like the true water of devoted worship hahaha

and it becomes an easy task

I would love something coming from the abyss of the composer's mind

I do not care if it is atonal or not

I do not mind about time, the composer decides

maybe a sonata, a sonatina

there is an amount of vanity in the air, music has got extraordinary power

(I will believe it in the end, and I will confess the whole year hahaha)


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> grazie padre
> 
> will I be so blessed to have my desire fulfilled? hahaha
> 
> did you stay up all night writing notes?


Nessun problema mia signora!

I'm not sure. Your confessional was rather more complex than what I usually hear.

Actually, no. I slept like a bambino!


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> aha
> 
> now you are talking about a music piece dedicated to a muse
> 
> the muse inspires and the artist creates
> 
> if such a case exists, then the composition flows like the true water of devoted worship hahaha
> 
> and it becomes an easy task
> 
> I would love something coming from the abyss of the composer's mind
> 
> I do not care if it is atonal or not
> 
> I do not mind about time, the composer decides
> 
> maybe a sonata, a sonatina
> 
> there is an amount of vanity in the air, music has got extraordinary power
> 
> (I will believe it in the end, and I will confess the whole year hahaha)


It would indeed be a high compliment to have a composer write an inspired piece of music dedicated to oneself.


----------



## clara s

Serge said:


> No, you are almost too timid in your desires.


aaa all right Father Serge

what did I ask for? only spiritual wealth


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Nessun problema mia signora!
> 
> I'm not sure. Your confessional was rather more complex than what I usually hear.
> 
> Actually, no. I slept like a bambino!


I have even more complex confessions in classical music


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> I have even more complex confessions in classical music


No need to live with all this inner turmoil. It's only you and I here in the booth.

See. The official seal. :angel:

No need to fear, mia figlia. Confess.....


----------



## Headphone Hermit

PetrB said:


> "You know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow, or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too f***ing awful to even have a name.


The sad fact is that until very recently in the 'West', it was normal for parents to lose chidren before they reached adulthood and so there was little need for a separate term for a parent who had lost a child. It still is the quotidian reality for millions of parents across the globe. I just hope I never have to experience it myself at first hand


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> No need to live with all this inner turmoil. It's only you and I here in the booth.
> 
> See. The official seal. :angel:
> 
> No need to fear, mia figlia. Confess.....


A rather complex confessional

I confess that I am thinking of quiting TC

I posted a thread last night and after 24 hours, there was not a living soul

among the 100.000 members of TC, to write a single post there.

I have to apologize to Robert Schumann, for his loneliness.

was it so unsuccessful?


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> A rather complex confessional
> 
> I confess that I am thinking of quiting TC
> 
> I posted a thread last night and after 24 hours, there was not a living soul
> 
> among the 100.000 members of TC, to write a single post there.
> 
> I have to apologize to Robert Schumann, for his loneliness.
> 
> was it so unsuccessful?


I would urge you not to do this thing! I just examined the thread you posted and it is more in the historical circumstances realm, whereas it seems many of TC wish to simply debate inane things that can never be resolved.

This laughing priest was about to bless your post with a "like" but in good conscience cannot condone your leaving.

You are very creative, witty, romantic and poetic and I and many others would feel your loss deeply.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

you just beat me to it, Hpowders :tiphat:


----------



## hpowders

clara s is a unique asset to TC. Her posts are an absolute delight. Losing her would be a serious blow to quality.


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> The man toils in mere obscurity while lesser artists (Ex. Bob Dylan) enjoy ridiculous praise and financial reward. Why are people such mindless Sheep? For the love of all that is true and heartfelt, listen to enclosed song and tell me that the man is not supremely gifted...
> 
> *Wolf Krakowski: Tsen brider (וואָלף קראַקאָווסק)
> Album: Transmigrations: Gilgul, 2001*
> 
> View attachment 37506


zOMG, LOL, und _oy vey ist mir!_ I didn't last much longer than the intro. I don't think you could have paid me enough to stick around when the vocals started. That patter / cabaret thingie is near impossible for me to enjoy... like rap, it is 99.9999% about the words, the music of no interest at all, but a mere support vehicle for text. I'd rather hear people just talk. Ergo: Not My Cuppa.


----------



## Serge

Dear Father! Should I just take all of my opinions and shove them up my rear end? Please answer me!


----------



## Morimur

PetrB said:


> zOMG, LOL, und _oy vey ist mir!_ I didn't last much longer than the intro. I don't think you could have paid me enough to stick around when the vocals started. That patter / cabaret thingie is near impossible for me to enjoy... like rap, it is 99.9999% about the words, the music of no interest at all, but a mere support vehicle for text. I'd rather hear people just talk. Ergo: Not My Cuppa.


I'll try not to take offence to this, PetrB. I happen to like the dilapidated cabaret thingie. I hate Rap.

I am merciful man (sometimes) and so I forgive your transgression. :tiphat:


----------



## PetrB

Serge said:


> Dear Father! Should I just take all of my opinions and shove them up my rear end? Please answer me!


No one else does, whether they should or not. In this instance, I make what is for me a rare recommendation: be a cliche conformist and go along with what the crowd does


----------



## clara s

headphone hermit and hpowders


I officially confess before the plenary session of the clergy

that I was really touched by your posts

thank you


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> headphone hermit and hpowders
> 
> I officially confess before the plenary session of the clergy
> 
> that I was really touched by your posts
> 
> thank you


I cannot speak for the other. He is most likely at his hermitage listening to music through his headphones.
As your official internet padre in residence, I will always defend your honor.
A brilliant ray of sunlight just pierced my window as I wrote this. A good sign.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> I cannot speak for the other. He is most likely at his hermitage listening to music through his headphones.
> As your official internet padre in residence, I will always defend your honor.
> A brilliant ray of sunlight just pierced my window as I wrote this. A good sign.


As Easter is about in a month's time, confessions will clean hearts and souls

musical confessions too hahaha

thanks again


----------



## Woodduck

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I rarely listen to Stravinsky, once the Le Sacre du Printemps fascination wore off I unintentionally "underrated" his music forever. After his Russian period he sort of became a parody of himself, quoting his own rhythms and noises while writing in every other musical style there was. I don't dislike him, I just no longer find his music "substantial" enough.


Stravinsky was a strikingly inspired young man who evolved to become a dryly clever old man. This is not progress.


----------



## Woodduck

hpowders said:


> I agree. He was a one trick pony as far as I'm concerned. Over-rated.
> 
> I confess that when I want to listen to a 20th century Russian composer, I will turn to Prokofiev every time. Seriously under-rated.


I agree. And I agree.


----------



## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> Stravinsky was an strikingly inspired young man who evolved to become a dryly clever old man. This is not progress.


It's enough. How old are you? Trust me and hope you fare as well.


----------



## Woodduck

Headphone Hermit said:


> Forgive me, Posters, for I have sinned. Through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault ..... (and accepting that I'll get a barrage of disapprobation for this lot) but ..... I hope for forgiveness of my sins and the resurrection of the lost souls (like me)
> 
> I have a long list of dislikes:
> 
> 1. saxaphones
> 
> 2. harmonica music
> 
> 3. solo flutes
> 
> it gets worse ....
> 
> 4. jazz (hmm - well, rather than explain why I can like some bits, and as a mark of slovenliness, its easier to have a blanket refusal - hangs head in shame!)
> 
> 5. erm - a big one here - American composers - Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, Thomson, Barber .... its not because they are American, its just that I don't like their music - (ducks and hides from the arrows)
> 
> 6. most 'modern' music - er, difficult to define, but .... no, its safer not to do so
> 
> 7. the opening squawk of the clarinet in ..... yes, in that!
> 
> 8. recording artists who try to sell their records with their bodies
> 
> and to finish off with a complete bit of illogicality ..... CDs on the Decca label (I know! But it is a confessional)
> 
> so, I'm off to light a candle, throw a few coins into the collection plate and say a lot of prayers to St Jude - Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases
> 
> oh - and this is not intended as a serious position statement (in case you couldn't tell already!)


Oh God! You mean you don't seriously dislike those things? But I dislike nearly all of them! And I'm all out of candles!


----------



## Guest

Can someone explain to me how the term "one trick pony" can apply to any artist who evolves significantly over the period of his or her life?


----------



## violadude

arcaneholocaust said:


> Can someone explain to me how the term "one trick pony" can apply to any artist who evolves significantly over the period of his or her life?


I think they may be confusing the term "one trick pony" with the term "one hit wonder".

I disagree with both.


----------



## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> It's enough. How old are you? Trust me and hope you fare as well.


Fairly old. Have fared fairly well. Farewell.


----------



## Piwikiwi

Woodduck said:


> Stravinsky was a strikingly inspired young man who evolved to become a dryly clever old man. This is not progress.


It's the Rake's Progress


----------



## violadude

Woodduck said:


> Stravinsky was a strikingly inspired young man who evolved to become a dryly clever old man. This is not progress.


I'd be curious to know what your methods are for measuring inspiration.


----------



## hpowders

Yes. The complete opposite of FJ Haydn.


----------



## Morimur

I love Stravinsky but he's the recipient of excessive praise. Witold Lutosławski was just as good.

FYI: I am fan of both composers so please put your pitchforks and shovels down.


----------



## Woodduck

violadude said:


> I'd be curious to know what your methods are for measuring inspiration.


I would only ask that question of someone who _claimed_ to have a method for measuring it. And only to prove that he didn't.

My aphoristic remark was probably more dryly clever than inspired - which is exactly how I feel about a lot of S's later music. But I give him credit: if any composer raised cleverness to the level of inspiration, he did. It's just that in his early work I feel, and love, the opposite relationship between these qualities: spontaneity, vigor, sensuality, a vision that bursts out and sweeps everything before it, exhibiting an enormous cleverness which does not yet feel self-conscious and cerebral.

Nothing wrong with cerebral, mind you. I've been accused of it myself. Of course I deny it.


----------



## Woodduck

hpowders said:


> Yes. The complete opposite of FJ Haydn.


That makes me smile the way Haydn does.


----------



## hpowders

Woodduck said:


> That makes me smile the way Haydn does.


Well Haydn came into his own in his 60's. He was an okay composer 'til then, but with the creative burst of the Paris and London Symphonies, The Creation and the late masses, he became one of the greats. A genuine late bloomer!


----------



## KenOC

hpowders said:


> Well Haydn came into his own in his 60's. He was an okay composer 'til then...


Hmmm... By age 60 Haydn had written all of his Quartets through the Op. 64, his first 98 symphonies (including the Paris and the first set of the London), both cello concertos, and lord knows how many of his piano sonatas and trios. I'd maybe place him just a wee bit higher than "okay composer." :lol:


----------



## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> Can someone explain to me how the term "one trick pony" can apply to any artist who evolves significantly over the period of his or her life?


Blinded, deafened, and stunned by the explosion of super-hot gases, all memory that other composers such as Bach and Mozart were "parodies of themselves" all the way through knocked out, too stunned to think or realize that explosions of hot gases in space cool down to form stars and planets and solar systems, this sort of critic instead focuses only upon that Big Bang, revels in no other subsequent creations, and then glibly utters "one trick pony" as a critique of, say, a composer whose _entire_ ouevre many have already agreed upon as being as important and significant a part of music history and literature as is Bach's.

While, come to think of it, so many great composers never had a 'big bang' moment piece in their youth or any later time in their careers, like ever... and could readily if but only a bit glibly be called constant parodies of themselves....

but hey... some people don't care to count maturation and infinite refinement as 'evolving,' and anyway, apart from being blindingly obvious (as in impossible not to notice) those big bangs _are freakin' awesome!_


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> Hmmm... By age 60 Haydn had written all of his Quartets through the Op. 64, his first 98 symphonies (including the Paris and the first set of the London), both cello concertos, and lord knows how many of his piano sonatas and trios. I'd maybe place him just a wee bit higher than "okay composer." :lol:


If you read my post, I indicated that he became great with the composing of the Paris and London Symphonies, late masses and "The Creation." Whether he was 58 or 65, he was considered old and exceeded a normal lifespan by much, considering he had no access to Dristan, Prilosec, Xanax, Alka Seltzer Prozac, Exlax, Digitalis, penicillin and most importantly, text messaging.


----------



## Woodduck

hpowders said:


> Well Haydn came into his own in his 60's. He was an okay composer 'til then, but with the creative burst of the Paris and London Symphonies, The Creation and the late masses, he became one of the greats. A genuine late bloomer!


I'd give him "great" status a bit earlier, loving and marveling at the string quartets as I do (and some of the symphonies - does anyone handle the sonata-allegro idea with more sureness and vigor?), but I won't quibble. What counts is that Papa was great - and he makes me smile, every time.


----------



## hpowders

Woodduck said:


> I'd give him "great" status a bit earlier, loving and marveling at the string quartets as I do (and some of the symphonies - does anyone handle the sonata-allegro idea with more sureness and vigor?), but I won't quibble. What counts is that Papa was great - and he makes me smile, every time.


I won't argue. But for me the Haydn that commands attention will always be late Haydn.

That term "Papa" was one of immense respect back in the Vienna of 1800. It took Schumann and his ilk to use it as a term of derision.


----------



## Guest

Papa Powders! I have met my master after all these years. I lower my (Talking)head in appropriate supplication.


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I love Stravinsky but he's the recipient of excessive praise. Witold Lutosławski was just as good.
> 
> FYI: I am fan of both composers so please put your pitchforks and shovels down.


Stravinsky is not over-rated (so few even bother to investigate past the early three ballets commissioned for the Ballet Russes.)

While Lutoslawski will never have the historic importance slot which Stravinsky holds, I agree he is very neglected, ergo, under-rated. I've always thought the noise around Pendercki is hugely out of proportion to that composer's merits, while Lutoslawski is, by comparison slighted when that triumverate of Ligeti, Lutoslawski and Pendercki comes up. Pendercki, not to spoil his or Berlioz' music for anyone, suffers from interminably slow and near non-existent bass lines: often both composers have more a series of slowly placed pedal points underpinning all of a work, and that makes much of their work, for me, far too dull and static.


----------



## Woodduck

hpowders said:


> I won't argue. But for me the Haydn that commands attention will always be late Haydn.
> 
> That term "Papa" was one of immense respect back in the Vienna of 1800. It took Schumann and his ilk to use it as a term of derision.


I'd quite forgotten that "Papa Haydn" was used condescendingly. Pity that Haydn didn't retain the enduring veneration that Mozart did among the Romantics, and I suppose doesn't even today. Nothing against W.A.M. and his relentless matchless heavenly perfection (ho hum), but Joe's mutton and stout have always been more to my taste than Wolfi's crepes and (whatever you drink with crepes).


----------



## hpowders

Woodduck said:


> I'd quite forgotten that "Papa Haydn" was used condescendingly. Pity that Haydn didn't retain the enduring veneration that Mozart did among the Romantics, and I suppose doesn't even today. Nothing against W.A.M. and his relentless matchless heavenly perfection (ho hum), but Joe's mutton and stout have always been more to my taste than Wolfi's crepes and (whatever you drink with crepes).


Yes. Haydn had a manly, rustic quality about his music that Mozart simply didn't.

Just listen to the first and 4th movements of Haydn's Symphony #82, The Bear.
There is no way Mozart could have written that.

Yes. The romantics used "Papa" Haydn condescendingly. Sadly misguided.
More often than not, I'm reaching for Haydn, not Schumann.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Pendercki's sonorities are so great that his thematic writing seems dull "second rate Shostakovich" in comparison. I'll probably have to reevalute this sooner or later though.


----------



## violadude

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Pendercki's sonorities are so great that his thematic writing seems dull "second rate Shostakovich" in comparison. I'll probably have to reevalute this sooner or later though.


His thematic writing is pretty dull a lot of the time, which is why, in my opinion, he should have stuck with writing pieces based on sonority.


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> His _(Penderecki's)_ thematic writing is pretty dull a lot of the time, which is why, in my opinion, he should have stuck with writing pieces based on sonority.


I have the same 'complaint' about his texture / sonority pieces -- (plodding series of pedal points in the lower register.)

I prefer Friedrich Cerha's seven part _Spiegel_ 1961, to any of Penderecki's works.
Spiegel 1


----------



## dgee

Spiegel is a goliath work but utterly amazing!


----------



## Morimur

I having nothing of Friedrich Cerha's. I recently added his name to my database of 267 composers.


----------



## Vaneyes

Richard Brody (The New Yorker) confesses, that for him, movies have ruined classical music.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2014/03/music-ruined-by-movies.html


----------



## PetrB

Vaneyes said:


> Richard Brody (The New Yorker) confesses, that for him, movies have ruined classical music.
> 
> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2014/03/music-ruined-by-movies.html


It is interesting to me that 'the movies ruin classical music,' for that writer. It is quite the opposite for me, the more oddly juxtaposed a piece when used in a scene, the more it seems to me inappropriate to the scene -- or a sophomoric attempt at irony (the music one frame of mood, the film scene 'other.') Those choices, _choices of any and all music with which I am already familiar_ makes me end up laughing at the film.

Being familiar with Ingram Marshall's _Fog Tropes_ for some years would not have had Scorsese's intended effect upon me when he used it in his _Shutter Island._ If I had been in attendance, that score and his use of part of Lou Harrison's _suite for symphonic strings_, and any other extant piece with which I was familiar fails, because it just reminds me of those pieces without any such context, and then everything becomes disjointed and falls apart, (what is _that_ of a sudden doing _here -- i.e. as a film background track?_

So for me, I would have found the use of the music 'ridiculous' and distracting from the film. Ergo, film lessened, if not demolished, by inappropriate (and _CHEAP when it is common domain rep_) use of music.


----------



## Oskaar

Weston said:


> I am growing weary of big clanging crashing martial nationlist music overtures and symphonies with lots of cymbals and triangles. Dvorak is kind of boring to me. Sousa is horrible to me!


I agree with sousa...


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> I would urge you not to do this thing! I just examined the thread you posted and it is more in the historical circumstances realm, whereas it seems many of TC wish to simply debate inane things that can never be resolved.
> 
> This laughing priest was about to bless your post with a "like" but in good conscience cannot condone your leaving.
> 
> You are very creative, witty, romantic and poetic and I and many others would feel your loss deeply.


I agree. But I often miss good posts, and when I chech new posts I find only almost mathematic approach to classical music,and that is not interresting.

But I must confess that I for long have been thinking of kicking ahead this provocation... :
My grandmother was very afraid if anyone changed chanal on her tv. She could not find back.
I think 70 persent of tc-users are 50-60 years old men with the same fear for the computer screen will explode if they click on a link. So they sit in a corner of tc and polish their vinyls and cd-s, and have weat dreams about Argerrich at night. The obtions this community gives is to dangerous and uncertain... Prove me that I am wrong!

But hang on! Things can change..


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> I cannot speak for the other. He is most likely at his hermitage listening to music through his headphones.
> As your official internet padre in residence, I will always defend your honor.
> A brilliant ray of sunlight just pierced my window as I wrote this. A good sign.


clara s ruuuuuuules!
Always somthing upkifting to say.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

oskaar said:


> I think 70 persent of tc-users are 50-60 years old men with the same fear for the computer screen will explode if they click on a link. So they sit in a corner of tc and polish their vinyls and cd-s, and have weat dreams about Argerrich at night.... Prove me that I am wrong! QUOTE]
> 
> you're partly right in my case - all except dreaming of Marta :angel:


----------



## Morimur

Mainstream films are much too dependant on music for emotional impact. Film is primarily a visual medium and should therefore not rely on sound to 'enhance' its message. Most big budget Hollywood films are actually music videos (terrible ones at that) masquerading as films. An exception to this rule is 'No Country for Old Men' by the Coen brothers, where music isn't used at all. The film isn't terribly sophisticated but it's an enjoyable, well constructed action/drama.


----------



## aleazk

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Mainstream films are much too dependant on music for emotional impact. Film is primarily a visual medium and should therefore not rely on sound to 'enhance' its message. Most big budget Hollywood films are actually music videos (terrible ones at that) masquerading as films. An exception to this rule is 'No Country for Old Men' by the Coen brothers, where music isn't used at all. The film isn't terribly sophisticated but it's an enjoyable, well constructed action/drama.


I agree with that in a lot of cases.

On the other hand, what's your opinion of Kubrick, and his use of classical music in a lot of his movies?.


----------



## aleazk

PetrB said:


> It is interesting to me that 'the movies ruin classical music,' for that writer. It is quite the opposite for me, the more oddly juxtaposed a piece when used in a scene, the more it seems to me inappropriate to the scene -- or a sophomoric attempt at irony (the music one frame of mood, the film scene 'other.') Those choices, _choices of any and all music with which I am already familiar_ makes me end up laughing at the film.
> 
> Being familiar with Ingram Marshall's _Fog Tropes_ for some years would not have had Scorsese's intended effect upon me when he used it in his _Shutter Island._ If I had been in attendance, that score and his use of part of Lou Harrison's _suite for symphonic strings_, and any other extant piece with which I was familiar fails, because it just reminds me of those pieces without any such context, and then everything becomes disjointed and falls apart, (what is _that_ of a sudden doing _here -- i.e. as a film background track?_
> 
> So for me, I would have found the use of the music 'ridiculous' and distracting from the film. Ergo, film lessened, if not demolished, by inappropriate (and _CHEAP when it is common domain rep_) use of music.


Yeah, the detail is that you are probably the only one in the movie theatre that recognizes the Lou Harrison piece


----------



## PetrB

aleazk said:


> Yeah, the detail is that you are probably the only one in the movie theatre that recognizes the Lou Harrison piece


I know, but the more rep you know, the more inappropriate, or "WTF?" the reaction when bits of this or that are used to underscore a film. It becomes inadvertently _funny!_

I'm sure not many had ever heard of Ingram Marshall, or were familiar with his lovely _Fog Tropes,_ either.

In the reverse, wouldn't a first exposure to a piece in the context of a film them somehow corrupt the listeners perception of that music if listened to again and outside of that context, i.e. could you ever -- or at least not until much later -- hear a piece heard first in film score context as 'just music?'


----------



## Morimur

Kubrick was quite good at selecting music for his films; '2001: A Space Odyssey' and 'The Shining' come to mind. But he owes a massive debt of gratitude to Ligeti and Bartók. Their music became integral to the films' artistic success and they would not be nearly as iconic, were it not for the said composers' work. Kubrick gets a check-mark for using the music in the right context but Ligeti and Bartók should receive all due credit and praise for elevating those films into the realm of timelessness.


----------



## Oskaar

Headphone Hermit said:


> oskaar said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think 70 persent of tc-users are 50-60 years old men with the same fear for the computer screen will explode if they click on a link. So they sit in a corner of tc and polish their vinyls and cd-s, and have weat dreams about Argerrich at night.... Prove me that I am wrong! QUOTE]
> 
> you're partly right in my case - all except dreaming of Marta :angel:
> 
> 
> 
> I am one of them myself to... appart from the record collecton ... But I have been brave lately and clicked on some links... no explotion..
Click to expand...


----------



## clara s

oskaar said:


> clara s ruuuuuuules!
> Always somthing upkifting to say.


you are killing me now gentlemen

a real confessional in here hahaha

with these posts, I have to raise my standards to yours

thank you sooooooo much


----------



## Morimur

I am not even 35 yet.


----------



## Oskaar

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I am not even 35 yet.


Youre a kid... I get 50 in july...


----------



## Morimur

oskaar said:


> Youre a kid... I get 50 in july...


It's ok. 50 for a man isn't old.


----------



## clara s

oskaar said:


> I think 70 persent of tc-users are 50-60 years old men with the same fear for the computer screen will explode if they click on a link. So they sit in a corner of tc and polish their vinyls and cd-s, and have weat dreams about Argerrich at night.


this is quite a scene from a movie

it could also be the title of a thread

"What, if click a link?" 

Argerich? 50 years ago?


----------



## PetrB

clara s said:


> A rather complex confessional
> 
> I confess that I am thinking of quitting TC
> 
> I posted a thread last night and after 24 hours, there was not a living soul
> 
> among the 100.000 members of TC, to write a single post there.
> 
> I have to apologize to Robert Schumann, for his loneliness.
> 
> was it so unsuccessful?


1.) Never take anything on a forum personally, including apparent 'lack of interest.' _(Add: One Exception: if you post a piece of your own music in Today's Composers, and it gets 90 views and 0 comments, that can be taken as a comment_

2.) For several days, or nights depending upon where you live, TC has either been so traffic-jammed that the connection is impossibly slow, or something elsewhere is wrong, and you get no response and can not even log on.

3.) go to that upper right search window and type in _Schumann_ if you want to see just how much real interest there is in this composer. There may even be a thread devoted to _Carnival._

Other threads may be devoted to those sorts of pieces with 'encoded' cryptograms using the note names as abbreviations or spelling something out -- a practice of composers since at least the 1300's.

4.) If newer to classical music and its history, some of what excites you is 'old news,' to others, and will not generate much excitement. Sure, others still have enthusiasm for this music, but it does not have for them that excited glow of having just been discovered. If you expect that same type of enthusiasm, you have to gamble on others being on or near the same phase of discovery as you to find that excitement as equally fresh.

5.) in piano repertoire (instrumental category) there might be a thread devoted, one each, to _Carnival_ and _Davidsbündlertänze,_ both large scale and *very well known* major solo piano works of great scope.

But, no, you are wrong, there is much love for Schumann and his music, and you will find that if you look around a bit on TC.


----------



## clara s

Lope de Aguirre said:


> It's ok. 50 for a man isn't old.


the confessions are flying in the air 

but you both are not in the age to polish your CD's... yet


----------



## Morimur

clara s said:


> the confessions are flying in the air
> 
> but you both are not in the age to polish your CD's... yet


Yep. Time gets us all in the end.


----------



## PetrB

oskaar said:


> I agree. But I often miss good posts, and when I chech new posts I find only almost mathematic approach to classical music,and that is not interresting.
> 
> But I must confess that I for long have been thinking of kicking ahead this provocation... :
> My grandmother was very afraid if anyone changed channel on her TV. She could not find back.
> I think 70 percent of TC-users are 50-60 years old men with the same fear for the computer screen will explode if they click on a link. So they sit in a corner of tc and polish their vinyls and cd-s, and have wet dreams about Argerich at night. The options this community gives are too dangerous and uncertain... Prove that I am wrong!
> 
> But hang on! Things can change..


I, and dozens of codgers and codgerettes I know, prove you are mistaken.

I do not know the percent, but when a twenty-year old cedes that I, an official "senior citizen," (i.e. 65+ yrs. of age) am quicker on the draw to negotiate and find links on Youtube than they are (it was not a contest), and others I know who are well into their retirement years _have transferred their sizable LP / CD collection into digitally recorded files for compact storage and access, then made a reference library -- all via computer and software,_ that means not everyone of a certain age is at all trepidatious about approaching the computer and _using it_


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Yep. Time gets us all in the end.


 or, in the gut, or right between the eyes, or...:lol:


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Kubrick was quite good at selecting music for his films; '2001: A Space Odyssey' and 'The Shining' come to mind. But he owes a massive debt of gratitude to Ligeti and Bartók. Their music became integral to the films' artistic success and they would not be nearly as iconic, were it not for the said composers' work. Kubrick gets a check-mark for using the music in the right context but Ligeti and Bartók should receive all due credit and praise for elevating those films into the realm of timelessness.


Kubrick, in 2001, 'just used,' the music he chose for that film without securing any prior permission from recording companies or publishers. He was later sued and paid up (maybe it was a way around saving time and possible rejections of 'no?') Though I was familiar with most or all of the music used, I thought both the choices and their placement were brilliant.

I don't care for the choice of the Bartok as used in _The Shining_, or find it just too cliche corny a choice, but (familiar with all the music used in both films) admit that could be because I have yet to think that anything of Stephen King's has been successfully transliterated into a movie. _ I think King is in a story genre which is successful only when read._ Supplying images and soundtracks by anyone other than the reader and the reader's imagination is, there, a formula for failure.


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> I agree. But I often miss good posts, and when I chech new posts I find only almost mathematic approach to classical music,and that is not interresting.
> 
> But I must confess that I for long have been thinking of kicking ahead this provocation... :
> My grandmother was very afraid if anyone changed chanal on her tv. She could not find back.
> I think 70 persent of tc-users are 50-60 years old men with the same fear for the computer screen will explode if they click on a link. So they sit in a corner of tc and polish their vinyls and cd-s, and *have weat dreams about Argerrich at night.* The obtions this community gives is to dangerous and uncertain... Prove me that I am wrong!
> 
> But hang on! Things can change..


Have you even seen Argerich lately????

She used to live among the sharp keys, but now I'm afraid it's the flat keys for her; sort of like French champagne without the fizz.


----------



## clara s

PetrB said:


> 1.) Never take anything on a forum personally, including apparent 'lack of interest.' _(Add: One Exception: if you post a piece of your own music in Today's Composers, and it gets 90 views and 0 comments, that can be taken as a comment_
> 
> 2.) For several days, or nights depending upon where you live, TC has either been so traffic-jammed that the connection is impossibly slow, or something elsewhere is wrong, and you get no response and can not even log on.
> 
> 3.) go to that upper right search window and type in _Schumann_ if you want to see just how much real interest there is in this composer. There may even be a thread devoted to _Carnival._
> 
> Other threads may be devoted to those sorts of pieces with 'encoded' cryptograms using the note names as abbreviations or spelling something out -- a practice of composers since at least the 1300's.
> 
> 4.) If newer to classical music and its history, some of what excites you is 'old news,' to others, and will not generate much excitement. Sure, others still have enthusiasm for this music, but it does not have for them that excited glow of having just been discovered. If you expect that same type of enthusiasm, you have to gamble on others being on or near the same phase of discovery as you to find that excitement as equally fresh.
> 
> 5.) in piano repertoire (instrumental category) there might be a thread devoted, one each, to _Carnival_ and _Davidsbündlertänze,_ both large scale and *very well known* major solo piano works of great scope.
> 
> But, no, you are wrong, there is much love for Schumann and his music, and you will find that if you look around a bit on TC.


1. My thread although it did not belong in Today's Composers, it had got 98 views and no comments.

That's why I took it personally hahaha

2. Traffic-jammed was

3. every thread has got its own aura. My Schumann has got fresh sea air.

4. Do you really believe this?

5. Robert Schumann's popularity was never doubted.

Conclusively, my only complain was that among the hundreds of TC friends,

there was not even one to turn his hand (or rather his mouse) to a reply.


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I am not even 35 yet.


From my point of view, you are just barely dried off after your birth!

May you get to 35 and far beyond without any really bad incidents


----------



## clara s

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Yep. Time gets us all in the end.


not, if we live in Shangri-La


----------



## hpowders

Dream on!


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> Have you even seen Argerich lately????
> 
> She used to live among the sharp keys, but now I'm afraid it's the flat keys for her; sort of like French champagne without the fizz.


Lol. Like you're looking as fresh as eighteen or thirty, even 

One basic difference between men and women:
Men expect women to not change, in appearance, outlook, everything. 
.....Sorry, gentlemen, women do personally develop, advance, and they age 

Women assume that men will and can be changed. 
.....Sorry, ladies, what you see is pretty much what you get, (and you already know we will not keep our physiques or general looks


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> Lol. Like you're looking as fresh as eighteen or thirty, even
> 
> One basic difference between men and women:
> Men expect women to not change, in appearance, outlook, everything.
> .....Sorry, gentlemen, women do personally develop, advance, and they age
> 
> Women assume that men will and can be changed.
> .....Sorry, ladies, what you see is pretty much what you get, (and you already know we will not keep our physiques or general looks


I don't care how she looks, otherwise why would I be posting to and answering female posters for three months now on TC, sight unseen, who might as well be conversing with me from prison. Never requested a photo from any of them.

All I ask for is a basic IQ of 147.3 and someone who will laugh at my witticisms.
Looks, irrelevant.

Is that too much too ask?


----------



## PetrB

clara s said:


> not, if we live in Shangri-La


Ah, James Hilton's _Lost Horizons_ (1933) -- or the Frank Capra film, same title, of [correction] 1937.

But, you know, it is long but not eternal life? While the residents there live for several hundred years and more while knowing no illness or disease (hey, that is already pretty superb!) but the Dalai Lama does die, as does the girlfriend of the main character when she leaves the valley.

Good enough read, the book. 
Great film. 
Lovely idea


----------



## KenOC

Maybe an aphorism for PetrB?

Men dislike change in their women. Women require it in their men.


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> Maybe an aphorism for PetrB?
> 
> Men dislike change in their women. Women require it in their men.


Yes, as long as the change is in the pocket.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Have you even seen Argerich lately????
> 
> She used to live among the sharp keys, but now I'm afraid it's the flat keys for her; sort of like French champagne without the fizz.


Oscaar would probably mean Janine Jansen or Olga Kivaeva hahaha

fizzy?


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> Oscaar would probably mean Janine Jansen or Olga Kivaeva hahaha
> 
> fizzy?


I think he is still looking at 40 year old album covers.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Dream on!


what?

am i not allowed?


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> I don't care how she looks, otherwise why would I be posting to and answering female posters for three months now on TC, sight unseen, who might as well be conversing with me from prison. Never requested a photo from any of them.
> 
> All I ask for is a basic IQ of 147.3 and someone who will laugh at my witticisms.
> 
> Is that too much too ask?


I find the .3 more than a titch overly demanding, but -- yeah, I know whatcha mean.

But to quote another just a few slots above in this thread:
"Dream On!"


----------



## PetrB

clara s said:


> what?
> 
> am i not allowed?


Don't analyze: Dream. (Though.. it is thought advisable to wake up from dreaming every once in a while


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> what?
> 
> am i not allowed?


Sure. We can all dream.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> I don't care how she looks, otherwise why would I be posting to and answering female posters for three months now on TC, sight unseen, who might as well be conversing with me from prison. Never requested a photo from any of them.
> 
> All I ask for is a basic IQ of 147.3 and someone who will laugh at my witticisms.
> 
> Is that too much too ask?


hello

Alcatraz speaking

female Quasimodo here

over hahaha

ps IQ detected


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Maybe an aphorism for PetrB?
> 
> Men dislike change in their women. Women require it in their men.


If they were too alike, they would not have the power to fascinate and puzzle one another for the duration of a lifetime


----------



## KenOC

hpowders said:


> All I ask for is a basic IQ of 147.3 and someone who will laugh at my witticisms.


Do I detect a contradiction in there? :lol:


----------



## clara s

PetrB said:


> Ah, James Hilton's _Lost Horizons_ (1933) -- or the Frank Capra film, same title, of 1936.
> 
> But, you know, it is long but not eternal life? While the residents there live for several hundred years and more while knowing no illness or disease (hey, that is already pretty superb!) but the Dalai Lama does die, as does the girlfriend of the main character when she leaves the valley.
> 
> Good enough read, the book.
> Great film.
> Lovely idea


Lost Horizon legendary for many generations

that is the point of the book

Eternal life is enclosed by boundaries

Freedom pays its price


----------



## clara s

PetrB said:


> Don't analyze: Dream. (Though.. it is thought advisable to wake up from dreaming every once in a while


yes, wake up and check, if I am still in Shangri-La or have gone old hahaha

In such a case, I will start polishing my CD's


----------



## clara s

KenOC said:


> Do I detect a contradiction in there? :lol:


not at all

147, 3 is quite low

Satisfactory for hpowders means IQ over 175 hahaha


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> hello
> 
> Alcatraz speaking
> 
> female Quasimodo here
> 
> over hahaha
> 
> ps IQ detected


You may be the one. Can you bake me a nice chocolate cake with white chocolate sauce, with the remote key to the warden's Mercedes S500 sedan hidden within the cake?

Follow these instructions and we just may converse one day over dinner.....somewhere in Mexico.....where I can't be extradited. I can get you pills for degenerative bone disease in Mexico City. We'll fix you right up.


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> not at all
> 
> 147, 3 is quite low
> 
> Satisfactory for hpowders means IQ over 175 hahaha


147.3 is the minimum. 50-50 brain test would be a welcome bonus.


----------



## clara s

PetrB said:


> Lol. Like you're looking as fresh as eighteen or thirty, even
> 
> One basic difference between men and women:
> Men expect women to not change, in appearance, outlook, everything.
> .....Sorry, gentlemen, women do personally develop, advance, and they age
> 
> Women assume that men will and can be changed.
> .....Sorry, ladies, what you see is pretty much what you get, (and you already know we will not keep our physiques or general looks


douze points monsieur!


