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krj
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KRJ's Classical Music Diary
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Apr 19 04:27 UTC 1999 |
Mostly I write about popular music, but since I'm married to a classical
singer I also get lots of classical music in my life. So I thought I'd
start a journal, which may amount to little more than a listing of
artists heard. Feel free to kibitz.
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| 38 responses total. |
krj
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response 1 of 38:
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Apr 19 04:35 UTC 1999 |
The Polish contralto Ewa Podles sang a recital at Mendelsohn on Saturday
night. Podles made her Ann Arbor debut two years ago when she was
brought in at the last minute to replace an ailing Cecila Bartoli for
a big Hill Auditorium concert. On that program she sang lots of
coloratura stuff and pretty much wowed everybody. This year's program,
however, included no coloratura material -- it was pretty much all
drama and power. The program included: a set of Polish songs by
Chopin; a opera-ish cantata on Ariadne by Hayden; a set of Tchaikovsky
songs; and the finale was a set of four songs about Death by Mussorgsky.
The piano accompanist was Garrick Ohlson. Curiously, he was a late
addition to the program: the tickets for the event listed a different
pianist. Ohlson is a solo performer in his own right -- usually
recital accompanists don't have their own independent careers --
so I'm guessing that he was doing this for fun. He had a big smile
on for much of the evening, he seemed to be really enjoying himself,
and Leslie was impressed with his playing.
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krj
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response 2 of 38:
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Apr 19 04:38 UTC 1999 |
((( Classicalmusic #47 <---> Music #189 )))
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krj
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response 3 of 38:
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Apr 19 04:41 UTC 1999 |
I seem to have left out any mention of how expressive and interesting
Podles is in recital. Voice recitals can tend to lull me to sleep, but
she didn't; I had my attention focussed for the entire program.
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other
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response 4 of 38:
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Apr 20 03:57 UTC 1999 |
Podles's usual accompanist, her husband Jerzy Marchwinski, is
unfortunately no longer able to play the dewmanding concert schedule,
although he does still teach. Garrick Ohlsson was introduced to Podles
via a cassette sent him by UMS' director of programming, Michael
Kondziolka, and promptly fell in love with the idea of playing with her,
even though his solo career is so strong that he need not play
accompanist to anyone. There is a nice article in a recent Ann arbor
news about it.
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sysroot3
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response 5 of 38:
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Apr 22 21:44 UTC 1999 |
Personally I prefer new age music. Like techno. I like all sorts of it, they
are many different styles such as: trance, house, drum n' bass, jungle and
much more. TO learn more about this music visit http://zap.to/hexion
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mcnally
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response 6 of 38:
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Apr 23 02:54 UTC 1999 |
That's probably the first time I've heard someone use the term
"new age" to include techno, drum'n'bass, etc..
Usually when *I* think "new age" I think Windham Hill, Enya, and
<shudder> Yanni..
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krj
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response 7 of 38:
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Jun 18 21:29 UTC 1999 |
Ramblings from radio I heard on the drive home last night...
A long violin & piano piece turned out to be Beethoven's Violin Sonata #9,
by Anne-Sophie Mutter. (I'm always getting her confused with the singer
Anne-Sofie von Otter, which does NOT help with web searches.)
I've drifted through an album of Beethoven violin sonatas before --
one of those chance encounters in a record shop -- and in general I've
been feeling that Beethoven is one of those pathways which I need to
pursue.
Everybody's got a web page. http://anne-sophie-mutter.de/a
And I see in cdnow.com that the new Mutter recording of the Beethoven
violin sonatas is a four (?) disc set, judging by the price.
Following that was one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. This was an
orchestral setting, conducted by Fritz Reiner; I'd had a vague
memory that these were piano pieces originally, and I thought I had
a recording of them. Am I wrong?
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md
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response 8 of 38:
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Jun 18 23:04 UTC 1999 |
I know the Lizst Hungarian Rhapsody started as a
piano piece, but I don't know about the Brahms.
Re the Beethoven violin sonatas, it never fails
to surprise me what a great tunesmith Beethoven
was. You tend to think of him in terms of vast
structures and noble ideas, but he wrote more
whistleable tunes than any other composer.
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orinoco
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response 9 of 38:
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Jun 19 21:31 UTC 1999 |
Maybe I'm just not listening to the right Beethoven. I'm a big fan of his
- mostly the string quartets - but I wouldn't call him "most whistleable"...
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dbratman
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response 10 of 38:
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Jun 24 23:08 UTC 1999 |
Brahms's Hungarian Dances were written by him for piano 4-hands. He
arranged a few of them for orchestra, but I think most of the familiar
orchestrations are by somebody else. I think that his Haydn Variations
also began as a piano piece. (Most of the orchestral music by Grieg
and Satie is arrangements of piano pieces - in Grieg's case, he did his
own arrangements; for Satie, usually Debussy did.)
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krj
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response 11 of 38:
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Aug 9 20:40 UTC 1999 |
MSU's classical radio station left me with a pretty little problem today.
It was a lovely piano sonata they played on my drive to work.
