Here's some good news on the musical front -- nabbed via littlegeneva.com, a sensational site I've just linked up with our'n:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/new...1532890,00.htm l
Beethoven (1.4m) beats Bono (20,000) in battle of the internet downloads : Music industry forced to take note as composer's complete symphonies outshine rock acts in online chart
I'm taking it that "m" stands for "million" here. Whew, a lot of words over a seemingly simple subject. Note that some pundits are fuming that Beethoven was given a commercial edge over the filth and vomit of hard rock, etc. Sounds like they need some fresh air.
U2 is one of the most talented rock bands
ever. Beethoven was a classical master. Obviously, the
quality of classical music outshines the quality of most rock.
However, several rock groups are musically skilled still. Look at
Radiohead.
Freedom in its true form is not the right to do whatever one wishes, but the right to have a will that triumphs and makes one successful.
Originally Posted by nelson
Thanks for this article.
Some surprises there also with regard to Beethoven; The "Pastoral" (#6) leads the list, and the mighty "Eroica" (#3) is dead last! Any list of mine would have the Ninth first, the "Eroica" second, and No. 5 third. I always found the "Pastoral" and the fourth the least interesting of the nine.
As with everything else, I guess the favorite Beethoven symphony is in the ear of the listener.
W.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
so your'e a Beethoven man too, Wolfram! always pleasant to be reminded how many of our people love the classics. i love the symphonies (esp the fresh, idealistic early ones) but also Ludwig's obscurities -- mandolin pieces, piano novelties etc. and ofr course The Emperor! This site is about ideas and Beethoven is too. in his roarings there's righteous 'rage against the machine,' in his tootlings (even in the 9th) the voice of little people against the same.
yes, Kellen, there is great talent in rock musicians -- i'm tempted to say genius in many cases, from Beatles to Yes to Zep to CSN&Y. but in view of the extra-musical baggage their art carries i fear it woul be better otherwise. I really don't mean to be trouble, but since that's my business -- it's a demonstrable fact that classical music is overall a posittive influence and rock overalla negative. forgive me, that's the way it is. classical mustic is mostly about beauty and grace and truth, often about the Gospel itself. rock is about existential humanistic woe, or a worldview based on it -- esthetically and affectively as much as textually. you've got the Mozart Effect book, numerous studies, and the human evidence before us on all sides in the dossier. the family unit thrived in the classical era (about 1000 to about 1960) and has all but died in the rock years. likewise for free enterprise and everything our crowd holds dear.
i speak as one with (not that it proves anything) 2 music degrees who spent his first 30 years addicted to rock. i've played it, lived it, written and read in depth about it, the works. when i found the truth i used to bust up another top hit rock album every time friends would come to visit. the look on their faces was the icing on the cake. "Dark Side of the Moon" (about lunacy, tyranny, lobotomy as i recall) and made an especially satisfying loud BOP when it broke!
remind me to comment on rock as the bitter end of Romanticism sometimes. oh, i'm nothing but trouble sometimes!
thanks for the replies, guys!
Yes indeed, Nelson; I started out as a Beethoven child around age 10, and have been building the collection ever since.
Old Ludwig occupies an entire 21" shelf of CDs all by himself; thenine in multiple copies by Furtwängler, Böhm, Kempe, Klemperer, Celibidache (the ninth by Furtwängler, of course--who else?), the five piano concertos (Kempff), 32 piano sonatas (Barenboim), 16 string quartets (Lindsay), Fidelio complete (Furtwängler again, of course), songs (Fischer-Dieskau, including an old favorite, "In questa tomba oscura"), overtures, etc., plus the overwhelming "Missa Solemnis" recording under Karl Böhm.
I'm not 100% satisfied with the Kempff renditions of the piano concertos, nor the Barenboim sonatas. I see Amazon.com has the complete concertos and sonatas by Claudio Arrau (the Furtwängler of the piano) on 14 CDs for $97.49; some day soon, I'll weaken and buy them, even though I'm running out of space.