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> Do I detect a contradiction in there? :lol:


Duplicate post.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> You may be the one. Can you bake me a nice chocolate cake with white chocolate sauce, with the remote key to the warden's Mercedes S500 sedan hidden within the cake?
> 
> Follow these instructions and we just may converse one day over dinner.....somewhere in Mexico.....where I can't be extradited. Looks are unimportant.


this is the real confessional hahaha

I hope the priest in here is discreet

I will not forget to have a CD of Allan Pettersson in the MB


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> this is the real confessional hahaha
> 
> I hope the priest in here is discreet
> 
> I will not forget to have a CD of Allan Pettersson in the MB


I'd rather it be Miles Davis' "Jack Johnson".
At the San Diego crossing, the border guards would instantly recognize Pettersson's 7th symphony and know it was me from my discussion of it on TC. Can't let that happen. A glaring mistake!

I would immediately be sent back to state prison where it's Scriabin or Schoenberg, 24/7 as to the other inmates' requests.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> I'd rather it be Miles Davis "Jack Johnson".
> At the San Diego crossing, the border guards would instantly recognize Pettersson's 7th symphony and know it was me from my discussion of it on TC. Can't let that happen. A glaring mistake!
> 
> I would immediately be sent back to state prison where it's Scriabin or Schoenberg, 24/7 as to the other inmates' requests.


fine with me

Of course I could have John Cage's 4' 33'',

you would pass the roadblock uninterrupted


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> fine with me
> 
> Of course I could have John Cage's 4' 33'',
> 
> you would pass the roadblock uninterrupted


That's good thinking....except I'd be already flying with the angels by the 1' 17" mark of the Cage.

Remember me....

I could have been a contender.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> My following says "no".


.......Sycophants, all!


----------



## TurnaboutVox

I'm not quite sure if penitents other than hpowders and clara s are allowed in here any more, but I'd like to confess that I nearly posted in the 'Rant on horrible music and composers' thread. Domine, miserere animae mea.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

I find terribly off-putting all those bizarre mannerisms famous pianists develop.


----------



## Morimur

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I find terribly off-putting all those bizarre mannerisms famous pianists develop.


You must love Mr. Gould. Personally, I can't quite get into his interpretations.


----------



## KenOC

Lope de Aguirre said:


> You must love Mr. Gould. Personally, I can't quite get into his interpretations.


Gould does not interpret -- he rules. Well, in Bach anyway. Any other composers and yer taking yer chances.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> .......Sycophants, all!
> View attachment 38147


Looks like my relatives coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and some absolutely lilting conversation.


----------



## hpowders

Lope de Aguirre said:


> You must love Mr. Gould. Personally, I can't quite get into his interpretations.


Me neither. Trevor Pinnock on harpsichord runs rings around Gould in Bach.

The only thing Gould was terrific at was humming loudly and incessantly and obnoxiously as he played.


----------



## tdc

KenOC said:


> Gould does not interpret -- he rules. Well, in Bach anyway. Any other composers and yer taking yer chances.


Gould interpreting Bach rules out me listening to it. I have the double disc set of his famous two recordings of the Goldbergs, I don't even keep it with my other Bach recordings - its not even Bach to me, its something else. I'll eventually end up giving that set away or throwing it in the trash - I don't need it.


----------



## hpowders

I'm not into Bach on the piano but I would pick Andras Schiff over Gould any day in Bach.


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> Do I detect a contradiction in there? :lol:


I was attempting to be humble, lowballing the IQ. Glad you caught it.
The actual IQ for someone to actually appreciate all the subtle innuendo I offer is 175.
Anything less and I'm being wasted.


----------



## hpowders

TurnaboutVox said:


> I'm not quite sure if penitents other than hpowders and clara s are allowed in here any more, but I'd like to confess that I nearly posted in the 'Rant on horrible music and composers' thread. Domine, miserere animae mea.


Relax. You are among fiends here.


----------



## Oskaar

PetrB said:


> I, and dozens of codgers and codgerettes I know, prove you are mistaken.
> 
> I do not know the percent, but when a twenty-year old cedes that I, an official "senior citizen," (i.e. 65+ yrs. of age) am quicker on the draw to negotiate and find links on Youtube than they are (it was not a contest), and others I know who are well into their retirement years _have transferred their sizable LP / CD collection into digitally recorded files for compact storage and access, then made a reference library -- all via computer and software,_ that means not everyone of a certain age is at all trepidatious about approaching the computer and _using it_


It was a humouristic spitzformulierung :devil::angel::tiphat:


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> Have you even seen Argerich lately????


The whet dreams is decapo 1975. Mentioning Vilde Frang would turn me into a dirty pig.


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> The whet dreams is decapo 1975. Mentioning Vilde Frang would turn me into a dirty pig.


She is quite fetching. Never fetched me, regrettably.


----------



## PetrB

oskaar said:


> The whet dreams is decapo 1975. Mentioning Vilde Frang would turn me into a dirty pig.


Mentioning Vilde Frang in that context would make me think you are extremely kinky, fantasizing over the Pillsbury Doughboy's daughter, as it were


----------



## clara s

TurnaboutVox said:


> I'm not quite sure if penitents other than hpowders and clara s are allowed in here any more, but I'd like to confess that I nearly posted in the 'Rant on horrible music and composers' thread. Domine, miserere animae mea.


your true confession is hidden among the lines my child...

Ne tradideris me in animas tribulantium me

amen


----------



## TurnaboutVox

clara s said:


> your true confession is hidden among the lines my child...
> 
> Ne tradideris me in animas tribulantium me
> 
> amen


Verum, dat! well isn't this a gas!


----------



## Oskaar

OOOh, now I know what Martha remind me of! A suveniertroll!


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> OOOh, now I know what Martha remind me of! A suveniertroll!
> 
> View attachment 38269


Yeah, but can these two play 4-handed Schubert?


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> Yeah, but can these two play 4-handed Schubert?


No..they only have three hands as you can see


----------



## Oskaar

This troll tries 2-handed


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> No..they only have three hands as you can see


One of them is covering the other's hand with his own.
I read it's supposed to be a symbol of love and devotion.
Strange habits, these humans.


----------



## Duggr

I'm very new to classical, still in highschool (just picked up the cello) and am coming from the bass/guitar so whatever I say has zero credibility.  But, I find organ music and the organ in general obnoxious (even the sacred tocattas of Bach.) Harpsichords also have a tonality about them that I strongly dislike.


----------



## hpowders

Duggr said:


> I'm very new to classical, still in highschool (just picked up the cello) and am coming from the bass/guitar so whatever I say has zero credibility.  But, I find organ music and the organ in general obnoxious (even the sacred tocattas of Bach.) Harpsichords also have a tonality about them that I strongly dislike.


I felt the same way about the harpsichord, but after exposure to Bach's solo keyboard pieces, this is now the only way for me to listen to them. I don't care for the organ either, by the way.

And most importantly of all, welcome to TC!


----------



## Oskaar

Confession or heartsigh, what you want...

I honistly urge, or wish the forum to be more social. I must be bether my self, but my participation is limited because of lack of knowledge. This is not complaining, more thougts, making it a bether place for everyone.

Very much of the communication is in the current thread. But I feel that the interaction is between very scolard people. They are clever to give likes to one like me that tries to put words on my listening, that is very nice. But the commenting level lays on a level to high for me. Then the interaction is limited. I also wish that the scolard gave positive comments to more effords, and loosen up a bit. We have different backgroand, but communicating should be first goal in a forum.
I have fun with what I do without comments, but I WISH for alls sake that we communicate more. We are all children that shine up when we get responce.
Time is an issue, but the forum should be quite easy to navigate with the new posts and activity stream. 
I see in the activity stream many visits, but few comments. Shouldnt we all try to be a little bether?
A few other also have the experienc that their effort lacks response. I promise to be bether myself, but the professor level scares me.


----------



## Oskaar

Duggr said:


> I'm very new to classical, still in highschool (just picked up the cello) and am coming from the bass/guitar so whatever I say has zero credibility.  But, I find organ music and the organ in general obnoxious (even the sacred tocattas of Bach.) Harpsichords also have a tonality about them that I strongly dislike.


Welcome!..........


----------



## clara s

Oscaar's post in his thread about Vilde Frang's extraordinary looks, reminded me of a confession I have to make.


I confess trully and having full consciousness of my sinful words that...


when I see David Garrett playing Brahms violin concerto or Zigeunerweisen by Pablo de Sarasate,

I can not say If i am attracted more to the divine sound of his Stradivarius or his extraordinary good looks


Fathers forgive me

full stop here. hahaha


----------



## Oskaar

clara s said:


> Oscaar's post in his thread about Vilde Frang's extraordinary looks, reminded me of a confession I have to make.
> 
> I confess trully and having full consciousness of my sinful words that...
> 
> when I see David Garrett playing Brahms violin concerto or Zigeunerweisen by Pablo de Sarasate,
> 
> I can not say If i am attracted more to the divine sound of his Stradivarius or his extraordinary good looks
> 
> Fathers forgive me
> 
> full stop here. hahaha


Thanksfully I And hpowders is not the only human beeings in here......


----------



## PetrB

oskaar said:


> This troll tries 2-handed


Sometimes, it is just a shame that electricity is available, even in the woods


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> Thanksfully I And hpowders is not the only human beeings in here......


Thank you oskaar for promoting me!

"Human Being" finally separates me from the rest of Noah's animals.


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> Thank you oskaar for promoting me!
> 
> "Human Being" finally separates me from the rest of Noah's animals.


But I think still that you have an identity problem.....(allAvatar changes)


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> But I think still that you have an identity problem.....(allAvatar changes)


I'm still trying to "find myself".

I have so many avatars, I could put my own photo there and nobody would notice.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I have been recently diagnosed with acute avataritis. There is no cure.
Pray for me.


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> I'm still trying to "find myself".
> 
> I have so many avatars, I could put my own photo there and nobody would notice.


Is that you?

...............................


----------



## Oskaar

I confess that I mix these two together.... Radu lupu, and Rasputin...


----------



## hpowders

violadude said:


> Is that you?
> 
> ...............................


Which one?? I've had 3 today!!! It's a mania. I can't stop!!!


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> I confess that I mix these two together.... Radu lupu, and Rasputin...
> 
> View attachment 38354
> View attachment 38355


Hint: the one on the left can play "Chopsticks".


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> Which one?? I've had 3 today!!! It's a mania. I can't stop!!!


The one you have now.


----------



## hpowders

violadude said:


> The one you have now.


No. But that's you in yours, right?


----------



## Morimur

David Lang. Don't know what to make of his output.


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> No. But that's you in yours, right?


Yes, it is.

................................


----------



## hpowders

One day, I will put my photo in and after so many avatars, folks will simply assume it's just another weird composer nobody ever heard of. :lol:


----------



## hpowders

violadude said:


> Yes, it is.
> 
> ................................


Expensive looking head gear.


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> Expensive looking head gear.


They were 20 dollars. Got them at Walgreens.


----------



## Oskaar

Lets smile a little.... *1*


----------



## Oskaar

Lets smile a little *2*


----------



## Oskaar

Lets smile a little *3*


----------



## Oskaar

Lets really smile a little *4*


----------



## Oskaar

Lets really smile a little *5*






Dont looks that he enjoys it.....


----------



## TurnaboutVox

oskaar said:


> Confession or heartsigh, what you want...
> 
> I honistly urge, or wish the forum to be more social. I must be bether my self, but my participation is limited because of lack of knowledge. This is not complaining, more thougts, making it a bether place for everyone.
> 
> Very much of the communication is in the current thread. But I feel that the interaction is between very scolard people. They are clever to give likes to one like me that tries to put words on my listening, that is very nice. But the commenting level lays on a level to high for me. Then the interaction is limited. I also wish that the scolard gave positive comments to more effords, and loosen up a bit. We have different backgroand, but communicating should be first goal in a forum.
> I have fun with what I do without comments, but I WISH for alls sake that we communicate more. We are all children that shine up when we get responce.
> Time is an issue, but the forum should be quite easy to navigate with the new posts and activity stream.
> I see in the activity stream many visits, but few comments. Shouldnt we all try to be a little bether?
> A few other also have the experienc that their effort lacks response. I promise to be bether myself, but the professor level scares me.


Oskaar, I agree with you. There is a 1969 Peanuts cartoon which sums up what I often feel about this forum, and rather than waste time on an explanation I'll just post it:










Lucy Van Pelt: Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations. What do you think you see, Linus? 
Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of British Honduras in the Caribbean. That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side. 
Lucy Van Pelt: Uh huh. That's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown? 
Charlie Brown: Well… I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.

(Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. This should probably have a more complete copyright citation, but I don't have one, sorry)

I am not a scholar (not a music scholar anyway) and it is tempting to try to live up to the knowledge-ability of contributors who are, rather than communicating and sharing something of my (your) own relationship with music.

I hope I qualify as a human being, by the way!


----------



## Oskaar

TurnaboutVox said:


> Oskaar, I agree with you. There is a 1969 Peanuts cartoon which sums up what I often feel about this forum, and rather than waste time on an explanation I'll just post it:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lucy Van Pelt: Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations. What do you think you see, Linus?
> Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of British Honduras in the Caribbean. That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.
> Lucy Van Pelt: Uh huh. That's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?
> Charlie Brown: Well… I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.
> 
> (Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. This should probably have a more complete copyright citation, but I don't have one, sorry)
> 
> I am not a scholar (not a music scholar anyway) and it is tempting to try to live up to the knowledge-ability of contributors who are, rather than communicating and sharing something of my (your) own relationship with music.
> 
> I hope I qualify as a human being, by the way!


Thank you for your support, and your brilliant post. The peanuts shows much of what I mean. But I am *trying* to talk about music in my own way, I dont change my mind. It is a good training...I dont create rediculos polls or posts like What did you eat last night. Thats good to, all comunication is good, but some posts dont you feel like participaiting in, thats life. But look at the activity in currently listening. Its BIG activity, but it feels excluding. Let it be that,for all sake, but it should be easier for them to go down to my level than it is for me to go up to their. I just want more interaction towards levels and knowledge. There are hundreds of comments about favourite recordings eks. but not one comment in my currently listening revisited thread. But I think they read it. But its not about me, its about interaction, and making this a welcoming and good place for all. I have one provokation: I think it is professor language is a way to avoid talking about feelings. Fore me music IS feelings. Let them do as they like, I learn from it, but maybe they should come out and say hello to the rest of the world.


----------



## violadude

oskaar said:


> Thank you for your support, and your brilliant post. The peanuts shows much of what I mean. But I am *trying* to talk about music in my own way, I dont change my mind. It is a good training...I dont create rediculos polls or posts like What did you eat last night. Thats good to, all comunication is good, but some posts dont you feel like participaiting in, thats life. But look at the activity in currently listening. Its BIG activity, but it feels excluding. Let it be that,for all sake, but it should be easier for them to go down to my level than it is for me to go up to their. I just want more interaction towards levels and knowledge. There are hundreds of comments about favourite recordings eks. but not one comment in my currently listening revisited thread. But I think they read it. But its not about me, its about interaction, and making this a welcoming and good place for all. I have one provokation: I think it is professor language is a way to avoid talking about feelings. Fore me music IS feelings. Let them do as they like, I learn from it, but maybe they should come out and say hello to the rest of the world.


I don't think you need to feel excluded just because different members address different aspects of the music (emotional, technical, recordings, performances). I'm not interested in the "various recordings" aspect of classical music discussion but I don't feel excluded by those discussions, I just avoid them and join the ones I'm interested in. There's something for everyone on this forum I think. I would just join the conversations I feel comfortable with and don't join the ones you don't.


----------



## hpowders

The problem is when one joins a thread unequipped to handle the topic. Some of these folks will tear you to shreds before you can say Bela Bartok!


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> The problem is when one joins a thread unequipped to handle the topic. Some of these folks will tear you to shreds before you can say Bela Bartok!


I think most of us have been scolded for opening our mouths pre-maturely, it's a good learning experience


----------



## hpowders

violadude said:


> I think most of us have been scolded for opening our mouths pre-maturely, it's a good learning experience


Sometimes you enter a thread thinking you know something about it and quickly become astonished and overwhelmed by the encyclopedic knowledge coming your way from all sides. It's humbling!


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> The problem is when one joins a thread unequipped to handle the topic. Some of these folks will tear you to shreds before you can say Bela Bartok!


that's why sometimes I prefer to write to "what are you drinking"

than to "what is the point of atonal music"


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> Oscaar's post in his thread about Vilde Frang's extraordinary looks, reminded me of a confession I have to make.
> 
> I confess trully and having full consciousness of my sinful words that...
> 
> when I see David Garrett playing Brahms violin concerto or Zigeunerweisen by Pablo de Sarasate,
> 
> I can not say If i am attracted more to the divine sound of his Stradivarius or his extraordinary good looks
> 
> Fathers forgive me
> 
> full stop here. hahaha


It's a human reaction. I don't know how many Anne-Sophie Mutter CDs I have just for the cover photos.


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> that's why sometimes I prefer to write to "what are you drinking"
> 
> than to "what is the point of atonal music"


I understand completely.


----------



## Oskaar

clara s said:


> that's why sometimes I prefer to write to "what are you drinking"
> 
> than to "what is the point of atonal music"


Ther should be something beetween....

But Violadude.. YOU are not interrested in different recordings, but people in currently listening ARE! But there and only there


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> I understand completely.


HAHA..... This is a good thread. Let us use it to everything, and put "confession" in front of it


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> I understand completely.


My haha was ment for something that are deleted


----------



## Itullian

clara s said:


> Oscaar's post in his thread about Vilde Frang's extraordinary looks, reminded me of a confession I have to make.
> 
> I confess trully and having full consciousness of my sinful words that...
> 
> when I see David Garrett playing Brahms violin concerto or Zigeunerweisen by Pablo de Sarasate,
> 
> I can not say If i am attracted more to the divine sound of his Stradivarius or his extraordinary good looks
> 
> Fathers forgive me
> 
> full stop here. hahaha


Just imagine poor poor me.
I like Radu Lupu's playing. :lol:


----------



## violadude

oskaar said:


> But Violadude.. YOU are not interrested in different recordings, but people in currently listening ARE! But there and only there


I understand that. It doesn't bother me that there are people talking about things that don't interest me in that thread. I don't feel excluded, I just offer my own thoughts about whatever I'm interested in, read about the things I am interested in and acknowledge that others can do the same whether what they are talking about interests me or not. There's something for everyone I think.


----------



## Alfacharger

hpowders said:


> The problem is when one joins a thread unequipped to handle the topic. Some of these folks will tear you to shreds before you can say Bela Bartok!


Did you say Hella Bar Talk?


----------



## Oskaar

violadude said:


> I understand that. It doesn't bother me that there are people talking about things that don't interest me in that thread. I don't feel excluded, I just offer my own thoughts about whatever I'm interested in, read about the things I am interested in and acknowledge that others can do the same whether what they are talking about interests me or not. There's something for everyone I think.


I understand you, and respect you. I am not talking about me, but interaction in general. Using the forum fo what its worth, and of course what suits each user. But somtimes I find the forum dead between the scolared and the what did you eat...

But I find the tc-lists good, people behind do a fantastic job, and many things is missed by me, and I am putting it all a bit on the edge, but talking and communication is good, and this thread is brilliant, but sometimes rather unactive.....

And thankyou for all likes, I am feeling bether


----------



## SimonNZ

oskaar said:


> Thank you for your support, and your brilliant post. The peanuts shows much of what I mean. But I am *trying* to talk about music in my own way, I dont change my mind. It is a good training...I dont create rediculos polls or posts like What did you eat last night. Thats good to, all comunication is good, but some posts dont you feel like participaiting in, thats life. *But look at the activity in currently listening. Its BIG activity, but it feels excluding.* Let it be that,for all sake, but it should be easier for them to go down to my level than it is for me to go up to their. I just want more interaction towards levels and knowledge. There are hundreds of comments about favourite recordings eks. but not one comment in my currently listening revisited thread. But I think they read it. But its not about me, its about interaction, and making this a welcoming and good place for all. I have one provokation: I think it is professor language is a way to avoid talking about feelings. Fore me music IS feelings. Let them do as they like, I learn from it, but maybe they should come out and say hello to the rest of the world.


It surprises me to hear you say that. One thing I like most about Current Listening is how _inclusive_ it is, and I know quite a few others who have also expressed this view, and really if a dummy like me can post there then anyone can. For what its worth I've always thought you were as smart as anyone there.

I like the freedom on that thread to post as little or large as energy, curiousity or interest dictates without having to be making some amazing insight or counter-argument with each post. And I really like how the communication can operate there at a non-verbal level: seeing patterns as curiosity has people checking out the listening of others and wider infectious enthusiasm, as well as having a more accurate view of what people are enjoying day to day than what might come out in debates or greatest lists.

It also serves as my listening diary, and when I revisit random pages from months back I'm always interested to see if the listening of others effected, comments or not, my later listening.


----------



## Oskaar

I dont want to make a big thing about it, just bring up some thoughts. All people are great in here, and nice. Everyone must use the forum as they wish. I just bring up some thoughts and point on the forums endless posibilities for interaction.


----------



## Oskaar

SimonNZ said:


> It surprises me to hear you say that. One thing I like most about Current Listening is how _inclusive_ it is, and I know quite a few others who have also expressed this view, and really if a dummy like me can post there then anyone can. For what its worth I've always thought you were as smart as anyone there.
> 
> I like the freedom on that thread to post as little or large as energy, curiousity or interest dictates without having to be making some amazing insight or counter-argument with each post. And I really like how the communication can operate there at a non-verbal level: seeing patterns as curiosity has people checking out the listening of others and wider infectious enthusiasm, as well as having a more accurate view of what people are enjoying day to day than what might come out in debates or greatest lists.
> 
> It also serves as my listening diary, and when I revisit random pages from months back I'm always interested to see if the listening of others effected, comments or not, my later listening.


I absolutely agree with you and are putting things on the edge. I use a lot of time there, and love it. And when I get comments I am really happy, but that is not often. I dont feel excluded but anyone, but by their knowledge. The scolared talk can have an excluding effect! I dont want to criticize their language, only invite them into mine! I think I tryed to say that, but things can be misunderstood. I FEEL VERY WELCOME in the thread, and in the forum. I just have some thoughts about interaction.


----------



## Morimur

Oskaar, I think it's fair to say that most members appreciate your contribution to the forum. Additionally, you're probably the most (or at least one of the most) accepting and good natured people on here. But then I could be biased in my judgement, since in real life, I've yet to meet an unpleasant Norwegian.

:tiphat:


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> HAHA..... This is a good thread. Let us use it to everything, and put "confession" in front of it


But violadude is right-a lot of threads to choose from at every level, and you are right, "Current Listening" is always a nice, cozy, warm place to be!


----------



## julianoq

I also really enjoy the "current listening" thread. Even if interaction "with words" occurs only occasionally, I feel a different kind of bond with the posters, since very often I listen to records from there. Actually, most of the new stuff that I listened in the last year were recommendations on that thread, and even if I don't always reply the original poster since I have the rule to only post if I can add something useful, I feel a connection.

Also, in the most "complex" threads I rarely post, but I really enjoy reading then. I find the knowledge on these threads priceless.


----------



## PetrB

oskaar said:


> Confession or heartsigh, what you want...
> 
> I honestly urge, or wish the forum to be more social. I must be better my self, but my participation is limited because of lack of knowledge. This is not complaining, more thoughts, making it a better place for everyone.
> 
> Very much of the communication is in the current thread. But I feel that the interaction is between very scholarly people. They are clever to give likes to one like me that tries to put words on my listening, that is very nice. But the commenting level lays on a level too high for me. Then the interaction is limited. I also wish that the scholarly gave positive comments to more efforts, and loosen up a bit. We have different background, but communicating should be first goal in a forum.
> I have fun with what I do without comments, but I WISH that we communicate more. We are all children that shine up when we get response.
> Time is an issue, but the forum should be quite easy to navigate with the new posts and activity stream.
> I see in the activity stream many visits, but few comments. Shouldn't we all try to be a little better?
> A few other also have the experience that their effort lacks response. I promise to be better myself, but the professor level scares me.


But wouldn't you expect a classical music forum like TC to have an array of casual but passionate listeners, learned listeners, n00bs, the very experienced, the untrained, in training and highly trained?

It is hard to comprehend any sort of surprise and /or dissatisfaction over any of those elements being present here!

People pick and choose to participate in threads which are of interest to them. Threads are sometimes read with interest while the viewer has not added one thing. That does not mean the post is not interesting.

There is such a variety within this membership, with as much a variety in what particularly interests any of them, that I think one should not take much 'personally' here, but instead, read and participate in the threads which are of the most interest to you.

You are liked within the community, there is no doubt about that, and what you bring has its value -- no need to feel like you fall 'short' of what you have to say. TC is a discussion forum, not an academic or social contest


----------



## Oskaar

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Oskaar, I think it's fair to say that most members appreciate your contribution to the forum. Additionally, you're probably the most (or at least one of the most) accepting and good natured people on here. But then I could be biased in my judgement, since in real life, I've yet to meet an unpleasant Norwegian.
> 
> :tiphat:


There is unplesant norweegians, specially on holiday drinking too much.

Thankyou for nice words, I appreciate that. I feel very welcome, and know that people appreciate whhat I do. But my thoughts was more general thoughts than about me. Thoughts about all the posibilities the forum has of interaction, lerning and reflection across levels of knowledge and experiance. Good for the interrest of classical music I think.


----------



## Oskaar

PetrB said:


> There is such a variety within this membership, with as much a variety in what particularly interests any of them, that I think one should not take much 'personally' here, but instead, read and participate in the threads which are of the most interest to you.
> 
> You are liked within the community, there is no doubt about that, and what you bring has its value -- no need to feel like you fall 'short' of what you have to say. TC is a discussion forum, not an academic or social contest


Agree. But still I wish that small comments was more usual. But tc is a very nice place to be, the current listening in special, dont misunderstand me.


----------



## PetrB

oskaar said:


> Agree. But still I wish that small comments was more usual. But tc is a very nice place to be, the current listening in special, dont misunderstand me.


I love current listening, and have probably found the most 'new to me' pieces and composers there, as well of being reminded of music I know of which I haven't thought about or listened to for some time. I rarely comment there, but do while keeping that to a minimum. I feel if there is much more than only a few comments it might 'choke the flow' of that thread.

It is, I think, the one place on TC where everyone is being completely their self, and it best represents the musical interests of the membership -- they are listening to exactly what they like and are interested in listening to. Great category, imo.


----------



## hpowders

Itullian said:


> Just imagine poor poor me.
> I like Radu Lupu's playing. :lol:


I like Milstein's playing. I draw the line right there! He knows not to cross it!!!


----------



## hpowders

oskaar said:


> My haha was ment for something that are deleted


I understand. I thought I went too far with that one!


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> that's why sometimes I prefer to write to "what are you drinking"
> 
> than to "what is the point of atonal music"


If I follow your drinking recommendations, the drinking and atonal threads won't seem all that different.


----------



## Katie

hpowders said:


> If I follow your drinking recommendations, the drinking and atonal threads won't seem all that different.


As yes, the classic, "Occifer, I'm not as think as you lacking harmonic-contrapuntal constraints I am"...


----------



## PetrB

Katie said:


> As yes, the classic, "Occifer, I'm not as think as you lacking harmonic-contrapuntal constraints I am"...


I may be high, but at least _I_ will wake up tomorrow morning still knowing how to write counterpoint.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> I understand. I thought I went too far with that one!


what was the thought that was deleted?

I want to laugh too


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> If I follow your drinking recommendations, the drinking and atonal threads won't seem all that different.


why?

what you don't like?

my Jack Daniels suggestion or my viennese chocolate? hahaha

Atonal music sounds less unconformable to the system of tonal hierarchies then huh?


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> what was the thought that was deleted?
> 
> I want to laugh too


It's close to what I posted to your drinking vs. atonal comment-that drinking would make the atonal and drinking threads similar. I didn't like it. I ripped it up.


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> why?
> 
> what you don't like?
> 
> my Jack Daniels suggestion or my viennese chocolate? hahaha
> 
> Atonal music sounds less unconformable to the system of tonal hierarchies then huh?


Now I'm needing a drink just to understand what clara s is talking about. She is beginning to write atonally!


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I watched Charles Rosen's lecture on contemporary music posted by Mahlerian and found it stimulating (from the atonal thread).

According to Rosen, the great music we take for granted all had passionate defenders and detractors when it was new-especially Beethoven (something I already knew). The inference here is, the atonal music many of us resist today will one day be loved? 

Also, the more complex the new music, the more likely it would be valued more highly in the future over less sophisticated music: therefore, many of us consider Mozart is a greater composer than Haydn; Beethoven greater than Mozart; etc. Therefore atonal music over Beethoven, one day? 

In my opinion,, Mozart's greater popularity than Haydn is due to Mozart's capacity to move people more deeply than Haydn's music does, not really based on the music's complexity.
Same with Beethoven. It can be highly complex, but many listeners are simply emotionally moved by his compositions. So, I don't believe Mr. Rosen is on firm ground with his complexity hypothesis.

Interesting lecture, though!


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> I confess that I watched Charles Rosen's lecture on contemporary music posted by Mahlerian and found it stimulating (from the atonal thread).
> 
> According to Rosen, the great music we take for granted all had passionate defenders and detractors when it was new-especially Beethoven (something I already knew). The inference here is, the atonal music many of us resist today will one day be loved? I don't know about that.
> 
> Also, the more complex the new music, the more likely it would be valued more highly in the future over less sophisticated music: therefore, Mozart over Haydn; Beethoven over Mozart; etc. Therefore atonal music over Beethoven? I can't see the day.
> 
> Interesting lecture.


It was a good lecture. I do find it strange that he was not a fan of Xenakis and don't understand what he meant by saying that his music has few interesting ideas. Am I alone in my bewilderment?


----------



## hpowders

Lope de Aguirre said:


> It was a good lecture. I do find it strange that he was not a fan of Xenakis and don't understand what he meant by saying that his music has few interesting ideas. Am I alone in my bewilderment?


I am sorry when he passed on, a small fraction of that great mind couldn't be absorbed by my own brain.

Yes indeed. He was a no show at the Xenakis Fan Club meetings.

Funny quote from Xenakis after Boulanger criticized Xenakis about the lack of development of his themes: "What themes"?


----------



## MarkMcD

The only pieces I find hard to understand are the contemporary atonal modernist monstrosities, give me a good melody or some interesting rhythm, but not just notes for the sake of filling up pages!


----------



## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> I confess that I watched Charles Rosen's lecture on contemporary music posted by Mahlerian and found it stimulating (from the atonal thread).
> 
> According to Rosen, the great music we take for granted all had passionate defenders and detractors when it was new-especially Beethoven (something I already knew). The inference here is, the atonal music many of us resist today will one day be loved?


Not necessarily. There are things which are unpopular and unheralded in their own day and will continue to remain so (rightly or wrongly). The point is that the fact that people resist something does not prove that it will not, in the end, survive.



hpowders said:


> Also, the more complex the new music, the more likely it would be valued more highly in the future over less sophisticated music: therefore, many of us consider Mozart is a greater composer than Haydn; Beethoven greater than Mozart; etc. Therefore atonal music over Beethoven, one day?


Not exactly. He meant "within a given era or style, the composers whose music proves most durable seem to be the same as the ones who wrote the most complex music". It is, after all, difficult to compare the relative complexity of pieces written using different styles, because the complexity is judged somewhat differently.



hpowders said:


> In my opinion,, Mozart's greater popularity than Haydn is due to Mozart's capacity to move people more deeply than Haydn's music does, not really based on the music's complexity.
> Same with Beethoven. It can be highly complex, but many listeners are simply emotionally moved by his compositions. So, I don't believe Mr. Rosen is on firm ground with his complexity theory.
> 
> Interesting lecture, though!


I'm not sure I myself agree with using complexity as the primary measure of whether or not music ends up being loved. There are certainly many other important factors as well.


----------



## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> Not necessarily. There are things which are unpopular and unheralded in their own day and will continue to remain so (rightly or wrongly). The point is that the fact that people resist something does not prove that it will not, in the end, survive.
> 
> Not exactly. He meant "within a given era or style, the composers whose music proves most durable seem to be the same as the ones who wrote the most complex music". It is, after all, difficult to compare the relative complexity of pieces written using different styles, because the complexity is judged somewhat differently.
> 
> I'm not sure I myself agree with using complexity as the primary measure of whether or not music ends up being loved. There are certainly many other important factors as well.


I was skeptical of his complexity theory too. I admired his tenacity. Here was a man who obviously loved a lot of complex contemporary music and was attempting to communicate it. I wish I could hear what he heard.

(Mahler as a child. Nice!)


----------



## clara s

Itullian said:


> Just imagine poor poor me.
> I like Radu Lupu's playing. :lol:


well, if you talk about Radu Lupu now, yes, it's poor poor you...

But as I saw in the internet, forty years ago... the situation was not too bad hahaha


----------



## clara s

I confess 


tonight my sensitivity was excessively hurt... 

goodnight to all


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> I confess
> 
> tonight my sensitivity was excessively hurt...
> 
> goodnight to all


Tomorrow will be a better day.


----------



## Weston

I confess, today I heard Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie and found parts of it downright goofy - embarrassingly so. When I first heard it I thought it was cool. How could I or it change so drastically?


----------



## PetrB

Weston said:


> I confess, today I heard Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie and found parts of it downright goofy - embarrassingly so. When I first heard it I thought it was cool. How could I or it change so drastically?


Messiaen is both childlike (good) and childish (not so good) at times. There is also a lot more humor in the music than many who are first confronted with such a modernist epic might imagine, so you may have just started to notice he did have a senses of humor, or kid's play, and now that you more used to the lay of the land are noticing those elements.

Some Messiaen is over the top, triadically based, and it has been criticized a number of times as being, under all its cloth, a bit musically banal, the themes sometimes childish and / or banal (Like a kid's simplistic idea of _grand_ or _epic._

Sometimes for me, it is a matter of what day I happen to be listening to it


----------



## Selby

Confessions:

I care about the album art. It affects which performance of a piece I drift to, and then build a preference for.

A care about character; if I respect who the performer is away from being an performer - as a person, as a humanitarian - I will build a preference for their work. AKA Stephen Hough, Hilary Hahn.

Perhaps oddly, this is not the case for composers. 

Confessions over.


----------



## PetrB

Weston said:


> I confess, today I heard Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie and found parts of it downright goofy - embarrassingly so. When I first heard it I thought it was cool. How could I or it change so drastically?


Here, ya go.. from the year of its Premiere 
"1949, the year Leonard Bernstein, age thirty, conducted the premiere of Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie in Boston, Richard Strauss died, the school for new music in Darmstadt, Germany, celebrated Schoenberg's 75th birthday with performances of his works, and Theodor Adorno's Philosophy of New Music appeared, in which he wrote that new music had "taken upon itself all the darkness and guilt of the world."

"The premiere of the Turangalîla-Symphonie received mostly negative reviews. Virgil Thomson, who had previously praised Messiaen's music, complained that it came "straight from the Hollywood cornfields." Rudolph Elie, at the Boston Herald, waxed fulsomely on the work's deficiencies:

The clue to the possible fundamental emptiness of this work, is the appalling melodic tawdriness of the three big cyclical themes heard throughout. […] The first is a motto of six notes Gershwin would have thought better of; the second might make the grade as a tune for Dorothy Lamour in a sarong, and the third, a dance of joy, might be ascribed to Hindu Hillbillies, if there be such."

Link to the full article:
http://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/class-notes-olivier-messiaens-turangalila-symphonie/


----------



## Mahlerian

Weston said:


> I confess, today I heard Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie and found parts of it downright goofy - embarrassingly so. When I first heard it I thought it was cool. How could I or it change so drastically?


It's not Messiaen's best work. It _is_ really quite over-the-top, but honestly that's part of its appeal. Messiaen wrote more consistently excellent works both before and after it.


----------



## Morimur

*Arvo Pärt:* I don't get the appeal. His work is painfully simplistic and shallow. Unsurprisingly, he's oft performed.


----------



## Morimur

To be fair, most composers have their share of detractors. On Stravinsky...

