Classical music raving thread

Kurt Atterberg's First Symphony is absolutely ******* fantastic, superb, riveting, blustery, thunderous, energetic piece of dramatic onslaught of romanticism, lyricism and pure power ever released from Sweden!!!

The finale may be a little stretched out, but I don't give a damn. the first movement is so unrelenting, the slow movement achingly beautiful, the scherzo colourful and exhilarating, and the finale has some real moments of grandeur that criticism just get all diluted.

It's simply superb, superb, superb!

Yeah, the bit in the middle from the Levi advert is the best.

I renamed this thread and will in the future be making further raves and recommendations of more civilized stuff 'cause.... well, you know, no one else will.


Of course unless somebody else wants to contribute, that's fine too. Or if you want my particular thoughts on something you may want, then ask.

Out of all the concertante pieces of Franz Liszt for piano and orchestra, there is nothing better than the Totentanz, a set of brilliant variations on the Gregorian Dies Irae melody, combining brilliant virtuoso techniques, sustained lyricism, thunderous passages and a full array of Lisztian practices. Being no empty clatterpiece, it is said to be based on Francesco Traini's fresco "Triumph of Death" in Italy. The work is roughly dividable into four sections and makes for some really pleasurable listening, also featuring some interesting modernistic touches, particularly in the piano writing that Bartók later on expanded. In short, Liszt's 16-minute Totentanz is really fun.

YES! Beethoven's Appassionata (Piano sonata no.23) is fantastic! The alternating moods of stormy and peaceful of the first movement are just wonderful, at times calm and quiet, then exploding with stormy pounding. The dancable variations of the second movement then yield to the fireworks of the finale to a spectacular effect. The final presto just adds so much exhilaration to the whole thing, it almost drives me to jump around the house. Particularly Sviatoslav Richter's 1960's performance is top notch, the finale being taken way too fast for human consciousness to even comprehend. AAAARRUUUU!!! I love it! I love it!

More Liszt! The popular Liszt evergreen of the encore numbers, the Grand Galop Chromatique is unbelievable. The sheer virtuosity this requires just makes me go wild. Best heard when played to the pianist's edge of skills in speed and execution, no wonder so many falter under the pressure and slow the work down considerably. Trust the ultimate Lisztian, Georges Cziffra, to milk the excitement to its fullest. Four minutes of unashamed virtuostic brilliance that makes one wonder how the fingers are not getting crossed and messed up with each other at every moment. Just fun and should be heard more often!!!

I'm not sure how many replies you're goany get on this thread

I don't mind! I'm not after replies, just airing my head off stuff that I get when getting drunk. Brahms' Fourth Symphony by the way is fantastic!

I like The Planet Suite thingy by Holst

Cavelera Rusticana or Rusty Cavalier as I nicknamed it. By goodness this is opera at its best. The choral work makes me go all bumpy.

Holst's Planets: I love, it, I love it, I love it!!!! From beginning to end some of the most fantastic music ever written I think (and even more topical now as Pluto has been robbed of its planetary status).

Ah, and Cavalleria Rusticana, Mascagni's only call to fame (but the man was a lout, so serves him right I guess).

Beethoven's Violin concerto, AND Chopins Nocturnes.

All great! Beethoven's Concerto sure had difficulties getting off the ground, but thankfully has now gained its rightful status. And while talking of violin concertos, I don't think many rival Mendelssohn's E minor Concerto in straight out lyrical invention and purity (Sibelius' perhaps comes close, but with totally different merits).

sebelius doesn't come near it for me. I much prefer Mendelssohn. How about French composers ? What do you think of Erik Satie. Boy can he make a piano sing. Wish i could play like that.

Well of French composers it probably won't be much of a surprise that I consider Berlioz as my absolute favourite ever since I heard the Symphonie fantastique. Likewise people like Saint-Saëns (a French Liszt almost), Fauré (loving the mellow tone he has), Debussy (as far as impressionistic tone painting goes) and Lalo (bravado sensational).

Satie of course is quite the interesting character and his titles are really inventive and fun. I particularly like the Gnossiennes, the Gymnopédies, the Embryons desséchés and the ultimate in messed up directionality of Véritables préludes flasques (playing directions are in dog-Latin).

And the hair-raising virtuosity of Charles-Valentin Alkan is another French composer of exceptional talent (he died when a bookcase fell on him!).

If there's a lesson to be learnt then learn it from me; At Christmas time I bought a whole load of Naxos CDs for school when I realised whilst passing by the Classic FM boxes that their CD's have a much wider scope of more modern recordings of classic favourites!! Although I was paid for the Naxos CDs I bought, immediately returned to the shop the next day and bought some Classic FM series instead!!

Can't say I would sign that 100%, but then again there are no Classic FM boxes around here I'm aware of. I have to admit I don't buy that many Naxos CDs these days (or really classical music CDs as opposed to film scores), but they do often have a nice selection of rare pieces that basically nobody else is offering (like the original Night on Bare Mountain off the top of my head). And usually I'm very pleased about the quality of the recordings, retaining of course that each recording will be subject to plenty of variation regardless of label.

