Classical music selection
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Nemonymous
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That piano trio by Schubert has long been in my top ten Classical Music favourite pieces and the above (one movement of it only) is a wonderful performance. Thanks.
Daisy
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On Sunday (October 26), I went to hear Maurizio Pollini in recital at Carnegie Hall. This was my fourth time seeing him perform on that stage. He is, in my opinion, the greatest living pianist. When he is at the keyboard, the piano is no longer a mere instrument but a supernatural element. His capabilities are astonishing . . . He is as insightful an interpreter of Beethoven and Chopin as he is of Schönberg and Sciarrino. The October 26th program was too good to be true:
BEETHOVEN
Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2, "The Tempest"
BEETHOVEN
Sonata No. 23 in F Minor "Appassionata"
SCHUMANN
Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17
CHOPIN
Four Mazurkas, Op. 33
CHOPIN
Scherzo No. 2
Encores:
CHOPIN
Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12, "Revolutionary"
CHOPIN
Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2
CHOPIN
Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 10, No. 4, "Torrent"
CHOPIN
Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23
Here he is, playing the Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 (his second encore on Sunday afternoon):
BEETHOVEN
Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2, "The Tempest"
BEETHOVEN
Sonata No. 23 in F Minor "Appassionata"
SCHUMANN
Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17
CHOPIN
Four Mazurkas, Op. 33
CHOPIN
Scherzo No. 2
Encores:
CHOPIN
Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12, "Revolutionary"
CHOPIN
Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2
CHOPIN
Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 10, No. 4, "Torrent"
CHOPIN
Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23
Here he is, playing the Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 (his second encore on Sunday afternoon):
Nemonymous
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Andrea Bonazzi
Chymist
... just a bit of apocalypse
(Von Karajan, Wiener Philharmonic)
(Von Karajan, Wiener Philharmonic)
Last edited:
Daisy
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From “Mahler: Centenary Address, Vienna 1960,” by Theodor Adorno (trans. Rodney Livingstone)
I am well aware that the expression on death-masks is deceptive. While we imagine that the mask reveals the final facial expression of a life, we know that it merely reflects muscular spasms. But Mahler’s death-mask, which I first saw at the Centenary Exhibition, is enough to make one doubt such scientific explanations. Other death-masks, too, appear to smile. But in Mahler’s face, which seems both imperious and full of a tender suffering, there is a hint of cunning triumph, as if it wished to say: I have fooled you after all. Fooled us how? If we were to speculate we might conclude that the unfathomable sorrow of his last works had undercut all hope in order to avoid succumbing to illusion, rather as if hope were not unlike the superstitious idea of tempting fate, so that by hoping for something you prevent it from coming true. Could we not think of the path of disillusionment described by the development of Mahler’s music as by no other as an example of the cunning not of reason but of hope?. . .The fact that the last two works which he completed have no closure, but remain open, translated the uncertain outcome between destruction and its alternative into music.
I am well aware that the expression on death-masks is deceptive. While we imagine that the mask reveals the final facial expression of a life, we know that it merely reflects muscular spasms. But Mahler’s death-mask, which I first saw at the Centenary Exhibition, is enough to make one doubt such scientific explanations. Other death-masks, too, appear to smile. But in Mahler’s face, which seems both imperious and full of a tender suffering, there is a hint of cunning triumph, as if it wished to say: I have fooled you after all. Fooled us how? If we were to speculate we might conclude that the unfathomable sorrow of his last works had undercut all hope in order to avoid succumbing to illusion, rather as if hope were not unlike the superstitious idea of tempting fate, so that by hoping for something you prevent it from coming true. Could we not think of the path of disillusionment described by the development of Mahler’s music as by no other as an example of the cunning not of reason but of hope?. . .The fact that the last two works which he completed have no closure, but remain open, translated the uncertain outcome between destruction and its alternative into music.
Do you know Christa Ludwig's, my favourite?