1. "It is probably that much, if not most, of Stravinsky's music will enjoy brief existence…Already the tremendous impact of Le Sacre du Printemps has disappeared, and what seemed at the first hearing to be inspirational fire is now only a smoldering ember."
- W.J. Henderson writing with the benefit of hindsight in the New York Sun in January 1937, 24 years after the premiere of The Rite of Springs caused riots in the streets of Paris.
2. "I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this. If my own memories of a friend were as painful as Stravinsky's of Debussy seem to be, I would try to forget him."
- Ernest Newman reviewing the Symphony for Wind Instruments, written in memory of Claude Debussy, for Musical Times, July 1921.
3. "The first [piece] provides a capital imitation of a bagpipe, which reiterates a scrap of melody … Then something abruptly goes wrong with the bagpipe and the thing stops … Some doleful and very uncomfortable sounds introduce the circus clown; then some light skipping ones; the sadness again and some queer feline squeaks."
- Herbert F. Peyser reviewing the Flozaley Quartet's performance of Three Pieces in Musical America, December 4, 1915.
4. "[Petrushka] is but a disjointed series of funny sounds, squeaks and squawks, imitations of wheezy hand organ and hurdy-gurdy, grunting snatches of tune from a bassoon, clatterings of a xylophone and whirring noises. If we must have music of this kind in the concert-room let us by all means also have moving pictures to explain it."
- H.E. Krehbiel writing the article titled, "Symphony presents Concert Marred by Burlesque-Petrushka, Played Without Choreographic Setting, Introducing Buffoonery into Pleasing Program," in the New York Tribune, February 5, 1923.
5. "The History of a Soldier is tenth-rate Stravinsky. It is probably the nearest that any composer of consequence has ever come to achieving almost complete infantilism … Regarded as a sort of musical comic strip, it is abysmally inferior, in wit, comedic power, and salience of characterization, to Mr. Herriman's 'Krazy Kat,' for instance."
- Lawrence Gilman in the New York Herald Tribune, March 26, 1928


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> To be fair, most composers have their share of detractors. On Stravinsky...


Thanks, these were hysterically funny, of course in the light of how Stravinsky is currently regarded. I wonder how amazed / appalled any of those critics would be to pick up just about any music encyclopedia and read, 
"Stravinsky is the Bach of the 20th century."

LOL.


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> *Arvo Pärt:* I don't get the appeal. His work is painfully simplistic and shallow. Unsurprisingly, he's oft performed.


A white linen table cloth, with the suggested promise of a feast, but with only salt and sugar on the table... meh.


----------



## PetrB

I must confess: I believe Jean-Phillipe Rameau to be not only the equal of, but a greater composer than Bach.


----------



## shangoyal

I like Josquin better than Palestrina.


----------



## PetrB

shangoyal said:


> I like Josquin better than Palestrina.


That is not a confession, that is just reason and good taste


----------



## Morimur

PetrB said:


> I must confess: I believe Jean-Phillipe Rameau to be not only the equal of, but a greater composer than Bach.


*Confession:* I believe Karlheinz Stockhausen to be the equal of Bach; his true 20th century counterpart.


----------



## hpowders

Confession: I have been known to collect Anne-Sophie Mutter CDs purely for her jewel case portraits even though she completely repels me as a violinist.

Is this really a terrible thing?

Thank you, Fadda.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

I am listening in my underpants to Mahler. 

It is quite warm here and I don't think he minds


----------



## hpowders

What about the rest of us?


----------



## Vaneyes

PetrB said:


> It is interesting to me that 'the movies ruin classical music,' for that writer. It is quite the opposite for me, the more oddly juxtaposed a piece when used in a scene, the more it seems to me inappropriate to the scene -- or a sophomoric attempt at irony (the music one frame of mood, the film scene 'other.') Those choices, _choices of any and all music with which I am already familiar_ makes me end up laughing at the film.
> 
> Being familiar with Ingram Marshall's _Fog Tropes_ for some years would not have had Scorsese's intended effect upon me when he used it in his _Shutter Island._ If I had been in attendance, that score and his use of part of Lou Harrison's _suite for symphonic strings_, and any other extant piece with which I was familiar fails, because it just reminds me of those pieces without any such context, and then everything becomes disjointed and falls apart, (what is _that_ of a sudden doing _here -- i.e. as a film background track?_
> 
> So for me, I would have found the use of the music 'ridiculous' and distracting from the film. Ergo, film lessened, if not demolished, by inappropriate (and _CHEAP when it is common domain rep_) use of music.


I know the answer for me is if it's done in a tasteful or subtle manner. And no warhorses, please.

Some directors have a good handle on what works. Others, not so. :tiphat:


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

A part of me speculates that all those "academical" procedures used to describe the compositional procedures of the common practice where born first from the necessity of composing a great deal of quality music relatively fast, thus the least amount of material was exploited to its maximum via those recognizable transfigurative procedures.


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> Confession: I have been known to collect Anne-Sophie Mutter CDs purely for her jewel case portraits even though she completely repels me as a violinist.
> 
> Is this really a terrible thing?
> 
> Thank you, Fadda.


She's rather old now. I don't have any of her music, is she that bad?


----------



## hpowders

She started out great under Karajan's wing, but later on developed annoying mannerisms.

Her Bartok 2nd and Sibelius concertos are good from way back when. I wouldn't touch anything recent.


----------



## Morimur

*Dedicated to hpowders*

_In honour of hpowders' hatred of Anne-Sophie Mutter's mannerisms..._


----------



## Oskaar

*Confession.* Me, a spotifyist is hooked on you tube


----------



## shangoyal

*Confession*: I had pretty much seen Mozart's piano sonatas as not very worthy until yesterday, but now I feel like I have been gravely mistaken.


----------



## PetrB

Haut Parleur said:


> I am listening in my underpants to Mahler.
> 
> It is quite warm here and I don't think he minds


Bartok practiced piano and composed in the nude; I think what you are doing is O.K. -- even if it is a little too much sharing


----------



## hpowders

Even though some of my comments on TC might lead one to think otherwise,

I confess that sometimes late at night when everyone on TC is asleep, I play the first act of Die Walküre in the famous Bruno Walter performance conducting the Vienna Philharmonic with Lotte Lehmann, Lauritz Melchoir and Emanuel List.

My other qualities are good, however.

Thank you, Fadda!


----------



## Itullian

hpowders said:


> Even though some of my comments on TC might lead one to think otherwise,
> 
> I confess that sometimes late at night when everyone on TC is asleep, I play the first act of Die Walküre in the famous Bruno Walter performance conducting the Vienna Philharmonic with Lotte Lehmann, Lauritz Melchoir and Emanuel List.
> 
> My other qualities are good, however.
> 
> Thank you, Fadda!


 :lol:..................


----------



## Itullian

I confess, to my shame, that I think the last acts of La Boheme and La Traviata
are
boooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnggggggg.


----------



## hpowders

Itullian said:


> I confess, to my shame, that I think the last acts of La Boheme and La Traviata
> are
> boooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnggggggg.


Yeah. Prolonged death scenes milked for all they are worth are uncomfortable to watch.

Love the Momus scene from Boheme.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Itullian said:


> I confess, to my shame, that I think the last acts of La Boheme and La Traviata
> are
> boooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnggggggg.


--- 








Are you <caesura>_ kidding me_? Act III _Traviata_ (if done right, like say with Callas' 58 Covent Garden performance) is one of the sublimest utterances of the human spirit ever put to music drama.

-- But I know your kidding, Itullian. So it's. . . 'okay.' Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.


----------



## Itullian

Marschallin Blair said:


> ---
> View attachment 38570
> 
> 
> Are you <caesura>_ kidding me_? Act III _Traviata_ (if done right, like say with Callas' 58 Covent Garden performance) is one of the sublimest utterances of the human spirit ever put to music drama.
> 
> -- But I know your kidding, Itullian. So it's. . . 'okay.' Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.


You may add Gilda's death scene from Rigoletto to those as well.


----------



## Selby

shangoyal said:


> I like Josquin better than Palestrina.


You are in good company.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Itullian said:


> You may add Gilda's death scene from Rigoletto to those as well.












"_You're teeeeeeeeeeeeeerible, Muriel."_

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.


----------



## GioCar

Itullian said:


> You may add Gilda's death scene from Rigoletto to those as well.


Nooooo...Itullian! You cannot say that!
I may agree with you for La Boheme and Traviata, but not for this scene...


----------



## Morimur

Confession: I spend way too much money on music... my wife tells me. I miss the single life sometimes. Only sometimes.


----------



## hpowders

Ahhh....the single life.....until your neighbor Mimi knocks on the door asking for a cup of key.


----------



## SimonNZ

Itullian said:


> You may add Gilda's death scene from Rigoletto to those as well.


Would I shock anyone by adding _Carmen_ to that list? Love practically every note of the opera - except for the last ten or twelve minutes. Its over for me at the moment of "C'est toi ! C'est moi !"


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Confession: I spend way too much money on music... my wife tells me. I miss the single life sometimes. Only sometimes.


Bachelorhood or polygamy are both other options.


----------



## helpmeplslol

Confession: I'm really not into symphonies.


----------



## Oskaar

helpmeplslol said:


> Confession: I'm really not into symphonies.


I actually prefer concertos myself to, but sometimes I am in the mood for symphonies


----------



## hpowders

helpmeplslol said:


> Confession: I'm really not into symphonies.


That's alright. I'm not into chocolate milk.


----------



## julianoq

helpmeplslol said:


> Confession: I'm really not into symphonies.





hpowders said:


> That's alright. I'm not into chocolate milk.


Luckily, I am into both.


----------



## hpowders

julianoq said:


> Luckily, I am into both.


Then you've come to the wrong place. We welcome sinners here for redemption.:angel:


----------



## Headphone Hermit

I confess that I posted Zeller 'Der Vogelhandler' and Fall 'Die Dollarprinzessen' on the "Current listening" thread in an attempt to gain no 'likes' for my choice ..... and failed miserably









Hangs head in shame, shakes head in amazement, and goes back into isolation in the hermitage


----------



## Selby

I used to really enjoy Andras Schiff. 

Now I simply cannot stand his recordings. 

They all feel; blunted is the word that comes to mind.


----------



## hpowders

I guess Andra's schiff never came in, eh?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

hpowders said:


> I guess Andra's schiff never came in, eh?


that should result in a yellow card or ten minutes in the sin-bin, sir!


----------



## KenOC

Mitchell said:


> I used to really enjoy Andras Schiff. Now I simply cannot stand his recordings. They all feel; blunted is the word that comes to mind.


Really, Sirrah, your opinion requires correction!  Schiff's new WTC (not the old one, certainly) has only Gould's as competition among versions played on the pianoforte.


----------



## tdc

Some music I find to be really colorful and flavorful, Beethoven's symphonies I find to be the musical equivalent of burnt toast.


----------



## tdc

KenOC said:


> Really, Sirrah, your opinion requires correction!  Schiff's new WTC (not the old one, certainly) has only Gould's as competition among versions played on the pianoforte.


Well you know I love Schiff's WTC, and I would love to be able to agree with so many of your recent posts on Schiff unfortunately you keep mentioning Gould's name in the same sentence!

I can see how some might find Schiff's style restrained, but he makes up for that in crystal clarity - his interpretations to me are about inner power, not outer power. I don't think his approach is the only right way to approach Bach on the piano, but its the best way I've heard thus far.


----------



## KenOC

tdc said:


> Well you know I love Schiff's WTC, and I would love to be able to agree with so many of your recent posts on Schiff unfortunately you keep mentioning Gould's name in the same sentence!


To me, Schiff's approach is pretty much the opposite of Gould's. But I like them both!


----------



## Weston

When Gould plays I hear Gould. When Schiff plays I hear Bach, Beethoven and Schubert.


----------



## Weston

Confession: Though I am a huge Haydn fan, and he is considered the father of the string quartet, I have no Haydn quartets in my collection and have scarcely even heard any. 

(I think I used to have one CD in my collection but can now find no trace of it. )


----------



## hpowders

That fortunately can be easily rectified!!


----------



## SimonNZ

...and at Naxos prices!


----------



## Oskaar

Father forgive me, I have sinned.

I came over a concert with Lang Lang and Jansons, and was impressed By mr Lang Lang. As a pianist, entertainer, his character and carisma. I have seen people count him off as a showman and almost clown. That is unfair! He is not overdoing it. And nothing wrong with charisma. And he deer to show himself, and I see a man with selfesteem, but also a self irony and gentle humoristic side, also in his playing. Remind me of Robin Williams, another character I like.

I think Lang Lang plays very good here, warm and passionate, but also bubbeling and playfull ethusiasm and energy. That pop star talk.... Nigel Kennedy and finnish violinists without cloths, was much worse.

Karajan and Mutter was worse.... (Father I have double sinned, please forgive me)

Seriously, I think classical muic needs a bit show and great caracters. If it is combined with quality, I think its great!

Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No.1 in C major op.15 
Lang Lang, piano
Mariss Jansons, conductor
Bavarian Radio SO
Live, Philharmonic Hall in Munich
Lang Lang Beethoven Concerto No.1 Encores: 
42.18 a Chinese piece
46.08 The Flight of a Bumblebee

link

Is there still a place for me in heaven, father?


----------



## Blancrocher

It's juvenile and stupid, but even after all these years I still can't resist making the occasional Himmelfahrt joke.


----------



## Morimur

With the exception of Bach, I've largely given up listening to music that isn't atonal.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

oskaar said:


> Father forgive me, I have sinned.
> 
> Is there still a place for me in heaven, father?


Purgatory first, sunshine!!!! Oh, hang on .... Lang Lang's playing is purgatory for many of us already :lol:


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Lope de Aguirre said:


> With the exception of Bach, I've largely given up listening to music that isn't atonal.


see Hpowders' comment from yesterday (#506)


----------



## shangoyal

Confession: I simply do not get how Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations recording is so highly regarded. I enjoy (read: tolerate) both his recordings, but with Gustav Leonhardt's harpsichord interpretation I have a love affair! It agitates me a lot to see Gould getting all the fame and glory when I don't even agree with Bach's music being played on the piano (come on, it's a "confession"). Not because of some ideological reason, but I think it takes away about 80% of the bite and freshness in Bach's music. I believe he would have disapproved of the piano.


----------



## hpowders

Headphone Hermit said:


> see Hpowders' comment from yesterday (#506)


:lol: :lol:


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> Confession: I simply do not get how Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations recording is so highly regarded. I enjoy (read: tolerate) both his recordings, but with Gustav Leonhardt's harpsichord interpretation I have a love affair! It agitates me a lot to see Gould getting all the fame and glory when I don't even agree with Bach's music being played on the piano (come on, it's a "confession"). Not because of some ideological reason, but I think it takes away about 80% of the bite and freshness in Bach's music. I believe he would have disapproved of the piano.


You are not alone Brother shangoyal. I have 4 Goldbergs on harpsichord and they all leave Gould in the dust.

I love Gustav Leonhardt's recordings. His WTC is the best one I have, and I have quite a few.


----------



## Blancrocher

hpowders said:


> You are not alone Brother shangoyal. I have 4 Goldbergs on harpsichord and they all leave Gould in the dust.
> 
> I love Gustav Leonhardt's recordings. His WTC is the best one I have, and I have quite a few.


Leonhardt was an uncommonly sensitive performer irrespective of his chosen instrument--I generally favor the piano for Bach keyboard works, but his Art of Fugue from 1952 is desert-island material for me (I favor Rosen's performance on the piano, and after that Aimard, for what it's worth).


----------



## Bulldog

shangoyal said:


> Confession: I simply do not get how Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations recording is so highly regarded. I enjoy (read: tolerate) both his recordings, but with Gustav Leonhardt's harpsichord interpretation I have a love affair! It agitates me a lot to see Gould getting all the fame and glory when I don't even agree with Bach's music being played on the piano (come on, it's a "confession"). Not because of some ideological reason, but I think it takes away about 80% of the bite and freshness in Bach's music. I believe he would have disapproved of the piano.


Maybe, but Gould gave Bach's keyboard music a big boost in exposure. FWIW, I rate Gould's Bach highly. I do agree that much of the music's bite disappears on piano.


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> With the exception of Bach, I've largely given up listening to music that isn't atonal.


The two are far closer together than most would care to think


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I really really like the music of Michael Nyman, I've seen his music be described somewhere here as pop poop.....well, I really like it. 

I also like Andrew Lloyd Webber more than I like Schumann's piano music, but that's understandable.


----------



## SimonNZ

Genuinely interested:

Which are your favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals?


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

SimonNZ said:


> Genuinely interested:
> 
> Which are your favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals?


Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar


----------



## SimonNZ

Wow...Phantom. Okay: I'll have another go and try listening without the baggage.

Superstar I like quite a bit. Evita I like best of what I've heard.


----------



## Celloman

I confess that I will sometimes listen to an opera in small chunks, taking a week or longer to finish it.


----------



## Weston

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I really really like the music of Michael Nyman, I've seen his music be described somewhere here as pop poop.....well, I really like it.
> 
> I also like Andrew Lloyd Webber more than I like Schumann's piano music, but that's understandable.


I secretly find his Requiem kind of fun, a requiem that rocks out.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I have sinned.

I prefer to gaze on Andrew Lloyd Webber's daughter, Imogen Lloyd Webber, a brilliant TV commentator on all things UK, with an incredibly sexy British upper-crust accent, any day, than listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber's tiresome music.

Thank you Fadda. :tiphat:


----------



## Headphone Hermit

hpowders said:


> View attachment 38917
> 
> 
> I confess that I have sinned.
> 
> I prefer to gaze on Andrew Lloyd Webber's daughter, Imogen Lloyd Webber, a brilliant TV commentator on all things UK, with an incredibly sexy British upper-crust accent, any day, than listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber's tiresome music.
> 
> Thank you Fadda. :tiphat:


yeh, but she might end up looking more like her dad as time passes - ugh!


----------



## hpowders

Headphone Hermit said:


> yeh, but she might end up looking more like her dad as time passes - ugh!


I'd rather listen to Imogen speak, than watch her Dad compose or decompose, as the case may be.


----------



## Blancrocher

I often stream music in lousy quality even though I own the cd, out of sheer laziness.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> View attachment 38917
> 
> 
> I confess that I have sinned.
> 
> I prefer to gaze on Andrew Lloyd Webber's daughter, Imogen Lloyd Webber, a brilliant TV commentator on all things UK, with an incredibly sexy British upper-crust accent, any day, than listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber's tiresome music.
> 
> Thank you Fadda. :tiphat:


you are talking the truth child

now I believe that you are watching FOX TV hahaha


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> you are talking the truth child
> 
> now I believe that you are watching FOX TV hahaha


Yes. That is where I've seen her, Fox News. Now I know why they call it Fox News. She IS a foxy lady!! 

Child? It was "poetic license". I can get a drink in a bar without ID.
I simply show them my TC premium membership card.


----------



## Oskaar

I have big confession:

In my eager to share quality living picture videos from youtube, I started a thread called video. I was reminded that there was a thread about you tube videos that I did not know about. But I was asked to start a thread for living performances, with more exact description, and I did that. But I forgot to ask the tc-people! Maybe you father and all the angels in heaven, prefer only one thread for both? What do you think father and all your sisters and munks. Is there a need for separation?

I only want to do what the forum want, but I dont know what they want, and I dont know where to post.

Once again, forgive me father for this and all other sins I have made.








:angel:


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> Yes. That is where I've seen her, Fox News. Now I know why they call it Fox News. She IS a foxy lady!!
> 
> Child? It was "poetic license". I can get a drink in a bar without ID.
> I simply show them my TC premium membership card.


How did _Webber_ manage to squirt out such a creature? Genes must certainly have a sense of humor.


----------



## hpowders

Lope de Aguirre said:


> How did _Webber_ manage to squirt out such a creature? Genes must certainly have a sense of humor.


It's all a crapshoot. Every once in a while it comes up 7, a winner!


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Yes. That is where I've seen her, Fox News. Now I know why they call it Fox News. She IS a foxy lady!!
> 
> Child? It was "poetic license". I can get a drink in a bar without ID.
> I simply show them my TC premium membership card.


good for you, because I can only go to bars with my guardian hahaha

by the way how did you get your TC premium membership card?

by listening to Bruckner's complete works for 3 consecutive months?


----------



## Haydn man

It is a well known fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber is a reincarnation of Mozart
How can you not see this?
I feel you have all sinned and will be held to account on judgement day ( which I am reliably informed is next Monday unless it rains)
Repent now unbelievers


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> good for you, because I can only go to bars with my guardian hahaha
> 
> by the way how did you get your TC premium membership card?
> 
> by listening to Bruckner's complete works for 3 consecutive months?


Nope. For pithy posting.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> I confess that I have sinned.
> 
> I prefer to gaze on Andrew Lloyd Webber's daughter, Imogen Lloyd Webber, a brilliant TV commentator on all things UK, with an incredibly sexy British upper-crust accent, any day, than listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber's tiresome music.
> 
> Thank you Fadda. :tiphat:


Staring at a blank wall is preferable to listing to Andrew Lloyd Webber's music.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> Staring at a blank wall is preferable to listing to Andrew Lloyd Webber's music.


His music bores me. Nothing like the great show music of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe or Leonard Bernstein.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

The most difficult poll ever conceived:

...Andrew Lloyd Webber vs Justin Bieber...


----------



## Serge

Richannes Wrahms said:


> The most difficult poll ever conceived:
> 
> ...Andrew Lloyd Webber vs Justin Bieber...


Now, wait a minute!

Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote Jesus Christ - Superstar! What did the other guy do?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

I confess that I cannot appreciate Britten's Cello Suites.

I've tried and tried - latest time being yesterday with Rostropovich and I just cannot see what makes them worth a few millimetres of shelf space. To me, they sound like someone larking about and I am bewildered as to what either composer or performer are trying to communicate

The CD is still in the bed-side walkman, so you have until 10.30 pm today to bring me (part way) out of ignorance


----------



## PetrB

Haydn man said:


> It is a well known fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber is a reincarnation of Mozart


Of course he is: because even in that mansion on the uppermost slopes of the Mt. Olympus in heaven, his highly confident self-awareness that he was brilliant beyond compare began to really irk the Gods, so they sent him back to learn: 
what it was like to be a complete schlock hack;
that all the money in the world from that success would never make up for not being brilliant.

They thought along with that little packet, he also ought to learn what it felt like to be reviled by co-workers, employees, and the music establishment in general.

After this reincarnation, Mozart will go back to that mansion on Olympus in heaven, as Mozart, and if the plan of the Gods was successful as they intended, Mozart will have a touch less hubris and a little more humility.


----------



## PetrB

Headphone Hermit said:


> I confess that I cannot appreciate Britten's Cello Suites.
> 
> I've tried and tried - latest time being yesterday with Rostropovich and I just cannot see what makes them worth a few millimetres of shelf space. To me, they sound like someone larking about and I am bewildered as to what either composer or performer are trying to communicate
> 
> The CD is still in the bed-side walkman, so you have until 10.30 pm today to bring me (part way) out of ignorance


I must confess after a recent reminder of the existence of Britten's Piano Concerto, I listened to as much as I could take all the while wondering why anyone would or could find much to like or of any interest in it at all.


----------



## clara s

PetrB said:


> Of course he is: because even in that mansion on the uppermost slopes of the Mt. Olympus in heaven, his highly confident self-awareness that he was brilliant beyond compare began to really irk the Gods, so they sent him back to learn:
> what it was like to be a complete schlock hack;
> that all the money in the world from that success would never make up for not being brilliant.
> 
> They thought along with that little packet, he also ought to learn what it felt like to be reviled by co-workers, employees, and the music establishment in general.
> 
> After this reincarnation, Mozart will go back to that mansion on Olympus in heaven, as Mozart, and if the plan of the Gods was successful as they intended, Mozart will have a touch less hubris and a little more humility.


hahaha

fine story that would enrich the greek mythology

two things

1. Greeks had no reincarnation. Only some followers of Orphism believed in this.
That was a privilege mainly of Egyptians.
Greek Gods used Metamorphosis.
And anyway, death in greek Mysteries is allegoric and it pictures Metamorphosis,
because death in nature with the meaning of dissapearance (dissolution) of body
does not exist.

2. Gods used to metamorphose people to serve their own dark purposes and "projects",
and not for people's own good.

Finally, I would put Mozart in the golden century (classical era) of ancient Greece, somewhere in 4th century BC,
where intelligence, talent and brilliance were highly respected and art was in extremely high level.
He would be fine there.


----------



## PetrB

clara s said:


> hahaha
> 
> fine story that would enrich the Greek mythology
> 
> two things
> 
> 1. Greeks had no reincarnation. Only some followers of Orphism believed in this.
> *Torn-off heads still singing and all that *
> That was a privilege mainly of Egyptians.
> Greek Gods used Metamorphosis.
> And anyway, death in Greek Mysteries is allegoric and it pictures Metamorphosis,
> because death in nature with the meaning of disappearance (dissolution) of body
> does not exist.
> 
> 2. Gods used to metamorphose people to serve their own dark purposes and "projects",
> and not for people's own good. *Like that little matter of Zeus, Leda, and a Swan. Yes, yes.*
> 
> Finally, I would put Mozart in the golden century (classical era) of ancient Greece, somewhere in 4th century BC, where intelligence, talent and brilliance were highly respected and art was in extremely high level. He would be fine there.
> 
> *He seems to be just fine through several centuries and all around the world; no wonder some people resent him like crazy *


......................................................


----------



## Blancrocher

I fell asleep during a live performance of Don Giovanni this year.


----------



## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> I fell asleep during a live performance of Don Giovanni this year.


Okay! Fine! Fine! Now your confessional please.....


----------



## clara s

PetrB said:


> ......................................................


PetrB

you have free access to compete to a greek mythology contest hahaha

Amadeus would be welcome in every civilization. 
I only wonder why Andrew Lloyd Webber is so unpopular among the people here.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Okay! Fine! Fine! Now your confessional please.....


hold on

maybe the performance is still going


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> hold on
> 
> maybe the performance is still going


Falling asleep at the opera is so common, I no longer consider this an example of anti-social behavior warranting confession.

Only those who admit to remaining awake throughout an evening at the opera are currently candidates for confession.


----------



## Selby

Confession:

My wife said that our recent attendance to Strauss' Salome was her favorite show she has gone to with me. I couldn't help but notice her fascination when young Salome began kissing the severed head on John the Baptist.

I'm not sure what the actual confession is.... Should I be afraid of my wife?


----------



## hpowders

I would be very afraid.


----------



## clara s

hpowders said:


> Falling asleep at the opera is so common, I no longer consider this an example of anti-social behavior warranting confession.
> 
> Only those who admit to remaining awake throughout an evening at the opera are currently candidates for confession.


very right

I got your meaning

I was just joking, meaning that maybe he is still sleeping in the performance
and you should wait for him to wake up first and then start confessioning


----------



## Morimur

Mitchell said:


> Confession:
> 
> My wife said that our recent attendance to Strauss' Salome was her favorite show she has gone to with me. I couldn't help but notice her fascination when young Salome began kissing the severed head on John the Baptist.
> 
> I'm not sure what the actual confession is.... Should I be afraid of my wife?


Yes, you should be. Especially if you're insured for a lot of money. Sleep tight. :tiphat:


----------



## clara s

Mitchell said:


> Confession:
> 
> My wife said that our recent attendance to Strauss' Salome was her favorite show she has gone to with me. I couldn't help but notice her fascination when young Salome began kissing the severed head on John the Baptist.
> 
> I'm not sure what the actual confession is.... Should I be afraid of my wife?


noooo, just take your wife to lighter operas like Figaro


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> very right
> 
> I got your meaning
> 
> I was just joking, meaning that maybe he is still sleeping in the performance
> and you should wait for him to wake up first and then start confessioning


I know you did. 

I used to attend opera at the Met in New York City, and I could hear the snoring around me! And those seats cost a mint!!!:lol:

Waiting for him could have taken 3-4 hours!


----------



## Morimur

*Georg Friedrich Haas*

Is it just me or does a lot of his work sound like generic suspense film music?


----------



## hpowders

I confess that Schoenberg's Piano Concerto is beginning to make sense to me and is a very colorful score.

Help me with these strange stirrings, Fadda.


----------



## Guest

Lope de Aguirre said:


> *Georg Friedrich Haas*
> Is it just me or does a lot of his work sound like generic suspense film music?


I hear your confession, Lope, and I absolve you of your sin!


----------



## aleazk

TalkingHead said:


> I hear your confession, Lope, and I absolve you of your sin!


Yeah, but also he will have to listen to my favorite piece by Haas as penitence. Enjoy those wonderful microtonal pianos .


----------



## hpowders

I confess:
Music that once seemed like random, foolish noise to me, I now actually find haunting, almost beautiful in a strange new way.
I am referring to the first movement of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto.

Can you help me get bedda, Fadda?


----------



## Oskaar

*Florin Niculescu - Ciocârlia (arr.), George Enescu*

*Florin Niculescu (violin), Laurent Cirade (cello), Paul Staicu (piano), Constantin Lacatus (cembalo)
Les Salons de Musique, 2012*

Easter pleasure for ears and eyes from a gangster bar in Rumenia

*videolink*


----------



## Oskaar

Confession... wrong thread.....


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> *Georg Friedrich Haas*
> 
> Is it just me or does a lot of his work sound like generic suspense film music?


It is just you


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> I confess:
> Music that once seemed like random, foolish noise to me, I now actually find haunting, almost beautiful in a strange new way.
> I am referring to the first movement of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto.
> 
> Can you help me get bedda, Fadda?


You will get bedda: da two udder movements will start ta make sense too, and you will find'em beeootiful.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> You will get bedda: da two udder movements will start ta make sense too, and you will find'em beeootiful.


Like the second and third movements too. Working on the fourth movement.

Atonalosis is getting worse. Is there no cure?

Ordered Lutoslawski. Pray for me.


----------



## motoboy

When I tune to NPR (or anything really), if I hear a harpsichord, I immediately turn it back off. I hate the harpsichord.


----------



## PetrB

motoboy said:


> When I tune to NPR (or anything really), if I hear a harpsichord, I immediately turn it back off. I hate the harpsichord.


With very few exceptions, I do the same if the instrument is the organ.


----------



## hpowders

Southern US harpsichords turn me off. Hate the twang.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> With very few exceptions, I do the same if the instrument is the organ.


Depends on whose, IMO.


----------



## hpowders

When I tune in NPR and they give opinions on anything, I immediately turn it off.


----------



## Woodduck

hpowders said:


> Southern US harpsichords turn me off. Hate the twang.


Try New England hapsicods. The tone is much pithier.


----------



## hpowders

Woodduck said:


> Try New England hapsicods. The tone is much pithier.


If it's pithy, I'm interested.


----------



## BrunoMillot

In general I do not like Debussy
There are some pieces of Debussy that i can stand but, I don´t like him.
Not even his face.


----------



## KenOC

BrunoMillot said:


> In general I do not like Debussy
> There are some pieces of Debussy that i can stand but, I don´t like him.
> Not even his face.


I don't like his clothes. I don't like the way he smells. And I especially don't like his little dog.


----------



## shangoyal

Debussy looks exactly like one TC member named hpowders. I swear.


----------



## Maritta

I love solo piano music, but the whole Wagner opera would be boring. Still, I enjoy Wagner in small bites.


----------



## PetrB

shangoyal said:


> Debussy looks exactly like one TC member named hpowders. I swear.


I can not stand that member's little dog, either.


----------



## hpowders

Maritta said:


> I love solo piano music, but the whole Wagner opera would be boring. Still, I enjoy Wagner in small bites.


Yes. The pithier, the better.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> I can not stand that member's little dog, either.


Just because he hates serious music? He loves "American Idol" with the rest of the masses.


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> Debussy looks exactly like one TC member named hpowders. I swear.


The way he USED TO look.


----------



## hpowders

BrunoMillot said:


> In general I do not like *Debussy*
> There are some pieces of Debussy that i can stand but, *I don´t like him.*
> *Not even his face.*


Good point. I'm sure Bach, Beethoven and Handel were much, much better looking than Debussy. 

As a side point, thanks for pointing out the extremely important positive correlation between a composer's looks and his music.

A fine topic for a new thread.


----------



## clara s

I was out of town for a few days and I see the confessional became "the house of fashion" hahaha

or a beauty contest?


----------



## hpowders

KenOC said:


> I don't like his clothes. I don't like the way he smells. And I especially don't like his little dog.


He doesn't smell anymore, trust me.


----------



## Oskaar

hpowders said:


> When I tune in NPR and they give opinions on anything, I immediately turn it off.


I hate national commersial radio. Not for the commersials, but for the music..that I may like..but they play Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits++ until they are not good any more. The music must suit anyone from 25 to 65.... And so must their opinions, making their opinions not opinions, but empty talk.

On the other hand, I love the music, and love to hear opinions, that I may disagree with, but at least they are real opinions.. on national state broadcast!:tiphat:


----------



## senza sordino

I own only one complete opera, La Traviata, and one complete Requiem by Faure. The rest of my limited vocal music is on a handful of compilation disks. The Ultimate Puccini album, the Best Choral Music in the World, the Best Opera Album in the World. etc

You can all suggest which operas and Requiems for me to get, but I prefer my orchestral music. Even back in the days of old when I listened to rock and roll, I preferred the bands that played instruments and didn't let the words get in the way. Bob Dylan might be a poet, but for me, there are too many words, give me a guitar solo or a violin cadenza.


----------



## Morimur

oskaar said:


> I hate national commersial radio. Not for the commersials, but for the music..that I may like..but they play Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits++ until they are not good any more. The music must suit anyone from 25 to 65.... And so must their opinions, making their opinions not opinions, but empty talk.
> 
> On the other hand, I love the music, and love to hear opinions, that I may disagree with, but at least they are real opinions.. on national state broadcast!:tiphat:


Norwegian national radio couldn't possibly be any worse than American radio.


----------



## chalkpie

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Norwegian national radio couldn't possibly be any worse than its American equivalent.


Yeah, what he said.


----------



## KenOC

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Norwegian national radio couldn't possibly be any worse than its American equivalent.


Does the US have an equivalent?


----------



## Blancrocher

I have deleted performances I've enjoyed from itunes that had incomplete information, out of fear of who the performer(s) might be.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I've fallen in love with my own avatar.


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> I confess that I've fallen in love with my own avatar.


I've fallen in love with my own avatar too!


----------



## Marschallin Blair

hpowders said:


> I confess that I've fallen in love with my own avatar.


Absolutely. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Narcissus and Echo.


----------



## hpowders

Marschallin Blair said:


> Absolutely. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
> 
> Narcissus and Echo.


Under "Settings" I was looking for "Permanently Lock Avatar" but couldn't find it.
Perhaps, with TC Premium Membership....


----------



## Woodduck

Marschallin Blair said:


> Absolutely. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
> 
> Narcissus and Echo.


I hope membership in the Avatarian Self-love Society (***) isn't closed.

I chose my avatar because I was already in love. And his look tells me that it's mutual.


----------



## Blancrocher

The face in my avatar isn't much to my taste, in all honesty. Rather pale and--if you'll forgive the expression--wide as a house. 

Should probably change it, in fact.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> I hope membership in the Avatarian Self-love Society (***) isn't closed.
> 
> I chose my avatar because I was already in love. And his look tells me that it's mutual.


Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . the world would be _such _a better place if people would focus less on trying to love their neighbor and spend a little more time cultivating themselves.

<Clink.> Cheers.

"Do_ not _do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same." - GBS


----------



## shangoyal

I am addicted to this prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier: 




It sounds like a Beatles song, only better.


----------



## Blancrocher

shangoyal said:


> I am addicted to this prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It sounds like a Beatles song, only better.


Do you know the E major prelude and fugue from book 2? Such a moving work--and nothing like the Beatles!






*p.s.* Well, there might actually be a little Paul McCartney in the fugue, at least.


----------



## trazom

i sometimes wonder if there's any relation between counterpoint-obsession and certain mental disorders. my "sample's" biased, though, my impression strictly comes from youtube comments.


----------



## Celloman

I have not listened to all of the Bach cantatas, yet!


----------



## Mahlerian

trazom said:


> i sometimes wonder if there's any relation between counterpoint-obsession and certain mental disorders. my "sample's" biased, though, my impression strictly comes from youtube comments.