Might be an idea to have a classical music discussion category?
W.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
........only, i 'spec, if we can related it all to socio-politics and gear it all to general readers -- and reasonably so. but it's not hard to do since the musicians have been so ideological themselves through the millennia. i've got a long and if i may say so fascinating list of "patriot musicians" somewhere, been adding to it for years. how do you rate Beethoven in this regard? do i understand correctly he thought Napoleon was going to bring power to the people, and that he more or less chucked politics when Napo failed him? (experts now say he wasn't really that mad when he rededicated the Eroica.
any opinion on Ludwig's scads of scotch and irish songs? they've always seemed to me a nice nod to the western end of anglo-celtic from its opposite corner. but i'm afraid they were purely commercial and a pain for him to write -- where diod i hear this?
i've always wondered what his politics would be if alive 2day and feared he'd have been a liberal with the worst of 'em. but it just occurs to me his art is probably an admirable and useful attempt to raise people above all that![img]smileys/smiley32.gif[/img]
re esthetics, let's cut to the chase do you treasure the Leinsdorf/Rubinstein LP of the Emperor concerto as much as I? [img]smileys/smiley2.gif[/img]Rubinstein was a vile rake, but what genius, what life in that performance........
who or what really killed Mozart? i vote for the masons!!! [img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img]
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
Well, first of all, I'm as confused as anyone as to the change in dedication of the Eroica; the usual story is that he originally believed Napoleon was to be the champion of the common man, but when he decided to crown himself emperor, Beethoven considered him just another power-hungry, run-of-the-mill politician.
Regarding the Scotch and Irish songs, I'd be inclined to think this was mostly to make money--something like "Wellingtons Sieg." As far as Beethoven's politics is concerned, I suppose he considered himself a liberal in the classic, 19th century sense--not the mental aberration that exists today. But, then again, he had no qualms about imposing upon the aristocracy when it suited him. And there's a touch of egotism and/or jealousy--when his brother, was it Karl? sent Ludwig a card "Karl van Beethoven, Land Owner," Ludwig sent him one in return--"Ludwigvan Beethoven, Brain Owner." I do think though, that if Beethoven came back today and saw the multi-cultiand multi-racial mess in large European cities, he would be horrified.
I've heard the Rubenstein-Leinsdorf collaboration of the "Emperor," but it's been so long ago, and there are so many recordings of it, that I don't specifically recall. The reason why I mentioned Claudio Arrau is that he seems to take an unhurried, probing, analytic approach to Beethoven, which not everybody likes. I mentioned Arrau on the Beethoven discussion list some months ago, and several members didn't like his approach at all. ??
Concerning Mozart, there's the old tale about poisoning by Antonio Salieri, but nobody believes this today. Wolfgang and his Costanze simply lived beyond their means and were always in debt. Mozart probably contracted something or other--possibly pneumonia--and that carried him off.
As for Nationalism, Chopin was quite a Polish patriot, but always from a safe distance--Paris. Liszt claimed some Hungarian nationalism, Brahms was for German unification under Prussia, Tchaikovsky same with Russia, etc.
But, back to Beethoven; he was generally thought to be quite a skirt-chaser; among his (alleged) loves were Therese von Brunswick, Giulietta Guicciardi, and others. A lot of biographers believe he contracted syphilis from a Vienna prostitute (possibly a cause of his deafness). The autopsy report on Beethoven is so bad that most English biographies don't translate it, but render it (if at all) in the original German.
Who knows?
W.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
Chopin was quite a Polish patriot, but always from a safe distance--Paris.
ROTF, so funny and so true!! it seems to me we were told in our musical youth of how Chopin's poetic soul was one with his distant homeland ..... they never did explain why he was somewhere else.
Liszt claimed some Hungarian nationalism,
here's an interesting phenom. some of the top musical nationalists -- those thought of postiviely embodying a particular nation -- had origins elsewhere. Chopin the Polonaise-meister was "of French descent" (Grove's, 1954). Liszt, Mr. Hungary,was born of an Esterhazy steward, but -- "the family spoke German" (Grove's)! Grieg, the apotheosis of Norwegian folk song et al, immortalized a modified Scottish-English name. it was Greig just a generation or two back from himself.
