|
Grex > Classical > #45: Most Popular Classical Music - acquiring a basic LP collection | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 194 responses total. |
davel
|
|
response 150 of 194:
| 
Feb 7 01:58 UTC 2000 |
Um, *E.* Power Biggs, I think.
|
keesan
|
|
response 151 of 194:
|
Feb 8 03:00 UTC 2000 |
Yes.
|
keesan
|
|
response 152 of 194:
|
Feb 9 01:38 UTC 2000 |
Elgar's variations sound much better on my radio than they did on an old
record on an old record player, but I think it is mainly the performers.
|
keesan
|
|
response 153 of 194:
|
Feb 13 23:48 UTC 2000 |
I did prefer Bruno Walter for the Brahms, thanks.
Which of the following would you choose and why for Beethoven's 9th:
MMS long play Netherlands Philharmonic with Walter Goehr. He conducted a
majority of the MMS recordings, all of which I like. 50s?
Columbia Masterworks LP high fidelity: NY Philharmonic with Bruno Walter
RCA Red Seal stereo, A Basic Library of the Music America Loves Best,
Chicago Symphony Fritz Reiner Curtin Kopleff McCollum Gramm and the Chicago
Symphony Chorus.
I sang this one with our university choirs and the BSO (I think it was). I
hope the Chicago Symphony is better than we were.
The RCA jacket has pictures of other jackets of World's Favorites: Grand
Opera, Beethoven Sonatas, Showpieces (Song of India, Le Coq d'Or....),
Ballets, Concertos. Artur Rubinstein, Van Cliburn, Domingo.
Which orchestras and conductors were considered the best in the fifties,
sixties and seventies?
RCA got the 9th Complete on 1 LP, MMS used two full and two partial sides,
one movement on each side. Columbia split the third movement.
Do the newer LPS hold more than the older ones or did Goehr just take it
slower rather than trying to be complete on 1 LP?
Actually, MMS got movements 2 and 3 on the same side, complete. And shared
movement 1 with some Bach and Mozart, and 4 with Barber of Seville, and the
fourth side remained for a Vivaldi Concerto, Scarlatti, Chopin, Brahms
Academic Festival Overture, some Carmen and Flight of the Bumblebee. All by
the same orchestra.
|
md
|
|
response 154 of 194:
|
Feb 14 00:34 UTC 2000 |
Goehr I'm not familiar with. I love some of
Reiner's recordings, but I don't know how he
fared on the 9th. Walter is probably the
most listenable. I'm curious to know what
you think. The 9th, btw, is the one Beethoven
symphony that John Eliot Gardiner (note the
correct spelling) and his period instrument
orchestra don't excel at, in my opinion. The
overblown ultraglorious sound of the modern
orchestra works best.
|
keesan
|
|
response 155 of 194:
|
Feb 14 00:51 UTC 2000 |
RCA has the answer. RCA takes the guesswork out of building a BASIC CLASSICAL
MUSIC LIBRARY. THe WORLD'S FAVORITE MUSIC performed by the WORLD'S GREATEST
ARTISTS. (The world was a bit smaller back then and listened only to
classical western music.)
In order of publication: (* - I have it, x - would not want it)
The World's Favorite:
1. Grand Opera - Celeste Aida - Habanera - Lucia: Sextet - Vesti la
giubba - Anvil Chorus - Un bel di more.
(Can anyone identify the actual operas these are from?)
*2. Beethoven's Fifth, Schubert's Unfinished Symphonies
*3. Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony (sixth)
4. Rhapsodies: *Roumanian No. 1 (Enesco?) - *Hungarian Nos 2 and 6
(Brahms?) - Espana (whose?) - Cornish (whose?)
5. Marches: Stars and Strips Forever (Sousa) - Colonel Bogey (?) - March
of the Toys (?) - Pomp and Circumstance (Elgar?) - more
6. Reveries: Schubert's Serenade - Air on the G String (?) - Clair de
Lune (Debussy) - Greensleeves (?) - more
7. Dances: The Sleeping Beauty Waltz (?) - Sabre Dance (?) - Russian
Sailors' Dance - Hungarian Dances 5 and 6 (Brahms? Bartok?) - Ritual Fire
Dance (Falla) - more
*8. The World's Favorite Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Capriccio Italien,
Marche Slave
9. Finlandia (Sibelius) - The Moldau (Smetana) - Bolero (Ravel) -
Capriccio Espagnol (Rimsky-Korsakov?)
X10. Grand Canyon Suite (Copland?) - El Salon Mexico (?)
*11. Tchaikovsky and Mendelson Violin Concertos - Heifetz
*12. Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 1
*13. Grieg Piano Concerto Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody
*14. Beethoven Sonatas - Moonlight Pathetique Appassionata
*15. Gaite Parisienne (Offenbach) Les Sylphides (?)