I wouldn't take Youtube comments as representative of anything except the thoughts of the severely disturbed and the self-aggrandizing.


----------



## clara s

I confess holy Fathers

I want to write to the thread "Is Gustav Mahler antisemite?"

If I do this, shall I be called an unbeliever?


----------



## hpowders

Celloman said:


> I have not listened to all of the Bach cantatas, yet!


One word: Gardiner.

Forget Suzuki. He should have stuck to teaching young un's how to play the violin.


----------



## clara s

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I've fallen in love with my own avatar too!


if you love your avatar, then you will also love your quote El Che

"Better to die standing than to live on your knees."


----------



## hpowders

clara s said:


> I confess holy Fathers
> 
> I want to write to the thread "Is Gustav Mahler antisemite?"
> 
> If I do this, shall I be called an unbeliever?


Of course not. Go for it. Another point of view would be refreshing.


----------



## PetrB

Mahlerian said:


> I wouldn't take Youtube comments as representative of anything except the thoughts of the severely disturbed and the self-aggrandizing.


TC has its representative share of members more than a titch obsessed with _music is ordered by and manifests math and the universe / 17th century north European counterpoint is the voice of the creator_, etc. and other members more or less attached to this composer or that piece... far beyond what many would think 'reasonable.'


----------



## TurnaboutVox

PetrB said:


> TC has its representative share of members more than a titch obsessed with _music is ordered by and and manifests math and the universe / 17th century north European counterpoint is the voice of the creator_, etc. and other members more or less attached to this composer or that piece... far beyond what many would think 'reasonable.'


We are all human, and therefore deeply irrational at root!


----------



## Itullian

Celloman said:


> I have not listened to all of the Bach cantatas, yet!


One word, Suzuki.


----------



## Itullian

I never listen to Tchaikovsky, who I find either schmaltzy or noisy.
except for the Nutcracker.

I never listen to Rachmaninoff, who I find schmaltzy and uninteresting.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Itullian said:


> I never listen to Tchaikovsky, who I find either schmaltzy or noisy.
> except for the Nutcracker.


Seems to be the inspirational source of Stravinsky's noises (rather than just the folk melodies he worked with). Perhaps one of the greatest (more or less) original melodists there has been in classical music.



Itullian said:


> I never listen to Rachmaninoff, who I find schmaltzy and uninteresting.


I'm a sucker for highly resonant spacings of chords. One could say that's 'covered up' with the French (specially Messiaen) but it isn't quite the same. (That said, I still find Symphonies 1 and 2 to be simply 'not good enough').

Schmaltzy? I can't deny that.


----------



## Morimur

I don't like Bruckner's music. I find it tedious, boring and retrogressive. Ta-dah!


----------



## hpowders

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I don't like Bruckner's music. I find it tedious, boring and retrogressive. Ta-dah!


Wow! You and I may belong to the same church after all!

I don't like Bruckner's music either. Musical bloviation.

My problem is I'm not sure if I'm actually confessing or simply showing off my good common sense! :lol:


----------



## KenOC

hpowders said:


> I don't like Bruckner's music either. Musical bloviation.


A low blow, Sir! You seem to be comparing Bruckner with Rush Limbaugh.


----------



## Mahlerian

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I don't like Bruckner's music. I find it tedious, boring and retrogressive. Ta-dah!


Retrogressive compared to whom? His use of harmony and his new conception of symphonic structure are unlike anyone before or since (although a number of composers, Sibelius most prominently, have taken Bruckner as an inspiration).


----------



## Blancrocher

I recently spent most of a day off adding information to itunes tracks.


----------



## Morimur

Mahlerian said:


> Retrogressive compared to whom? His use of harmony and his new conception of symphonic structure are unlike anyone before or since (although a number of composers, Sibelius most prominently, have taken Bruckner as an inspiration).


Scratch 'Retrogressive' and replace with...BORING


----------



## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> I recently spent most of a day off adding information to itunes tracks.


You do realize this is a public forum? :tiphat:


----------



## Blancrocher

hpowders said:


> You do realize this is a public forum? :tiphat:


 *ahem* I mean, I spent the day _at work_ organizing itunes files.

thanks for the save, hpowders


----------



## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> *ahem* I mean, I spent the day _at work_ organizing itunes files.
> 
> thanks for the save, hpowders


Sure! Who wastes time at home with what can easily be done at work.


----------



## Weston

I confess one of my favorite composers, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, is gorwing a little tedious at times. Today I listened to the oboe concerto and found the phrases didn't leave much room to breathe. The music seemed like a steady stream with no let up or variety.  maybe I just wasn't in the mood for him at the time.


----------



## Morimur

Weston said:


> I confess one of my favorite composers, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, is gorwing a little tedious at times. Today I listened to the oboe concerto and found the phrases didn't leave much room to breathe. The music seemed like a steady stream with no let up or variety.  maybe I just wasn't in the mood for him at the time.


Oh no... Would milk and cookies make you feel better? :lol:


----------



## Celloman

I watched a video of Sarah Chang the other day, just because she's cute.


----------



## Oskaar

Celloman said:


> I have not listened to all of the Bach cantatas, yet!


How many is it? I can help you with one....


----------



## Oskaar

Celloman said:


> I watched a video of Sarah Chang the other day, just because she's cute.


I must confess that a big persent of my bookmarked utube videos are with cute female artist, and that I try to portion them out, mixed with some ugly men, afraid to get stamped as an old sexist pig... (It is only that youtube only reccomend young cute female artists...)


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I used to really like opera but I no longer do.


----------



## Morimur

oskaar said:


> I must confess that a big persent of my bookmarked utube videos are with cute female artist, and that I try to portion them out, mixed with some ugly men, afraid to get stamped as an old sexist pig... (It is only that youtube only reccomend young cute female artists...)


Let's hope there aren't any militant feminists in TC.


----------



## PetrB

oskaar said:


> It is only that youtube only recommends young cute female artists...


LOL! No! -- Youtube recommends _more like_ what you have already been looking at


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Let's hope there aren't any militant feminists in TC.


Uh, oh! New thread of YouTube performances by highly capable but excessively unattractive women, and / or ugly or excessively handsome (sex-objectified) men, coming up?


----------



## Blancrocher

Apparently, my wife isn't interested in hearing what happens on my "god*****ed forum."


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> Apparently, my wife isn't interested in hearing what happens on my "god*****ed forum."


Maybe she's "just not that into you."


----------



## Morimur

Blancrocher said:


> Apparently, my wife isn't interested in hearing what happens on my "god*****ed forum."


I'd never been part of a forum prior to TC, so when I broke the news to my wife she gave me a look that said: _You sad, pathetic creature_. She then _demanded_ that I mow the lawn. It takes two f*cking hours to mow the damned thing! It's like living on a farm! Of course, I didn't voice my thoughts and I simply proceeded to. . . mow the lawn.

*The End*


----------



## Blake

Jeez, you guys are being tormented by the wives, aye? Smack 'em around a bit, or something.


----------



## Morimur

Vesuvius said:


> Jeez, you guys are being tormented by the wives, aye? Smack 'em around a bit, or something.


Yes, prison life must be great... It's shower time!


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> Maybe she's "just not that into you."


Or perhaps it's the other way around, literally. Too much time on the forum?


----------



## KRoad

PetrB said:


> 1.)
> 
> 0.) But usually, I keep these things to myself


I love you, regardless PetrB.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I'd never been part of a forum prior to TC, so when I broke the news to my wife she gave me a look that said: _You sad, pathetic creature_. She then _demanded_ that I mow the lawn. It takes two f*cking hours to mow the damned thing! It's like living on a farm! Of course, I didn't voice my thoughts and I simply proceeded to. . . mow the lawn


Out with the f*cking lawn, sow wild flower seed everywhere and you only have to 'mow' it once a year (+ it's actually good for the environment, while lawns are almost a complete waist). Although, I know people and their 'unquestionable' convictions....


----------



## Oskaar

PetrB said:


> LOL! No! -- Youtube recommends _more like_ what you have already been looking at


You may be right, but I did not search for Hahn,Gabetta,Jansen, Hanng,Hing, Hung, +++, so I think I just came on a track... But seriously; There are many great young female artists.


----------



## PetrB

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Out with the f*cking lawn, sow wild flower seed everywhere and you only have to 'mow' it once a year (+ it's actually good for the environment, while lawns are almost a complete waist). Although, I know people and their 'unquestionable' convictions....


Lawns are for golf courses, and Stepford men and women living in Stepford communities (which include golf courses, natch.)

*À bas, grass lawns!.......Vive, moss and wildflowers!*


----------



## Headphone Hermit

I watched a bit of the semi-final for Eurovision this evening. Can't say that I enjoyed it, but when Mrs Hermit speaks, I obey :angel:

The Polish entry should result in them being sent to a quiet room for a few hours to think a little bit


----------



## Blake

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Yes, prison life must be great... It's shower time!


Hey now, I said smack her around a bit... not kill her. It worked for the neanderthals. I think they would just give 'em one swift club in the head. But they would use a lighter club, not the daily buffalo one.


----------



## Varick

violadude said:


> Confession #1: As I've stated other places on the forum before, I am incredibly bored by discussions of this recording or that recording of a piece of music. Strange because discussing various recordings or versions of a piece of music is a big part of "classical music culture". I'm just not into it for whatever reason. I actually get kind of frustrated when I see a new thread on TC about a particular piece of music and nearly the whole thread is about different recordings of that piece rather than a discussion of the piece itself.
> 
> I actually kind of wish that every composer would come back to life and just say which recording of their compositions is the best one so I can just stop wondering about it once and for all.
> 
> I find this to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of classical music. Hearing the different interpretations of a piece. Listening to what a performer adds to a piece. I argue that this is one of the aspects that will ensure classical music immortality: People wanting to hear other people's versions of a particular piece. Conversely, this is the reason why pop music will stay static in the sense that nobody really wants to hear somebody's else's version of Sgt Pepper's.
> 
> I also believe as you get older (judging by your photo in your avatar, you are young), this view will change. If or when it does, you will be enjoying yet another AWESOME aspect of classical music.
> 
> Confession #3: I used to really like searching out obscure, lesser known composers. While I still enjoy that from time to time and I have found a few obscure composers that I really value now, I find that as I listen more and more to Classical Music my tastes converge more and more with the list of "greats". The only era this is not true of is the late 20th/early 21st century, where the official "cannon" is a lot less clear.
> 
> Hence why they are called "greats" and not "the obscures."
> 
> Confession #4: I'm thankful that I like music from every era of music and whenever I hear someone dismiss an entire era or style of music I want to give them a big hug and tell them how sorry I am to hear that.
> 
> Amen brotha!
> 
> Confession #5: "Moonlight Sonata" pisses me off. Sorry...
> 
> I like the second movement though.
> 
> Ouch! Overplayed? Absolutely! Still great? Absolutely!
> 
> Confession #7: I'll admit, this is a very petty confession. But I am a little bit miffed that it's significantly harder to get people to "like" your post in the "Currently Listening" thread if you don't post a big huge picture of the CD cover from the CD you are listening to. Actually, although I love when people say a few words about what they are listening to, I find the concept of a whole thread where people just list what they're listening to without expanding on it at all a little bit vapid to be perfectly honest.
> 
> Word!





Lope de Aguirre said:


> Confession: I find it somewhat annoying that someone who enjoys the music of Beethoven, might also be a fan of, let's say, Paul McCartney. Of course, that's my problem but in my mind I think: How can this person be a fan of one of the greatest musical minds of all time and then go back to McCartney?


*Confession:* I love Beethoven. I really enjoy a good amount of Paul McCartney (although I do not believe he is the demi-god that so many pop fans claim him to be)



Lope de Aguirre said:


> The man toils in mere obscurity while lesser artists (Ex. Bob Dylan) enjoy ridiculous praise and financial reward. Why are people such mindless Sheep? For the love of all that is true and heartfelt, listen to enclosed song and tell me that the man is not supremely gifted...
> 
> *Wolf Krakowski: Tsen brider (וואָלף קראַקאָווסק)
> Album: Transmigrations: Gilgul, 2001*
> 
> View attachment 37506


I curse you for getting me to click on the "Play" button!



Lope de Aguirre said:


> Confession: I spend way too much money on music...


Impossible! Unless of course it leads to homelessness. Then I say, you MIGHT have spent a bit too much.


----------



## Varick

*Confession:* Not a fan of Chamber Music. I find Brahms chamber to be the most palatable.

*Confession:* Not a big fan of Opera. Although there are certain arias that are simply gorgeous.

*Confession:* Not saying I don't enjoy them, but I find Schumann symphonies to be a bit "sloppy."

*Confession:* I make blender mayonnaise

V


----------



## Blancrocher

I worry that it sometimes sounds pretentious to pronounce composers' names correctly, and so I occasionally fudge them a little when speaking in company.


----------



## Woodduck

Frasier said:


> I think Mahler is a bad composer. Far too neurotic.


I think Mahler is a _great_ composer, but far too neurotic.


----------



## Wicked_one

I don't know how to make a Youtube video with a random picture and music on the background. Come on, throw potatoes at me and poke me with sticks :/


----------



## shangoyal

I had to get this out: I don't like the Hammerklavier sonata.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Wicked_one said:


> I don't know how to make a Youtube video with a random picture and music on the background. Come on, throw potatoes at me and poke me with sticks :/


What's YouTube


----------



## PetrB

shangoyal said:


> I had to get this out: I don't like the Hammerklavier sonata.


It is a mystery to me how one of the ugliest and 'least successful' of pieces became one of the most famous pieces. I'll go further and say I think it is _just not that good._


----------



## BRHiler

I, in general, do not care for Baroque music outside of Bach (J.S. that is)
I, in general, do not care for most Classical era music. Too cut and dry for my taste

Please do not hate, flog, and/or draw and quarter me for the following statement....
I believe that Bruckner wrote one symphony nine times (more if you count the study symphonies.....)

Phew, feel better now


----------



## Mister Man

It may sound gauche, but I think Mozart is completely boring.


----------



## Blake

Mister Man said:


> It may sound gauche, but I think Mozart is completely boring.


Oh, this actually hurt a little.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> It is a mystery to me how one of the ugliest and 'least successful' of pieces became one of the most famous pieces. I'll go further and say I think it is _just not that good._


Yes and what's up with the ugly incomprehensible fugue? Should have been burned ages ago. Burn it now! Burn it now!


----------



## KenOC

The Hammerklavier is the only sonata that Andras Schiff dedicates two complete lectures to (about 85 minutes) in his series on all the sonatas. Pardon the appeal to authority, but I think he's right to do so.

The lectures, which are essential free downloads, are here:

http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/schiffbeethovenlecturerecitals


----------



## dgee

PetrB said:


> It is a mystery to me how one of the ugliest and 'least successful' of pieces became one of the most famous pieces. I'll go further and say I think it is _just not that good._


Ach - Beethoven confession time. There's heaps of Beethoven that can just sound so desperately earnest and worthy. It's a spectre that, for me, haunts a number of his works - Fidelio, Eroica, 5 and 9, late sonatas, don't even start me on the quartets - that make them less fun to listen to and can overshadow the frequent awesomeness. When I want to listen to Beethoven, which is fairly infrequently, I tend to reach for something with a bit more verve and self-awareness - I like symphonies 2, 4 and 8 unreservedly otherwise it can be selected chunks and small doses

This probably makes me a bad person, but that's what the confessional is for right?


----------



## Blake

dgee said:


> Ach - Beethoven confession time. There's heaps of Beethoven that can just sound so desperately earnest and worthy. It's a spectre that, for me, haunts a number of his works - Fidelio, Eroica, 5 and 9, late sonatas, don't even start me on the quartets - that make them less fun to listen to and can overshadow the frequent awesomeness. When I want to listen to Beethoven, which is fairly infrequently, I tend to reach for something with a bit more verve and self-awareness - I like symphonies 2, 4 and 8 unreservedly otherwise it can be selected chunks and small doses
> 
> This probably makes me a bad person, but that's what the confessional is for right?


I love Beethoven, but he definitely had a serious ego-complex. At least what has been portrayed of him in the history books, and I know that's an infallible source....


----------



## Zanralotta

I'm convinced that Mozart would have ended up writing Romantic music had he lived longer.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Vesuvius said:


> I love Beethoven, but he definitely had a serious ego-complex. At least what has been portrayed of him in the history books, and I know that's an infallible source....


Well, yes, but Beethoven was a genius. Many geniuses are egocentric (Mahler, for another musical example.) Should they have assumed an attitude of false modesty instead?

My confession, I suppose: I think geniuses are entitled to be egocentric and selfish - especially if it helps them to create great work.

I'd love to be a genius! :lol:


----------



## PetrB

Mister Man said:


> It may sound gauche, but I think Mozart is completely boring.


LOL. It doesn't sound gauche; it _is_ gauche -- but then again, I think almost all of Bach is completely boring, and I'm pretty sure that is also gauche :lol:


----------



## Pysmythe

> -- but then again, I think almost all of Bach is completely boring, and I'm pretty sure that is also gauche


You are correct, sir, lol.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> Yes and what's up with the ugly incomprehensible fugue? Should have been burned ages ago. Burn it now! Burn it now!


We do not burn important artifacts just because they are ugly. It would be a whitewash of history to not present the past, warts and all


----------



## Blake

TurnaboutVox said:


> Well, yes, but Beethoven was a genius. Many geniuses are egocentric (Mahler, for another musical example.) Should they have assumed an attitude of false modesty instead?
> 
> My confession, I suppose: I think geniuses are entitled to be egocentric and selfish - especially if it helps them to create great work.
> 
> I'd love to be a genius! :lol:


Well, I don't think Mahler went around screaming how "I am Mahler!, yada-yada-yada!" as Beethoven often did. Beethoven was extreme. And no, all geniuses don't have to be egocentric and selfish. Einstein was reportedly a sweet-heart.


----------



## Pysmythe

> Well, yes, but Beethoven was a genius. Many geniuses are egocentric (Mahler, for another musical example.) Should they have assumed an attitude of false modesty instead?
> 
> My confession, I suppose: I think geniuses are entitled to be egocentric and selfish - especially if it helps them to create great work.


Right on. If ever the rules regarding social etiquette ought to have been curtailed or exempted for someone... And, well, I'm sure they were, often enough, though Beethoven may have been more or less constitutionally incapable of really appreciating it. But I also feel VERY sure that anyone who ever had any kind of contact with him at all must have felt tremendously privileged, at least at some point in their lives... many of them probably after he was long gone.


----------



## Pysmythe

> The Hammerklavier is the only sonata that Andras Schiff dedicates two complete lectures to (about 85 minutes) in his series on all the sonatas. Pardon the appeal to authority, but I think he's right to do so.
> 
> The lectures, which are essential free downloads, are here:
> 
> http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/schif...ecturerecitals


Thanks so much for this link. I've seen a few of these posted on youtube before, but not those about the Hammerklavier. These will be fun to listen to.


----------



## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> I love Beethoven, but he definitely had a serious ego-complex...


If he didn't, that would show only that he seriously misunderstood the situation.


----------



## Blake

KenOC said:


> If he didn't, that would show only that he seriously misunderstood the situation.


Never know. Maybe the people who wrote about Beethoven's personality are the ones with the complex....


----------



## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> Never know. Maybe the people who wrote about Beethoven's personality are the ones with the complex....


If you're interested in what Beethoven himself had to say: https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/beethoven-s-words


----------



## PetrB

dgee said:


> Ach - Beethoven confession time. There's heaps of Beethoven that can just sound so desperately earnest and worthy. It's a spectre that, for me, haunts a number of his works - Fidelio, Eroica, 5 and 9, late sonatas, don't even start me on the quartets - that make them less fun to listen to and can overshadow the frequent awesomeness. When I want to listen to Beethoven, which is fairly infrequently, I tend to reach for something with a bit more verve and self-awareness - I like symphonies 2, 4 and 8 unreservedly otherwise it can be selected chunks and small doses
> 
> This probably makes me a bad person, but that's what the confessional is for right?


To me, that makes you a confederate


----------



## hpowders

Seriously though, I confess that the Hammerklavier Sonata is the very essence of what gets me up in the morning and I can exclaim, "thank God I am alive to be able to experience this." Burn it? No.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> The Hammerklavier is the only sonata that Andras Schiff dedicates two complete lectures to (about 85 minutes) in his series on all the sonatas. Pardon the appeal to authority, but I think he's right to do so.
> 
> The lectures, which are essential free downloads, are here:
> 
> http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/schiffbeethovenlecturerecitals


Your confession is heard and you are absolved, like everyone else in this confessions thread.


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> We do not burn important artifacts just because they are ugly. It would be a whitewash of history to not present the past, warts and all


That was hpowders being facetious.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> That was hpowders being facetious.


NB. "the smiley."


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> The Hammerklavier is the only sonata that Andras Schiff dedicates two complete lectures to (about 85 minutes) in his series on all the sonatas. Pardon the appeal to authority, but I think he's right to do so.
> 
> The lectures, which are essential free downloads, are here:
> 
> http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/schiffbeethovenlecturerecitals


It is two lectures because "the thing" is inordinately long


----------



## shangoyal

These days I am enjoying a lot more of Beethoven's early works - some of them are quite good. His later works are quite heavy and in a way, adamant and aggressive, which is all fine when you are in the mood. But you _have to be_ in the mood to enjoy them, it's not driving music.


----------



## ptr

As long as we are on the belated subject of Beethoven, I sincerely believe his Ninth Symphony should be purged by hell fire and those who profess to enjoy it basted with fire ants until the end of eternity and a second!

/ Yours truly horned


----------



## PetrB

ptr said:


> As long as we are on the belated subject of Beethoven, I sincerely believe his Ninth Symphony should be purged by hell fire and those who profess to enjoy it basted with fire ants until the end of eternity and a second!
> 
> / Yours truly horned


Awww, c'mon! You KNOW the first three movements are fantastic


----------



## MissLemko

I just learned how to increase the font so sorry if the letters end up being gigantic.
My confession is a very embarassing one actually. I have a very serious problem with french names. For my entire life I have been mispronouncing Faure (in the good old Vuk's tradition I just read it phonetically.) I don't even try to pronounce Poulenc. My best guess would be that it's something like pu-lans, but I'm probably wrong.


----------



## ptr

PetrB said:


> Awww, c'mon! You KNOW the first three movements are fantastic


Don't make up for that final disaster! Can I please put at least one fire ant down their pants, please! 

/pt


----------



## tdc

shangoyal said:


> These days I am enjoying a lot more of Beethoven's early works - some of them are quite good. His later works are quite heavy and in a way, adamant and aggressive, which is all fine when you are in the mood. But you _have to be_ in the mood to enjoy them, it's not driving music.


Yes, about those Beethoven later works, to me it sounds as if he is trying to be adamant and aggressive by just plonking away more frenetically at the same types of harmonic gestures he used in his earlier days. He adds more length and eccentricities to his works, but not more substance. He seemed to be oblivious as to how to effectively use dissonance. When he does actually get more dissonant (ie - in the Hammerklavier Sonata and the Grosse fuge) His music just sounds awkward and ugly to my ears.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Will I go to hell for laughing at this?


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> NB. "the smiley."


Ahh!! The smiley. Judging from such serious facial expressions at a certain concert where a late Haydn symphony was played, perhaps smileys should be flashed as supertitles at operas are, to let the serious (depressed?) concert goers know that musical humor is now being expressed and it is perfectly acceptable to crack a smile now and then.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I, hpowders, who really doesn't care for opera a heck of a lot, on a 9 1/2 hour flight recently, admits that the inflight entertainment choice of Bellini's Norma and the Casta Diva in particular, with Cecilia Bartoli, played I don't know how many times, over and over, made this flying torture practically enjoyable.

Now I am confused.


----------



## Blancrocher

During phone conversations I will sometimes listen to music through a single headphone.


----------



## shangoyal

I have been listening incessantly to Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin for the last month and now I am a little bored of them! 

Listening to some Indian classical today.


----------



## hpowders

That's the great problem-over-saturation. I suffer from the same problem.


----------



## shangoyal

hpowders said:


> That's the great problem-over-saturation. I suffer from the same problem.


Yeah, maybe I'll leave the music behind for a while and go bungee jumping or something. 

Noooooo.


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> Yeah, maybe I'll leave the music behind for a while and go bungee jumping or something.
> 
> Noooooo.


That's one thing you won't over-saturate. Guaranteed!


----------



## Blake

shangoyal said:


> I have been listening incessantly to Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin for the last month and now I am a little bored of them!
> 
> Listening to some Indian classical today.


A little space apart is all that's needed. Same thing happens to me with Mozart... I'll listen for days on end, and I'll need to stop for a while because it starts to sound dull. But I'll give it some time, go back, and it sounds wonderfully fresh again.


----------



## PetrB

MissLemko said:


> I just learned how to increase the font so sorry if the letters end up being gigantic.
> My confession is a very embarassing one actually. I have a very serious problem with french names. For my entire life I have been mispronouncing Faure (in the good old Vuk's tradition I just read it phonetically.) I don't even try to pronounce Poulenc. My best guess would be that it's something like pu-lans, but I'm probably wrong.


http://www.pronouncenames.com/

Faure: 




Poulenc:


----------



## musicrom

PetrB said:


> http://www.pronouncenames.com/
> 
> *Faure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgcQIKybLNE*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgcQIKybLNE
> 
> Poulenc:


Oh my gosh, that pronunciation of Fauré is horrible. Do not listen to that!

Here's the proper pronunciation:
http://www.forvo.com/word/gabriel_fauré/


----------



## PetrB

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Will I go to hell for laughing at this?


MAY BE, but _if it is not absolutely certain_ you will go to hell for laughing at _this_ Dies Irae:




the least punishment you can expect is that _The Children of the *Corn*_ will come to harvest you


----------



## farmboy

My confession is that I don't like stuffy classical culture and the unwritten etiquette for attending classical performances. We live in a day and age where people should be able to clap in between movements if they want to! Yes, I understand that the composer sometimes puts thought into the transition from movements to movement, but it's such a turn off that after a grand ending you have to hold back from any sort of outward appreciation! And this among other reasons is why classical concerts don't attract many young people. If the music can evolve, why can't the culture?


----------



## aleazk

And we can start to use the generic term "song" for any classical music piece; and we can start to eat hot dogs in the concert hall; and we can also replace the orchestra by a rock band for that matter... uh, wait!


----------



## ptr

You beat me to it Al! I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would want to brake the magic of the music by applauding in-between movements? I once again blame this on the short attention span of modern man! I've been know to say, that if You don't have the self control to keep back sneezing or coughing for at least the duration of a Mahler Symphony, You should not be allowed to enter the concert hall, oh the bliss to be alone with the orchestra... :devil:

If You have the urge to applaud a lot, the God Dude has given You the Strauss Triplets, perfect music for applauders! 

/ptr


----------



## dgee

The pregnant moment of silence after a massive ending just before the orchestra and audience start to cough and shuffle and get ready to carry on is one of the most magic things in all of music


----------



## PetrB

farmboy said:


> My confession is that I don't like stuffy classical culture and the unwritten etiquette for attending classical performances. We live in a day and age where people should be able to clap in between movements if they want to! Yes, I understand that the composer sometimes puts thought into the transition from movements to movement, but it's such a turn off that after a grand ending you have to hold back from any sort of outward appreciation! And this among other reasons is why classical concerts don't attract many young people. If the music can evolve, why can't the culture?


In a time when you and others manage to sit through a film for an hour and 20 minutes before applauding, what you're complaining about and wishing for is a social devolution, not a cultural evolution.

Certainly you can contain yourself for 20-30-40 minutes: the rest is self-indulgence and short attention span. Besides, if you do manage to contain your reaction and go with the convention, the giving appreciation at the end of the piece only amplifies the intensity and pleasure.


----------



## violadude

Clapping between movements is essentially interrupting the piece. So I don't think that should change.


----------



## hpowders

One of the reasons that I gave up subscribing to my local provincial orchestra concerts is the clapping between movements.
I consider such display "unsophisticated" and I don't care what folks did way back when.
Do not lecture me on this.

The other reason I quit was the condescending forced pre-concert lectures right before the first piece. The assumption is that we who attended must be musically naive, desperately in search of direction.

Another reason I quit was 3/4 of the seats were always empty and I found this extremely depressing.
Again, do not lecture me. I've heard it all before.


----------



## Morimur

Georg Friedrich Haas: why does a lot of his work sound like a film soundtrack? I am trying to understand his work but to no avail thus far.


----------



## Blancrocher

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Georg Friedrich Haas: why does a lot of his work sound like a film soundtrack?


Great...looks like James Horner is at it again.


----------



## jdec

PetrB said:


> MAY BE, but _if it is not absolutely certain_ you will go to hell for laughing at _this_ Dies Irae:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> the least punishment you can expect is that _The Children of the *Corn*_ will come to harvest you


Soundtrack for this?


----------



## EDaddy

I love to sing, and I love to drink scotch. Most people would rather hear me drink scotch.

Anyone? Anyone?

_"A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians."

- Frank Zappa_


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

I'm listening to Leonard Cohen aka Laughing Len so may die before the CD ends


----------



## PetrB

PoisonIV said:


> *I'm listening to Leonard Cohen* aka Laughing Len so may die before the CD ends


Two Librium tablets downed with a Martini would make you feel more alive than listening to that!


----------



## Polyphemus

PoisonIV said:


> I'm listening to Leonard Cohen aka Laughing Len so may die before the CD ends


Do you do flagellation as well.


----------



## violadude

Honestly, I don't really like the sound of the organ. Every time I hear it it always sounds really muddied, blurred, and nothing is clear.


----------



## Blake

violadude said:


> Honestly, I don't really like the sound of the organ. Every time I hear it it always sounds really muddied, blurred, and nothing is clear.


Not even Handel's organ concertos? Oh, so nice.


----------



## violadude

Vesuvius said:


> Not even Handel's organ concertos? Oh, so nice.


I've listened to a couple of those and they are pretty good from what I heard. I'm thinking mostly of solo organ pieces.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

violadude said:


> Honestly, I don't really like the sound of the organ. Every time I hear it it always sounds really muddied, blurred, and nothing is clear.


hehehe


----------



## shangoyal

violadude said:


> Honestly, I don't really like the sound of the organ. Every time I hear it it always sounds really muddied, blurred, and nothing is clear.


Yeah, when I heard the Art of the Fugue played on the organ was the first time I could appreciate the sound of the instrument.


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> Honestly, I don't really like the sound of the organ. Every time I hear it it always sounds really muddied, blurred, and nothing is clear.


Hideous instrument, but a wondrous and glorious first failure as the first attempted synthesizer.


----------



## hpowders

I don't really care for the sound of the organ either. I purchased Bach's organ works with Walcha a while back, but couldn't get into it. Too damn SERIOUS!!!

I'm still recovering financially from THAT folly!


----------



## shangoyal

hpowders said:


> I don't really care for the sound of the organ either. I purchased Bach's organ works with Walcha a while back, but couldn't get into it. Too damn SERIOUS!!!
> 
> I'm still recovering financially from THAT folly!


Give it some time, listen to the pithier pieces first and you shall like it.


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> Give it some time, listen to the pithier pieces first and you shall like it.


Pithier? Which piece is that. I'm into dozing by minute 6.

For the love of Mercy, Bach!! Keep those organ pieces pithy and show a little humor once in a while!! Would it kill you??? We listeners aren't all evangelists!!!!


----------



## shangoyal

hpowders said:


> Pithier? Which piece is that. I'm into dozing by minute 6.
> 
> For the love of Mercy, Bach!! Keep those organ pieces pithy and show a little humor once in a while!! Would it kill you??? We listeners aren't all evangelists!!!!


:lol: :lol:

In fact, Bach wrote many pithy organ pieces. The Leipzig and Schubler chorale preludes and the Orgel-Buchlein for example.


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> :lol: :lol:
> 
> In fact, Bach wrote many pithy organ pieces. The Leipzig and Schubler chorale preludes and the Orgel-Buchlein for example.


Thanks for the info, but aren't those chorale preludes very slow? They drone on and put me to sleep. Wish I had access to them on my 9 hour flight to Italy. I would have slept all the way across the big blue sea.


----------



## Antiquarian

I confess that I shelve my P.D.Q Bach albums between my J.S. Bach and W.F. Bach albums.


----------



## hpowders

Antiquarian said:


> I confess that I shelve my P.D.Q Bach albums between my J.S. Bach and W.F. Bach albums.


Deleted for lack of interest.


----------



## millionrainbows

Serge said:


> OK, I'll start...
> 
> I am not really into that "classical" period music thing. I understand it - it's coherent, granted - but I just don't quite "dig" it.
> 
> Also, I used to hate chamber music, but, to think about it, it was also the classical period music most of the time, I believe. And now I just don't think that much about it. What a relief!


Ah, guilt and redemption, through confession. Sooner or later, you will finally realize that your intense guilt is actually a projection of your own fears and insecurities, which you have thus far failed to consciously come to terms with.

After that, though, you will still have to deal with the 'identity-branding' and social stigma. In cases like this, in America, it's best to immediately apologize, within the first 24 hours, or else it will get blown *way* up into a big problem.


----------



## millionrainbows

violadude said:


> Honestly, I don't really like the sound of the organ. Every time I hear it it always sounds really muddied, blurred, and nothing is clear.


Listen to this small organ.


----------



## hpowders

I'm very sensitive to small organs. What a turnoff.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> hpowders: I'm very sensitive to small organs. What a turnoff.


Size does matter for aural fixation.


----------



## hpowders

Marschallin Blair said:


> Size does matter for aural fixation.


I guess. But you DO understand me. :lol:


----------



## Mister Man

I'm guilty of a bit of greenhorn Beethoven worship.


----------



## PetrB

Mister Man said:


> I'm guilty of a bit of greenhorn Beethoven worship.


Nothing really against that, though I do wish someone would form an anonymous 12 step program for "all of you." It would at least spare the less than green from being splattered with *n00b2Luigi* enthusiasm, and it could save those who are splattered with that n00b enthusism a lot of dry cleaning expenses as well.


----------



## BRHiler

New confession: I, as a trumpeter, told the violas that I wasn't playing loud to annoy them. I lied. Been holding that one in for 25 years!!!


----------



## PetrB

BRHiler said:


> New confession: I, as a trumpeter, told the violas that I wasn't playing loud to annoy them. I lied. Been holding that one in for 25 years!!!


Here, ladies, gentlemen and tenors, we have some genuine confessional dirt!

You are absolved... 
if for no other reason than your in-depth honest confession to having been a jerk


----------



## KenOC

BRHiler, let's be honest. You are absolved because they were violas.


----------



## Frei aber froh

There is very little music by Brahms that means anything to me at all. I absolutely love some of his works, but most of his music leaves me completely cold. I appreciate his music from a compositional standpoint, but I don't feel anything.

In fact, I don't love the German Romantics, with the exception of Mendelssohn and Chopin. The Romantic Era is one of my favorites, but Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner don't really appeal to me.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

hpowders said:


> I guess. But you DO understand me. :lol:


_Mais bien sûr_, _VIVID_-ly.


----------



## Pablo B

I really enjoy Piano Solo Works. It's practically impossible to hit the pause botton if you're listening to Chopin. 
The beautiful Op 9 No 1 !!


----------



## hpowders

Marschallin Blair said:


> _Mais bien sûr_, _VIVID_-ly.


I must confess, I find it sooo stimulating when you speak French to me. :tiphat:

Intellectually, of course.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

hpowders said:


> I find it sooo stimulating when you speak French to me. :tiphat:


Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . Okay, I'll stop.


----------



## hpowders

Marschallin Blair said:


> Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . Okay, I'll stop.


I confess that I just had a tall glass of water.....

....and I'm better now.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

hpowders said:


> I confess that I just had a tall glass of water.....
> 
> ....and I'm better now.


Cheers. . . to being 'fierce.' Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.


----------



## hpowders

Being able to confess is soooo nice!


----------



## Antiquarian

I confess that I once read an article about Sir John Tavener's organ works, and thought it was about John Taverner's organ works. Sometimes I still get the two confused.


----------



## ptr

I don't believe in Confessions, its is a deeply disturbing and unnatural act where I come from! 

/ptr


----------



## Marschallin Blair

ptr said:


> I don't believe in Confessions, its is a deeply disturbing and unnatural act where I come from!
> 
> /ptr


"Normal people are people we don't know very well."