Brahms was for German unification under Prussia, Tchaikovsky same with Russia, etc.
isn't that too bad. the same is pointed out about Verdi and Italy. i suppose they were statists, pure and simple, and would have been great Public Radio supporters today. doesn't add up. How did you find that out? BTW i would think Brahms was a chosenite, his name a variant of Abraham -- as the word "brahman" is said to be. (even thohe's rated a nasty "anti-semite"!)
The autopsy report on Beethoven is so bad that most English biographies don't translate it, but render it (if at all) in the original German.
so 'bad'? how do you mean, unclear? there's a book about all this which is fascinating but rather gross -- The Lives Wives, and Loves of the Great Composers.
I'm not sure, but I vaguely remember reading something about Chopin's father, a Frenchman, being stranded in Poland when the snuff manufacturing company he represented went bankrupt. The mother, however, was Polish.
Regarding Brahms, Philip Hale ("the old sage of Boston") writes in his Boston Symphony Program Notes, "He (Brahms) was passionately patriotic, interested in politics, a firm believer in German unity. He deeply regretted that he had not done military service as a young man. Prussia should be the North German predominant power."
By the way, is it my imagination, or has Brahms declined somewhat in popularity in recent years? He's still well-represented, but it seemed that in my teenage years, Brahms was everywhere and all the time.
As to the Beethoven autopsy, I should have used the word "gross" rather than "bad." For an idea, see
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Beethoven's%20autop sy
As a kid, I remember our having a copy of Romain Rolland's "Beethoven the Creator" which is where, in the appendix, I think I saw the complete report in German, which was moredetailed (and gross) than the one above.
So, Grieg was of Scottish descent, Liszt's family was German speaking, and Tchaikovsky ("from Russia with love") had a French mother and his paternal ancestry was Polish, not Russian.
My country 'tis of thee...
W.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
...and one additional observation:
Ludwig van Beethoven, the great German composer, was actually of Flemish-Belgian stock (note, "van Beethoven," not "von Beethoven).
W.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
this is all just amazing. Brahms patriotic -- he the ultimate in Weltschmerz, theoretically above all such earthly concerns! like i said, i suspect his natrionalism was more a statism aimed at dogooder theories of bettering mankind, but -- Brahms is full of surprises, isn't he! perhaps it's just impossible to imagine in this age when it seems absolutely no top classical music figures want anything to do with the -- our -- old ideals, and consider patriotism (per se) hopelessly passé.
it may be that Brahms' music is less popular today, as the ladies continue to swoon for Mozart and the the youth for hip hop. did i tell you that my violinist and i are working on Brahms' beautiful sonata in A? we're actually reviving it for possible performance at a local college.
i'd forgotten about Tchaik's Polish heritage -- of course, back then the ethnic map of Europe was much different from today. right?
the Beethoven autopsy is a pitifully sad page. do you suppose all this was the result of VD? had no idea how really sick he was! interesting site, Everything2 -- is it better than Wikipedia?
a friend in music school used to liken the "chorale" theme in the finale of the St. Saens 3rd symphony to a new French national anthem. wish it were true -- it's so grand and so French[img]smileys/smiley2.gif[/img]. St Saens was full of opinions and different non-musical interests, wonder where he stood politically. To me, he's a great composer, esp. since he refused to give in to modernism. in a word, his music was populistic. /\/
this just in -- dug up S-S at wikipedia. rich!!!
