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| 25 new of 156 responses total. |
davel
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response 100 of 156:
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Nov 12 14:02 UTC 2001 |
Whereas we grammar-nitpickers insist that it should be "we splitters".
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md
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response 101 of 156:
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Nov 12 14:12 UTC 2001 |
But then I couldn't've used the winking smiley!
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md
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response 102 of 156:
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Nov 29 22:49 UTC 2001 |
Waiting for my daughter to emerge from swim practice the other night, I
was listening to Morton Feldman's Coptic Light on the car CD player.
When she got into the car, I offered to switch back to FM, but she said
to let it play. "You'll change your mind." "What is it?" "Morton
Feldman." "Different." Two minutes later, she said, "How long does it
go on for?" "Half an hour." "Half an hour! It's not even music. If
I was the percussionist, I'd have a drum stick in my right hand and
Vogue in my left hand."
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md
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response 103 of 156:
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Feb 6 13:03 UTC 2002 |
The new BBC Music magazine came with a CD of Alban Berg's Violin
Concerto. I've heard it a few times in concert but I've never owned a
recording of it and so have never devoted any time to repeated
listening and "appreciation." Like most other listeners, I guess, I've
always liked the so-called "Mizzi" tune parts with their swoony
harmonies, and of course the ending where Berg reveals the old-
fashioned romantic he was said to be at heart, but much of the rest of
it is serialist and thus, to me, incomprehensible. If you listen to it
a few times, though, the tone-row Berg based it on couldn't be
clearer. The appeal of the piece, for me, still lies in the blessed
relief afforded by the "easy" parts, such as the way the Bach chorale
emerges from the tone row in the second movement. It's like having a
headache, taking some Tylenol, and later realizing the headache is
gone. Berg intended it as a consolatory piece for architect Walter
Gropius and his wife Alma (Mahler's widow), whose daughter had died in
her teens. It is incredibly touching when listened to in that light.
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md
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response 104 of 156:
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Feb 27 17:39 UTC 2002 |
At Harmony House Classical on Woodward, I picked up a couple of new CDs:
Way back in response #31 I mentioned an Albany Records re-release of
three old monaural recordings issued by Columbia in the early 1950s:
Walter Piston's Symphony No. 4, Roy Harris's Symphony No. 7, and
William Schuman's Symphony No. 6, all by Eugene Ormandy and the
Philadelphia Orchestra. The Piston 4th has been recarded a couple of
times since then, but I'm not aware of any new recordings of the Harris
7th or the Schuman 6th until now. Koch has released a CD with both of
those works on it, performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
under the direction of Hugh Keelan. The Harris symphony is very
listenable but rather slight. The Schuman 6th is still a masterpiece,
and I don't use that word often. Thus Koch and the New Zealanders once
again trump the big American labels and orchestras in rescuing great
American music from oblivion. (They started the Samuel Barber revival
in the 1980s.)
Speaking of Barber, the other CD has three Barber works -- the Second
Symphony, the Cello Concerto, and the orchestral suite from the ballet
Medea -- all with Samuel Barber himself conducting the New Symphony
Orchestra. The recordings were made in 1950, and are absolutely
horrible. I guess thanks should go to the Pearl label for digitally
remastering these recordings, although they are valuable only as
historic documents.
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dbratman
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response 105 of 156:
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Mar 11 21:57 UTC 2002 |
I wish more of those American nationalists school works of the 1930s-
50s would be re-recorded. I associate much of that music with crackly
monophonic sound, and it's really startling to hear it in clear stereo.
Most of what does exist in new recordings of second-tier music of this
kind comes from the NZSO, who are to be blessed for this project. (I
have their recording of Randall Thompson's 2nd and 3rd symphonies, as
well as that Barber Second.)
Pearl only does historical recordings, I think, and you can take it as
a rule of thumb that the sound will be horrible, no matter what the
age. (Other companies' historical recordings are often much better.)
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md
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response 106 of 156:
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May 4 00:33 UTC 2002 |
I picked up a CD of a pianist named Ronnie Lynn Patterson playing two
Morton Feldman pieces, "Palais de Mari" and "Piano." Feldman was a
superb orchestrator and his orchestral and chamber music could be quite
colorful. Here, his bare-bones style is stripped to, well, the bare
bones. The music is pianissimo throughout and very slow and
deliberate. Single notes and dissonant chords follow one another,
singly or in pairs. The pieces are about 40 minutes long each.
Feldman claimed that he made no effort to make his music interesting,
and that in fact he tried to withhold his own personality from it as
much as possible. The fact that he now has imitators, and that the
word "Feldmanesque" has entered the vocabulary of the critics, shows
that he didn't quite succeed. It is very hard not to love the composer
of this music.
While I was there, I bought some Debussy piano music I didn't have on
CD yet: Images I and II, Estampes, Images oubliees, La plus que lente
(valse), and L'Isle joyeuse, performed on a nice Naxos budget CD by
Francois-Joel Thiollier. Sometimes after I listen to Feldman's music,
the music of other composers can seem a little vulgar. It didn't
happen this time, possibly because the two Feldman piano pieces are so
thin as to be almost not there, but in any case definitely because
nothing can make Debussy's exquisite piano music sound vulgar.