- Oscar Wilde


----------



## Woodduck

Antiquarian said:


> I confess that I once read an article about Sir John Tavener's organ works, and thought it was about John Taverner's organ works. Sometimes I still get the two confused.


I once did the same. Then I got to know the two gentlemen's work, and begged Taverner's forgiveness.


----------



## Blancrocher

farmboy said:


> My confession is that I don't like stuffy classical culture and the unwritten etiquette for attending classical performances. We live in a day and age where people should be able to clap in between movements if they want to! Yes, I understand that the composer sometimes puts thought into the transition from movements to movement, but it's such a turn off that after a grand ending you have to hold back from any sort of outward appreciation! And this among other reasons is why classical concerts don't attract many young people. If the music can evolve, why can't the culture?


I'm sorry, farmboy, but this really is crazy talk. I for one can never wait for that moment--following a particularly virtuosic display from soloist and orchestra--of silence punctuated by a chorus of coughing. You'd barely hear it over clapping and cheering.


----------



## Morimur

Why are most classical music listeners so conservative in their taste? It's always the same old composers: Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner -- my goodness, don't they ever get bored? Bunch of old farts.


----------



## KenOC

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Why are most classical music listeners so conservative in their taste? It's always the same old composers: Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner...


Uh...there are others? Didn't know that. Well, Bach of course. :lol:

I did an analysis some time ago of the top 100 compositions as determined on another board. The average time of composition was 1807, right in the middle of Beethoven's middle period. Some still insist, of course, that it's the listeners, not the music. Silly listeners!


----------



## Itullian

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Why are most classical music listeners so conservative in their taste? It's always the same old composers: Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner -- my goodness, don't they ever get bored? Bunch of old farts.


Cause they're great.
No, I don't.


----------



## Morimur

KenOC said:


> Uh...there are others? Didn't know that. Well, Bach of course.


I don't even think Bach is listened to as much as Haydn (not around here anyway). Nothing against the classic composers but new music should be listened to as well. In fact, I think 90% of listening should be devoted to contemporary/modern works: 20th century onward.


----------



## hpowders

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Why are most classical music listeners so conservative in their taste? It's always the same old composers: Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner -- my goodness, don't they ever get bored? Bunch of old farts.


Maybe it's because their music is simply better? I know that's a radical opinion, but I'm willing to risk my reputation anyway.


----------



## MagneticGhost

90% is a bit radical.. I'd be happier with 50% myself.


----------



## SimonNZ

Antiquarian said:


> I confess that I once read an article about Sir John Tavener's organ works, and thought it was about John Taverner's organ works. Sometimes I still get the two confused.


Mnemonic: "Tavern"-er drank in ye olde taverns, Tavener drank in modern pubs.


----------



## Blake

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Why are most classical music listeners so conservative in their taste? It's always the same old composers: Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner -- my goodness, don't they ever get bored? Bunch of old farts.


I have a similar disposition as you... I can't understand how someone could continue to listen to the same composers for time on end. But I've realized some like to dive vertical, while others go horizontal... and everywhere in between. All's good.


----------



## Blancrocher

Judging by its recommendations, Amazon has decided I'm the kind of person who values quantity over quality in an mp3 download.


----------



## brotagonist

Vesuvius said:


> I can't understand how someone could continue to listen to the same composers for time on end.


I can't imagine spending all the time (and money) that I invest and, then, to successfully discover exactly what I love and had hoped to discover, and more, and then to not bother to listen to it, but, instead, to spend the bulk my time searching for something else 

[...But I do set aside a portion of my listening time to explore some of the great things I discover on my own, through others' suggestions and through various media and commercial outlets; and these are the impetus for enlarging my collection.]


----------



## Blake

brotagonist said:


> I can't imagine spending all the time (and money) that I invest and, then, to successfully discover exactly what I love and had hoped to discover, and more, and then to not bother to listen to it, but, instead, to spend the bulk my time searching for something else
> 
> [...But I do set aside a portion of my listening time to explore some of the great things I discover on my own, through others' suggestions and through various media and commercial outlets; and these are the impetus for enlarging my collection.]


My comment was directed toward those with excessive tunnel-vision. I devote plenty of time to the big names like Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn, Bach, etc... but I don't forget those like Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith, Debussy, Nono, etc...

As wonderful as Haydn's music is to me... it would literally become a torture device if that was the only thing I could listen to.


----------



## senza sordino

I must confess that I don't know any single conposer's oeuvre well enough to contribute to the thread "five defining pieces per composer". I don't really know the range of their work. I'm more of a violin concerto and symphony specialist. And so I certainly can't contribute to the two recent piano threads. And I don't generally listen to songs / lieder. I wanted to contribute, but I realized I can't really contribute in a meaningful way, my contribution would be incomplete. 

So I sit on the sidelines and read with interest.


----------



## hpowders

Curiously refreshing.


----------



## hpowders

senza sordino said:


> I must confess that I don't know any single conposer's oeuvre well enough to contribute to the thread "five defining pieces per composer". I don't really know the range of their work. I'm more of a violin concerto and symphony specialist. And so I certainly can't contribute to the two recent piano threads. And I don't generally listen to songs / lieder. I wanted to contribute, but I realized I can't really contribute in a meaningful way, my contribution would be incomplete.
> 
> So I sit on the sidelines and read with interest.


You are obviously too honest to ever consider politics as a career. :tiphat:


----------



## Guest

I love confession, it's so cleansing, isn't it? Here's another _shock-horror-hold-the-front-page_ one from yours truly : I actually used to think that *Johann Nepomuk Hummel's* piano concertos were on a par with Beethoven's.


----------



## hpowders

Vesuvius said:


> My comment was directed toward those with excessive tunnel-vision. I devote plenty of time to the big names like Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn, Bach, etc... but I don't forget those like Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith, Debussy, Nono, etc...
> 
> As wonderful as Haydn's music is to me... it would literally become a torture device if that was the only thing I could listen to.


If you got sent up the river with nothing but Rap to listen to for 10-20 years, I believe you would find Haydn's music in comparison, quite wonderful. It's also terrific music to accompany bending down to pick up the soap.


----------



## scratchgolf

hpowders said:


> If you got sent up the river with nothing but Rap to listen to for 10-20 years, I believe you would find Haydn's music in comparison, quite wonderful. It's also terrific music to accompany bending down to pick up the soap.


This IS an interesting thread! Imagine if it were powdered soap? You'd have enough time to listen to Haydn's entire symphony collection. Pithy indeed.


----------



## Blake

hpowders said:


> If you got sent up the river with nothing but Rap to listen to for 10-20 years, I believe you would find Haydn's music in comparison, quite wonderful. It's also terrific music to accompany bending down to pick up the soap.


Yes, but it is because of that dynamic that it would be most welcome. If Classical music only contained one artist, I would've been over it some time ago.


----------



## hpowders

Vesuvius said:


> Yes, but it is because of that dynamic that it would be most welcome. If Classical music only contained one artist, I would've been over it some time ago.


Well I hear the Rap at San Quentin State plays on a long loop....a very, very, very, very long loop.


----------



## Blake

hpowders said:


> Well I hear the Rap at San Quentin State plays on a long loop....a very, very, very, very long loop.


Can't say I have any future plans of attendance.


----------



## violadude

Outside of school, I have not been to a live performance of anything in at least 5 years.


----------



## hpowders

Vesuvius said:


> Can't say I have any future plans of attendance.


If I knew the future I would know exactly how many posts I would have on December 22nd, my 365th day on TC.
I have a feeling it wouldn't be pretty.


----------



## Blake

hpowders said:


> If I knew the future I would know exactly how many posts I would have on December 22nd, my 365th day on TC.
> I have a feeling it wouldn't be pretty.


Ahh, don't take away my beloved illusion of control with your wisdom.


----------



## hpowders

Vesuvius said:


> Ahh, don't take away my beloved illusion of control with your wisdom.


You call it wisdom. My wife calls it.....well, never mind.


----------



## Weston

I've been looking and looking for a decent version of Stravinsky's "A Card Game, Ballet in Three Deals" which I have damaged or misplaced, without a lot of success. I only recently discovered I should have been searching for _Jeu de cartes_!

Uggh! Boy, am I feeling provincial.


----------



## Mahlerian

Say, if you're discovering Stravinsky, do you happen to have a recording of _Le sacre du printemps_ yet?


----------



## Morimur

Confession: I find Wagnerites to be extremely obnoxious. What is it about Wagner's music that inspires such blind devotion? Is it the whole fantasy, Lord of the Rings nonsense that elicits this tacky and obsessive response? I like his music, but I loathe his 'minions'.


----------



## hpowders

^^And you will find plenty of Wagner's "minions" right here on TC!!! :lol:


----------



## hpowders

Loathe the Wagner miñions at your peril!! :lol:


----------



## shangoyal

At least they are not Bieber's minions...


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Morimur said:


> Confession: I find Wagnerites to be extremely obnoxious. What is it about Wagner's music that inspires such blind devotion? Is it the whole fantasy, Lord of the Rings nonsense that elicits this tacky and obsessive response? I like his music, but I loathe his 'minions'.


1) Perfect orchestration.

2) Chromaticism/'musical poison'/'fungal growth', etc...

3) Schopenhauer.

4) Mythology, fantasy, Lord of the Rings nonsense...

Notice how I've ranked orchestration over chromaticism. 
Main critique against Wagner: populism.


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> At least they are not Bieber's minions...


What about Lang Lang's legion of miñions?


----------



## hpowders

Even Schoenberg has at least a million miñions on TC.


----------



## hpowders

Certain posters on TC seem to have their miñions following them, anticipating every post.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

hpowders said:


> Certain posters on TC seem to have their miñions following them, anticipating every post.


Y'What? D'ye say summat?


----------



## shangoyal

hpowders said:


> What about Lang Lang's legion of miñions?


I think Lang Lang's OK - heard his Appassionata and did not hate it. But he really doesn't deserve to play a Chopin piece any time soon. He murders them.

Ahhhh, now I can sleep.


----------



## shangoyal

Confession: I can't stop listening to Bach!


----------



## Headphone Hermit

I feel I want to hide this ... hence the ridiculously long preamble that might mean it doesn't attract interest on the 'What's new' feature, but .... although I adore Bach and could fill many months listening to nothing but Bach, I don't think I'd miss the Brandenburg Concertos if they suddenly disappeared off my shelves


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> Confession: I can't stop listening to Bach!


You must belong to his miñions.


----------



## Centropolis

I absolutely hate the sound of the harpsichord. I bought a $3 set of 6 Bach partitas with Pinnock playing the harpsichord. I listened to it on the way home, almost fell asleep listening to it.


----------



## OldFashionedGirl

I confess that Chopin and Liszt bore me, and that I am not a big fan of piano music, with exceptions.


----------



## iwhoopedbatman

Despite having sang classical and opera professionally for over a decade in my youth, I am a total noob.

I was so burnt out on the stuff that once I decided to stop singing (around 21 years old) I mostly avoided the beautiful genre like a plague of refinement for the past 15 years. 

Just getting back into it in the past year and I still love all the stuff you guys poop on. 

Vivaldi, except the intro to 'Spring' - all in
Moonlight Sonata - gorgeous
Chopin and Mahler have been in my CD changer for months, pretty much on replay. 

I even confess to wanting to be told about all the slightly lesser known pieces I've forgotten about and should be listening to.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

If we hate the Moonlight Sonata...
My confession: I LOVE THE MOONLIGHT SONATA! I ADORE IT! I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY, IT IS AMAZING!


----------



## MoonlightSonata

If we hate the Moonlight Sonata...
My confession: I LOVE THE MOONLIGHT SONATA! I ADORE IT! I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY, IT IS AMAZING!


----------



## Blancrocher

MoonlightSonata said:


> If we hate the Moonlight Sonata...
> My confession: I LOVE THE MOONLIGHT SONATA! I ADORE IT! I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY, IT IS AMAZING!


It's a miraculous piece--but is it too late to get rid of the nickname? It's a fine name for a forum member, of course, but it can give us misleading ideas about Beethoven's sonata.


----------



## violadude

I hate nicknames that aren't given by the composer.


----------



## hpowders

Yeah. Can't think Beethoven was too happy with the name "Moonlight" He was annoyed at how popular this sonata was with the public compared with others he believed to be so much better. And on that point I completely agree. I hate that sappy first movement. Puts me to sleep every time. Reminds me of 1940 Hollywood films.

The first movement of the Moonlight Sonata is verboten in the hpowders chateau.

You like it? Fine! Don't come over!!


----------



## shangoyal

In heaven, Beethoven's probably too busy trying to make yaks sing to bother about nicknames.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I loathe Varese's "music". My IQ is 143, so please don't call me stupid.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Centropolis said:


> I absolutely hate the sound of the harpsichord. I bought a $3 set of 6 Bach partitas with Pinnock playing the harpsichord. I listened to it on the way home, almost fell asleep listening to it.


Sir Thomas Beecham disliked the harpsichord too: "Like two skeletons copulating on a tin roof".

I actually like the sound it makes


----------



## Headphone Hermit

MoonlightSonata said:


> If we hate the Moonlight Sonata...
> My confession: I LOVE THE MOONLIGHT SONATA! I ADORE IT! I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY, IT IS AMAZING!


I like it too - if it is played well, it is a magical piece


----------



## Morimur

shangoyal said:


> In heaven, Beethoven's probably too busy trying to make yaks sing to bother about nicknames.


There are Yaks in Heaven? Oh...great, JUST GREAT!


----------



## SeptimalTritone

hpowders said:


> I confess that I loathe Varese's "music". My IQ is 143, so please don't call me stupid.


OMG you've actually taken an IQ test?!? And... your result is far above two standard deviations OMG!


----------



## Morimur

septimaltritone said:


> omg you've actually taken an iq test?!? And... Your result is far above two standard deviations omg!


*OMG!* Omg! Omg! Omg!


----------



## shangoyal

Morimur said:


> There are Yaks in Heaven? Oh...great, JUST GREAT!


Yeah, for sure there are - but they might not have as much fur.


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> In heaven, Beethoven's probably too busy trying to make yaks sing to bother about nicknames.


If they have the Moonlight constantly playing in heaven, send me to the other place. I can deal with Bartok.


----------



## shangoyal

hpowders said:


> If they have the Moonlight constantly playing in heaven, send me to the other place. I can deal with Bartok.


What if they have Clara Schumann in heaven?


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> Confession: I can't stop listening to Bach!


Why don't you stop for a while. Take a break! You can always come Bach to it.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

shangoyal said:


> What if they have Clara Schumann in heaven?


ask her if she will play dominoes ... I'm trying to listen to Maria sing :devil:


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> What if they have Clara Schumann in heaven?











^^^^Yeah, but what if they assign me to Constanze Mozart instead??

Heaven.... I'm in heaven.... :cheers:


----------



## Headphone Hermit

^^^ You can entertain Maria Yudina instead


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Hopefully the _Amadeus_ Constanze is there, too. :kiss:

http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/Drama/Drama/AmadeusWolfgangConstance.jpg


----------



## KenOC

hpowders said:


> Yeah, but what if they assign me to Constanze Mozart instead??


Worst case: You're assigned to Mrs. Haydn.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

hpowders said:


> I confess that I loathe Varese's "music". My IQ is 143, so please don't call me stupid.


I cannot stand Cage. I won't say my IQ because it's probably skewed by my age (or lack of it), but it is certainly not 'stupid' level.
4'33'' is, in my opinion, not music. A clever experiment, maybe, and I applaud him for audacity, but I cannot bring myself to call it music. And yes, I have listened to Cage other than 4'33''.


----------



## dgee

MoonlightSonata said:


> I cannot stand Cage. I won't say my IQ because it's probably skewed by my age (or lack of it), but it is certainly not 'stupid' level.
> 4'33'' is, in my opinion, not music. A clever experiment, maybe, and I applaud him for audacity, but I cannot bring myself to call it music. And yes, I have listened to Cage other than 4'33''.


What Cage did you listen to and what about it do you hate? I'm always interested in this because I think much of Cage's work that is suited to recording is relatively inoffensive compared to other big bad modernists. Or are you reacting to the overall theoretic/aesthetic approach he takes?


----------



## hpowders

MoonlightSonata said:


> I cannot stand Cage. I won't say my IQ because it's probably skewed by my age (or lack of it), but it is certainly not 'stupid' level.
> 4'33'' is, in my opinion, not music. A clever experiment, maybe, and I applaud him for audacity, but I cannot bring myself to call it music. And yes, I have listened to Cage other than 4'33''.


Let me put it to you this way: In 4'33", I could post 37 times.


----------



## shangoyal

Fill this space with a post about John Cage.


----------



## hpowders

MoonlightSonata said:


> If we hate the Moonlight Sonata...
> My confession: I LOVE THE MOONLIGHT SONATA! I ADORE IT! I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY, IT IS AMAZING!


It's okay. I never divorced anyone over the Moonlight Sonata. It's really not that important in the scheme of things.


----------



## Weston

dgee said:


> What Cage did you listen to and what about it do you hate? I'm always interested in this because I think much of Cage's work that is suited to recording is relatively inoffensive compared to other big bad modernists. Or are you reacting to the overall theoretic/aesthetic approach he takes?


I agree with this. His prepared piano pieces are fairly innocuous. Soothing even. But I confess the whole Water Walk thing and the radio thing is just so much intrusive noise to me.


----------



## Woodduck

Morimur said:


> There are Yaks in Heaven? Oh...great, JUST GREAT!


From everything I've heard, there'll be nothing to do in Heaven _but_ yak.


----------



## senza sordino

I've never listened to a Wagner opera. I've heard snippets, and I saw Apocalypse Now. I've even played two overtures in orchestras, but I've never sat down to watch an entire Wagner opera. They don't perform Wagner here in Vancouver, I don't think our opera company is up to it. But I've no real desire to watch a Wagner opera. I've seen DVDs in my local library, and I always pass over them for something else.


----------



## hpowders

I confess there are still some 70 Domenico Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas I have not heard yet, principally because I do not possess them. However I can make a rough estimate of how they probably sound.


----------



## PetrB

senza sordino said:


> I've never listened to a Wagner opera. I've heard snippets, and I saw Apocalypse Now. I've even played two overtures in orchestras, but I've never sat down to watch an entire Wagner opera. They don't perform Wagner here in Vancouver, I don't think our opera company is up to it. But I've no real desire to watch a Wagner opera. I've seen DVDs in my local library, and I always pass over them for something else.


And you're but a stone's throw from Seattle, which has _a ring festival_! Naw, I wouldn't save up and travel for that either


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> It's a miraculous piece--but is it too late to get rid of the nickname? It's a fine name for a forum member, of course, but it can give us misleading ideas about Beethoven's sonata.


"It's a fine name for a forum member," ... or maybe a compact car.


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> I hate nicknames that aren't given by the composer.


...and some times, even then!


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> Loathe the Wagner miñions at your peril!! :lol:


If only they were instead, Piñatas... then we could beat them up _and_ have candy.


----------



## Piwikiwi

My attention span is too short for Mahler and for most opera. I also often skip slower parts of a piece because they often bore me.


----------



## PetrB

Morimur said:


> There are Yaks in Heaven? Oh...great, JUST GREAT!


Where else, exactly, do you think they get the butter for the Saturday Sabbath pancake breakfast, eh? Shipping costs from the next nearest source would be both prohibitive, as well as the certain fact the comings, and especially the goings, will raise more than a little welt of dissent among the populace.

Yak butter it is, then, and you'll have to learn to love it!


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> I confess that I loathe Varese's "music". My IQ is 143, so please don't call me stupid.


But my IQ is 145 and I love Varese.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

My IQ is 4,000,000,034 and I don't know who Varese is.


----------



## Guest

Hay  you don't say that


----------



## Morimur

Piwikiwi said:


> My attention span is too short for Mahler and for most opera. I also often skip slower parts of a piece because they often bore me.


Are you 15 or something?

_I kid, I kid!_


----------



## Piwikiwi

Morimur said:


> Are you 15 or something?
> 
> _I kid, I kid!_


I have ADD, so you were on the right track.  I'm 27 btw.


----------



## science

I wouldn't trust anyone who said they didn't have a problem following Mahler's longer movements.


----------



## Morimur

science said:


> I wouldn't trust anyone who said they didn't have a problem following Mahler's longer movements.


I wouldn't trust a man with a stiletto as his avatar.


----------



## PetrB

DiesIraeVIX said:


> My IQ is 4,000,000,034 and I don't know who Varese is.


Ahhhh, at last, someone intelligent enough to be totally indifferent!

Me, I have an IQ of 180 and _I think the music of Varèse is fun_.


----------



## Guest

PetrB said:


> Me, *I have an IQ of 180* and _I think the music of Varèse is fun_.


Strange that you aren't famous, at that rate.


----------



## hpowders

I confess I used to use Ionisation as a motivation in my chemistry class.

It worked like a charm-put all the a-holes to sleep.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Piwikiwi said:


> My attention span is too short for Mahler and for most opera. I also often skip slower parts of a piece because they often bore me.


That is the downside of CDs as opposed to record players - you could have played your Mahler Lps at 78 rpm and got through them (and any pesky slow movements) quicker


----------



## scratchgolf

My IQ is my business only but I can tell you 2 things with certainty

1. It's high
2. I've done less with it than any man in history


----------



## Guest

scratchgolf said:


> 2. I've done less with it than any man in history


Those are fightin' words, sir!


----------



## Morimur

scratchgolf said:


> My IQ is my business only but I can tell you 2 things with certainty
> 
> 1. It's high
> 2. I've done less with it than any man in history


What you need to do is go build a time-travel machine with your high IQ.


----------



## Guest

Morimur said:


> What you need to do is go build a time-travel machine with your high IQ.


And then he could go back in time and do more with his IQ and then make two time machines instead of one, right?


----------



## hpowders

People with truly high IQ's don't waste their time hanging out all day on internet forums.


----------



## Blake

I have no idea what my IQ is. I'm nervous to see how incredibly high it might be... oh lawd, the pressure thereof.


----------



## hpowders

Everyone should know their IQ.


----------



## Blake

hpowders said:


> Everyone should know their IQ.


That's certainly debatable.


----------



## hpowders

That's why I'm here.


----------



## Blake

There's been a thread around here before on what the IQ really is and it's apparent importance.


----------



## Morimur

If you guys really had such high IQs, you'd be Billionaire CEOs...or Megachurch 'Pastors'.


----------



## Mahlerian

Morimur said:


> If you guys really had such high IQs, you'd be Billionaire CEOs...or Megachurch 'Pastors'.


Are you implying that high IQs come with low scruples?


----------



## Morimur

Mahlerian said:


> Are you implying that high IQs come with low scruples?


Nothing gets by you, Mahlerian.


----------



## hpowders

Morimur said:


> Nothing gets by you, Mahlerian.


That's why he gets the big bucks, while the rest of us can only gape in awe. :tiphat:


----------



## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> Are you implying that high IQs come with low scruples?


Many criminals seem to have superior intellects. Nobody I know on both fronts.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Morimur said:


> If you guys really had such high IQs, you'd be Billionaire CEOs...or Megachurch 'Pastors'.


Does a billionaire like Oprah or a want-to-be billionaire like Jay-Z-- or whatever he calls himself-- have a high I.Q.?

I think the statistical corrrelation between wealth and I.Q. is stochastic at _best_.


----------



## hpowders

Vesuvius said:


> There's been a thread around here before on what the IQ really is and it's apparent importance.


Has that ever stopped anyone before from opening a "new" thread, regardless of the topic?


----------



## Blake

hpowders said:


> Has that ever stopped anyone before from opening a "new" thread, regardless of the topic?


Well, "anyone" is a large quantity. And in that case, yes... it's probably stopped many. But I'm sure there will always be a proud "someone" to beat an already trodden path.


----------



## Piwikiwi

Morimur said:


> If you guys really had such high IQs, you'd be Billionaire CEOs...or Megachurch 'Pastors'.


I'm pretty smart but no one in their right mind would let me run even a lemonade stand, let alone a company.


----------



## violadude

Piwikiwi said:


> I'm pretty smart but no one in their right mind would let me run even a lemonade stand, let alone a company.


Don't worry, there are plenty of people around that aren't in their right mind.


----------



## science

I don't know my IQ - I actually took a test when I was in second grade but I long ago forgot my score; I've also forgotten my SAT score! - but I don't need a number to tell me what I can tell myself.

On the other hand, I have no musical ability. I can't sing, play, dance, anything. All I do is love. I'm the musical equivalent of those guys who spend all day talking about baseball but couldn't catch a pop-up with three days' advance notice and a bucket.


----------



## Morimur

Marschallin Blair said:


> Does a billionaire like Oprah or a want-to-be billionaire like Jay-Z-- or whatever he calls himself-- have a high I.Q.?
> 
> I think the statistical corrrelation between wealth and I.Q. is stochastic at _best_.


Like OMG, Blair! You're so an*l! Yet you misspelled 'Correlation'...


----------



## science

That looks like a typo rather than a spelling error. 

Let me take this opportunity to thank the spelling Nazis at Apple for including a spellchecker in my web browser. Otherwise a lot of my posts would be litterally rediculous.


----------



## Morimur

Piwikiwi said:


> ...no one in their right mind would let me run even a lemonade stand, let alone a company.


Maybe because you look like this other Dutch guy...


----------



## hpowders

Piwikiwi said:


> I'm pretty smart but no one in their right mind would let me run even a lemonade stand, let alone a company.


I run my own lemonade stand. $10 for a tall lemonade latté. This week only!


----------



## scratchgolf

science said:


> That looks like a typo rather than a spelling error.
> 
> Let me take this opportunity to thank the spelling Nazis at Apple for including a spellchecker in my web browser. Otherwise a lot of my posts would be litterally rediculous.


People who spell pourly are loosers.


----------



## science

scratchgolf said:


> People who spell pourly are loosers.


I think punctuation, is more important than spelling.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

hpowders said:


> People with truly high IQ's don't waste their time hanging out all day on internet forums.


yes we do ... some of us :lol:


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Morimur said:


> If you guys really had such high IQs, you'd be Billionaire CEOs...or Megachurch 'Pastors'.


or happy hermits


----------



## hpowders

Headphone Hermit said:


> yes we do ... some of us :lol:


There's always exceptions and you and I are it.


----------



## trazom

Morimur said:


> If you guys really had such high IQs, you'd be Billionaire CEOs...or Megachurch 'Pastors'.


I'm sure they were being mostly facetious, and if not:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

:tiphat:


----------



## Headphone Hermit

trazom said:


> I'm sure they were being mostly facetious, and if not:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
> 
> :tiphat:


Nah! The Dunning-Kruger effect suggests an _illusory_ superiority with a _mistaken_ over-estimation of ability

That is manifestly *not* the case :lol:


----------



## Morimur

Confession: Much as I like Stravisky, I prefer Xenakis.


----------



## Igneous01

Confession: I hate Tchaikovsky's Symphony 6 when played by orchestra, but I absolutely adore it in the piano transcription by Niemann.


----------



## PetrB

scratchgolf said:


> People who spell pourly are loosers.


Well, they're looser, that's for sure.


----------



## hpowders

Stravisky? Never heard of that one.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

science said:


> I think punctuation, is more important than spelling.


you need both of thoe's and cappital leters to


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I believe pithiness is more important than either spelling or punctuation.

I can't sit here all day and be expected to read bloviating dissertations! Get to the point!!

You have something to say, then by jove spit it out and get on with it!!!

Amen! :angel:


----------



## MoonlightSonata

In that case, I confess that I am massively pedantic, a fact that can be confirmed by several people, one of whom is on this forum. Unfortunately for those who wish to confirm this, he has neither posted nor read anything on this forum and so I shall send him an email with caps lock telling him to actually do something.


----------



## MagneticGhost

I miss science's Shoe avatar. I don't think the lightbulb suits him!


----------



## MoonlightSonata

Maybe if he wants a lightbulb he should get a shoe-shaped one.
I liked the shoe too.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

I actually told him I like the pump better than the lightbulb, myself.


----------



## Blake

I love that lightbuld... it's a symbol of irony, as most of us think we have a bright idea. Ding! Ding!


----------



## Itullian

I like it too. Reminds me of Jolly Rancher candy.


----------



## Shibooty

Saint-Saëns' 3rd Symphony makes me feel so nostalgic and sad, I cry every time I listen to it. (except the scherzo movement does not make me cry)


----------



## Itullian

I have nothing by John Eliot Gardiner or Harnoncourt.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

The only Wagner I've ever heard is _Ride of the Valkyries_.
I'm so ashamed.


----------



## hpowders

I am re-listening to all the Mahler symphonies as conducted by Pierre Boulez and it is a very refreshing experience, even though each symphony is far from pithy. Sometimes, I confess, I make exceptions to the pithiness rule that I model my life on.


----------



## science

Wow, I'd missed a whole little discussion of my avatar. Well, I like my two avatars equally. The hot pink pump was a satire on the materialism of which I've been accused. The green bulb also has a symbolic meaning for me, but I'd rather keep that to myself for now because I'm not proud of it.

View attachment 52512
=


----------



## PetrB

MoonlightSonata said:


> The only Wagner I've ever heard is _Ride of the Valkyries_.
> I'm so ashamed.


That's fixed easily enough:
Brief instrumental piece, unusual for Wagner, self-standing, and independent of an opera,
*Siegfried Idyll (duration 18'29'')*


----------



## GreenMamba

hpowders said:


> I am re-listening to all the Mahler symphonies as conducted by Pierre Boulez and it is a very refreshing experience, even though each symphony is far from pithy. Sometimes, I confess, I make exceptions to the pithiness rule that I model my life on.


You want pithy? Try Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges. I believe Vivaldi may have written a Lemon Concerto as well.


----------



## hpowders

GreenMamba said:


> You want pithy? Try Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges. I believe Vivaldi may have written a Lemon Concerto as well.


Nooooo. I meant the most common definition as in "concise". :lol:


----------



## MoonlightSonata

Then listen to Satie's _Vexations_ without repeats.


----------



## trazom

Shibooty said:


> Saint-Saëns' 3rd Symphony makes me feel so nostalgic and sad, I cry every time I listen to it. (except the scherzo movement does not make me cry)


I love that piece. It makes me think of Babe, and it's one of the few pieces of Saint Saens that I still listen to.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

trazom said:


> I love that piece. It makes me think of Babe, and it's one of the few pieces of Saint Saens that I still listen to.


What have you stopped listening to?


----------



## senza sordino

1) I often think of talk Classical and you people when I'm away from the forum. I was in rehearsal today, a sectional rehearsal. I was wondering what you people would think of our second rate amateur orchestra, could you manage to sit through one of our rehearsals without walking out? Could you listen to one of our concerts without walking out?

2) I like opera compilation albums, you know: Tosca highlights, best of Puccini etc. Just the best bits of the opera.


----------



## hpowders

Of course, it's easy to be spoiled listening to the Vienna Philharmonic all day as I've been doing with Mahler 2, 3, 5 and 6 the last few days with Pierre Boulez!


----------



## Headphone Hermit

MagneticGhost said:


> I miss science's Shoe avatar. I don't think the lightbulb suits him!


I confess that I don't understand the shoe-link to 'science'


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Now I confess that I didn''t read Science's explanation of his avatar before I posted the last contibution - hangs head in shame!


----------



## ultima

I have very little first-hand experience of Wagner's music. I've heard and read a lot about it, but have never sat through more than 5-6 mins of a Wagner piece. Need to rectify ASAP!


----------



## hpowders

Ultima- Maybe you should start with a Wagner "Ring Without Words" CD. Some of his best orchestral music without the voices to distract you. Just a suggestion.


----------



## hpowders

OldFashionedGirl said:


> I confess that Chopin and Liszt bore me, and that I am not a big fan of piano music, with exceptions.


I feel the same way with a few exceptions. I like Brahms' Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel and Schumann's Symphonic Variations, both for solo piano.


----------



## Figleaf

Headphone Hermit said:


> Now I confess that I didn''t read Science's explanation of his avatar before I posted the last contibution - hangs head in shame!


Given the style of shoe I thought it best not to ask!


----------



## Figleaf

hpowders said:


> Ultima- Maybe you should start with a Wagner "Ring Without Words" CD. Some of his best orchestral music without the voices to distract you. Just a suggestion.


Maybe he/she should start with Wagner without the orchestral bits! The best vocal music without the noisy orchestral bits to distract you 

Ivan Yershov in Tannhäuser:






Francisco Viñas in Lohengrin. I can't find the piano accompanied version online, but the voice is quite forwardly recorded with a beauty to die for:






Lelio Casini sings a very Italian, very nineteenth century O du mein holder Abendstern:






Tannhäuser again, sung by the first Parsifal (with a partially ruined voice to show for it)


----------



## trazom

I saw quite a unique CD cover on another post today: Lang-Lang. Hands in the air, head back, close-lipped smile but almost a smirk, eyes closed in obvious pleasure that comes from loving one's self so much and the knowledge that everything one does is valid and brilliant simply because one does it. It was the first time for me in years where looking at someone's face actually evoked an immediate, visceral feeling of anger.

So I put on a piece by Schubert, an ACTUAL genius, and now I feel so much better.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

trazom said:


> I saw quite a unique CD cover on another post today: Lang-Lang. Hands in the air, head back, close-lipped smile but almost a smirk, eyes closed in obvious pleasure that comes from loving one's self so much and the knowledge that everything one does is valid and brilliant simply because one does it. It was the first time for me in years where looking at someone's face actually evoked an immediate, visceral feeling of anger.
> 
> So I put on a piece by Schubert, an ACTUAL genius, and now I feel so much better.


Lol! That's pretty funny imagery. I've only come to hear about Lang-Lang through this thread, had no idea he existed before that. Is he a case of a pop classical musician who isn't up-to-par (like Bocelli) or is he a legitimately talented musician? Either way, I'm not rushing out the door to acquire a set of Lang-Lang Beethoven piano sonatas. I'm just curious.


----------



## trazom

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Lol! That's pretty funny imagery. I've only come to hear about Lang-Lang through this thread, had no idea he existed before that. Is he a case of a pop classical musician who isn't up-to-par (like Bocelli) or is he a legitimately talented musician? Either way, I'm not rushing out the door to acquire a set of Lang-Lang Beethoven piano sonatas. I'm just curious.


In terms of technique, he's one of those super-virtuosos like Valentina Lisitsa where he can play, as far as the notes are concerned, pretty much any piece he wants. It's just his performances and the way he carries himself is so phony and contrived sometimes. He's a showman and has said that every performer should have their own gimmick. That quote's old an is often used against him, but it explains a lot. Not that he can't pull off a great performance now and then, it's just most of what I've heard from him in classical and early romantic repertoire I did not care for at all.


----------



## Mahlerian

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Lol! That's pretty funny imagery. I've only come to hear about Lang-Lang through this thread, had no idea he existed before that. Is he a case of a pop classical musician who isn't up-to-par (like Bocelli) or is he a legitimately talented musician? Either way, I'm not rushing out the door to acquire a set of Lang-Lang Beethoven piano sonatas. I'm just curious.


He's known for being extremely showy, but listening to his performances without all of his gratuitous miming reveals a lack of interpretative sense.


----------



## OldFashionedGirl

This is so cheesy, but I confess that Classical Music members are like a family for me.


----------



## Itullian

OldFashionedGirl said:


> This is so cheesy, but I confess that Classical Music members are like a family for me.


Very sweet...............


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Figleaf said:


> Maybe he/she should start with Wagner without the orchestral bits! The best vocal music without the noisy orchestral bits to distract you


Thank you - that is one of the best things I've read in a long time

Wagner (arranged Cage) - the bits without orchestra or voice. 17 hours sat on a hard bench at Bayreuth listening to the sounds of bubbling water in the Rhine, the odd sword being dropped now and again, a bit of weather noise possibly, etc


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Itullian said:


> Very sweet...............


My reaction was 'Oh dear ... how disappointing. I thought it was better than that!'

Guess different folk have different experiences of 'family'


----------



## hpowders

Yes! Yes! Wagner without words!!

I confess that I cringe cringe every time I hear Brünnhilde sing the word "ross" in her Immolation scene, because I absolutely detest hearing the name Alex Ross, even partially, mentioned anywhere.
Sorry for appearing so horse-tle this morning. :tiphat:


----------



## brotagonist

hpowders said:


> I confess that I cringe cringe every time I hear Brünnhilde sing the word "ross" in her Immolation scene, because I absolutely detest hearing the name Alex Ross, even partially, mentioned anywhere.


