sdtom
Conductor
Posts: 1,109
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Post by sdtom on Apr 17, 2006 6:06:33 GMT -8
I think my years of listening to OST have tuned my ear to not hear the awful audio associated with some of the recordings. Tom
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Post by Yavar Moradi on Apr 17, 2006 14:13:05 GMT -8
Another overplayed and overrated piece. See....I think Beethoven's 5th is one of the few pieces which is probably overplayed but not overrated. It's really quite fantastic and honestly is probably Beethoven's best symphony. His 9th is I think more overrated (not the second movement tho'). What gets me is that there is a lot of great music out there which is as good as Beethoven's 5th which almost NEVER gets played and almost NO ONE knows about. Go to www.raff.org and to the individual pages for Joachim Raff's orchestral works and tell me lots of that stuff isn't amazing. I mean, his 8th and 9th symphonies (and probably others but I really want to hear Bernard Herrmann's recording of his 5th first) are really as good as Beethoven's 5th and deserved to be played as much, but this guy's gotten no attention whatsoever since the 20s or maybe early 30s when Toscanini performed him a few times. Back in his day he was as big as Brahms, Schumann, or Lizst (and actually over all better than all three IMO, more well-rounded). Yavar
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sdtom
Conductor
Posts: 1,109
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Post by sdtom on Apr 18, 2006 5:09:32 GMT -8
Well, likely the sheet music is readily available for the Beethoven piece, some people know and understand the work a tiny amount and when Raff is mentioned they just . Tom
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Post by Armin on Apr 18, 2006 10:35:41 GMT -8
Raff has also done some very nice chamber music. I have to check out his symphonies. They're not very popular, as you already noticed.
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Post by Jockolantern on Apr 20, 2006 20:50:52 GMT -8
I always liked the one performed by New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, but I still have to get the whole thing. Bernstein is good if you like your Classical Era music hyper-romanticized. He's definitely not one to listen to for authenticity as far as the periodic appropriateness goes with Beethoven. I'm pretty sure Ludwig would murder Bernstein if he heard his music the way Bernstein conducted it. . . but, that's not to say Bernstein's romantic Beethoven doesn't have its charms. I'm with Brendan on this one though. Perhaps it's just the music major in me, but I really adore listening to classical music the way it was meant to be played. Sir George Solti did some fabulous, fabulous recordings with the Chicago Symphony, ones which are incredibly authentic in terms of the way Beethoven originally wrote them. Personally, my favorite Beethoven symphony is the 3rd. Absolutely fantastic from beginning to end. . . it never gets old. Sayonara! Jockolantern
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Post by Armin on Apr 20, 2006 22:28:19 GMT -8
Another overplayed and overrated piece. See....I think Beethoven's 5th is one of the few pieces which is probably overplayed but not overrated. It's really quite fantastic and honestly is probably Beethoven's best symphony. His 9th is I think more overrated (not the second movement tho'). I was referring to Vivaldi's Seasons. That piece is to boring it's unbelievable. Anyway, I agree with the people who think Bernstein is way too romantic. There is a difference between the classical and the romantic period, and somehow it seems ourdays we play everything in a romantic way. Or at least that's what it was like 10, 15 years ago. Now there are quite some period orchestras and scholars doing good work, but most of the "old school" conductors just play music like they feel it. Which is interesting, but in the case of Bernstein not very authentic all the time. I'd recommend his recordings as one possibility of imterpretation, but not the my first choice.
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Post by christopher on Apr 22, 2006 16:02:48 GMT -8
I LOVE the Four Seasons. I think Spring's 1st movement is so overplayed that it has become almost to cliched to be enjoyable, and Fall is a little boring, but I absolutely love summer and Winter. Beethoven's 5th is one of the greatest symphonies ever written and certainly deserves its fame. This Raff fellow is new to me. I'm listening to his 8th right now. Who was he contemporary with? Why isn't he played more often?
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Post by Joseph Bat on Apr 25, 2006 16:17:44 GMT -8
Another overplayed and overrated piece. His 9th is I think more overrated (not the second movement tho'). Yavar If by overrated, you mean amazing, then I agree. His 9th (as a whole) is powerful and resonates more than his others. Nothing like going out with a bang. Joe
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Post by Armin on Apr 26, 2006 8:07:30 GMT -8
We always have to remember the man was deaf from the 6th symphony on. That's like a blind painter. Pure genious.