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dbratman
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response 107 of 156:
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May 6 23:13 UTC 2002 |
What do you think of Debussy's other music? B. declined to accompany
me to a concert at which "La Mer" would be played, due to holding
strong opinions about it which could vaguely be summarized as "it's
vulgar".
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md
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response 108 of 156:
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May 7 12:08 UTC 2002 |
I've never read anything to confirm this, but it has always seemed to
me that you can trace the harmonic and melodic history of modern
popular music back to Debussy. Maybe due to that, some of the sounds
that were brand-new with him now sound old and corny and, yes, vulgar.
As to La mer, who knows? Vulgarity is relative. I guess the sonorous,
majestic "song of the sea" that the horns sing at the end of the first
movement and again in the last movement could be accused of being
vulgar, as could the waltz episode in the second movement. (I find the
third movement a little tedious, which is not the same thing.) But the
second movement is one of the most subtly beautiful things Debussy ever
wrote.
As to vulgarity, we should launch a defense of it. Some of the best
music was vulgar when the ink was still wet. Brahms, Mahler,
Shostakovich, Copland. Stravinsky, among others, thought Beethoven's
9th was vulgar. Vulgarity -- such things as simple obvious melodies,
galumphing rhythms, repetition in place of development, overly broad
gestures, rampant heart-on-sleeve sentimentality, soap-box appeal to
the masses, and the composer shoving his own personality forward -- is
not, strangely enough, a valid measure of the value of a work of art.
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rcurl
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response 109 of 156:
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May 7 16:19 UTC 2002 |
Obviously. "Vulgar" just means common. Every note in music, by itself,
is "common". It hardly helps to consider "simple" as necessarily "common".
It is entirely a matter of context.
By the way, #108 sounds like a quote - is it (besides of md....)?
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md
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response 110 of 156:
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May 7 17:05 UTC 2002 |
It doesn't just mean common. As applied to music -- e.g., La mer, to
the person who refused to attend the concert - it's definition 4 from
Merriam-Webster: "a : lacking in cultivation, perception, or taste :
COARSE b : morally crude, undeveloped, or unregenerate : GROSS c :
ostentatious or excessive in expenditure or display : PRETENTIOUS."
Definition 4c probably comes closest.
108 is just me.
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rcurl
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response 111 of 156:
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May 7 17:38 UTC 2002 |
"Common" has the the same definitions (among others). In both cases these
are matters of personal judgement. I prefer to use the term "common",
as it is not laden with the "uppity and elitist" insinuations we usually
attach to "vulgar".
Common, adj, 5. Commonplace; not excellent or distinguished in tone or
quality; banal, coarse; vulgar; low.
La mer is a fine piece of music, in my opinion, not common, much less
vulgar. Si gustibus non disputandem est.
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md
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response 112 of 156:
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May 7 19:00 UTC 2002 |
I'm sure Debussy rests easier now. ;-)
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rcurl
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response 113 of 156:
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May 7 19:24 UTC 2002 |
Debussy is dead and gone.
I hardly think that any classical music that caused a near riot at its
premier can be called either common or vulgar.
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md
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response 114 of 156:
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May 7 19:50 UTC 2002 |
Why not?
(Just asking -- I mean, I love La mer whether or not anyone thinks its
vulgar. I didn't even bring the subject up. I'm just curious what
relation you think "causing a riot" has to "not being vulgar." The two
things don't seem related.)
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rcurl
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response 115 of 156:
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May 7 23:19 UTC 2002 |
Classical audiences don't riot at the common or vulgar, they go to
sleep.
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coyote
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response 116 of 156:
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May 9 20:59 UTC 2002 |
Shoot, they go to sleep even during the sublime.
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gelinas
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response 117 of 156:
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Jun 4 03:39 UTC 2002 |
Uh... Le sacre du printemps (spelling may be off) caused a riot at its first
performance, specifically because it was 'vulgar'.
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md
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response 118 of 156:
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Jul 9 23:44 UTC 2002 |
Speaking of vulgar:
I picked up a CD with three pieces that meet all the requirements I
listed above: simple obvious melodies, galumphing rhythms, repetition
in place of development, overly broad gestures, rampant heart-on-sleeve
sentimentality, soap-box appeal to the masses, and the composer shoving
his own personality forward. Specifically, thee works for organ and
orchestra: Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Strings and Tympani;
Pierre Petit's Concertino for Organ, Strings and Percussion; and Samuel
Barber's Toccata Festiva, which is a 16-minute work for organ and full
orchestra. (Well, I don't know if Pierre Petit is shoving his
personality forward in his Concertino because it's the only music of
his I've ever heard and I have no idea what his musical personality was
like. But Barber and Poulenc are all over you like a couple of big
dogs when you walk in the door.)