You have to explain that comment. I enjoyed the first of the two books The Rest is Noise (I haven't yet listened to the other one, and I'm not greatly interested... presently, anyway). While my knowledge pales in relation to that of many, I do find the title an effrontery. If he didn't mention a modern composer in his book, then the latter's music is just noise, like the majority of people think all modern music is?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

another confession - very often when I click on the 'Unread Posts' page I have to check if I've opened the 'Stupid ideas for a Thread' page instead


----------



## ptr

I still don't have anything to confess to! 

/ptr


----------



## Weston

brotagonist said:


> You have to explain that comment. I enjoyed the first of the two books The Rest is Noise (I haven't yet listened to the other one, and I'm not greatly interested... presently, anyway). While my knowledge pales in relation to that of many, I do find the title an effrontery. If he didn't mention a modern composer in his book, then the latter's music is just noise, like the majority of people think all modern music is?


His other book, Listen to This, is okay. (I haven't read the first one.) I get no more upset with his opinions than I do with anyone here for instance that I may not overlap with 100% on a Venn diagram. I overlap with him on a few things and that's all one can hope for.


----------



## hpowders

brotagonist said:


> You have to explain that comment. I enjoyed the first of the two books The Rest is Noise (I haven't yet listened to the other one, and I'm not greatly interested... presently, anyway). While my knowledge pales in relation to that of many, I do find the title an effrontery. If he didn't mention a modern composer in his book, then the latter's music is just noise, like the majority of people think all modern music is?


It's only meaningful if you are well acquainted with Brünnhilde's Immolation scene at the end of Wagner's Götterdämmerung.
So it appears I must be writing for a very limited audience. :lol:


----------



## hpowders

ptr said:


> I still don't have anything to confess to!
> 
> /ptr


But that in itself is a confession.


----------



## ptr

hpowders said:


> But that in itself is a confession.


Caught in the act, fingers in the confessional cookie jar! 

/ptr


----------



## hpowders

ptr said:


> Caught in the act, fingers in the confessional cookie jar!
> 
> /ptr


You have to get up pretty early in the morning ptr....well you know the rest. :lol:

I've still got it!!! :clap:


----------



## hpowders

OldFashionedGirl said:


> This is so cheesy, but I confess that Classical Music members are like a family for me.


Corny and cheesy.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

I have never heard any Prokofiev, and the only Strauss (Richard) that I know is the Sunrise from Also Sprach Zarathustra. I'm so ashamed.


----------



## senza sordino

MoonlightSonata said:


> I have never heard any Prokofiev, and the only Strauss (Richard) that I know is the Sunrise from Also Sprach Zarathustra. I'm so ashamed.


Prokofiev is one of my favourite composers. Strauss can be a tough nut to crack, but I think he's pretty good too. Also Sprach Zarathustra, however, is one piece I haven't figured out.


----------



## hpowders

senza sordino said:


> Prokofiev is one of my favourite composers. Strauss can be a tough nut to crack, but I think he's pretty good too. Also Sprach Zarathustra, however, is one piece I haven't figured out.


Yes. Prokofiev's a winner!!!


----------



## Mahlerian

senza sordino said:


> Prokofiev is one of my favourite composers. Strauss can be a tough nut to crack, but I think he's pretty good too. Also Sprach Zarathustra, however, is one piece I haven't figured out.


It's mostly variations on the opening theme, though there are one or two other important themes that appear in the course of the work.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

I'll have to have a listen to the whole thing.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I've bought several Anne Sophie Mutter CDs purely for the covers.
Am I going to hell?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

^^^ depends on whether she was over 18 or not!


----------



## Polyphemus

hpowders said:


> I confess that I've bought several Anne Sophie Mutter CDs purely for the covers.
> Am I going to hell?


You best move up on the bench there are lots more to join.


----------



## hpowders

Polyphemus said:


> You best move up on the bench there are lots more to join.


I feel better now.


----------



## Haydn man

hpowders said:


> I feel better now.


Many of us may be sharing your feelings, I know I am


----------



## Haydn man

Just listened to Mahler's 3rd and got completely overwhelmed 
New work for me and my small brain struggled to cope, just seemed so complicated, then the singing started!
Oh boy this is going to be tough


----------



## hpowders

Haydn man said:


> Just listened to Mahler's 3rd and got completely overwhelmed
> New work for me and my small brain struggled to cope, just seemed so complicated, then the singing started!
> Oh boy this is going to be tough


It's worth the effort. Repetition is your friend!


----------



## Polyphemus

Haydn man said:


> Just listened to Mahler's 3rd and got completely overwhelmed
> New work for me and my small brain struggled to cope, just seemed so complicated, then the singing started!
> Oh boy this is going to be tough


You will find with each listening that it grows on you and it will become a treasured piece of your listening repertoire.


----------



## Tristan

Haydn man said:


> Just listened to Mahler's 3rd and got completely overwhelmed
> New work for me and my small brain struggled to cope, just seemed so complicated, then the singing started!
> Oh boy this is going to be tough


That's how I felt with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4. And now it's one of my favorite works of all time  I definitely encourage you to try it again


----------



## hpowders

Headphone Hermit said:


> ^^^ depends on whether she was over 18 or not!


Oh yes, surely she was over 18!!! What kind of pervert do you take me for???? :tiphat:


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> Oh yes, surely she was over 18!!! What kind of pervert do you take me for???? :tiphat:


hpowders ain't no Humbert Humbert. :angel:


----------



## violadude

I'm not as big of a fan of these millions of random Russian composers as lots of others seem to be.


----------



## hpowders

^^^Take your time. Nobody's russian' you. Maybe in a few years you will see the light!


----------



## KenOC

violadude said:


> I'm not as big of a fan of these millions of random Russian composers as lots of others seem to be.


"Random" composers? They are hurt. Deeply hurt.


----------



## Polyphemus

hpowders said:


> Oh yes, surely she was over 18!!! What kind of pervert do you take me for???? :tiphat:


A very eloquent one.


----------



## Polyphemus

KenOC said:


> "Random" composers? They are hurt. Deeply hurt.


Though Glazunov may not be considered 'random' I have always maintained he should have been horsewhipped for his disgraceful debut performance of Rachmaninov's Symphony 1.


----------



## violadude

KenOC said:


> "Random" composers? They are hurt. Deeply hurt.


Most of them are dead, so they're not hurt at all. :tiphat: :devil:


----------



## Itullian

hpowders said:


> I confess that I've bought several Anne Sophie Mutter CDs purely for the covers.
> Am I going to hell?


I'm a Julia Fischer guy myself. :tiphat:


----------



## KenOC

Morimur said:


> hpowders ain't no Humbert Humbert. :angel:


Nor a Mick Jagger.

"I can see that you're fifteen years old 
No I don't want your I.D."

(Stray Cat Blues)


----------



## hpowders

Polyphemus said:


> A very eloquent one.*


Flattering me right into a straight jacket, eh? :lol:

*Hopefully, nobody will see this: Thank you!


----------



## Figleaf

I wondered for a long time why there were so many conductors named Mo, until the penny dropped and I realised it was an abbreviation of Maestro.


----------



## Figleaf

Figleaf said:


> I wondered for a long time why there were so many conductors named Mo, until the penny dropped and I realised it was an abbreviation of Maestro.


I mean, they could all have been christened Maurizio or Mohammed or something (obviously not 'christened' Mohammed. Doh!)


----------



## MoonlightSonata

Figleaf said:


> I mean, they could all have been christened Maurizio or Mohammed or something (obviously not 'christened' Mohammed. Doh!)


Or Mortimer. 
Actually, are there any well-known composers with any of those names?


----------



## violadude

MoonlightSonata said:


> Or Mortimer.
> Actually, are there any well-known composers with any of those names?


No, but there is the famous madrigal composer, Marenzio! which is similar to Maurizio.


----------



## violadude

For some reason, CD sets that focus on conductors and performers (e.g. The Karajan edition etc) bug me. They don't bug me on a moral or artistic level, but on an OCD level. If a cd set doesn't focus on a particular composer then it feels too much like a random compilation album to me, weird huh?


----------



## senza sordino

violadude said:


> For some reason, CD sets that focus on conductors and performers (e.g. The Karajan edition etc) bug me. They don't bug me on a moral or artistic level, but on an OCD level. If a cd set doesn't focus on a particular composer then it feels too much like a random compilation album to me, weird huh?


I don't remember who, but someone on this forum organizes his or her CD collection by performer and not by composer. 
Nowt queer as folk, as they used to say in Northern England. I love that expression. It basically means everyone is weird.


----------



## violadude

senza sordino said:


> I don't remember who, but someone on this forum organizes his or her CD collection by performer and not by composer.
> Nowt queer as folk, as they used to say in Northern England. I love that expression. It basically means everyone is weird.


Organizing my collection by performer would make my head explode. Depends on your priorities I guess.


----------



## starthrower

Organizing my collection in any fashion would make my head explode, and give me a backache. I keep a visual memory of the CD bindings, so I can spot a title. If I forget this detail, I'm screwed. I could be searching for a CD for a week!


----------



## MoonlightSonata

starthrower said:


> Organizing my collection in any fashion would make my head explode, and give me a backache. I keep a visual memory of the CD bindings, so I can spot a title. If I forget this detail, I'm screwed. I could be searching for a CD for a week!


I organise mine by size


----------



## hpowders

Nothing more frustrating than knowing you have a CD, but you are unable to find it!!


----------



## Figleaf

hpowders said:


> Nothing more frustrating than knowing you have a CD, but you are unable to find it!!


...and while you're looking for it, you come across two identical copies of a CD you don't even like that much!


----------



## hpowders

Figleaf said:


> ...and while you're looking for it, you come across two identical copies of a CD you don't even like that much!


Yes!! Like an all Hindemith CD I purchased twice! I don't even know why I ordered the first one, let alone a duplicate!!

I guess it means I won't listen to it ever, twice as much!!!


----------



## hpowders

I confess that late at night when nobody's looking I tiptoe around the jazz and pop sections, especially looking for things pertinent to Miles Davis. Hope I'm not going to hell.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now.


----------



## JACE

hpowders said:


> I confess that late at night when nobody's looking I tiptoe around the jazz and pop sections, especially looking for things pertinent to Miles Davis. Hope I'm not going to hell.


Heck, that's not a "confession." You should _gloat_ about liking Miles Davis!

It just shows that you've got an ear for GREAT music!


----------



## hpowders

JACE said:


> Heck, that's not a "confession." You should _gloat_ about liking Miles Davis!
> 
> It just shows that you've got an ear for GREAT music!


Why thank you. When I was living in an apartment (flat, to my British fellow posters) in NYC, I used to listen a lot to Miles Davis recordings and my neighbors were quite delighted when I moved out. A totally tasteless group.


----------



## hpowders

GGluek said:


> I find listening to a Bruckner scherzo like watching Sisyphus.


I find the scherzos the weakest part of Bruckner's symphonies.


----------



## OldFashionedGirl

hpowders said:


> I confess that late at night when nobody's looking I tiptoe around the jazz and pop sections, especially looking for things pertinent to Miles Davis. Hope I'm not going to hell.
> 
> Thanks for listening. I feel better now.


U don't have to feel guilty for that, my good fella.


----------



## hpowders

OldFashionedGirl said:


> U don't have to feel guilty for that, my good fella.


Thanks! I feel better now!!!


----------



## hpowders

hpowders said:


> I find the scherzos the weakest part of Bruckner's symphonies.


But what do I know....I can't write a great scherzo either!


----------



## senza sordino

I can't tell the difference between the string quartets of Debussy and Ravel. They're both lovely, but sound like one long eight movement string quartet to me.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that if I'm ever having a tough time sleeping, the Debussy piano preludes work miracles.

I've never gotten past two of the preludes without the desired effect.

Thank the Lord!! Sleep without pills!!!


----------



## Stavrogin

I confess, I cannot put myself to listen to Berlioz with honest and focused attention.


----------



## shangoyal

Until recently, I had never listened to Book 2 of the Well-tempered Clavier, "saving it for later". But as I listen to it more and more, I think I have found the definitive late period Bach work that I have always looked for. The Art of Fugue is another. The vocal music is great but I don't have the taste for it yet, I think.


----------



## hpowders

In watching a performance of the Mahler 8 with the Simón Bolivar Orchestra, I confess that I now have a crush on its principal flute player.


----------



## Weston

I have neither Debussy's Clair de lune nor Reverie in my collection. No reason, just one of those things.

I find most Rachmaninoff music to be saccharine schmaltzy high fructose corny syrup. The 3rd movement of his No. 2 symphony may be the most extreme example of this. I had to turn it off today at work. [Shudder.]


----------



## Blancrocher

I'm filled with awe when I see some of the correct answers that various forum members have come up with in the "Identifying Music" thread.


----------



## Jeff W

I have several embarrassing gaps in my music collection. I have almost a total lack of anything by Joseph Haydn beyond his symphonies, for example...


----------



## tdc

I have a crush on Eniko Ginzery.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

violadude said:


> Organizing my collection by performer would make my head explode. Depends on your priorities I guess.


Nah - its easy .... just open the Excel sheet, click 'custom sort' and then sort by conductor, orchestra, vocalist, performer .... or whichever ther fireld the data is stored under. :lol:


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Stavrogin said:


> I confess, I cannot put myself to listen to Berlioz with honest and focused attention.


Oh ear! ooops - oh Dear!


----------



## JACE

Weston said:


> I find most Rachmaninoff music to be saccharine schmaltzy high fructose corny syrup. The 3rd movement of his No. 2 symphony may be the most extreme example of this. I had to turn it off today at work. [Shudder.]


I used to feel that way too. But recently my feelings about Rachmaninov's music have changed _drastically_. Now I love it.

I don't know what it was that prompted the change. It just happened.


----------



## Chronochromie

Weston said:


> I have neither Debussy's Clair de lune nor Reverie in my collection. No reason, just one of those things. [Shudder.]


Yes, Clair de lune is annoying when played alone, but it's perfect in the context of the _Suite bergamasque_.


----------



## Blake

Clair de lune is wonderful when alone and in the context of the full Suite bergamasque.

It was one of the pieces that originally drew me to Classical. In a time when I thought everything was Beethoven and Mozart. I heard this, and it blew my socks off.


----------



## Chronochromie

Vesuvius said:


> Clair de lune is wonderful when alone and in the context of the full Suite bergamasque.
> 
> It was one of the pieces that originally drew me to Classical. In a time when I thought everything was Beethoven and Mozart. I heard this, and it blew my socks off.


What I meant is that it's overplayed, that might have ruined it for me (when alone).


----------



## DiesIraeCX

I've never heard a single Brandenburg Concerto. 

I suppose I should rectify this immediately!


----------



## Woodduck

Oh you naughty child you! Go do your homework!


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Woodduck said:


> Oh you naughty child you! Go do your homework!


Yes sir! Off to Spotify I go!


----------



## Centropolis

hpowders said:


> Nothing more frustrating than knowing you have a CD, but you are unable to find it!!


Have you guys ever owned (or still own), those mega CD players that hold 200 or 400 CDs inside it? I see people are selling them used for almost nothing. I am tempted to buy one used and then create a sheet of paper that tells me which slot has which CD.


----------



## Weston

DiesIraeVIX said:


> I've never heard a single Brandenburg Concerto.
> 
> I suppose I should rectify this immediately!


I'd bet you have and just aren't aware of it.


----------



## hpowders

Centropolis said:


> Have you guys ever owned (or still own), those mega CD players that hold 200 or 400 CDs inside it? I see people are selling them used for almost nothing. I am tempted to buy one used and then create a sheet of paper that tells me which slot has which CD.


Not a bad idea. I've been too lazy to organize my CD's. I prefer buying large CD boxes because they are easier to see!!


----------



## Triplets

Centropolis said:


> Have you guys ever owned (or still own), those mega CD players that hold 200 or 400 CDs inside it? I see people are selling them used for almost nothing. I am tempted to buy one used and then create a sheet of paper that tells me which slot has which CD.


 You can always burn them to a hard drive and then use them for coasters or frisbees...


----------



## Centropolis

Triplets said:


> You can always burn them to a hard drive and then use them for coasters or frisbees...


I've attempted to do this a couple of times but run of out patience about an hour into it because it took a long time. But it's one of those things that it has to be done once for the whole collection and then just new ones when I buy more CDs.


----------



## Blake

Der Leiermann said:


> What I meant is that it's overplayed, that might have ruined it for me (when alone).


It can happen. The moment I feel a bit jaded is when I refrain for a bit. I won't allow my reckless mind to turn something so splendid into the trivial.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Centropolis said:


> Have you guys ever owned (or still own), those mega CD players that hold 200 or 400 CDs inside it? I see people are selling them used for almost nothing. I am tempted to buy one used and then create a sheet of paper that tells me which slot has which CD.


Nah! I had shelves made last year for my CDs .... and then spend ages on the laptop cataloguing and re-ordering the catalogue

It's all fun at the Hermitage, you know :tiphat:


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Weston said:


> I'd bet you have and just aren't aware of it.


Oh, I'm sure I've heard a snippet here or there, just like everyone has heard the main theme of Beethoven's 5th or Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. But I've never actually heard an entire Brandenburg Concerto.


----------



## Blake

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Oh, I'm sure I've heard a snippet here or there, just like everyone has heard the main theme of Beethoven's 5th or Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. But I've never actually heard an entire Brandenburg Concerto. :-/


Jordi Savall's interpretation of the Brandenburg is sublime. When you get a copy, this is the one.


----------



## SilverSurfer

Thanks for mentioning the Catalan Savall, Vesuvius.
Did you know that has just been awarded the Spanish National Prize in Music, and he has rejected it as a complaint for Spanish politics on culture (VAT increase from 10 to 21 %, for instance)?


----------



## Triplets

Centropolis said:


> I've attempted to do this a couple of times but run of out patience about an hour into it because it took a long time. But it's one of those things that it has to be done once for the whole collection and then just new ones when I buy more CDs.


I use an external optical drive from Apple. Each CD takes about. 2 minutes


----------



## Blake

SilverSurfer said:


> Thanks for mentioning the Catalan Savall, Vesuvius.
> Did you know that has just been awarded the Spanish National Prize in Music, and he has rejected it as a complaint for Spanish politics on culture (VAT increase from 10 to 21 %, for instance)?


Didn't know that. It's not surprising that his high level of integrity affects other parts of his life.


----------



## brotagonist

Centropolis said:


> Have you guys ever owned (or still own), those mega CD players that hold 200 or 400 CDs inside it? I see people are selling them used for almost nothing. I am tempted to buy one used and then create a sheet of paper that tells me which slot has which CD.


I was always worried that it might scratch my CDs. Also, what do you do when you have more CDs than the machine's capacity? And you still have the CD cases to store, so what have you gained?

I like the CD collection. I like looking through the album covers, reading the booklets, taking the time to select the next few to put into the player (I have a 5-disc carousel player from Yamaha), etc.

Similar to Headphone Hermit, I have shelves, from Ikea. Initially, I stacked them 3 high. Recently, when I outgrew the capacity (and wanted to put the television set next to the amplifier, so that I could enjoy the improved sound), I ordered a 4th and stacked them 2 high and 2 wide. Also, they are deep enough to allow putting a second row in front of the back row, so I can get about 40% more capacity (allowing for sufficient space to slide the front row aside to access every album in the back row). It's ideal and cost only 4x$50 plus shipping.


----------



## Itullian

I like the Grand Canyon Suite


----------



## MoonlightSonata

Itullian said:


> I like the Grand Canyon Suite


Is that another 'forbidden' work, like Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata, or something like that?
Sorry, I wouldn't know. I quite like it though.


----------



## Lunasong

I went to a favorite event today -- an annual charity book sale that also has an astounding number of classical vinyl albums. I wonder how many of these albums are the same ones I've been thumbing through at this sale for the past ten years. Today they were selling them all you can fit into a grocery cart for $20. I looked through every box and could only come up with eight that I could give a forever home. I wonder what I'm missing and I wonder how many of them would be of value to others on this forum. I will say that it seems like there's multiple recordings of the same pieces over and over...
Some of these albums are so old they are introducing the new Stereophonic Sound!


----------



## shangoyal

I never thought Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas could work on piano. I liked the harpsichord so much. I was so wrong - Mikhail Pletnev does a smashing job of it, absolutely superb! They work like magic.

A particular favourite of mine is the K. 24 in A major. Suddenly, Baroque on piano makes a lot more sense, how did this happen?


----------



## Blancrocher

The distressing thought has occurred to me, that the music collection I've culled is far superior to the one that I own.


----------



## hpowders

I confess I am getting a bit tired and frustrated at TC's downtime.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

I confess that I have recently developed an aversion to a lot of Baroque solo cello music. Thankfully, my enjoyment of Bach's cello suites is unaffected.


----------



## Stavrogin

I confess that a few nights ago I started listening to Ferruccio Busoni's piano concerto, and I fell asleep _before_ the piano part started.

I was very sleepy though


----------



## senza sordino

I confess that I feel somewhat sorry for my friends and colleagues who don't listen to classical music. They're missing out on this glorious music. One of my colleagues plays music in his classroom. He picks a song from the 80s or 90s, and puts it on repeat, the same song is replayed over and over for the hour. Fortunately, I'm on the other side of the quadrangle hallway. I think this is a form of child abuse. 

I have played some music during class, but not much. But I was surprised two weeks ago I had string music on, Verklarte Natch, and the students seemed to like it as background music. I will play some Christmas music next week during class.


----------



## hpowders

hpowders said:


> I confess I am getting a bit tired and frustrated at TC's downtime.


I wanted to "like" this post. Shocked to see it was my own. Memory's fading, I guess.


----------



## Albert7

Isn't Julia Fischer just cuter as a button over Hilary Hahn?


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I am drowning in a sea of classical CDs. Nine sets of the Bach Cello Suites alone!

Maybe there's a Classical Anonymous to help me deal with this problem.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Fortunately there's an international organisation devoted to helping you with that addiction.

You just put the CDs in a secure box with plenty of padding and send to:

Classical Anonymous
P.O. Box 666
c/o Turnabout Towers
Preston, Lancashire
United Kingdom

and the kind people there will take care of them for you...


----------



## Albert7

hpowders said:


> I confess that I am drowning in a sea of classical CDs. Nine sets of the Bach Cello Suites alone!
> 
> Maybe there's a Classical Anonymous to help me deal with this problem.


And I thought that the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle was long enough!


----------



## hpowders

albertfallickwang said:


> And I thought that the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle was long enough!


I only have three complete sets of those!!! Emerson, Tokyo RCA and Lindsays.

I'm drowning, I tell you!!!!


----------



## hpowders

TurnaboutVox said:


> Fortunately there's an international organisation devoted to helping you with that addiction.
> 
> You just put the CDs in a secure box with plenty of padding and send to:
> 
> Classical Anonymous
> P.O. Box 666
> c/o Turnabout Towers
> Preston, Lancashire
> United Kingdom
> 
> and the kind people there will take care of them for you...


Yeah, but I might be sending you...er...Classical Anonymous a lot of duplicate CDs you...er...they may already possess.
My therapist wanted to pad my listening room so I wouldn't hurt myself, but I objected on acoustical grounds.


----------



## Albert7

I confess that I ordered that sexy Lara St. John disc of solo Bach works because of its looks. And yeah we will see how good it is (not having high expectations here).


----------



## Itullian

I love Gounod's Faust. I think it's one of the best and most beautiful operas ever written. 
Nothing moves or impresses me more than a composer spinning out gorgeous melodies one after the other.
I think Faust and Hoffman and Tell are by far the best French operas.

That's why I also think the Nutcracker is one of the greatest works ever written.


----------



## violadude

Not really a specifically classical music confession...but.....welll


I can't stand Christmas music

There I said it.

Listening to Christmas music gives me bad depression but I don't know why.


----------



## Morimur

Confession: As a child, I used to enjoy torturing small animals . . . but that's neither here nor there.

:angel: :angel: :angel: :angel:


----------



## hpowders

Confession: I was one of those small animals and now fully developed, I'm coming for you!!!


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> Confession: I was one of those small animals and now fully developed, I'm coming for you!!!


Mr. Cocka-doodle?


----------



## hpowders

Morimur said:


> Mr. Cocka-doodle?


It will be a fowl day for you!!!


----------



## Cosmos

Cosmos said:


> I also don't care for the classical era. Mozart's ok sometimes, but overall hit interesting. Haydn is worse, he puts me to sleep. I don't like the sound of older/period instruments. And I find Brahms' music to be empty of passion


oMG I'm kind of embarrassed about this old post. A few updates:
- I'm still not a big fan of the classical era. It's still good, but I'd probably have to be in the mood to listen to a work of this time period
- Mozart is great
- Haydn's good, though I have to be in the mood as well
- Some older instruments are ok, but over all, I don't care for period performances
- Brahms' music definitely has passion wtf was I thinking


----------



## Chronochromie

Cosmos said:


> oMG I'm kind of embarrassed about this old post. A few updates:
> - I'm still not a big fan of the classical era. It's still good, but I'd probably have to be in the mood to listen to a work of this time period
> - Mozart is great
> - Haydn's good, though I have to be in the mood as well
> - Some older instruments are ok, but over all, I don't care for period performances
> - Brahms' music definitely has passion wtf was I thinking


I still find the Classical era as one of the most boring eras. It has Mozart, Haydn and...who? Boccherini? Dittersdorf? Even if you include Beethoven it's still too empty.


----------



## trazom

violadude said:


> Listening to Christmas music gives me bad depression but I don't know why.


Nostalgia, maybe? I get that way too; but it has mostly to do with sentimental reasons. I miss the excitement, being closer with my family, and the naive optimism that comes with believing in magic, Santa Claus and his reindeer, etc. i don't miss not being able to drink, however.


----------



## Albert7

I think that Jacqueline du Pre could have been an awesome model. Elegant and stunning.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Morimur said:


> Confession: As a child, I used to enjoy torturing small animals . . . but that's neither here nor there.
> 
> :angel: :angel: :angel: :angel:


That only confirms everybody's suspicions. Did you ever think of recording their screams? I'm sure it could be made into music as good as _Cantus Arcticus_.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

violadude said:


> Not really a specifically classical music confession...but.....welll
> 
> I can't stand Christmas music
> 
> There I said it.
> 
> Listening to Christmas music gives me bad depression but I don't know why.


I'm gonna tell ya' a Christmas story lil' dude,

My mother has Borderline Personality Disorder, you can imagine where this is going.

A few months after her father's death, I was about 15 years old, she had a terrible 'attack'. Suddenly she was absolutely out of herself, her medication at that time was then arranged to keep her 'asleep' until she could recover. It didn't quite work, one day she literally escaped from our home and we spent the festivities searching for her in vain. Luckily she came back by herself, unharmed, about a week after. It took us months to go back to normal but it was never quite the same. Our family survived together though (no divorce or fights or whatever a less respectful or less open-minded family would have likely experienced).

:devil: Merry Christmas :devil:


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I'm gonna tell ya' a Christmas story lil' dude,
> 
> My mother has Borderline Personality Disorder, you can imagine where this is going.
> 
> A few months after her father's death, I was about 15 years old, she had a terrible 'attack'. Suddenly she was absolutely out of herself, her medication at that time was then arranged to keep her 'asleep' until she could recover. It didn't quite work, one day she literally escaped from our home and we spent the festivities searching for her in vain. Luckily she came back by herself, unharmed, about a week after. It took us months to go back to normal but it was never quite the same. Our family survived together though (no divorce or fights or whatever a less respectful or less open-minded family would have likely experienced).
> 
> :devil: Merry Christmas :devil:


Q.v. Holly Hunter in _Home for the Holiday_s. _;D_


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

violadude said:


> Not really a specifically classical music confession...but.....welll
> 
> I can't stand Christmas music
> 
> There I said it.
> 
> Listening to Christmas music gives me bad depression but I don't know why.


I ******* hate "It's the most wonderful time of the year" by Andy Williams. Whenever I hear it I want to envision it as a punching bag so I can beat the crap out of it.

And then I'll have another one with Andy William's face on it to beat the crap out of him too!


----------



## Tristan

The only popular Christmas song I really like is "Sleigh Ride". I like jazzy versions of it for some reason--something about that tune. Otherwise, all the other stuff I don't care much for.

I like some of the popular hymns, but I'd still rather be listening to Praetorius' "Psallite" or something.


----------



## ahammel

I like medieval Christmas carols. "Personent Hodie" is a good time. 

I would cheerfully erase "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Frosty the Snowman" from the space-time continuum, though.


----------



## Figleaf

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I ******* hate "It's the most wonderful time of the year" by Andy Williams. Whenever I hear it I want to envision it as a punching bag so I can beat the crap out of it.
> 
> And then I'll have another one with Andy William's face on it to beat the crap out of him too!


That's totally how I feel about Cliff Richard's 'Mistletoe and Wine'. If you've never heard of him on your side of the Atlantic, consider yourselves extremely fortunate!!






With that mullet he also looks like the equally punchable presenter of 'Homes under the Hammer.' Grrr...


----------



## Weston

Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, movement 3 came up on random play on my iPod at work today.

I thought I would need to go home sick. This is the schmaltziest glob of high fructose corny syrup since the Captain and Tennille, suitable for a daytime serial theme, "In Search of the Edge of Our Lives," or some such. Whew!


----------



## Lisztian

Weston said:


> Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, movement 3 came up on random play on my iPod at work today.
> 
> I thought I would need to go home sick. This is the schmaltziest glob of high fructose corny syrup since the Captain and Tennille, suitable for a daytime serial theme, "In Search of the Edge of Our Lives," or some such. Whew!


On the other hand, it features a melody that only a handful of composers in the history of music could have written


----------



## hpowders

I confess that when I was a child if my dad had recordings of Liszt, Schubert and Bruckner lying around the house, instead of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Franck, Lalo and Grieg, I would have been so turned off, I probably never would have gotten into classical music!!

Thanks dad for making the right choices and getting me hooked! :wave:


----------



## Cosmos

The more into classical I get, the more and more I shrug at programatic music from the Romantic era. Typically, the premise of the music is more interesting than the music itself, which is not a good sign


----------



## MoonlightSonata

I haven't listened to any Baroque music for weeks! 
I'll have to listen to some before I forget the joy of Bach.


----------



## Albert7

iTunes gift card for Xmas I got.

Now to decide what to download .


----------



## hpowders

MoonlightSonata said:


> I haven't listened to any Baroque music for weeks!
> I'll have to listen to some before I forget the joy of Bach.


I have to get out more before I forget the joy of women!


----------



## trazom

Weston said:


> Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, movement 3 came up on random play on my iPod at work today.
> 
> I thought I would need to go home sick. This is the schmaltziest glob of high fructose corny syrup since the Captain and Tennille, suitable for a daytime serial theme, "In Search of the Edge of Our Lives," or some such. Whew!


:lol: Poor Rachmaninoff; but I had a similar thought when I first heard that symphony. Luckily, I find his piano preludes and etudes very brilliant and enjoyable.


----------



## Albert7

hpowders said:


> I have to get out more before I forget the joy of women!


Women schomen!

Time to isolate yourself to more listening


----------



## Dave Whitmore

I confess that when I first started listening to classical (almost a year ago) I tried Brahms and Schubert and both of them failed to appeal to me. In the past month I've returned to both composers and had a different result. I loved the symphony of both Brahms and Schubert. In fact I'll probably buy at least one cd of each composer very soon. It's strange how your tastes develop as your experience of classical grows.


----------



## Woodduck

Weston said:


> Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, movement 3 came up on random play on my iPod at work today.
> 
> I thought I would need to go home sick. This is the schmaltziest glob of high fructose corny syrup since the Captain and Tennille, suitable for a daytime serial theme, "In Search of the Edge of Our Lives," or some such. Whew!


This is the piece of music that outschmaltzes schmaltz, outcorns corn, outsyrups syrup, outgarbos Garbo, takes sadness and yearning and the memory of love right to the edge of orgasm and then over it into ecstasy. It's one of music's quintessential statements, the final, distilled essence of what it aspires to be. In every excruciatingly gorgeous, finely crafted detail - listen to the perfect shape and the unending rapture of that clarinet melody floating above its counterpoint in the strings! - it is pure genius: its melodies were not invented but discovered somewhere, only waiting to be written down. There was never its equal, never (outside of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique," perhaps) such a pure and unsparing revelation of personal emotion, deep and serene within itself, unashamed to be seen. This is not meretricious sentimentality. This is real and true, as Rachmaninoff was always real and true.

If this is music to send one home sick, my confession is that I've never left home and never been well. If Rachmaninoff, so reserved in life, can reveal so much in art, I can certainly admit to loving him for it.


----------



## KenOC

As discussed previously, Rachmaninoff's music was dismissed by a 1950's Grove as being made up of "artificial" and "gushing" tunes, along with a forecast that its popularity wouldn't last. Times change, tastes change!


----------



## Woodduck

Figleaf said:


> That's totally how I feel about Cliff Richard's 'Mistletoe and Wine'. If you've never heard of him on your side of the Atlantic, consider yourselves extremely fortunate!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> With that mullet he also looks like the equally punchable presenter of 'Homes under the Hammer.' Grrr...


I had to go to YouTube for this. I'm so glad I did. It will be forever engraved on my memory, to be retrieved whenever I want to collapse in helpless laughter.

Seriously now: does this happy little eunuch know what mistletoe and wine are _for?_


----------



## composira

I fell asleep during a live performance of Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma playing. I'd had 4 less hours of sleep than usual the night before and was fatigued.

Embarrassed, I claimed I was listening with my eyes closed but my sister pointed out that other people with their eyes closed weren't bent over with their head in their lap. Also, they weren't drooling.

When we went back home, I immediately went to the computer and watched the whole thing on youtube with a cup of coffee. It was amazing. I can't believe I fell asleep the first time, though.


----------



## Dave Whitmore

I confess that this time last year I had no interest in classical music. I didn't hate it. Or even dislike it. It just never occured to me to listen to it. Even though I liked individual pieces of music I heard on and off, it just didn't occur to me that I would enjoy listening to classical music as a genre. Until one night in January this year on YouTube...


----------



## Chronochromie

Dave Whitmore said:


> I confess that this time last year I had no interest in classical music. I didn't hate it. Or even dislike it. It just never occured to me to listen to it. Even though I liked individual pieces of music I heard on and off, it just didn't occur to me that I would enjoy listening to classical music as a genre. Until one night in January this year on YouTube...


Lucky you. I'm sure there's lots of people who are simply indifferent to classical, who would like it if they actually listened to some, but few end up doing it, for whatever reason. It just makes me sad, they don't know what they're missing.


----------



## hpowders

Dave Whitmore said:


> I confess that this time last year I had no interest in classical music. I didn't hate it. Or even dislike it. It just never occured to me to listen to it. Even though I liked individual pieces of music I heard on and off, it just didn't occur to me that I would enjoy listening to classical music as a genre. Until one night in January this year on YouTube...


A nice story. I wish more people would have this kind of epiphany.

Great job!!!


----------



## chambercore

I can't NOT feel pretensions when I talk to people about classical music. The more sincere I am, the more pretentious I feel. Thank goodness for the anonymity of web forums.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

chambercore said:


> I can't NOT feel pretensions when I talk to people about classical music. The more sincere I am, the more pretentious I feel. Thank goodness for the anonymity of web forums.


I know the feeling - it's worse when you're talking to someone and you're trying to get them to listen to more classical music.
(On a side note - welcome to the forum, chambercore!)


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Itullian said:


> I like the Grand Canyon Suite


I tried (again) to like this .... but, well .... let's just say it has less resonance in the grim Lancashire grey of a winter's evening at the Hermitage than it seems to have in sunny California (or wherever)


----------



## Weston

Necro-posting, but I do miss this thread.

At work last week I heard Rachmaninov's _Isle of the Dead_. The painting (or series of paintings) it's based on is incredible, but the music composition does nothing at all for me. I would even say I find it boring.


----------



## brotagonist

Unlike many others, who are trying to unearth every obscure and long-forgotten composer, I am trying to get to know a much wider span of the known composers' works.


----------



## DeepR

Weston said:


> At work last week I heard Rachmaninov's _Isle of the Dead_. The painting (or series of paintings) it's based on is incredible, but the music composition does nothing at all for me. I would even say I find it boring.