I think the 9th has 2 faces: one is absolutely fantastic, powerful and sheer genious, the other one is quite average. There are few movements in the history of music that rival the 2nd of this symphony. Then again, part of the 3rd and 4th are just... boring.
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sdtom
Conductor
Posts: 1,109
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Post by sdtom on Apr 29, 2006 6:42:30 GMT -8
There is so much to talk about with classical music. Think about Tchaikovsky and his 6th Symphony. He knew he was going to die so his last movement depicted that and he ended it in nothing. Heh, it impressed me. Tom
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Post by Yavar Moradi on May 2, 2006 6:28:46 GMT -8
We always have to remember the man was deaf from the 6th symphony on. That's like a blind painter. Pure genious. I think the 9th has 2 faces: one is absolutely fantastic, powerful and sheer genious, the other one is quite average. There are few movements in the history of music that rival the 2nd of this symphony. Then again, part of the 3rd and 4th are just... boring. There I agree with you completely. Yavar
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Post by Yavar Moradi on May 2, 2006 6:49:26 GMT -8
Beethoven's 5th is one of the greatest symphonies ever written and certainly deserves its fame. This Raff fellow is new to me. I'm listening to his 8th right now. Who was he contemporary with? Why isn't he played more often? When he was starting out he got a leg up from Mendelssohn, who was very impressed with him (there is some detectable Mendelssohn influence in Raff works, but many other "influences" one may claim to hear in Raff were in fact those influenced BY him like Tchaikovsky). However, when Mendelssohn died so early in his life, Raff was temporarily without musical support. Raff used to be played all the time -- during his lifetime he was considered the equal of Brahms (and before Brahms finished his 1st symphony fairly late in his life, Raff was pretty much the premier symphonist of his day) or Liszt, whom he assisted in orchestrating many of his scores (and you can hear the difference in quality in the pieces Raff did, IMO). The problem is, he got caught in the middle of the musical devide between the conservatives like Brahms and Schumann, and the new guys who defied restraint and convention: Liszt and Wagner. Raff was sort of a fan of Wagner, but published a critical evaluation of one of his works that kind of made Wagner's crowd turn their backs on him. But similarly he wasn't conservative enough for the other crowd. This probably contributed to the almost immediate downturn in his popularity after he died. Critics exploited the fact that a lot of his music was written quickly to get money to feed himself -- he wrote music very easily, like Mozart, and some people like Brahms were sorta jealous and criticized him saying he didn't pour his heart and agony-filled soul into music but just...wrote it. Whatever -- so many of his symphonies are powerful, exciting, and yes, even moving, to me. But he did write a lot of insignificant music as well, and so his enemies kinda painted him a hack after his death and performances of his work became rarer. Toscanini performed him in the 20s or early 30s, but after that, he pretty much disappeared. Until, that is, film music's own, the great composer/conductor Bernard Herrmann, who championed excellent overlooked music when he was music director of the CBS orchestra, decided Raff was great and performed successfully two of Raff's best symphonies -- the Fifth, the Leonore, even made it to a now OOP Unicorn CD. I'm telling the story kinda lame. Why not go to the site, www.raff.org -- they tell all this stuff better. I discovered them after listening to the CPO 2 disc album of his final four symphonies (the "Seasons" symphonies) conducted by Werner Andreas Albert (incidentally the same label and conductor who did that four volume set of Korngold's mostly complete orchestral concert music). They have amazing 3 minute plus sound clips of lots of his best work. I especially recommend Symphonies 8 & 9 (the second movement scherzo of the 8th is what made me take notice and say "HOLY CRAP why is no one performing this guy??" -- one theme that comes in three minutes into the piece sounds like what SHOULD have been the Fellowship theme for LotR...only theme I'm not completely satisfied with in the trilogy), the second movement of the 10th (amazing though that symphony as a whole is my least favorite of the final four), and the first couple movements of the 11th (which was actually started first of the four if I'm not mistaken). Next up I plan to purchase the Tudor CDs of the two Violin Concertos and two Cello Concertos. I also hear his Shakespeare Overtures are FANTASTIC. So read this intro to Raff please: raff.org/intro.htmThen if you're still curious you can find out what his contemporaries (composers, critics, and conductors) had to say about him: raff.org/peers.htmAnd then go on and listen to some samples! Yavar
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Post by Jangles on May 2, 2006 7:42:32 GMT -8
Some people know way too much about music and film scores...