Their website at wkar.org has the playlists nicely arranged, so it
was no problem to find out that what I had heard was
Muzio Clementi's "Sonata in f-sharp minor for Piano, Op.25, No.5"
and that the pianist was Maria Tipo, and this was an Angel/EMI
recording.
Alas, it doesn't seem to be in print, and very little by Maria Tipo
seems to be in print -- just one VoxBox.
Any comments on either Maria Tipo or Muzio Clementi would be welcomed...
A few minutes later the station played another winner: violinist
Gil Shaham playing a "Carmen Fantasy" on themes from the opera.
This turns out to be from a Berlin Philharmonic disc with Claudio
Abbado conducting, and it's a gala with a program of all Carmen material.
This one will be no trouble to buy, if I want it.
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oddie
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response 12 of 38:
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Aug 10 05:38 UTC 1999 |
According to _The Lives of the Great Composers_, "Muzio Clementi...set modern
piano technique on its way. He specialized in virtuoso work, especially thirds
and octaves" (It's more complimentary about his piano playing than his
composition; somewhere else it says he anticipated the technique of Chopin,
if i recall correctly)
He was a contemporary of Mozart and once got into a fight with him over
who was the greater keyboard player. (From the same book)
Clementi wrote a bunch of nice Sonatinas, which are often used today in
teaching piano students - I played one of them a few years ago.
Sorry, that's about all I know...
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lumen
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response 13 of 38:
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Aug 10 18:49 UTC 1999 |
Indeed, teaching Clementi is considered standard piano pedagogy.
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coyote
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response 14 of 38:
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Aug 11 04:20 UTC 1999 |
Re #11:
This probably won't help you much, but I ran into a similar problem with
hearing something on the radio, looking for it, and finding that it was
out of print. SKR looked it up for me and said that there was only one
recording made and that it was out of print. In some strange stroke of
luck, I had gone to King's Keyboard later that week to purchase some sheet
music, and was glancing through their CD collection, when I happened upon the
out-of-print recording I was looking for. Seeing as the piece you are looking
for is a keyboard piece, it wouldn't hurt to check at King's.
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dbratman
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response 15 of 38:
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Aug 12 22:02 UTC 1999 |
Clementi was a contemporary of Beethoven's. He lived mostly in England,
and wrote a lot of very light and very pleasant piano music. His works
are so short that catalogs may not tell you whether a particular one
you're looking for is on a particular CD, so it may take some hunting
down. (Same is true for Domenico Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas, only
some of which are quite delightful.)
Re the Carmen Fantasy: if you like orchestral arrangements of the music
from Carmen, then run, do not walk, and buy a copy of the "Carmen
Ballet" by Rodoin Shchedrin, which is an arrangement of themes from the
opera using the most damnably _imaginative_ orchestrations you ever did
hear.
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remmers
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response 16 of 38:
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Aug 12 22:57 UTC 1999 |
(Hey, *all* of Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas are delightful...)
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davel
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response 17 of 38:
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Aug 13 12:02 UTC 1999 |
Not necessarily _en_masse_ ...
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remmers
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response 18 of 38:
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Aug 13 12:09 UTC 1999 |
True, there are about 500 of them.
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krj
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response 19 of 38:
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Aug 16 21:07 UTC 1999 |
Thanks for the suggestions on where to find this CD of Maria Tipo playing
a Clementi sonata. E-mail correspondance with the radio station revealed
that this is a French disc, and I found a listing which is *probably*
the right album on a French CD shoppe in Switzerland, www.planetelaser.com
or www.planete-laser.com. It's on order, we should know in a week or two
if I got the right disc.
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krj
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response 20 of 38:
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Aug 20 01:36 UTC 1999 |
Argh. The Swiss/French CD dealer reports that it is out of print.
As no other web searches turned up *anything*, my guess is that my chances
of getting this disc are pretty small. I'll probably get someone else's
recording of the Clementi sonata. There is a Hyperion recording
over at Where House Records; I forget the name of the pianist, no one
I'd heard of before.
(I mean, you never can tell what will turn up. I found a Duke Ellington
LP at Encore Music after looking for it for 17 years.... but I digress...)
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dbratman
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response 21 of 38:
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Aug 30 23:01 UTC 1999 |
Did you try Berkshire Record Outlet? (www.berkshirerecoutlet.com)
Great source for deleted classical CDs.
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krj
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response 22 of 38:
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Aug 31 15:45 UTC 1999 |
Thanks for the recommendation, David; I had not heard of them.
Berkshire does not list Maria Tipo's Clementi sonatas disc, but they
do list a collection of Bach partitas which I might try.
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krj
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response 23 of 38:
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Jan 19 22:03 UTC 2000 |
Back to Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Beethoven Violin Sonatas.
(resp:7) The set of four CDs has a premium price on it, *gulp*.
I'm tempted to substitute the 1974 recording of the "Kreutzer" and
"Spring" sonatas, by Vladimir Ashkenazy and Itzhak Pearlman, which has
just been remastered and reissed at a budget price, $11.
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dbratman
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response 24 of 38:
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Jan 19 22:32 UTC 2000 |
Maybe I should pick that up. I own virtually no violin sonatas.
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