Well, what can I say other than to listen a few more times! I absolutely love that piece. It's about the overall journey, mood and atmosphere, building up slowly, increasingly intense, resulting in one or two absolutely stunning climax moments that give me the chills everytime. 
My favorite is Polyansky - Russian State SO.


----------



## Selby

brotagonist said:


> Unlike many others, who are trying to unearth every obscure and long-forgotten composer, I am trying to get to know a much wider span of the known composers' works.


Earlier in the year I decided that I would spend the summer dedicated to 10 composers. I made a chronological playlist of these 10 composer's works, interspersed with other pieces for the occasional variety, for this very purpose; to understand that handful - well 2 handfuls - better.

I named the playlist gods & goblins. It is *5.5* days long. This is how I've ended up focusing on particular years of compositions - 1969, 83, and 87 have been particularly awesome. I've found it to be a very rewarding way of listening.

Of course I stray a little bit, also 

I'm not on the cutting edge of contemporary classical. But these _big-hitters_ really offer a lifetime of goodies.

Ligeti
Xenakis
Chin
Takemitsu
Messiaen
Saariaho
Norgard
Gubaidulina
Feldman
Hovhaness


----------



## brotagonist

^ That's very systematic, Selby :tiphat: Being systematic is definitely something I can relate to  I don't think I could limit myself to just ten composers, nor to any group of composers from only one era, but I do tend to pick one (or some) when I'm on an exploratory excursion by adding them to my regular listening programme (my random collection traversal).

How did you come up ith those particular years?  Did you scan the works of all those composers and notice that a preponderance of your favourite works were written in those years?


----------



## Selby

^ Yep, and having all of those composers works in order by date makes it pretty easy to scan.

I've tended to have summer 'themes' - last year was all piano. The summer of 2013 was dedicated to French string quartets - now that was a whole bunch of amazing.


----------



## senza sordino

I confess that until yesterday I owned only three pieces of music for piano trio. And yesterday I bought five more. I had nothing against this form, I just didn't pay much attention to it. 

This past year I've been listening to more and more chamber music, and now I will listen to more piano trios

I confess that I own no French baroque music, though I own plenty of romantic era and 20th century French music.


----------



## Skilmarilion

Selby said:


> Earlier in the year I decided that I would spend the summer dedicated to 10 composers. ...
> I named the playlist gods & goblins. It is *5.5* days long. ...
> 
> Ligeti
> Xenakis
> Chin
> Takemitsu
> Messiaen
> Saariaho
> Norgard
> Gubaidulina
> *Feldman*
> Hovhaness


I think what you meant is that the first Feldman work on your playlist runs for 5.5 days.


----------



## mstar

I've had a particular work by Beethoven in my music folder for years now, and I still don't know what it's called. Neither have I listened to it. It is called "Beethoven -..." 

I've listened to Rachmaninov's second piano concerto 66 times on my laptop in the past few months. I have absolutely no idea how that happened. 

My folder for Tschaikovsky has gone from being the largest one to containing only 3 works, which I don't listen to. 

Mahler's first symphony is a migraine trigger for me. Tested and true.


----------



## OldFashionedGirl

I confess that I don't get Sibelius 7th symphony. I know that this is blasphemy, because it is considered Sibelius best symphony. I have listened it various times with different directors and orchestras without result.


----------



## Balthazar

Sometimes when I listen to the first movement of Liszt's _Années de pèlerinage_ (_Chapelle de Guillaume Tell_), I can't help but hear it as a mashup of the theme of _St. Elmo's Fire_ by John Parr and Debussy's first prelude, _Danseuses de Delphes_.

But I guess that's backwards thinking...


----------



## SalieriIsInnocent

I haven't sat through an entire Wagner opera....I do love some of the preludes and highlights though.


----------



## mstar

Balthazar said:


> Sometimes when I listen to the first movement of Liszt's _Années de pèlerinage_ (_Chapelle de Guillaume Tell_), I can't help but hear it as a mashup of the theme of _St. Elmo's Fire_ by John Parr and Debussy's first prelude, _Danseuses de Delphes_.
> 
> But I guess that's backwards thinking...


Honestly, I can't get through the first of the Années de Pèlerinage unless I am half asleep on a really long car ride. But I love the later works in the same book, especially Vallée d'Obermann. In case anyone on TC didn't know already.


----------



## Weston

mstar said:


> I've had a particular work by Beethoven in my music folder for years now, and I still don't know what it's called. Neither have I listened to it. It is called "Beethoven -..."


Now I'm intrigued to know what it is.


----------



## shangoyal

I confess that I have never listened to Brahms.


----------



## Ariasexta

My Confession: 

I think majority 90% of modern composers are creating nonsense as passing off as classical. I care a lot about musical period and period performance, modern age is flood with all kinds of nonsenses and meaningless falsehood. One simple example is environmental pollution, how can modern age not criticized as harsh as in the past. Musicians and artists in the past got their works destroyed for controversies, why preserve modern controversies? 

Maintaining a harsh critical attitude toward modern music is very rightful. One measure of such harshness includes clear definition of musical periods, and the austere period ethics toward period music.


----------



## Jeff W

My confession is that I don't really care for opera. I appreciate the hard work that goes into it but it doesn't do a darned thing for me...


----------



## violadude

Ariasexta said:


> My Confession:
> 
> I think majority 90% of modern composers are creating nonsense as passing off as classical. I care a lot about musical period and period performance, modern age is flood with all kinds of nonsenses and meaningless falsehood. One simple example is environmental pollution, how can modern age not criticized as harsh as in the past. Musicians and artists in the past got their works destroyed for controversies, why preserve modern controversies?
> 
> Maintaining a harsh critical attitude toward modern music is very rightful. One measure of such harshness includes clear definition of musical periods, and the austere period ethics toward period music.


You're going to have to elaborate on this post cause I have no idea what you're talking about.

Who exactly destroyed works that were deemed not good enough in the past? And what does environmental pollution have to do with any of this.


----------



## Gordontrek

A "confessions" thread?? I already love this site. I'll play.

I confess that I love Herbert von Karajan.


----------



## Avey

I have judgments.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Avey said:


> I have judgments.


Who would have thought!?


----------



## Ariasexta

Atonal music is nasty, I just found some modern composers composed atonal music to sacred texts, it is like pissing on the whole religion. I heard a piece of modern sacred choir music, when the music got into the free dissonance, sounds like some drunk thugs brawling, insulting each other.


----------



## Blancrocher

I confess that I have the only key to the mailbox for my household and that I take improper advantage of this state of affairs.


----------



## Mahlerian

Ariasexta said:


> Atonal music is nasty, I just found some modern composers composed atonal music to sacred texts, it is like pissing on the whole religion. I heard a piece of modern sacred choir music, when the music got into the free dissonance, sounds like some drunk thugs brawling, insulting each other.


Or perhaps it's a sincere expression of the content of the text?

Atonality is a myth anyway, invented to make people feel good about disliking things they don't want to deal with.


----------



## Ariasexta

violadude said:


> You're going to have to elaborate on this post cause I have no idea what you're talking about.
> 
> Who exactly destroyed works that were deemed not good enough in the past? And what does environmental pollution have to do with any of this.


There are so many problems with modern ideologies, musical industry is not an untainted territoy.


----------



## Ariasexta

Mahlerian said:


> Or perhaps it's a sincere expression of the content of the text?
> 
> Atonality is a myth anyway, invented to make people feel good about disliking things they don't want to deal with.


I never criticize lewd pop music, because pop does not pretend to be technically revolutionary. Some modern composers feel they are the revolutionaries to bring about some new things, but they compose for their own very trivial personal interests few people would care about. Even if they think they are taking the blames for the future corruption, so take it. I am not saying to shoot those "artists", just facing to the fact that atonality has no real values anywhere anytime.

In literature, gibberish does not sell, because everyone can read well, readers need a hard thread of logic in the plots to go through the story, but music is different, mostly people are just seeking for excitement, musical gibberish can pretend to be cool. If music is a form of art, to austerely observe classical tonality is the central value of music.

Somebody may think: If there is no major breakthrough in musical theories and practices, would not be too boring? Of course we have many breakthrough, the guitar, grand-piano, further enlarged organs, stronger thematic expression, and electric guitar, drums, electronic music, these are all good breakthroughs. People can continue to make music with new types of instruments, with their new kind of sonority, and deserve to be preserved. Going headlong against the tradition is meaningless, not innovation. By destruction to creat new thing is an act of incapability.


----------



## Mahlerian

Ariasexta said:


> In literature, gibberish does not sell, because everyone can read well, readers need a hard thread of logic in the plots to go through the story, but music is different, mostly people are just seeking for excitement, musical gibberish can pretend to be cool. If music is a form of art, to austerely observe classical tonality is the central value of music.


Okay, but this has absolutely nothing to do with so-called atonality, which is not in the least comparable to gibberish. It's much more comparable to a different language, such as Korean or Arabic. I can't understand a word of either, but it doesn't mean I assume that they're meaningless.


----------



## Art Rock

I can't understand the type of thinking behind the opinion that because [A] some people do not like certain types of music, _therefore_ * this type of music should not be allowed to exist. How egocentric can your universe become?*


----------



## Blancrocher

What's with all the arguing in here? I haven't witnessed such a controversy in a confessional since the time I accidentally sat in the wrong chair.


----------



## Ariasexta

Mahlerian said:


> Okay, but this has absolutely nothing to do with so-called atonality, which is not in the least comparable to gibberish. It's much more comparable to a different language, such as Korean or Arabic. I can't understand a word of either, but it doesn't mean I assume that they're meaningless.


I am not arguing with you, just expressing and explaining my points.

Languages have meanings, what endow meanings upon musical works? The interval 5th is universal, a 7000BC flute with a modern octave is found in China, can play any modern tune.


----------



## Mahlerian

Ariasexta said:


> I am not arguing with you, just expressing and explaining my points.
> 
> Languages have meanings, what endow meanings upon musical works? The interval 5th is universal, a 7000BC flute with a modern octave is found in China, can play any modern tune.


And how many so-called atonal pieces don't have fifths in them? What relevance does that have to anything?


----------



## Becca

I confess that I am totally fed up with the constant modern/romantic/post-modern/atonal/serial discussions (arguments).


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Becca said:


> I confess that I am totally fed up with the constant modern/romantic/post-modern/atonal/serial discussions (arguments).


I agree.

You can pretend to be profound.

You can't pretend to be, or even to 'sound,' beautiful.


----------



## Dim7

Becca said:


> I confess that I am totally fed up with the constant modern/romantic/post-modern/atonal/serial discussions (arguments).


Those discussions don't really exist.


----------



## Epilogue

Ariasexta said:


> I never criticize lewd pop music, because pop does not pretend to be technically revolutionary


Lewd pop music has been pretending to be technically revolutionary ever since the 1960s, sometimes with justice - the Rolling Stones, Kanye West - sometimes not.



Ariasexta said:


> In literature, gibberish does not sell, because everyone can read well, readers need a hard thread of logic in the plots to go through the story, but music is different, mostly people are just seeking for excitement, musical gibberish can pretend to be cool.


How do you figure? André Breton and Philippe Soupault's _Les Champs magnétiques_, which is a deliberate exercise in gibberish, and John Ashbery's _The Tennis Court Oath_, which probably shouldn't be considered gibberish but is by a lot of people, are as big in the literary world as _Le marteau sans maître_ and _Kontakte_ are in the classical music world.



Mahlerian said:


> Okay, but this has absolutely nothing to do with so-called atonality, which is not in the least comparable to gibberish. It's much more comparable to a different language, such as Korean or Arabic. I can't understand a word of either, but it doesn't mean I assume that they're meaningless.


This is certainly true of atonality, but maybe one could say that _serialism_ is roughly equivalent to gibberish, in that it's famously difficult to distinguish from aleatoric music, which is an actual musical equivalent to gibberish. (To be clear, this is not meant as an attack on serialism or aleatoric music.)


----------



## Mahlerian

Epilogue said:


> This is certainly true of atonality, but maybe one could say that _serialism_ is roughly equivalent to gibberish, in that it's famously difficult to distinguish from aleatoric music, which is an actual musical equivalent to gibberish. (To be clear, this is not meant as an attack on serialism or aleatoric music.)


I would think that the perceived similarities are more a result of the relative constraints put on both. If both are (differently from diatonic music) using the whole chromatic gamut with some consistency, they would be perceived as similar on that level even if the actual ordering of the signal is not really similar at all.

For my part, I know I can tell the difference between Cage and traditional 12-tone music, and am very sure I could tell the difference between Cage and Boulez or Stockhausen (I once took an internet test on this, actually, and I was able to identify the correct composer for short excerpts something like 80% of the time).


----------



## Epilogue

If I didn't already know _Structures_ 1a pretty well from beginning to end, and you played me a 10 second excerpt, I'm not sure I could say with confidence that it wasn't from _Music of Changes_.

Of course, the same goes for some 10 second excerpts of Haydn and/or Mozart. But then, that kind of supports my point: Haydn and Mozart are radically different composers, but they were writing in the same "language."


----------



## isorhythm

Epilogue said:


> If I didn't already know _Structures_ 1a pretty well from beginning to end, and you played me a 10 second excerpt, I'm not sure I could say with confidence that it wasn't from _Music of Changes_.


I think Boulez and co were pretty quick to grasp this fact and its implications, which is why they abandoned "total serialism" almost immediately.

My confession: I don't get anything out of any of Boulez's early pieces.


----------



## Epilogue

re early Boulez: I find the piano sonatas diffuse and the _Livre pour quatuor_ seems to me a second tier work - but I adore the sonatine for flute and piano and the first version of _Le soleil des eaux_ (as recorded by Roger Désormière et al.). Doubtless I'd feel the same about the first version of _Le visage nuptial_ if only somebody would perform the damn thing.

I enjoy _Structures_ 1a - I miss Boulez's genius for color, but his sense of drama seems to come through, somehow. _Polyphonie X_ on the other hand doesn't make much of an impression on me. (Of course, the earlier work may partly benefit from the simple fact that it's short.)

A confession from me: I'm pretty sure I hate Terry Riley and Robert Ashley and quite sure I hate Steve Reich but enjoy them anyway.


----------



## Morimur

Confession: I don't much care for romanticism in music, much less as a genre.


----------



## isorhythm

Epilogue said:


> A confession from me: I'm pretty sure I hate Terry Riley and Robert Ashley and quite sure I hate Steve Reich but enjoy them anyway.


Sounds like you don't hate them, then?


----------



## Epilogue

Oh no, I indubitably hate the one and probably hate the others. If I didn't, I wouldn't be disappointed in myself for liking them.


----------



## Gordontrek

Not to egg on the modern/atonal/abstract debate that flared up, but I don't have any reservations in saying I dislike the stuff myself. I consider it to be almost criminal to make audiences who paid good money for their tickets to sit through seemingly pointless randomness. This is not to say that all modern classical music is no good; I've heard and played a lot of it that I truly loved and enjoyed. But there's a difference between "new and fresh" and "new and fresh marching band falling down the stairs."
Someone once argued to me that it's akin to an American football team running a revolutionary scheme on offense, like no-huddle or Wildcat or something like that. People, in the same vein as modern music, will inevitably object because it supposedly breaks rules or goes against tradition. Fine, but the final score is still going to be something like 31 to 17 or 24 to 14, not Car Radiators to Egg Shells.


----------



## Epilogue

Gordontrek said:


> I consider it to be almost criminal to make audiences who paid good money for their tickets to sit through seemingly pointless randomness.


As far as the masses are concerned, all classical music is pointless randomness. Not that that means they're against it: As Schoenberg noted, once people have paid for their tickets, they're generally just thankful to hear a job being well done - unless they've been instructed not to be. Illustrative anecdote: An friend of mine attended a concert earlier this year where the audience sat without difficulty through Elliott Carter's 5th string quartet and George Crumb's _Ancient Voices of Children_, only for many of them to then walk out before the musicians could begin the Schoenberg piece that ended the program. The Schoenberg piece was _Verklärte Nacht_.

Anyway, the modernists aren't going to get a fair hearing until everybody who remembers their years of power (and consequently bears grudges) is gone, and we've all had time to get well and truly sick of post-modernism. In other words, we might as well table this conversation until we're all dead, at which point our grandchildren can pick it up. Or maybe the Chinese, if they've finished enslaving us by then.


----------



## Ariasexta

Mahlerian said:


> And how many so-called atonal pieces don't have fifths in them? What relevance does that have to anything?


Some critics say most of the atonal works are pseudo-atonal, that means real jazz played on classical instrument. Classical violin and keyboard were not intended for jazz at all.


----------



## Gordontrek

Epilogue said:


> As far as the masses are concerned, all classical music is pointless randomness. Not that that means they're against it: As Schoenberg noted, once people have paid for their tickets, they're generally just thankful to hear a job being well done - unless they've been instructed not to.


If by "masses" you mean the Bieber/Skrillex/Swift-addicted masses then you'd be correct- anything with more instruments than your average garage band and longer than 5 minutes is generally beyond their ability to comprehend. But what if the audience is made up of veteran listeners/performers of classical music? Lots of them dislike modern classical music, and many straight up loathe it.


----------



## Ariasexta

> As Schoenberg noted, once people have paid for their tickets, they're generally just thankful to hear a job being well done - unless they've been instructed not to.


Epic bigotry, Schoenberg, who does he think he is to pass judgement on the public, maybe he took his concert as a business, thinking about his music like a marketing project. If someone is fed up, welcome to place me on the ignore list. I am not going to debate for too long.



> Anyway, the modernists aren't going to get a fair hearing until everybody who remembers their years of power (and consequently bears grudges) is gone, and we've all had time to get well and truly sick of post-modernism. In other words, we might as well table this conversation until we're all dead, at which point our grandchildren can pick it up. Or maybe the Chinese, if they've finished enslaving us by then.


Who install communism in China? Guess,who wrote Das Kapital, in which language The Manifesto was written? Ok, back to topic.

In fact I am attacking modern music also for the good of the rest of humanity, like the Manifesto written in the western language, the west throw this piece of xxxx into other countries. It is time for us to repel all kind of XXXX from the west.

OK, baroque music is awesome, if you bundle modernist XXXX with everything, I will not care to reject all western, the earliest full octave is in China since 7000BC, you will have to return The fifth system. That will be just.


----------



## isorhythm

Ariasexta said:


> In fact I am attacking modern music also for the good of the rest of humanity


no thanks, we're good


----------



## Ariasexta

isorhythm said:


> no thanks, we're good


I do not care about individuals, my humanism is free to come and leave.


----------



## Epilogue

Gordontrek said:


> If by "masses" you mean the Bieber/Skrillex/Swift-addicted masses then you'd be correct-


Ha - it took me a moment to figure out that you weren't talking about Heinrich Biber. By the way, Taylor Swift is a genius.



Gordontrek said:


> anything with more instruments than your average garage band and longer than 5 minutes is generally beyond their ability to comprehend.


It's been about 25 years since anybody cared about garage bands.



Gordontrek said:


> But what if the audience is made up of veteran listeners/performers of classical music? Lots of them dislike modern classical music, and many straight up loathe it.


Yes, exactly - because _they_, having experience, therefore also have _biases_.



Ariasexta said:


> Epic bigotry, Schoenberg, who does he think he is to pass judgement on the public


Schoenberg wasn't passing judgement on the public. That's the point. He was passing judgement on the middlebrows, and on the connoisseurs from whom the middlebrows get their opinions (or maybe we should say the "middle-middlebrows," since most people who pay any attention to classical music at all have at least _some_ aspirations above the lowbrow).

The public after all treated him much better than the connoisseurs did, making a hit of _Pierrot lunaire_ toward the beginning of his mature career and of _A Survivor from Warsaw_ toward the end. (And then _Erwartung_ was a popular success too, but that one premiered during a window when the connoisseurs liked him too. On the other hand, middlebrow opinion was certainly against him in 1993, when Jessye Norman's recording of that opera surprised everybody by selling well.)



Ariasexta said:


> Who install communism in China? Guess,who wrote Das Kapital, in which language The Manifesto was written?


Who cares? Marx has nothing to do with communism as actually practiced anywhere, and China isn't communist any more anyway.



Ariasexta said:


> you will have to return The fifth system. That will be just.


No, this is just: 




(It's okay, folks, I'll let myself out.)


----------



## Ariasexta

> Schoenberg wasn't passing judgement on the public. That's the point. He was passing judgement on the connoisseurs. The public after all treated him much better than the connoisseurs did, making a hit of Pierrot lunaire toward the beginning of his mature career and of A Survivor from Warsaw toward the end.


There are indeed some nice modern works out there, controversies help the infamous to be famous in our time. A lot of modern works are controversial.



> Who cares? Marx has nothing to do with communism as actually practiced anywhere, and China isn't communist any more anyway.


They will always be what they have been from the beginning. I think chinese are not willing subjects to the Manifesto or to enslave anyone.


----------



## Epilogue

You hear that faint sound in the distance? That's the Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongolians laughing bitterly (and the Arabs and Vietnamese, smugly).

Okay, no more politics.


----------



## violadude

Ariasexta said:


> Atonal music is nasty, I just found some modern composers composed atonal music to sacred texts, it is like pissing on the whole religion. I heard a piece of modern sacred choir music, when the music got into the free dissonance, sounds like some drunk thugs brawling, insulting each other.


You do know in many contexts, words like Holy or Sacred means set apart from the world or otherworldly. Why would the supernatural sound so "pretty"? It seems to me that works like Schoenberg's Moses und Aron or Schnittke's Symphony #2 "St. Florian" are, by certain measures, more appropriate expressions of the supernatural and the Holy than pieces like Mozart's Requem or Palestrina's masses. Not that I necessarily like one group over the other in pure musical terms.


----------



## SimonNZ

Ariasexta said:


> Epic bigotry, Schoenberg, *who does he think he is to pass judgement on the public*, maybe he took his concert as a business, thinking about his music like a marketing project. If someone is fed up, welcome to place me on the ignore list. I am not going to debate for too long.
> 
> *In fact I am attacking modern music also for the good of the rest of humanity,* like the Manifesto written in the western language, the west throw this piece of xxxx into other countries. It is time for us to repel all kind of XXXX from the west.


Compare and contrast.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Ariasexta said:


> In fact *I am attacking modern music also for the good of the rest of humanity*, like the Manifesto written in the western language, the west throw this piece of xxxx into other countries. It is time for us to repel all kind of XXXX from the west.


Why don't you try just listening to some modern music with an open mind? You have nothing to lose but your prejudices...


----------



## Epilogue

On the contrary - you have your _convictions_ to lose. Listening with a truly open mind is a necessarily deeply depressing experience.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Epilogue said:


> On the contrary - you have your _convictions_ to lose. Listening with a truly open mind is a necessarily deeply depressing experience.


Losing convictions may be seen as a return from deeply cherished illusion to reality, Epilogue. That may cause sadness in some, depression in others.


----------



## Epilogue

Sure, but while your illusions were, as best you could tell, correct, you could act based on them. Once you've discovered that they aren't correct, then maybe you don't have any basis for action remaining.

Obviously willful ignorance isn't the solution, but the fact remains that successful self criticism can be crippling.


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> You do know in many contexts, words like Holy or Sacred means set apart from the world or otherworldly. Why would the supernatural sound so "pretty"? It seems to me that works like Schoenberg's Moses und Aron or Schnittke's Symphony #2 "St. Florian" are, by certain measures, more appropriate expressions of the supernatural and the Holy than pieces like Mozart's Requem or Palestrina's masses. Not that I necessarily like one group over the other in pure musical terms.


Utter nonsense. Everyone knows that the creator of the universe himself only rocks out in C major.


----------



## KenOC

nathanb said:


> Utter nonsense. Everyone knows that the creator of the universe himself only rocks out in C major.


Which is why he put the black keys where he did. To discourage their use.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Which is why he put the black keys where he did. To discourage their use.


Are you implying that C Major is the most racist key?


----------



## Epilogue

The pentatonic scale is reverse racism.


----------



## KenOC

Remember that a lot of early keyboards had the black and white keys reversed in color. Not sure what to make of that.


----------



## senza sordino

And 12 tone serialism is "affirmative action"


----------



## Ariasexta

Get you mess togather, who need Affirmative Action if it was not for USA to be differentiate from USSR, how fragile is your superfacial superiority when you had to uphold 12 tone system and the american ideology togather? :lol:


----------



## Epilogue

Joking aside (or partly aside, anyway), affirmative action clearly belongs to the milieu of minimalism, both beginning in the mid-1960s.

Twelve tone music is of course a product of the Weimar republic.

The American strain of serialism, as represented by Milton Babbitt, can be associated with the Civil Rights Movement, in the narrow sense of the phrase (1954-1968), maybe.


----------



## Ariasexta

Epilogue said:


> The pentatonic scale is reverse racism.


I never criticized pentatonic system.You brought the politics and this up yourself.


----------



## Balthazar

Epilogue said:


> Joking aside (or partly aside, anyway), affirmative action clearly belongs to the milieu of minimalism, both beginning in the mid-1960s.


Quite right, but the movement had its genesis in 1830 with the composition of Chopin's _Black Key Étude_ (Op. 10, No. 5).


----------



## Epilogue

@Ariasexta You don't enjoy jokes very much, do you?


----------



## Ariasexta

Epilogue said:


> Joking aside (or partly aside, anyway), affirmative action clearly belongs to the milieu of minimalism, both beginning in the mid-1960s.
> 
> Twelve tone music is of course a product of the Weimar republic.
> 
> The American strain of serialism, as represented by Milton Babbitt, can be associated with the Civil Rights Movement, in the narrow sense of the phrase (1954-1968), maybe.


Pentatonic is easy to compose, it was used among secular people to sing rural themes. Heptatonic is more professional. It has to do with different cultural backgrounds. There is heptonic mention in chinese record dating from 900AD stating heptatonic system in Zhou Dynasty（1100BC), chinese prefered pentatonic for the worship of number 5. There are 5 flavors, 5 colors, for example, the chinese spice is called the "5 spice-powder". I do not really care about civil right movement, americans could have decimate immigrants like in Chechen war. LOL.


----------



## Ariasexta

Epilogue said:


> @Ariasexta You don't enjoy jokes very much, do you?


My attention is focused on music, I do laugh abit at the mentionings of reverse racism and the Affirmative action.


----------



## Epilogue

Twelve tone is very easy to compose. As Schoenberg said, now that he's invented it, everybody can be a composer.


----------



## violadude

Epilogue said:


> Twelve tone is very easy to compose. As Schoenberg said, now that he's invented it, everybody can be a composer.


In my experience as a composer, the style of composition really doesn't matter much. It's really easy to write a crappy piece and it's really hard to write a great piece, twelve tone or not.


----------



## Epilogue

The alarming thing is that sometimes great composers sweat blood over their masterpieces and sometimes they come up with them effortlessly - sometimes the same composer! - and in both cases they often (almost always? always?) don't understand very well how they did it.

It's almost like there's no reliable method for doing great work!


----------



## Mahlerian

Epilogue said:


> Twelve tone is very easy to compose. As Schoenberg said, now that he's invented it, everybody can be a composer.


He also said the exact opposite, that it makes the composer's job immeasurably more difficult.


----------



## Epilogue

And both statements were true.


----------



## Ariasexta

Thanks to all who click "like" on my posts


----------



## Ariasexta

I prefer to go back to pentatonic system rather than "proceeding" to the modernist systems. 

If you ask me, just like the thread about one composer for the rest of life, I picked a medieval composer, if necessary, I would have pick the pentatonic composer as well.


----------



## Ariasexta

Music is simplicity explained and elaborated. :angel:


----------



## Epilogue

Ariasexta said:


> I prefer to go back to pentatonic system rather than "proceeding" to the modernist systems.


Done:


----------



## SimonNZ

Ariasexta said:


> Thanks to all who click "like" on my posts


But your last 16 posts on this thread alone have no "likes" at all.

Now I'm not much of a believer in the likes system, but if you're getting no support whatsoever for your posts it might be worth asking yourself if your approach is somehow off (a little unbending , perhaps? too absolutely sure of your own prejudices, maybe? could give the arguments of others a fairer consideration, possibly? might acknowledge that you've been wrong before and could be / will be again?), rather than trying to drum up charity likes.


----------



## LittleLuthien

I haven't listened to practically any Bach cantatas...maybe I haven't matured enough musically :/


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

LittleLuthien said:


> I haven't listened to practically any Bach cantatas...maybe I haven't matured enough musically :/


A catchy and rather short recommendation: BWV 84


----------



## LittleLuthien

Richannes Wrahms said:


> A catchy and rather short recommendation: BWV 84


I really like it! Thanks!


----------



## Becca

SimonNZ said:


> Now I'm not much of a believer in the likes system, but if you're getting no support whatsoever for your posts it might be worth asking yourself if your approach is somehow off (a little unbending , perhaps? too absolutely sure of your own prejudices, maybe? could give the arguments of others a fairer consideration, possibly? might acknowledge that you've been wrong before and could be / will be again?), rather than trying to drum up charity likes.


I have noticed in a number of recent threads that there seems to be a positive correlation between expressing anti-somebody (often american) views and a general bias and rigidity in other opinions. It totally escapes me as to why it is even necessary to express those types of personal prejudices in a forum on classical music.


----------



## SimonNZ

^You mean the other guy there, not me, right?

Not that I don't have plenty of unnecessary negativity of my own that I could, and should, be called on (you could even use that very same quote), but I associate sweeping anti-Americanism with third rate lazy journalism, so at least you wont be seeing it in that form.


----------



## senza sordino

I've been listening to music in my classroom after hours for years. You can read about some of the music in current listening over the previous two years, my time here. My colleagues have started doing the same, listening to music in their rooms after hours. *But my confession is that I'm a music snob.* My colleagues listen to music they like, but I don't like. Never mind, I can only hear it if I walk past their room, or into their room. One of my colleagues today was playing this insipid background ambient music you might hear in an elevator or swimming in an aquarium. It was awful. I was hoping my music would be a positive musical influence. I will just turn up the Rachmaninov.



P.S. I can be a snob, but I'm not going to tell them my music is better.

P.P.S.


----------



## science

Here's one that's a little painful. The other day something went wrong with my iPhone, leading my wife and I to listen to classical music FM. So there was this violin concerto playing. My wife was like, "Maybe it's Beethoven." I said, "No." 

So far so good. 

Then I listened for a long time and came up with, "I think it's Mendelssohn." But I didn't feel very good about that so I added, "Or maybe Tchaikovsky." 

It was Brahms.


----------



## Epilogue

I've finally gotten to the point where I can reliably say whether it's the finale of Brahms' or Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, but I still can't make any of Beethoven's stick in my memory.

*Edit:* Okay, I'm going to fix that once and for all right now: Beethoven's is the one where the first movement starts like the last movement of the _Pastoral_ symphony and the second movement starts like the _1812_ overture. Done. Now I just have to make up some words to the rondo tune.


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Epilogue said:


> I've finally gotten to the point where I can reliably say whether it's the finale of Brahms' or Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, but I still can't make any of Beethoven's stick in my memory.
> 
> *Edit:* Okay, I'm going to fix that once and for all right now: Beethoven's is the one where the first movement starts like the last movement of the _Pastoral_ symphony and the second movement starts like the _1812_ overture. Done. Now I just have to make up some words to the rondo tune.


Your mom- is so hot! Your mom- is so hot! I want- to fu$k- her twiddly brains out!


----------



## isorhythm

science said:


> Here's one that's a little painful. The other day something went wrong with my iPhone, leading my wife and I to listen to classical music FM. So there was this violin concerto playing. My wife was like, "Maybe it's Beethoven." I said, "No."
> 
> So far so good.
> 
> Then I listened for a long time and came up with, "I think it's Mendelssohn." But I didn't feel very good about that so I added, "Or maybe Tchaikovsky."
> 
> It was Brahms.


That piece doesn't sound like Brahms though!


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Its Brahms' equivalent to the Emperor Concerto, only for violin. It pleases the crowds but kinda dissapoints me.


----------



## Steatopygous

Epilogue said:


> I've finally gotten to the point where I can reliably say whether it's the finale of Brahms' or Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, but I still can't make any of Beethoven's stick in my memory.
> 
> *Edit:* Okay, I'm going to fix that once and for all right now: Beethoven's is the one where the first movement starts like the last movement of the _Pastoral_ symphony and the second movement starts like the _1812_ overture. Done. Now I just have to make up some words to the rondo tune.


What!?!? 
The Beethoven starts in truly memorably style with four muffled beats on the timpani, followed by a lilting theme on the woodwind, taken over by the strings. Stunning, like the whole work! Dr S prescribes listening 5 times in a row to different interpretations, and it will lodge forever.


----------



## Epilogue

At this point I'd rather just spend that time listening again to, oh, let's say the piano sonata N. 27 in E minor. Or the 7th symphony. There, that's one relative obscurity and one chestnut.


----------



## Steatopygous

Epilogue said:


> At this point I'd rather just spend that time listening again to, oh, let's say the piano sonata N. 27 in E minor. Or the 7th symphony. There, that's one relative obscurity and one chestnut.


Well, I wouldn't say you were wasting your time.  But I wouldn't call any of the Beethoven sonatas obscure. Of course, you said "relatively". My other, more important, but is this: Many music lovers, including me, regard his violin concerto as one of the greatest works for the instrument, and I'm sure you would soon really love it. Which leads to a third but: But I don't want to come across as prescriptive. Of course you should listen to precisely what you choose.


----------



## Epilogue

I on the other hand have no problem being prescriptive: Who cares if it's objectively one of the greatest works for the instrument (as of course it is), when there are, I don't know, let's say at least a hundred equally great or greater works for other instruments, and more entertaining ones for the instrument in question?

re "relative," it's not like there are any _absolutely_ obscure major works by Beethoven to choose from.


----------



## Boothvoice

I like Chopin except for the works for solo piano.


----------



## hpowders

Boothvoice said:


> I like Chopin except for the works for solo piano.


I feel exactly the same way, which is why when I listen to Chopin, it is to his greatest of all compositions, the Sonata for Cello and Piano.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Mozart's ok I guess, sometimes!


----------



## poconoron

For me, music starts with JS Bach and Handel, progresses to Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.......... through Rossini and Brahms - then pretty much ends with Dvorak. Anything after that, I am ambivalent about...........I'm afraid - though I do like some of the movie soundtracks (Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves, Lord of the Rings trilogy, etc.)


----------



## hpowders

poconoron said:


> For me, music starts with JS Bach and Handel, progresses to Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.......... through Rossini and Brahms - then pretty much ends with Dvorak. Anything after that, I am ambivalent about...........I'm afraid - though I do like some of the movie soundtracks (Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves, Lord of the Rings trilogy, etc.)


Nothing wrong with that my son. You are safe here within the walls of this sanctuary.


----------



## Klassic

The first time I listened to Schoenberg's Transfigured Night I was so moved I ate the entire score.


----------



## jegreenwood

hpowders said:


> I used to find Bruckner boring. I still do.


And I've tried - many times. I can listen to the 4th and the 7th. Maybe the 8th.


----------



## Markbridge

hpowders said:


> I used to find Bruckner boring. I still do.


I understand. I really do. Bruckner is a tough nut to crack. He was misunderstood during his lifetime, and I think he's still a difficult composer to "get". For whatever reason, however, he as always spoken to me. Granted, I started out with what is probably his most accessible piece, his 4th, but have since moved on to his 3rd through 9th symphonies as well as his Te Deum (which I love). For whatever reason, it seems that anyone who is into Mahler should automatically be into Bruckner. But obviously, that's not always the case, although it's true for me.

I have spent the last few days listening to different recordings of his 5th. So far I listened to the Janowski (not very good, I'm afraid), Thielemann (meh), Karajan (wow), and Sinopoli (double wow). For me, the 5th is probably the crowning achievement of the symphony genre. The finale is magnificent. Sometimes I think that in order to enjoy Bruckner one must turn the volume up in order to get the full effect of the horns blaring. At least, it works for me. 

As for confessions, which is what this thread is really about, for me music begins during the Baroque period and goes into the 20th century, but with roots into the 19th century, if that makes any sense. For example, I love Barber, Rachmaninov, Vaughan Williams, Nielsen, Janacek, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and a few others, if you get my drift. Not at all into 12 tone or total dissonance, just enough dissonance to make something interesting.