Daisy
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From Chapter VIII of Doctor Faustus (1948), by Thomas Mann (trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter)
Kretschmar talked about the Sonata in C minor [Op. 111], which indeed it was not easy to see as a well-rounded and intellectually digested work, and which had given [Beethoven’s] contemporary critics, and his friends as well, a hard aesthetic nut to crack. These friends and admirers, Kretschmar said, simply could not follow the man they revered beyond the height to which at the time of his maturity he had brought the symphony, the piano sonata, and the classical string quartet. In the works of the last period they stood with heavy hearts before a process of dissolution or alienation, of a mounting into an air no longer familiar or safe to meddle with; even before a plus ultra, wherein they had been able to see nothing else than a degeneration of tendencies previously present, an excess of introspection and speculation, an extravagance of minutiae and scientific musicality—applied sometimes to such simple material as the arietta theme of the monstrous movement of variations which forms the second part of this sonata. The theme of this movement goes through a hundred vicissitudes, a hundred worlds of rhythmic contrasts, at length outgrows itself, and is finally lost in giddy heights that one might call other-worldly or abstract. And in just that very way Beethoven’s art had overgrown itself, risen out of the habitable regions of tradition, even before the startled gaze of human eyes, into spheres of the entirely and utterly and nothing-but personal—an ego painfully isolated in the absolute, isolated too from sense by the loss of his hearing; lonely prince of a realm of spirits, from whom now only a chilling breath issued to terrify his most willing contemporaries, standing as they did aghast at these communications of which only at moments, only by exception, they could understand anything at all.
[
Kretschmar talked about the Sonata in C minor [Op. 111], which indeed it was not easy to see as a well-rounded and intellectually digested work, and which had given [Beethoven’s] contemporary critics, and his friends as well, a hard aesthetic nut to crack. These friends and admirers, Kretschmar said, simply could not follow the man they revered beyond the height to which at the time of his maturity he had brought the symphony, the piano sonata, and the classical string quartet. In the works of the last period they stood with heavy hearts before a process of dissolution or alienation, of a mounting into an air no longer familiar or safe to meddle with; even before a plus ultra, wherein they had been able to see nothing else than a degeneration of tendencies previously present, an excess of introspection and speculation, an extravagance of minutiae and scientific musicality—applied sometimes to such simple material as the arietta theme of the monstrous movement of variations which forms the second part of this sonata. The theme of this movement goes through a hundred vicissitudes, a hundred worlds of rhythmic contrasts, at length outgrows itself, and is finally lost in giddy heights that one might call other-worldly or abstract. And in just that very way Beethoven’s art had overgrown itself, risen out of the habitable regions of tradition, even before the startled gaze of human eyes, into spheres of the entirely and utterly and nothing-but personal—an ego painfully isolated in the absolute, isolated too from sense by the loss of his hearing; lonely prince of a realm of spirits, from whom now only a chilling breath issued to terrify his most willing contemporaries, standing as they did aghast at these communications of which only at moments, only by exception, they could understand anything at all.
[
Andrea Bonazzi
Chymist
« I believe that HPL was quite familiar with the music of Sibelius, as shown by the mention of his name as one of the composers that inspired allusions to "weird music" in his fiction. » [note: Letter to Fritz Leiber, December 19th, 1936.]
« Sibelius enjoyed great popularity in the U.S. during the 1920s and '30s. [...] I would like to suggest that Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D minor, Opus 47, may have been the seminal idea behind "The Music of Erich Zann." » [...]
« As a matter of fact, the Sibelius violin concerto is widely regarded as the most difficult and demanding, the test of fire for every top-flight violinist. What is being played today is the revised version, after Sibelius changed some of the most difficult parts in the original version. »
( Dirk W. Mosig, from "Lovecraft and Sibelius: A Musical Note" in Mosig at Last: A Psychologist Look at H.P. Lovecraft, p. 107, Necronomicon Press, 1997 )
In the Lovecraft’s story, Erich Zann played the viol instead of the violin, and this from Mosig was an assumption only. But a very interesting one.
« Sibelius enjoyed great popularity in the U.S. during the 1920s and '30s. [...] I would like to suggest that Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D minor, Opus 47, may have been the seminal idea behind "The Music of Erich Zann." » [...]
« As a matter of fact, the Sibelius violin concerto is widely regarded as the most difficult and demanding, the test of fire for every top-flight violinist. What is being played today is the revised version, after Sibelius changed some of the most difficult parts in the original version. »
( Dirk W. Mosig, from "Lovecraft and Sibelius: A Musical Note" in Mosig at Last: A Psychologist Look at H.P. Lovecraft, p. 107, Necronomicon Press, 1997 )
In the Lovecraft’s story, Erich Zann played the viol instead of the violin, and this from Mosig was an assumption only. But a very interesting one.
Jeff Coleman
Chymist
Nemonymous
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I love Berg's violin concerto. Thanks.