*16. Strauss Waltzes
17. Overtures: William Tell, Poest and Peasant, Zampa, Light Cavalry,
Orpheus in Hades, more (who wrote all of these?)
18. Film Themes: Love Story, 2001, Laura, Exodus, West Side STory, Romeo
and Juliet, Mary Poppins (does this count as classical?!), Cabaret,
Breakfast at Tiffany's, others. (Who wrote all of these?)
19. Showpieces: Scheherezade (whose?), Song of India (?), Le Coq d'Or
(R-K), Bridal Procession (?)
20. Showpieces: Pines of Rome (Respighi), Pictures at an Exhibition
(Ravel?)
*21. Showpieces: Sorceror's Apprentice (Dukas), Night on Bald Mountain
(Moussorgsky), Danse Macabre (?), Peer Gynt SUite 1 (Grieg), Flight of the
Bumblebee (RK)
*22. Dvorak's New World Symphony
*23. Beethoven's 9th (they bill it as the best ever, why no. 24?)
*24. Beethoven Violin Concerto
*25. Concertos: Rachmaninoff 2, Liszt 1
26. Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, American in Paris
*27. Tchaikovsky Nutcracker and Swan Lake
28. Chorales: Hallelujah (Handel), Battle Hymn of the Republic (a
chorale?), A Mighty Fortress, Land of Hope and Glory, Jesu Joy of Man's
Desiring, more
*29. Chopin - various
30. Van Cliburn (the only performer rather than composer): Fur Elise
(Beethoven) Clair de lune (Debussy) Reverie (?) Liebestraum (?),
Traumerei (Schubert), Rondo alla Turca (Mozart?), Brahms' Waltz, more.
Please identify composers listed as ? and correct any wrong guesses.
Are there any pieces on this list you would subtract from your own list of
favorites? I can think of plenty to add, such as Mozart and Haydn, the
Renaissance and Baroque periods. This set would better have been titled
Favorite Music of the Romantic Period. Was this really the standard
repertoire in 1972?
|
keesan
|
|
response 156 of 194:
|
Feb 14 00:52 UTC 2000 |
154 got in ahead of 155. I have only listened to Reiner so far, not bad.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 157 of 194:
|
Feb 14 01:06 UTC 2000 |
The music for _Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_ was by Henry Macini; they probably
meant "Moon River" as the theme. I think _Orpheus_ is Jacques Offenbach.
|
md
|
|
response 158 of 194:
|
Feb 14 13:22 UTC 2000 |
This was certainly not the standard repertoire in 1972.
Here are my answers to this pop quiz:
"Celeste Aida" is from Verdi's Aida. The "Habanera"
is from Bizet's Carmen. "Lucia" is "Lucia di Lammermore."
"Vesti la giubba" is from Pagliacci. The "Anvil Chorus"
is from a Verdi opera which I forget. "Un bel di" is from
Puccini's Madama Butterfly (first syllable of "Butterfly"
rhymes with "foot," if you want to be all Italian about it.)
Rhapsodies: Roumanian No. 1 is undoubtedly Enesco's
greatest hit. The two Hungarian ones are probably by Liszt.
Espana is probably by Chabrier. The Cornish rhapsody I
don't think I know.
Marches: Colonel Bogey was used in the movie Bridge over the
River Kwai, which is why it's on this disk, but who wrote it
I don't know. Malcolm Arnold? March of the Toys might be
Victor Herbert. Pomp and Circumstance I'm sure means P&C #1
by Elgar, the one with the "graduation march" (as we think
of it in this country -- in England it's the anthem "Land of
Hope and Glory," by which I believe they mean England).
Reveries: Air on the G String is by Bach. Greensleeves is
probably the Fantasia on Greensleeves by Ralph Vaughan
Williams.
The Sleeping Beauty Waltz is from the ballet by Tchaikovsky.
Sabre Dance is from Gayaneh by Khachaturian. Russian Sailors'
Dance I really ought to know, but I've forgoten. Some
Sovcomposer, I think. Hungarian Dances 5 and 6 are probably
Brahms.
Capriccio Espagnol is probably the one by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Grand Canyon Suite is by Ferd grofe. El Salon Mexico is by
Aaron Copland.
Les Sylphides is Chopin.
Of the listed film themes, only 2001 counts as "classical"
music, because Kubrick drew all of the music for that movie
from existing "classical" pieces. The most famous one, and
the one probably on this disk, is the opening "dawn" sequence
from Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, which was
later adopted by Elvis Presley for the opening of his Las
Vegas act and then became an intolerable cliche. And I
didn't even like it that much to begin with. I don't know
who composed most of the other themes. West Side Story is
Leonard Bernstein, of course. I think Henry Mancini wrote
the Breakfast at Tiffany's music.
There have been a couple of Scheherezades. My favorite one
is by Ravel, but the more famous one is by Rimsky Korsakov.