----------



## Morimur

poconoron said:


> For me, music starts with JS Bach and Handel, progresses to Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.......... through Rossini and Brahms - then pretty much ends with Dvorak. Anything after that, I am ambivalent about...........I'm afraid - though I do like some of the movie soundtracks (Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves, Lord of the Rings trilogy, etc.)


J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms . . . Can't go wrong with that quintet.


----------



## Morimur

I am generally bored by film soundtracks but Takemitsu's work in the genre is an exception.


----------



## mstar

I generally dislike Prokofiev and most Stravinsky I've heard. A lot of dissonance without atonality sounds like an in-between - a codify, not transition, from 19th and later 20th century music.


----------



## Weston

Today I have two confessions.

No. 1.
I listened to Beethoven's Fidelio overture and found it a little boring. It just seemed like a bunch of decorated major chords all of a sudden. What happened there?

No. 2.
I've scratched my head at best, or yawned uncontrollably at worst with Delius' music for decades. I've just never gotten it, finding it a rambling assemblage of aimless melodies that never quite take me anywhere. Today a Delius work called _ Eventyr (Once Upon a Time) _ came up on random play at work, and I loved it! This sounds very exciting and different than most Delius I've heard. Have I shifted to understanding Delius at last? What happened there?


----------



## Aarontastic

I've always found the classical period of classical music to be the least moving. It's interesting because of the new forms that were being developed, so I listen to it for study a lot, but not for pleasure. Baroque and Romantic pieces are much more stimulating, imo.

OH and for my confession. . .I find most orchestral music after the 18th century to be boring.


----------



## hpowders

shangoyal said:


> I confess that I have never listened to Brahms.


Of course not. Who would listen to such a sarcastic, miserable old coot?

But then, there's the MUSIC!!!


----------



## Juan Gonzalez

I confess that I don't stand most operistic music. Really, what people see on Verdi? I think he is like the Justin Bieber of its time.


----------



## DaveM

Confession: I am getting awfully tired hearing about Schoenberg on this forum. Either a thread is specifically about Schoenburg or any other thread turns into the equivalent. Yes, that's probably an exaggeration, but I'm allowed to exaggerate when I'm confessing.


----------



## Pugg

Juan Gonzalez said:


> I confess that I don't stand most operistic music. Really, what people see on Verdi? I think he is like the Justin Bieber of its time.


To quote; John McEnroe - _You Cannot Be Serious _


----------



## Richard8655

Confession: never liked Tchaikowsky. Too sweet, schmaltzy, and sentimental. As a matter of fact, none of those Russians of that era.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I just ordered a jeans belt online and posted on TC at practically the same time.


----------



## Pugg

hpowders said:


> I confess that I just ordered a jeans belt online and posted on TC at practically the same time.


Called multi tasking


----------



## Richard8655

Confession: Totally don't understand all the Schoenberg posts and interest here. To me he's not only not mainstream in the classical world or typical classical audience, but he's most unlistenable. I'd rather go to a Stones concert.


----------



## Mahlerian

Richard8655 said:


> Confession: Totally don't understand all the Schoenberg posts and interest here. To me he's not only not mainstream in the classical world or typical classical audience, but he's most unlistenable. I'd rather go to a Stones concert.


His music combines the rigor of Bach with dramatic passion and lyricism. That's why I love it, anyway.


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> Confession: Totally don't understand all the Schoenberg posts and interest here. To me he's not only not mainstream in the classical world or typical classical audience, but he's most unlistenable. I'd rather go to a Stones concert.


What do you define as "mainstream"? To me, Schoenberg is of the most "mainstream" composers of the first half of the 20th century, along with Debussy, Stravinsky, Britten, Ives, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Vaughn-Williams...blabitty blah.

I would think a non-mainstream composer would be someone more like Krenek...or Hartmann....

Unless your definition of mainstream is confined exclusively to "the stuff they put on those cheap 100 masterpieces of classical music sets".


----------



## Richard8655

Mahlerian said:


> His music combines the rigor of Bach with dramatic passion and lyricism. That's why I love it, anyway.


Ok, fair enough. But it is a limited appreciation of that kind of atonality. Not everyone's thing, and probably not for most.


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> Ok, fair enough. But it is a limited appreciation of that kind of atonality. Not everyone's thing, and probably not for most.


Almost everything we talk about on this forum is "not everyone's thing" by a long shot.

What does that even mean anyway? Appreciation to Schoenberg is limited to "that kind of atonality". Is that different from anything else? Appreciation of Mozart is limited to "that kind of tonality". What's really the difference?


----------



## Richard8655

violadude said:


> What do you define as "mainstream"? To me, Schoenberg is of the most "mainstream" composers of the first half of the 20th century, along with Debussy, Stravinsky, Britten, Ives, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Vaughn-Williams...blabitty blah.
> 
> I would think a non-mainstream composer would be someone more like Krenek...or Hartmann....
> 
> Unless your definition of mainstream is confined exclusively to "the stuff they put on those cheap 100 masterpieces of classical music sets".


I would disagree Schoenberg is mainstream with classical audiences. I doubt his music would be played often at concerts, and if so only in a program with more recognizable tonal (mainstream) composers. The other composers you listed are not in the same category, in my opinion.


----------



## Richard8655

violadude said:


> Almost everything we talk about on this forum is "not everyone's thing" by a long shot.
> 
> What does that even mean anyway? Appreciation to Schoenberg is limited to "that kind of atonality". Is that different from anything else? Appreciation of Mozart is limited to "that kind of tonality". What's really the difference?


Yes, we all have our interests. But this composer is almost the subject of every other thread for some reason, and seems atypical of what most people listen to. Hey, please don't give me grief over a confession. That's my opinion and wasn't meant as challenge to an argument. If you like the guy, go ahead.


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> Yes, we all have our interests. But this composer is almost the subject of every other for some reason, and seems atypical of what most people listen to l Hey, please don't give me grief over a confession. That's my opinion and wasn't meant as challenge to an argument. If you like the guy, go ahead.


Even if he is atypical of what people usually listen to, what's the point? Literally everything we talk about on this forum is atypical of what people usually listen to. If people are talking about Schoenberg a lot on the forum, maybe that means lots of people on the forum listen to Schoenberg. Maybe he ain't as unpopular as you thought he was. Ya?


----------



## hpowders

Pugg said:


> Called multi tasking


I call it going broke!


----------



## Richard8655

violadude said:


> Even if he is atypical of what people usually listen to, what's the point? Literally everything we talk about on this forum is atypical of what people usually listen to. If people are talking about Schoenberg a lot on the forum, maybe that means lots of people on the forum listen to Schoenberg. Maybe he ain't as unpopular as you thought he was. Ya?


The point is this composer is always emphasized here, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just pointing that out. I think only a few active posters here are into him and that's probably why. Why take this so personally? Don't read the confessional thread if it bothers you.


----------



## hpowders

Richard8655 said:


> The point is this composer is always emphasized here, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just pointing that out. I think only a few active posters here are into him and that's probably why. Why take this so personally? Don't read the confessional thread if it bothers you.


Well you have a lot of young music students on this forum-the reason for the atonal/modern bias.


----------



## Richard8655

hpowders said:


> Well you have a lot of young music students on this forum-the reason for the atonal/modern bias.


Yep, I think you're right. They tend to live in their own scholarly world and think what they study must be what everyone wants to listen to.


----------



## hpowders

Richard8655 said:


> Yep, I think you're right. They tend to live in their own scholarly world and think what they study must be what everyone wants to listen to.


It doesn't bother me at all. There are plenty of mainstream threads to choose from.

There's enough going on at Talk Classical to satisfy every music lover with a classical bent.


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> Yep, I think you're right. They tend to live in their own scholarly world and think what they study must be what everyone wants to listen to.


Oh ya. It's us "scholarly people" who are the problem. Give me a break. Without the "scholarly" you wouldn't even know what Classical Music is.


----------



## Richard8655

violadude said:


> Oh ya. It's us "scholarly people" who are the problem. Give me a break. Without the "scholarly" you wouldn't even know what Classical Music is.[/QUOTE
> 
> LOL... all I can say to that.


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> violadude said:
> 
> 
> 
> Oh ya. It's us "scholarly people" who are the problem. Give me a break. Without the "scholarly" you wouldn't even know what Classical Music is.[/QUOTE
> 
> LOL... all I can say to that.
> 
> 
> 
> Is it wrong?......................
Click to expand...


----------



## DaveM

Richard8655 said:


> I would disagree Schoenberg is mainstream with classical audiences. I doubt his music would be played often at concerts, and if so only in a program with more recognizable tonal (mainstream) composers. The other composers you listed are not in the same category, in my opinion.


When you're right, you're right, but be ready for the crazy-making that follows. I live in an area where there are many orchestras, one of them being in the top tier category. I rarely see Schoenburg works scheduled and when they are, there are always scheduled with, as you say, tonal/mainstream works.


----------



## DaveM

violadude said:


> Oh ya. It's us "scholarly people" who are the problem. Give me a break. Without the "scholarly" you wouldn't even know what Classical Music is.


What would we ever do without you? After all these many decades of listening to classical music since the age of 3 and only now do I really understand because I'm in your presence.


----------



## Pugg

My confession: I do love Lucia Popp singing Strauss : Four last songs, above all other recordings :tiphat:


----------



## DaveM

Pugg said:


> My confession: I do love Lucia Popp singing Strauss : Four last songs, above all other recordings :tiphat:


Yes, it's wonderfully ethereal.


----------



## violadude

DaveM said:


> What would we ever do without you? After all these many decades of listening to classical music since the age of 3 and only now do I really understand because I'm in your presence.


Oh, har har har. Good sarcasm. But I wasn't talking about ME as an individual. Every single piece of music you listen to was, written, produced or performed by someone who was once a "young music student" or a "scholarly type" But now all of a sudden we are a problem? Now people are talking about young music students like they're a scourge upon the earth? Some vermin that interrupt the conversation of others. That's absolute garbage. If "young scholarly types" are such a ******** problem, quit consuming the products they eventually create.

Oh ya, that's right. You guys want to consume the products of musicians who studied hard to get to where they are, and then turn around and mock them. As if being a "common folk" makes you above those "scholarly types" who are MAKING THE VERY MUSIC YOU CLAIM THE LOVE SO MUCH.

Fine, whatever. Don't know why I went and got a Bachelor's degree in music composition when I could have just pretended like I knew everything about music and get much less **** for it.


----------



## SeptimalTritone

And indeed, most people who like Schoenberg on TC _are not_ in possession of a music degree or have much direct technical experience with Schoenberg's harmony and compositional methods. I'm included, and so are mmsbls, Dim7, DiesIrae, dogen, Morimur, Dr. Johnson, trazom, etc... Most people who like Schoenberg actually have very little idea of how the tone row is directly used as a harmonic and voice-leading skeleton. Therefore, most people on TC who like Schoenberg are not technically knowledgeable of Schoenberg in really any detail at all. Anyone who says that Schoenberg is only for or even mostly for the "scholarly world" is _factually wrong_.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Richard8655 said:


> They tend to live in their own scholarly world and think what they study must be what everyone wants to listen to.


With regard to music, the non-"scholarly" world means people who actually perform music. And a considerable number of musicians want to perform Schönberg. (Vastly more than, say, the number who want to perform Franz Schmidt - as Schmidt himself would have been the first to predict.)

And, the way you tell it, the amount of time you spend listening to Schönberg, as a proportion of all the time you spend listening to classical music, is certainly smaller than the quantity of people who want to perform Schönberg, as a proportion of all classical performers.



Richard8655 said:


> Idoubt his music would be played often at concerts, and if so only in a program with more recognizable tonal (mainstream) composers.


Yeah, people who want that to be true keep saying that - and then they're confused when stuff like this happens: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/16/arts/classical-view-schoenberg-alive-gasp-and-well.html



hpowders said:


> Well you have a lot of young music students on this forum-the reason for the atonal/modern bias.


Ha! It's not 1945 any more. Ask Kyle Gann about trying to teach atonal music to young music students today (or even Ives and Bartók!): http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2014/10/fear-of-learning.html


----------



## Harold in Columbia

That said, the New York Times article also reminds us that scholarship - criticism - is a talent, and distinguished performers don't necessary have it. (_'Some older recordings of "Erwartung" seemed to magnify its ideological oddity. It wasn't sung; it was shrieked. The orchestra lurched and crashed. This was Caligari Expressionism, not normal music.'_ - Yeah, in other words, it was played correctly. _'But as a musical work it had to wait 80 years for Jessye Norman to breathe life into it.'_ - This isn't just fatuous, it's also wrong by the author's own argument. It's not like the work was out of the repertory before Norman performed it.)


----------



## Sloe

Harold in Columbia said:


> (_'Some older recordings of "Erwartung" seemed to magnify its ideological oddity. It wasn't sung; it was shrieked. The orchestra lurched and crashed. This was Caligari Expressionism, not normal music.'_ - )


What recordings are like that?


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Sloe said:


> What recordings are like that?


This one:


----------



## Sloe

Harold in Columbia said:


> This one:


Thank you.
I can not hear that it is less sung than any other recording.


----------



## Fugue Meister

Juan Gonzalez said:


> I confess that I don't stand most operistic music. Really, what people see on Verdi? I think he is like the Justin Bieber of its time.


I feel similarly about Verdi, I don't get the appeal at all..


----------



## Fugue Meister

Harold in Columbia said:


> With regard to music, the non-"scholarly" world means people who actually perform music. And a considerable number of musicians want to perform Schönberg. (Vastly more than, say, the number who want to perform Franz Schmidt - as Schmidt himself would have been the first to predict.)
> 
> And, the way you tell it, the amount of time you spend listening to Schönberg, as a proportion of all the time you spend listening to classical music, is certainly smaller than the quantity of people who want to perform Schönberg, as a proportion of all classical performers.
> 
> Yeah, people who want that to be true keep saying that - and then they're confused when stuff like this happens: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/16/arts/classical-view-schoenberg-alive-gasp-and-well.html
> 
> Ha! It's not 1945 any more. Ask Kyle Gann about trying to teach atonal music to young music students today (or even Ives and Bartók!): http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2014/10/fear-of-learning.html


I hate you so much for making all the points I was going to make before I got a chance to make them. :devil: In the interest of full disclosure you do rub me the wrong way sometimes but when you make a good point, you sure do drive it home. Good on ya cobber..

To those new guys who seem to have a problem with Schoenberg, I once was like you and then I began to open my mind to him and the second viennese school of composers. If you are truly are serious about orchestral music in general you owe it to yourself to try to understand why these guys are valid composers. Especially if you don't just want to be considered dilettantes, if you don't mind that, fair enough but don't get down of people just because you react negatively to the music.

Also be mindful if you keep up the discouragement when you die you might be destined to an eternity of having to listen to exclusively atonal music, there is really no way of knowing if I'm wrong about this.


----------



## Lucashio

HAHAHAHahaha! and all Guisto is dis-Guisting and aught to simply pizzicato off


----------



## Richard8655

Harold in Columbia said:


> That said, the New York Times article also reminds us that scholarship - criticism - is a talent, and distinguished performers don't necessary have it. (_'Some older recordings of "Erwartung" seemed to magnify its ideological oddity. It wasn't sung; it was shrieked. The orchestra lurched and crashed. This was Caligari Expressionism, not normal music.'_ - Yeah, in other words, it was played correctly. _'But as a musical work it had to wait 80 years for Jessye Norman to breathe life into it.'_ - This isn't just fatuous, it's also wrong by the author's own argument. It's not like the work was out of the repertory before Norman performed it.)


Try not to get fixated with the use of the word scholarly. It's not meant negatively at all. In this case meant as applying a music school's preferences to the rest of the world and making those assumptions. They're often and for the most part vastly different in tastes and interests. Of course atonal music is as valid as any other, but that was not the point.


----------



## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> Yeah, people who want that to be true keep saying that - and then they're confused when stuff like this happens: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/16/arts/classical-view-schoenberg-alive-gasp-and-well.html


That 1994 article does not address the fact that scheduled classical music programs do not often include Schoenberg and if they do they are accompanied by more traditional works. And even now 20+ years after that article.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> That 1994 article does not address the fact that scheduled classical music programs do not often include Schoenberg...


The article addresses "the fact" by counterexample. The record sold well and wasn't "accompanied by more traditional works," unless you want to maintain people were buying it for Schönberg's own cabaret songs.



DaveM said:


> ...and if they do they are accompanied by more traditional works. And even now 20+ years after that article.


If Schönberg were only programmed with other atonal works, you'd say it proved his unpopularity with people who like "traditional works."

Also, in the next three months, the Teatro Real will perform _Moses and Aron_, naturally without anything else on the bill, and the Frankfurt Opera will perform _Pierrot lunaire_ along with a new work by Michael Langemann.

https://bachtrack.com/find/category=1,2,3,4,5;medium=1;composer=96


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Richard8655 said:


> Try not to get fixated with the use of the word scholarly. It's not meant negatively at all. In this case meant as applying a music school's preferences to the rest of the world and making those assumptions.


Without evidence, while I've linked to testimony from somebody who actually teaches at a musical school, that his students (more specifically, the composition students, not the performers) don't even want to listen to Bartók (he writes elsewhere about their hostility to Webern) (and this is somebody who incidentally _hates_ Schönberg, but prides himself on having listened long enough to "understand" him) - which you haven't addressed.

And incorrectly in any case, since as several people including me have already said, "a music school's preference" is less important than the preferences of performers - which you haven't addressed either.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Fugue Meister said:


> To those new guys who seem to have a problem with Schoenberg, I once was like you and then I began to open my mind to him and the second viennese school of composers. If you are truly are serious about orchestral music in general you owe it to yourself to try to understand why these guys are valid composers. Especially if you don't just want to be considered dilettantes...


Excellent advice. Now you should apply it to yourself with regard to Verdi.


----------



## Richard8655

Harold in Columbia said:


> Also, in the next three months, the Teatro Real will perform _Moses and Aron_, naturally without anything else on the bill, and the Frankfurt Opera will perform _Pierrot lunaire_ along with a new work by Michael Langemann.
> 
> https://bachtrack.com/find/category=1,2,3,4,5;medium=1;composer=96


I guess I could search the world for exceptions and then try to prove my point that this is the norm everywhere. Not a good logical argument.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Richard8655 said:


> I guess I could search the world for exceptions and then try to prove my point that this is the norm everywhere. Not a good logical argument.


I didn't "search the world for exceptions." I searched Bachtracks for Schönberg performances in the next few months.


----------



## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> The article addresses "the fact" by counterexample. The record sold well and wasn't "accompanied by more traditional works," unless you want to maintain people were buying it for Schönberg's own cabaret songs.


Stick to the subject which was live performances. Of course, there have been all Schoenburg recordings.



> If Schönberg were only programmed with other atonal works, you'd say it proved his unpopularity with people who like "traditional works."


Don't even try to anticipate what I might say or not say.



> Also, in the next three months, the Teatro Real will perform _Moses and Aron_, naturally without anything else on the bill, and the Frankfurt Opera will perform _Pierrot lunaire_ along with a new work by Michael Langemann.
> 
> https://bachtrack.com/find/category=1,2,3,4,5;medium=1;composer=96


Exceptions don't prove the rule.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> Stick to the subject which was live performances. Of course, there have been all Schoenburg recordings.


The subject was popularity, and the recording in question was popular.



DaveM said:


> Exceptions don't prove the rule.


It's two major works performed by two fairly major groups less than three (ugh - four, I can't count) months from today. That's not "exceptions."


----------



## hpowders

I confess that I'm a bit disappointed that I don't see more classical music confessions on this thread.


----------



## Pugg

To dangerous to tell, hell break's loose


----------



## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> I confess that I'm a bit disappointed that I don't see more classical music confessions on this thread.


Okay: By my own argument - if musicians like to play it, there's probably something valuable there - I should listen more to Shostakovich, but I just don't want to.


----------



## Fugue Meister

Harold in Columbia said:


> Okay: By my own argument - if musicians like to play it, there's probably something valuable there - I should listen more to Shostakovich, but I just don't want to.


That's unfortunate, Shostakovich is better than you think..


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Maybe, maybe not. But Verdi is definitely better than you think (and better than Shostakovich).


----------



## Fugue Meister

Harold in Columbia said:


> Maybe, maybe not. But Verdi is definitely better than you think (and better than Shostakovich).


It's not that I don't like opera, it's that I don't like _Italian_ opera and that's the core of Verdi's work... I should give his Requiem a listen again, I have a few times before and it didn't take.

I don't think Beethoven would have cared for Verdi that much either the way he satirizes Italian opera in the adagio grazioso of his op. 31 No. 2 and he wasn't a fan of Puccini (I don't buy your idea that his resentment towards Puccini masked some grudging respect).


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Italian opera is also definitely better than you think.

You may not "buy" that Beethoven grudgingly respected Rossini, but it's still true. When one is truly indifferent, one doesn't attack.


----------



## hpowders

Fugue Meister said:


> That's unfortunate, Shostakovich is better than you think..


Hard to believe that Shostakovich was forced to denigrate his Fourth Symphony claiming meekly, "there were a few spots in there I liked".

I consider it to be his greatest symphony. Stupid Stalin!!


----------



## Sloe

DaveM said:


> Confession: I am getting awfully tired hearing about Schoenberg on this forum. Either a thread is specifically about Schoenburg or any other thread turns into the equivalent. Yes, that's probably an exaggeration, but I'm allowed to exaggerate when I'm confessing.


Some people likes his music other find it awful so it easy becomes discussions about his music. Unlike a composer that everyone either likes or is indifferent to.


----------



## Sloe

hpowders said:


> Well you have a lot of young music students on this forum-the reason for the atonal/modern bias.


But Huilunsoittaja wrote in another thread that most music students don´t like modern music.


----------



## Pugg

Harold in Columbia said:


> Maybe, maybe not. But Verdi is definitely better than you think (and better than Shostakovich).


Hear, hear :cheers:


----------



## dgee

I dislike both Verdi and Shostakovich. I'm sure they are both better than I think, but that doesnt compel me to view either of them as especially good. I could (and geez I just will) describe both as clumsy but lucky. They both seemed to bumble their way to fame and some degree of acclaim for reasons I just can't fathom

But, the people have spoken (including some musicologists and critics) so I'll readily concede my position as a personal one. 

But heavens-to-betsy they both mainly suck. And it should be noted that a significant number of people I know share this view. And they're youngish and musical and many of them work in music - so I wouldn't be too surprised if S&V's position in the rep will diminish over time


----------



## Blancrocher

I confess that it still sometimes stresses me out a little bit trying to figure out how to open a double jewel case when I get a new one.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Confession...I think Beethoven piano sonatas are noisy and like to hate Segovia but enjoy black metal


----------



## Animal the Drummer

I have tried, without success, to persuade myself to like what Peter Shaffer called the "lachrymose iterance" of Mahler.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

dgee said:


> But heavens-to-betsy they both mainly suck. And it should be noted that a significant number of people I know share this view. And they're youngish and musical and many of them work in music - so I wouldn't be too surprised if S&V's position in the rep will diminish over time


I wish I could confidently expect that with S, but I know too many young people (including musicians) who like him. Maybe he'll go down with Postmodernism, whenever that goes down, but I wouldn't bet on it.

V (who I guess you mention in conjunction here because of my exchange with FugueMeister yesterday) is of course in a different league. Like, even if S is good, he's still not in Stravinsky-Bartók tier of his approximate contemporaries. V is an all time great.


----------



## isorhythm

dgee said:


> I dislike both Verdi and Shostakovich. I'm sure they are both better than I think, but that doesnt compel me to view either of them as especially good. I could (and geez I just will) describe both as clumsy but lucky. They both seemed to bumble their way to fame and some degree of acclaim for reasons I just can't fathom
> 
> But, the people have spoken (including some musicologists and critics) so I'll readily concede my position as a personal one.
> 
> But heavens-to-betsy they both mainly suck. And it should be noted that a significant number of people I know share this view. And they're youngish and musical and many of them work in music - so I wouldn't be too surprised if S&V's position in the rep will diminish over time


I don't know, I'm also Shostakovich-indifferent with the exception of a few pieces I like, but most young classical musicians/fans I know like him (including a composer I know who writes in a _totally_ different style). There is obviously something there that we're missing the gene for, or something.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Evidence against S: That scene in _Bridge of Spies_ where Tom Hanks has arranged for the Russian spy to listen to the radio for the first time since his capture and imprisonment, and after a lull in conversation, the spy says in that grave, old world mensch voice that only exists in Hollywood and the History Channel, "Shostakovich. A very great artist, Shostakovich."

(Naturally, it's a slow movement.)


----------



## Fugue Meister

Harold in Columbia said:


> Evidence against S: That scene in _Bridge of Spies_ where Tom Hanks has arranged for the Russian spy to listen to the radio for the first time since his capture and imprisonment, and after a lull in conversation, the spy says in that grave, old world mensch voice that only exists in Hollywood and the History Channel, "Shostakovich. A very great artist, Shostakovich."
> 
> (Naturally, it's a slow movement.)


Why because he's popular? DSCH was the man and to me he'll always be greater than Verdi, I mean he wrote so little opera and it's way better than Verdi's contribution...


----------



## mstar

Animal the Drummer said:


> I have tried, without success, to persuade myself to like what Peter Shaffer called the *"lachrymose iterance"* of Mahler.


Yuck. I hate when music historians go all gushy with their descriptions (praises) of composers' works. It's as if they had some financial incentive to do it - bribery or such.


----------



## Fugue Meister

mstar said:


> Yuck. I hate when music historians go all gushy with their descriptions (praises) of composers' works. It's as if they had some financial incentive to do it - bribery or such.


That's all well and good but you know Peter Shaffer isn't a historian, he's a playwright so it's sort of understandable he'd be gushy with description about music he enjoyed.


----------



## Richard8655

I don't know. Considering the political environment and regime Shostakovich had to compose under, the originality of his works (especially symphonies) amazes me. In a way, I find the required socialist realism context an asset, as it give us sharp, hard-edged music. I really didn't want or need another saccharin sweet Russian composer like Tschaikowsky or Rachmaninoff.


----------



## Mahlerian

Fugue Meister said:


> That's all well and good but you know Peter Shaffer isn't a historian, he's a playwright so it's sort of understandable he'd be gushy with description about music he enjoyed.


Somehow, referring to someone's "lachrymose iterance" doesn't seem particularly laudatory, on top of which it's one of those dumb cliches that abounds in Mahler criticism for those who know next to nothing about Mahler.


----------



## Morimur

Like some of you, I am not a fan of Italian opera but regardless of taste one must concede that Verdi was at least Wagner's equal.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that Berlioz' Les Troyens is as fine an opera as anything Wagner ever wrote AND the former was a much sweeter guy.


----------



## Fugue Meister

Mahlerian said:


> Somehow, referring to someone's "lachrymose iterance" doesn't seem particularly laudatory, on top of which it's one of those dumb cliches that abounds in Mahler criticism for those who know next to nothing about Mahler.


I don't really see how it's a cliche at all.. And who cares I'd venture to say some 75% of this forum knows next to nothing about Mahler and posts their opinions anyway and Shaffer was a well respected playwright and absolute music enthusiast. I remember reading some interview with him and he mentioned Mahler by name as a composer he enjoyed listening to, so perhaps "lachrymose iterance" was taken out of context or was meant for some specific piece.


----------



## Animal the Drummer

The quote is from an interview about the music of Mozart which Shaffer originally gave to the "NY Times" and which he adapted for the London "Times" when the film of "Amadeus" had its Royal premiere on 16th January 1985. The paragraph from which it's taken runs as follows:

"There is, in fact, something almost terrifying about this _[i.e.Mozart's]_ restraint. Over and over as one listens, a joyful shadow, a shadowed joy, seems to pass swiftly over the music, as a cloud passes over a spring landscape, bringing with it a quite excruciating emotion for which there is no precise name, save perhaps that of the composer. A hearing of the slow movement of the Clarinet Quintet will evoke this effect at any time. It makes the rigorous turbulence of Beethoven seem over-insistent, and the lachrymose iterance of Mahler largely hysterical."


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Fugue Meister said:


> ...and Shaffer was a well respected playwright...


Well, sort of. In the same sense that Ron Howard is a well respected film director.


----------



## hpowders

I confess that the Opus 18 quartets by Beethoven are extremely difficult to play as they require such incredible crackerjack precision.

Should have a warning: "Only for virtuoso ensembles!"


----------



## Fugue Meister

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well, sort of. In the same sense that Ron Howard is a well respected film director.


Well I take your point but Ron Howard really is well respected.. And yeah Shaffer is no Pinter or Stoppard but he wrote at least 3 great plays and thats no small feat.


----------



## Bayreuth

I confess that I am starting to appreciate the quality of Schoenberg's 1910s music.


----------



## Pugg

hpowders said:


> I confess that Berlioz' Les Troyens is as fine an opera as anything Wagner ever wrote AND the former was a much sweeter guy.


Yuck, not even close to compare


----------



## Trev Edwards

I prefer the 1980's Beethoven symphony cycle by Karajan over all others.

It was the one set I had for 20+ years and...


----------



## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> I confess that Berlioz' Les Troyens is as fine an opera as anything Wagner ever wrote...


I disagree, but it's certainly, easily, better than anything Wagner wrote before _Rheingold_.


----------



## Morimur

violadude said:


> Oh, har har har. Good sarcasm. But I wasn't talking about ME as an individual. Every single piece of music you listen to was, written, produced or performed by someone who was once a "young music student" or a "scholarly type" But now all of a sudden we are a problem? Now people are talking about young music students like they're a scourge upon the earth? Some vermin that interrupt the conversation of others. That's absolute garbage. If "young scholarly types" are such a ******** problem, quit consuming the products they eventually create.
> 
> Oh ya, that's right. You guys want to consume the products of musicians who studied hard to get to where they are, and then turn around and mock them. As if being a "common folk" makes you above those "scholarly types" who are MAKING THE VERY MUSIC YOU CLAIM THE LOVE SO MUCH.
> 
> Fine, whatever. Don't know why I went and got a Bachelor's degree in music composition when I could have just pretended like I knew everything about music and get much less **** for it.


Yesss... yesss... let the hate flow through you and join me in the dark side!


----------



## hpowders

I confess that since Easter is a time of renewal, I will once again listen to Beethoven!

Update: I can't do it. Maybe I'll just give to charity instead.


----------



## violadude

I've been referring to Harnoncourt as Hancourt all this time


----------



## Blancrocher

I'm superstitious about price fluctuations on online music sites. For example, I know it's ridiculous but I just can't shake the idea that if I put something on the top of my wishlist it will result in a price increase.


----------



## senza sordino

It's a pet peeve of mine but it drives me crazy when people refer to any form of music as "a song". 

Today in orchestra the player behind me was late and asked me what song are we playing. Song? 

And before class on Friday on my iPod was playing a Grieg violin sonata. A student asked me what song is that. Song?

Both of these young people might be young (18), but they're both music students studying classical music. Song?


----------



## Sloe

senza sordino said:


> It's a pet peeve of mine but it drives me crazy when people refer to any form of music as "a song".
> 
> Today in orchestra the player behind me was late and asked me what song are we playing. Song?
> 
> And before class on Friday on my iPod was playing a Grieg violin sonata. A student asked me what song is that. Song?
> 
> Both of these young people might be young (18), but they're both music students studying classical music. Song?


There should at least be singing for it to be called song.


----------



## Meyerbeer Smith

I find Bach very boring. I've listened to the "important " works, and bought CD sets of the 100 Best Bach. It seems to be music for religiously-minded mathematicians, in love with the precise working out of rules and formulae. And now I'll get back to my Damnation.


----------



## Figleaf

Blancrocher said:


> I'm superstitious about price fluctuations on online music sites. For example, I know it's ridiculous but I just can't shake the idea that if I put something on the top of my wishlist it will result in a price increase.


When I put the complete Messiaen edition on my Amazon wish list a few months ago it was something like £65, now it's a couple of hundred! 


SimonTemplar said:


> I find Bach very boring. I've listened to the "important " works, and bought CD sets of the 100 Best Bach. It seems to be music for religiously-minded mathematicians, in love with the precise working out of rules and formulae. And now I'll get back to my Damnation.


My total Bach collection consists of a random one disc compilation which somebody once gave me and I'm never likely to listen to, plus one track of some religious thing in Latin on the Friedrich Schorr Lebendige Vergangenheit CD. The latter is so stupendously good that I'd gladly buy everything Bach and play it on a continual loop if only I could hear it sung like that!


----------



## Harold in Columbia

senza sordino said:


> It's a pet peeve of mine but it drives me crazy when people refer to any form of music as "a song".


The _Iliad_ calls itself a song. I don't think Grieg has anything to lose from the word.


----------



## Weston

senza sordino said:


> It's a pet peeve of mine but it drives me crazy when people refer to any form of music as "a song".
> 
> Today in orchestra the player behind me was late and asked me what song are we playing. Song?
> 
> And before class on Friday on my iPod was playing a Grieg violin sonata. A student asked me what song is that. Song?
> 
> Both of these young people might be young (18), but they're both music students studying classical music. Song?


I even have trouble thinking of long over-the-top progressive rock pieces as "songs" even when there is singing involved. Yet even Amaz*n and iTunes market everything as songs. We should be able to switch this mindset over to "track" in the digital era.


----------



## Figleaf

Harold in Columbia said:


> The _Iliad_ calls itself a song. I don't think Grieg has anything to lose from the word.


It has words and metre, and may once have had instrumental accompaniment, so the Iliad potentially counts as a song even though it's no longer usually performed as such. And you can have wordless songs of course, but when there are no voices it isn't really song.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Epic poems were probably better music than literature.


----------



## Blancrocher

The embarrassing glamour shots on numerous albums featuring young, up-and-coming artists are making it impossible for me to seek out their performances and listen to them.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Blancrocher said:


> The embarrassing glamour shots on numerous albums featuring young, up-and-coming artists are making it impossible for me to seek out their performances and listen to them.


If beautiful young people want to show off their bodies, that's part of all the performing arts, too. My only objection is the embarrassingly sexist deficit in the attention paid in such photos to the men's packages, as compared with that lavished on the women's breasts.


----------



## Blancrocher

Harold in Columbia said:


> If beautiful young people want to show off their bodies, that's part of all the performing arts, too. My only objection is the embarrassingly sexist deficit in the attention paid in such photos to the men's packages, as compared with that lavished on the women's breasts.


It's not the bodies but the lighting that usually bothers me.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510cElpu+CL._SX425_.jpg


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Ah, yes. Well, sexual mores come and go. Kitsch is eternal.


----------



## hpowders

hpowders rule: Folks post anonymously, banished from sight, on internet forums, usually for a very good reason. And it ain't to be discovered by Hollywood.


----------



## isorhythm

I can never remember the numbers of things in series, except for symphonies of composers who only wrote a few.

If you say "Beethoven's string quartet number 15" I still have to look up which one that is, every time.


----------



## Pugg

Harold in Columbia said:


> Ah, yes..... Kitsch is eternal.


12 point for this :tiphat:


----------



## SalieriIsInnocent

I don't realize or appreciate the genius that everyone sees in Glenn Gould. I've tried and tried to, but I just don't hear it.


----------



## Marinera

Carols. Christmas carols to be specific. Can't stand them. December month on classical radio is fairly unlistenable with all the caroling they broadcast, concert halls are very keen on it too and live music or not I just don't appreciate it. So far I've been spared from any caroling in front of my door, and hopefully that's how it will be for the next hundred years. I'm glad it's May month right now.


----------



## Pugg

Marinera said:


> Carols. Christmas carols to be specific. Can't stand them. December month on classical radio is fairly unlistenable with all the caroling they broadcast, concert halls are very keen on it too and live music or not I just don't appreciate it. So far I've been spared from any caroling in front of my door, and hopefully that's how it will be for the next hundred years. I'm glad it's May month right now.


I disagree, wonderful time of the year, and there's always a button with option out on the radio .


----------



## Marinera

Pugg said:


> I disagree, wonderful time of the year, and there's always a button with option out on the radio .


Can't really switch the radio... lifetime of musical listening habits and all that. Between turgid silence and all the strangest radio stations out there I daringly choose musical wilderness most of the time if I have to. What doesn't break me, makes me stronger and so on. 
Don't have anything else against December, it's a nice month that has a potential to be even nicer. 

Edit: I listen to radio in the car and driving's simply not the same without music on.


----------