<H3>Relationships to other composers</H3>
During his life, Saint-Saëns was either a friend or enemy to Europe's most distinguished musicians. He stayed close to Franz Liszt until his death, and maintained a fast friendship with his pupil Gabriel Fauré until the end of his life. But despite being a strong advocate for French music, Saint-Saëns openly despised many of his fellow French composers such as Franck, d'Indy, and Jules Massenet. Saint-Saëns also hated the music of Claude Debussy; he is reported to have told Pierre Lalo, "I have stayed in Paris to speak ill of Pelléas et Mélisande." The personal animosity was mutual; Debussy quipped: "I have a horror of a sentimentality and I cannot forget its name is Saint-Saëns." But on other occassions, Debussy also acknowledged an admiration for Saint-Saëns' musical talents.
He had been an early champion of Richard Wagner's music in France, teaching his pieces during his tenure at the École Niedermeyer and premiering the March from Tannhäuser. He had stunned even Wagner himself when he sight-read the entire orchestral scores of Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and Siegfried, prompting Hans von Bülow to call him "the greatest musical mind" of the era. However, despite admitting appreciation for the power of Wagner's work, Saint-Saëns defiantly stated that he was not an aficionado. In 1886, he was punished for some particularly harsh and anti-German comments on the Paris production of Lohengrin by losing engagements and receiving negative reviews throughout Germany. Later, after World War I, Saint-Saëns angered both French and Germans with his inflammatory articles entitled Germanophilie, which ruthlessly attacked Wagner.
On May 29, 1913, Saint-Saëns famously stormed out of the première of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps.
In his Boston Symphony Program notes, Philip Hale has some interesting things to say about Saint-Saêns.
"Saint-Saêns was not satisfied with the making of music or the career of a virtuoso. Organist, pianist, caricaturist, dabbler in science, enamored of mathematics and astronomy, amateur comedian, feuilletonist,critic, traveler, archæologist--he was a restless man."
Hale also quotes Gounod: "Saint-Saêns will write a work à la Rossini, à la Verdi, à la Schumann, à la Wagner"--which wastaken as a reproach; it was regarded as a courteous manner of saying, "Saint-Saêns has the unfortunate faculty of assimilation." There is also a reference to a letter of Hans von Bülow to Hans von Bronsart, lamenting that there was no musician in Germany like Saint-Saêns "except you and me."
I've always had a warm spot in my heart for Édouard Lalo; have two complete recordings of "Le Roi d'Ys"--the 1957 recording by Cluytens, and the 1973 recording by Pierre Dervaux. There is a more recent set by Armin Jordan, but it's hard to find; a "like-new" set was offered on either Amazon.fr or Amazon.de, but the Amazon affiliate wanted around 70 Euros. The Symphonie Espagnole (really a violin concerto), the cello concerto, and the little-known Symphony in G minor round out the collection.
Down through the years, I've acquired all of Richard Wagner exceptfor "Das Liebesverbot."
Any taste for Anton Bruckner? And what do you think of Claude Debussy and "Pelléas et Mélisande?"
W.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
I don't blame him.
IMHO, there should be an exit marked, "This way out in case of Le Sacre du Printemps or L'oiseau de feu.
Stravinsky reminds me of what Hale had to say about Alexander Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy--"Victor Hugo has said that agony when at its height is mute. Some, on hearing Scriabin's score, have wished, no doubt, that this were true of ecstasy."
Ditto Stravinsky.
W.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
i wrote long detailed response but then accidentally deleted it.
small minds down thru history have complained that NON-BIG NAME composers are derivative. i smack 'emdown at
http://www.patriotist.com/nwarch/nw20020902.htm
Gounod should talk -- he was a very fine, often inspired composer, but a complete vacuum where originality is concerned. [img]smileys/smiley36.gif[/img]
i like all music that has something worthwile to say. this includes stuff by Stravinsky, Scriabin, Debussy, though these 3 are just as likely to send me screaming from the room. John Lofton (brilliant sometime Rushdoonyite who currently cohosts radio talk show with Michael Peroutka!) once wrote long, sensational newsletter daming Stravinsky epoch as the death knell for decent culture -- and even for Nijinsky, who spent his final yearsfar removed from the glamor and hubbub of the Sacre era, roaming the streets and babbling nonsense.
i like your championing of Lalo -- don't know any of his music but as a late French romantic he's almost automatically OK by me! [img]smileys/smiley32.gif[/img] /\/
here's another tidbit for y'all -- submitted as part of a Dixie Diary installment in 2003 but never used (for which i don't fault the editor in the least). will probably be in my forthcoming DD anthology.