Le Coq d'Or is also Rimsky. "Bridal Procession" might be
Wagner.
Pictures at an Exhibition was a piano piece by Moussorgsky
which was arranged for orchestra by several composers. The
only arrangement you ever hear is by Ravel.
Danse Macabre is by Saint-Saens.
Liebestraum is probably the one by Liszt. The Rondo alla
Turca is undoubtedly the one by Mozart, from his 9th (?)
piano sonata.
|
md
|
|
response 159 of 194:
|
Feb 14 13:25 UTC 2000 |
Grand Canyon Suite is by Ferde Grofe. Sorry.
|
keesan
|
|
response 160 of 194:
|
Feb 14 16:13 UTC 2000 |
Would you suggest that I own any of the ones I could not identify?
Anyone want to list all the good composers who did not make it onto the 30
record set? They did get Bach, Handel, Mozart (not Haydn), Beethoven,
Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Grieg, Wagner,
Ravel, Debussy, Rimsky-K, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff, Smetana, Sibelius.
Bizet, Puccini, Verdi. A bit heavy on the Tchaikovsky, why?
Thanks for all the answers. I have also seen one-disc compilations of all the
best classical music (at K-Mart).
|
orinoco
|
|
response 161 of 194:
|
Feb 14 21:44 UTC 2000 |
Isn't the standard "Bridal Procession" by Mendelssohn?
|
md
|
|
response 162 of 194:
|
Feb 14 23:37 UTC 2000 |
It used to be Wagner coming into the church,
Mendelssohn going out. Now it's Pachelbel
both ways. Yech.
Note, btw, the absence of Pachelbel's "immortal"
Canon from the RCA list, which was compiled back
before the New Age had blown the dust of well-
deserved oblivion off of that stupefyingly dull
piece of music.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 163 of 194:
|
Feb 15 02:06 UTC 2000 |
I thought Sabre Dance was Rimsky-Korsakov, but I couldn't think of his name
yesterday.
|
md
|
|
response 164 of 194:
|
Feb 15 14:10 UTC 2000 |
Khatchaturian, from the ballet Gayaneh.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 165 of 194:
|
Feb 15 17:11 UTC 2000 |
That's what you said, the first time.
|
dbratman
|
|
response 166 of 194:
|
Feb 18 21:27 UTC 2000 |
If Pachelbel's Canon is so boring, why do so many people like it so
much? Surely they can't be so enamoured of being bored.
Seriously, I suggest a real difference in perception of the
meaningfulness of music here. Some people find it in simple chord
progressions; others in complex structures. The second type call the
music the first type like "boring" or "dull" or "mindlessly simple".
The first type call the music the second type like "Augenmusik" (if
they know the term).
|
md
|
|
response 167 of 194:
|
Feb 19 00:33 UTC 2000 |
(They don't know the term.)
They like it not because they're enamored of being
bored, but because they have bad taste. ;-)
|
orinoco
|
|
response 168 of 194:
|
Feb 19 03:19 UTC 2000 |
Nothing wrong with simple music. Every 12-bar blues ever written is the same
three chords, over and over again, song after song, album after album - but
they're three _really good_ chords. I happen to like blues and dislike
Pachelbel, but I imagine that there are people who would say the same sort
of thing about Pachelbel's canon. It is one of the standard chord
progressions, after all.
|
md
|
|
response 169 of 194:
|
Feb 19 03:45 UTC 2000 |
If you're gonna play the same eight chords over
and over, you'd better be a Bach passacaglia, or
the last movement of Brahms' 4th symphony, or
something like that.
|
mary
|
|
response 170 of 194:
|
Feb 19 21:01 UTC 2000 |
Pachelbel's cannon is classical music light. It tends to be
a bit over-played but it's a short enough piece, so no big deal.
It's time to get over it, Michael.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 171 of 194:
|
Feb 19 21:42 UTC 2000 |
I like it, for what it is. I'm not much affected by pieces being repeated
- I just become more familiar but not jaded by them. I played Beethoven's
6th so much at one stage in my life that I could (and still can) identify
it from two bars - but I still like it.
|
md
|
|
response 172 of 194:
|
Feb 20 13:01 UTC 2000 |
Re "time to get over it": you first. ;-)
Re #171: I can identify most Beethoven symphonies
from hearing a bar or two, plus lots of other music
besides. Repetition has nothing to do with it:
I hated Pachelbel's Canon the first time I heard it.
You realize I'm doing it mostly for effect now.
|
mary
|
|
response 173 of 194:
|
Feb 20 16:03 UTC 2000 |
No. Please, tell me it's not true. ;-)
|
md
|
|
response 174 of 194:
|
Feb 20 22:22 UTC 2000 |
I bet that's what you said when you first set
eyes on the cello part of P's Canon.
|