My recent Naxos purchase of Alfvén's Fourth Symphony sure is quite nice, and thankfully broken into sections unlike my earlier BIS version with 50 minutes on one track! And the introduction of Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was a fun experience.

Oh YEAH!!! A live concert is always something great to attend. And with an all-romantic program, that's like heaven for me. And to have some international stars performing is just something alltogether even more engaging.

Yingdi Sun sure handled Liszt's First Piano Concerto through very well, with a mix of great restraint and virtuosity that perfectly complimented the symphonic structure of the work, and the Overture from Smetana's Bartered Bride was a great way to begin, vibrant and engaging. But I have to say the highlight for me was the extremely brilliant performance of Dvorak's Eight Symphony under Muhai Tang. Particularly the finale delirium flourishes were simply awe inspiring.

Now I will be anxiously expecting April and the performance of: Berlioz's SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE!!! (Those in the know will probably appreciate how excited I am about that one)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK5Qq5hl1Y8

Check out this one -

So here's the question - Lang Lang, amazing talent or complete show off?

(and the I prefer Evagny kissin arguement is too easy an answer)

Well, if anything he certainly is a showman! Certainly not a pure performance by any stretch of the imagination (some of those impurities were actually more amusing than they were probably ment to be), but I guess with Liszt you can get away with much too. I'm sure the audience was entertained at least. Just loved the wild jumping around, lucky he didn't break the piano!

I love watching Lang Lang, he does do the slow sensitive stuff really well as well, I saw him playing the largo from Beethovens piano concerto no 3 and it was amazing. He also opened the proms a couple of years back with the Tchaik piano concerto 1

I can play that Liszt piece, at about 10% of the speed and with several 5 second gaps in between chords!

Send me a recording!

berlioz wrote:

Send me a recording!

It'll be about 5 hours long

Okay, here hot from the press my concert thoughts. Tonight John Storgårds conducted the Tampere Philharmonic with the German clarinettist Sabine Meyer making a soloist appearance.

The concert opened with Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto that was written to Benny Goodman. On the whole I was pleasantly surprised as I had never heard it. Perhaps the second movement was not quite what I personally enjoy with it's more modernistic and sharp turns of phrase, but the first movement was something I enjoyed immensely, being ever so more sentimental.

Continuing with Ernest Bloch's Printemps movement from Hiver-Printemps was fetching, scene colouring and pleasant enough, though maybe I would like to hear the rest of the work to put the movement in proper context before saying anything else. Nice though.

Unfortunately, I was also cursed with a piece of "modern" classical music, namely Toru Takemitsu's Fantasma/Cantos for clarinet and orchestra. To put it plainly, it was an incoherent, dissonant mess of noise that had nothing to cling on to and not an ounce of enjoyability. Really, who actually enjoys this stuff? Certainly not me and as far as I'm concerned, music is supposed to be enjoyable. I guess it was really nothing more than agony stretched to something like 15 minutes. It should have ended a lot sooner. I think the good modern classical died with Shostakovich.

But wait, the reason I even went to that concert had nothing to do with those opening numbers. For the concluding work was none other than:

Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique!!!

Now that has been something I've longed to hear live a long time. If you don't know yet (how could you not?) it is one of my absolute favourite compositions ever and will likely stay in my top 10 for just as long. One word: Fantastic! It is so great to hear it live. It also opened several little details that I have never noticed before like what the french horn is doing under the strings before the exposition, and the thunder rumbling in the third movement is so much better this way that on a recording. The two final movements of the execution scene and nightmare funeral just pumped my heart to 500 and made me actually sweat (never happened before). If you see a concert that says Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, go hear it. It is worth it. I command thee!!!

The playing itself was top notch and well executed. The opening half's less stellar piece selections were somewhat of a let down, but the Fantastique was well worth it. Sabine Meyer was a doll though, despite playing mainly stuff I wasn't too interested in. They should have just picked some Mozart in there as that is what Ms. Meyer is well known from.

Okay, I'm continuing my gripping concert commentary again.

Tonight I heard Beethoven's Emperor Concerto as performed by Marc-André Hamelin (yes, THAT Marc-André Hamelin) with Moshe Atzmon conducting, and secondly Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.

The Beethoven was pretty good, and I was really looking forward to hearing Hamelin, but there was just something that didn't quite gel completely. It seemed slightly lazy and not as powerful as I was expecting (which may be due to the smaller orchestral ensemble or the slightly off-hand position of my seat), but it didn't quite excite me as I was expecting.

The exact contrary was the Tchaikovsky, which left me absolutely breathless (and no acoustics problems this time). There really is no beating heady über-Romanticism and Tchaikovsky sure is full of that. The first movement was exciting, the second was exciting and destructively emotive, the third was as melancholically nonchalant as it is supposed to be and the rollercoaster ride of the Finale was a perfect way to finish. And I could hear the rest of the audience thought the same as well. I mean who could not get excited when the brass section really lets rip and the strings really swell?

All in all, a very good experience, and if only the Beethoven had been slightly more forward thrusting as it's follower, it could have been really unbelievable.