Ebay.com is, as rumored, astounding. I open a CD I’ve won, “125 All-Time Classical Favorites,” to find “<?:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1
lace>Dixie</st1
Me again on classical music. I had heard Arnold Bax's most famous choral piece once and found it a waste. Long wondered how any Brit named Arnold Bax could compose worth a hoot, but then heard his symphonic poem "Tintagel", and WHEW, it was stunning! Anybody else heard it?
I thought then that I heard real, meat and potatoes British nationalism flying through the air, and on checking Wiki on him find it's true in flying colors. By coincidence, another ref to Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy; a shame Tintagel was the spawn of AB's illicit affair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bax
In his youth he travelled in Russia and absorbed musical influences from the composers of that country, but later developed a deep love for Ireland, where he spent part of each year for a while, and contributed poems to Irish magazines under the pseudonym 'Dermot O'Byrne'. He also loved the remote west of Scotland and spent several winters composing at Morar, near Mallaig.
His mature compositions begin around 1910 with his first piano sonata, and soon after he turned to the orchestra with a series of tone-poems such as The Garden of Fand and Tintagel. With a colourful but discreet love life, during the First World War he developed a passionate relationship with the pianist Harriet Cohen, and echoes of this can be detected in his music at the time (the climax of 'Tintagel' may be compared with that in Scriabin's 'Poem of Ecstasy').
Today is Mozart's 250th birthday. I only found this out by idly tuning in NPR's "Performance Today" show. Somebody tell me why ameriKa and all of the supposedly civilized countries aren't making this a top national priority for all of 2006?
Seriously -- why is "regime change" for Iran more interesting or exciting than great music? What is the so-called news full of politicians' names, and not those of Wolfgang Amadeus and his ilk?
It so happens Musical Heritage Society has tried to tempt me with the offer of a dirt-cheap complete set of Mozart's serenades (divertimenti etc.) if I'l rejoin, AND that NPR played parts of a famous rondo from a Mozart serenade today, first as abused in the horrible "Amadeus" movie and then as it was recently performed live somewhere.I wasn't planning to take MHS up on their offer but now can't resist,even if the postage is more than the CDs themselves at a supposed "99¢ each".
Bush, Wolfowitz, Perle and co. will pass away into well-deserved oblivion someday (along with their main obession, the Jewish-supremacist Israeli bandit ministate) but Mozart will live on. Vote for Mozart! My favorite stuff of his below -- above and beyond the obvious, the 40th symphony etc. Let me hear yours!
Flute and harp concerto -- one of his most listenable works even though he hated writing it. Fantasia in F minor K 608 -- for organ or piano duet. Songs with mandolin -- Die Zufriedenheit and Komm, liebe Zither, komm. Sonata for two pianos (also Fugue) Adagio in canon (instrumental oddity). Masonic funeral music (WEIRD wonderful piece.)
Mozart is exactly contemporary with our Revolutionary period, as was early Beethoven, and their music often exudes a jolly, jaunty, feisty, yet highly rational (one might say classically liberal) and moral quality..........when it isn't screaming FREEDOM, that is!
I'll take the last six symphonies--35. 36. 38 (37 was actually by Michael Haydn), 39, 40, and 41, plus the Requiem, Magic Flute (Zauberflöte) and Don Giovanni as my personal favorites.
By the way, who composed Mozart's "Requiem?" Nobody knows what stage of completion it was in when he died. Eybler, Freystädtler, and Süssmayr are named as contributors, with Franz Xaver Süssmayr as leading contender (something like "who is buried in Grant's Tomb?").
Some authorities hold out for January 27, so we have to wait until Friday to be sure.
The greatest threat to freedom is not foreign governments. It is our own.
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