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Post by Yavar Moradi on May 2, 2006 13:15:30 GMT -8
Some people know way too much about music and film scores... That would be me. People will talk about random films which I haven't even seen and sometimes haven't even heard the music to, but I still come right out with the comment, "Oh, yeah, I've heard of that -- so-and-so did the score!" Yavar
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Post by Yavar Moradi on May 2, 2006 14:00:16 GMT -8
Just for the heck of it, here are my favorite symphonies from various big names:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 (already covered..it's just the most straight-forwardly awesome all around, scherzo of #9 aside...in some moods I prefer #6 overall though)
Tchaikovksy: Symphony No. 2 (yes, deal with it, ye fools who say only 4-6 are amazing...1 + 2 are just as good...and 3 and the Manfred have their excellent moments as well. Now if only #4 had the kick-ass scherzo of #2 instead of the weird sorta random pizzicato thing it's got, it'd easily be the best.)
Raff: Symphony No. 8 (this is actually the hardest for me because he was pretty prolific and really all of his symphonies are really excellent, but the scherzo of this one is what KNOCKED ME OUT, and made me go revisit the first movement and the others and discover that they are excellent too).
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (just a lot of memorable parts for me tho' Brahms honestly isn't my very favorite symphonist)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 3 (that's the three-movement one, right? It's super-epic feeling, at least in the Paavo Berglund recording I have) or Kullervo if it counts as a symphony
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (this is his most personal and tragic, but also most beautiful -- no overbearing choir, very few of his typical random tangents ie. circus music, then church music, then folk music -- one of his more traditional symphonies with the typical four movements and maybe his most beautiful slow movement)
Bruckner: I'm leaning towards Symphony No. 9 just because of the pounding scherzo supposedly inspired by World War I. I'm not a Brucker afficionado however.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 ('cuz it's cool and dark...but all of Mendelssohn's symphonies are fantastic...unlike his piano concerto)
Saint-Saens and Schubert: I'm really only sufficiently familiar with two for each of them so I'm not going to select one yet.
Schumann: maybe Symphony No. 1 (I actually dislike the "Willow" theme in No. 3 movement 1 but love the rest of it)
Dvorak: Symphony No. 1 (I'm definitely in the minority here but I was blown away by it -- after I was blown away by No. 9 movement 1 first of course (the 60s Bernstein recording...every other one except Kubelik's sounds BORING)...that's one of the main pieces that got me into classical music obsession land. But the slow movement in 9 has a theme that reminds me of the obnoxious "Sing Sweet Nightingale" song from the Disney Cinderella, so even though it's a good theme I just can't enjoy No. 9 as much and I think No. 1 is amazing and underrated.)
Korngold: Symphony No. 1 (Now I know you're saying, "But he only wrote one!" Sort of true. He was working on his second when he died -- excerpts can be heard on the Korngold documentary DVD available at Screen Archives still. But he also had a four movement "Sinfonietta" which was *definitely* a symphony, I think he just called it that because though it's a lengthy, huge-scale work, the music is happier in general than your typical symphony, and he also had a lengthy four-movement "Symphonic Suite" which I consider a symphony as well. The Symphony in F-sharp is the best of the four tho'..I have the Varese CD)
Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 1 (that's right you Symphony No. 2 lovers, all Rach is good but this is kick-ass...also BTW where Horner got his four-note motif; it's really cool in this...so sad that this was a failure at the time and the guy only got out of his extreme depression at its failure by writing his Piano Concerto No. 2)
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 (No. 5 is also fantastic but nothing gets me like the scherzo from 10...just ask Jens how awesome it is)
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3 (just because I think it's underrated really...I'm not a major conoisseur of him yet)
Elgar: Cello Concerto (sorry I'm cheating but though I like his two symphonies there's no way I'm promoting them over what is certainly his best work)
I'm probably missing some composers somewhere. I've still got to get into the symphonic Williams Walton and Alwyn and some other obscure fellows.
Yav
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