The Poulenc piece appealed to me greatly when I was much younger but
not so much anymore. It's a little too calculatedly melodramatic, too
Phantom-of-the-Opera. The Petit piece is tuneful and listenable, but
that's about it.
Barber's Toccata Festiva is mostly a dark gnarly piece of music, with a
few passages that the liner notes describe quite accurately
as "ravishing." This piece is a textbook example of Barber's genius
with cadences -- of sending a tune on its way and then bringing it back
home in the most utterly satisfying manner imaginable. He is on a par
with the greatest composers of all time in this one respect. The
Toccata is in loose sonata-allegro form with a brief cadenza after the
development section. This cadenza is the Toccata's Achilles heel.
It's for pedals only, and hasn't a trace of Samuel Barber in it -- in
fact, it might not even have been written by him. (My private theory
is that Thomas Schippers wrote most of it for him.) But over-all this
is one of the gems of Barber's middle period, along with the Piano
Concerto and the opera Vanessa. This performance, by Dame Gillian Weir
at the organ and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Raymond
Leppard, stands up well to the original recording by E. Power Biggs and
Ormandy/Philadelphia. 16'20" -- a dollar a minute at Harmony House,
well worth it.
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orinoco
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response 119 of 156:
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Jul 11 18:32 UTC 2002 |
I'd be tempted to say that's what you get with music for organ and
orchestra. Murphy's law tells me that now someone will come out of the
woodwork with a tasteful, refined and inobtrusive organ and orchestra
piece, but something tells me that's not too likely.
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md
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response 120 of 156:
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Aug 4 13:17 UTC 2002 |
I went to Harmony House Classical in Royal Oak to see what their going-
out-of-business sale looks like. 25% off everything. People were
buying *stacks* of CDs.
I picked up the new release of John Adams's Naive and Sentimental Music
and the Abbado recording on DG of Pelleas et Melisande. I have Pelleas
twice on LP, by Ernest Ansermet and by Pierre Boulez, but not on CD
yet. I still like the Ansermet best. The new John Adams piece is
[looks apologetic] kinda boring. Sorry. I mean, if I'd never heard
any of his other music I might find this fascinating, but it's just the
same old same old. I dunno, maybe I should lsten to it more. Adams is
one composer I really want to like.
The guy behind the counter said they're going to be open for a few more
months, so I didn't buy a stack of CDs on the spot myself.
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md
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response 121 of 156:
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Aug 7 01:01 UTC 2002 |
Did I mention how much I love Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande? I've
been listening to my new Abbado CD and am enthralled by it all over
again. Can you convert from an American to un Francais? I mean, not
move there, just change my ethnic heritage? How about if I brush up my
French and start shrugging a lot?
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md
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response 122 of 156:
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Sep 4 23:36 UTC 2002 |
I had to be in Royal Oak yesterday so I stopped in on Harmony House
Classical again. Everything is now 40% off, but there isn't a lot left
in stock. I picked up three CDs: Wm. Schuman's Violin Concerto, New
England Triptych, and Variations on "America"; Edward MacDowell's two
orchestral suites and a Hamlet & Ophelia piece; and Jaarvi and the DSO
performing Copland's 3rd and Harris's 3rd.
I really like Jaarvi's way with American music. His Barber
performances are excellent. On this CD, he's more crisp and less
rhapsodic with the Harris 3rd than I'm used to hearing. I need to
listen to it some more. The Copland 3rd is wonderful, though. Very
powerful and monumental, as if Jaarvi is throwing himself into it. The
Schuman Violin Concerto is new to me. It needs more listening than I
have time to give it right now, alas, but I'll get there eventually.
The MacDowell suites are teenage favorites of mine that still have a
lot of charm in them, at least for me. The liner notes are a little
disparaging, though.
Chatting with one of the sales guys (who used to be an announcer on
WQRS, which explains why his voice soinded so familiar), I learned that
some investors are looking at Harmony House Classical, if not at the
whole chain, so there is slight reason to hope that they'll keep their
jobs there and that we'll keep our best retail shop of that kind in our
area.
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coyote
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response 123 of 156:
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Sep 7 03:35 UTC 2002 |
I certainly hope they find some way to continue!
I was there last weekend and came away with almost a shoeboxfull of cds...
way more than I could reasonably afford but I couldn't help it.
That Jarvi recording is very enjoyable, and it did take me a few listens to
accept the crispness of the Harris 3. One of the new cds I picked up,
actually, was Bernstein doing Harris 3 with New York: needless to say, quite
different from the Jarvi.
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md
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response 124 of 156:
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Sep 7 15:20 UTC 2002 |
An old Bernstein recording of the Harris 3rd is on the flip side of
Benstein's "Jeremiah" Symphony on an LP that I still have somewhere.
It must date from around 1960, if not earlier. I have a more recent
version of Bernstein conducting the Harris 3rd on CD, coupled with with
Schuman's 3rd. I really never imagined there was another way of
performing it until I heard that Jarvi/DSO CD. Jarvi/DSO did a CD with
music by some African American composers I've never heard of, that
Harmoney House had several copies of. Have you heard this one? Worth
having at 40% off?
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