Ahira's Hangar

Yeah, that's a good piano list. Of course, it may as well say The Complete works of Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin, and several other pieces. Heh. #3, Debussy's Claire de lune, is a masterpiece, as is most Debussy. #2, Bach's Goldberg Variations is another huge piece in many movements, never intended to be listened to in one sitting. Great to do so, however!

I've never heard some of them. #23, Sinding's Rustle for Joy, I've never heard of. Never even heard of Sinding. Heh.

#40, Cage's 4'33"... Well, anyway...

But I'm pretty sure nobody needs to own a recording of Chopsticks! Although I remember seeing Liberace play an amazing version of it on tv, lo, these many years ago.

I suppose Matt. Hell, the opening alone is worth the price!! But when it comes to Bach, every note he ever wrote is a masterpiece, so I'm not gonna get into any Fist fights over it.

Since I have never heard St. John's and Moonwatcher does not have St. Matt's...do you have any recordings that you particularly recommend?

Lordy, yes! John Eliot Gardiner is the man! He's always a good choice for anything, when you get right down to it. Heh.

Heh...it just so happens that the version of the St. John Passion I have is conducted by Gardiner, performed by the Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists. However, I've only listened to it once. What can I say, I'm more into Bach's keyboard and violin stuff. It's not just Bach...I tend to gravitate towards instrumental works, given any composer.

But speaking of John Eliot Gardiner...Fist or Duchess, have you ever listened to his Beethoven symphony cycle? I discovered it only recently, and holy Ludwig, I have to tell you it blew me away! Don't let Gardiner's mild-mannered look fool you, he delivers plenty of fire in the Symphonies. His Beethoven cycle is hands down one of the best I've ever come across.

Actually, I have not heard his Beethoven. Not the symphonies, anyway, although I have his Missa Solemnis. (Last I knew, most of his recordings were choral. The Monteverdi Choir [Monteverdi is another of my favorite composers, btw. ] does such amazing work!! The Brahms Requiem is among my favorite pieces of all, and his version is tied with Shaw for best, imo.) But, as you say, he's got fire! I have a Mozart symphony disc of his. Less fire in Mozart than Beethoven, but it proves he can surely do orchestral!

I love The Rite of Spring. But then, I love Stravinsky. My wedding processional was the fanfare from The Firebird that Yes uses at the start of some of their concerts.

My understanding is what is not considered to everyone's taste is the different choreography that is done for the ballet performance of The Rite of Spring. George Ballanchine did sort of Grecian/fantasy-like choreography for the New York City Ballet with it. My understanding is the animation to it that is included in the original Fantasia was based off of Balanchine's choreography.

My Daddy and I went to see a performance of it by The Miami City Ballet in 1988. That was based more on the original choreography, and was very primal and somewhat graphic. Yet I still found it beautiful.

Unless you don't like Impressionistic music, I can see no reason why the music of The Rite of Spring would be classified as not to everyone's taste.

Oh, it's surely not to everyone's taste. Heh. An actual riot may not have ensued at its premiere. Stravinsky didn't really have to crawl out the bathroom window to get away from the crowds wanting to beat him up. But it was an unhappy crowd. And loud. Nijinsky, the choreographer, was yelling out the count to try and keep the dancers going.

Basically, music of the "common practice period" - and the popular music of the last many decades (The "classical" music of each time period was the popular music its time period. The "classical" music of the last century+ is not.) - follows certain rules. Certain intervals between notes; certain chords; certain chord progressions; certain forms for the composition as a whole; etc. Tension is built in certain ways, and resolved in certain ways. There's a "language" to the music.

But so many composers of the 20th Century, and Stravinsky is often one of them, wrote music in a different language. Different rules. Without understanding the language, we don't recognize the tension/resolution; the form; hell, we don't even recognize "chords," just tone clusters. Some people like the foreign-ness right away. Some do not. Multiple listenings can help, but may not ever do the trick for some listeners.

It would help if there was only one or two new musical languages. But there are nearly as many as there are composers who aren't using the common practice language. If we could begin to understand one - recognize tension and resolution, it would be just fine. After all, music need not have evolved into the language we are so familiar with. Hundreds of years ago, composers just happened to settle on those particular rules.

The short of it is that many people since around 1900 have felt that there's no particular way music must sound. Two big names often associated with that idea are Charles Ives and John Coltrane. duchess, I know you're into Coltrane. Stravinsky is surely not less to everyone's taste than him, eh? Go get a recording. There's even recordings of Stravinsky conducting his own music, although there are dozens of other good choices. Either way, it's an amazing piece of music!! A girl is chosen to be the sacrifice to spring, and she dances herself to death. Pretty powerful stuff!

I dunno. Some of the "new" classical music is yummy and layered with meaning. I like that French guy's stuff - (Music for the End of Time and Turganalila (spelling for the second?). Paul Fetler is a twentieth century American composer now working extensively with the Ann Arbor Symphony - they are recording some of his best short pieces bit by bit at each concert, and will have a Naxos recording out in the next year or two. Ya'll go out and get that one when it is released! His stuff is more traditional in sound, but very good, if the piece I heard in concert is any indication (he set some of the poems of Walt Whitman to music, which is the one I got to hear). John Adams's Transmigration of Souls, a piece he composed for the New York Philharmonic as a sort of requiem for 9/11, transcends that one event to become a universal exploration of yearning for the lost, for grief for the people we love who are...gone. It is extremely untraditional, but always moves me to tears. And William Bolcom, a composer (and a very nice and modest guy) from right here in Ann Arbor has incredible stuff. Check out his masterwork Songs of Innocence and Experience, where he puts the poem cycle by Blake to music. And yes - the jazz composers - Coltrane, Gershwin, Brubeck, and others are simply fantastic. Again - some incredibly good stuff there.

But there are other twentieth and current century composers I cannot seem to get into at all. While I eat up anything from Bolcom, I cannot seem to get into anything from his fellow UM composition professor Michael Dougherty. The first opera I ever went to was by Stravinsky (The Rake's Progress), and it was years before I was willing to try another opera - and then I made damn sure it was one by a composer I like - Mozart.

So I dunno. I find some of the twentieth century (and current century) stuff to be wonderful. Other pieces and composers make me think of chalk sqeaking on a blackboard. I guess I will eventually have to listen to Rite of Spring - preferrably before I purchase any tickets - and see which way it takes me.

Well, certainly, some will sound better to each of us than others. "His stuff is more traditional in sound" means he's just breaking the rules of the common practice period more than usual, but it's still based on those rules. Other composers entirely throw out those rules. And when they do, the rules they make up to replace them with - because without rules of some sort, without some structure, it's just random sounds, and will be meaningless - may not make nearly as much sense to me as the rules another composer makes up. Maybe Stravinsky just doesn't make sense to you. No problem there, since there's plenty of others to choose from.

And maybe opera is the problem! Heh. I just don't do opera. The highlights cd's are usually excellent stuff, but the whole opera?? Especially one where the musical language is foreign??? No thanks!!

thought I woudl share this website just in case Fist is not aware of it:


It is devoted to Bach organ music.

Nice! Thanks!

And I hadn't realized it was Bach's 325th birthday in a couple days. I remember celebrating his 300th in college. Damn, now I'm feeling old...