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Burbage

John F wrote:You've probably got it, though the absence of vibrato in the string parts could be HIP.

If so, it's not a very long 'H', is it?

Burbage

most major, or regionsal orchestras will have a contract core of musicians - those who are on season contract - the core orchestra - who will be employed on most every concert...[not always, but usually] .... most orchestras maintain an 'extra list" - which is comprised of musicians who have auditi...

Burbage

Group K verdict below: K1 - dramatic and intriguing. Each moment is worth hearing but, overall, it doesn't quite hang together. Perhaps too many tempi, or just not to my taste. 3rd K2 - Driven, purposeful performance. A little lively in places, but not scandalous. 1st K3 - Gutsy, brutal and thrillin...

Burbage

Yes, I'll happily listen to more.

Burbage

Verdict below: J1 1st - Delicate and menacing. Precise performance, excellent recording, impeccable direction. Inspiring. J2 2nd - Less gripping than J1, though still good. It's well-enough played and directed, but something's lacking, tension perhaps. I don't think I know the recording, but it feel...

Burbage

My verdict is below. Can I have some more, please? I2, I3, I1 (descending order, best first) I1: Real precision here, unhurried and deliberate. Smoothly luminous strings, woodwind bright, brass almost surgical. Recording is excellent, respecting the beautiful, detailed playing, and the conductor see...

Burbage

jbuck919 wrote:I just thought I'd share a memory to demonstrate that I have backup for the way I do things.

A good point well made. And, by the look of it, spectacularly missed. It may just be friendly teasing, but I really can't be sure.

Burbage

How do I lead him from a Strauss waltz to the symphonies of Bruckner, Mahler and Shostakovich? Music can wait. First, you want to read him excerpts from the law reports, or the stock-market updates. Then, when he's old enough to keep you, and an orchestra or two, in the style to which you're accust...

Burbage

My invisible verdict (for group E) is: 1st E1 2nd E3 3rd E2 4th E4 E1: Opening ponderous in the good sense. Alto confident, assured, powerful, excellent intonation and control. Diction might be better, but that's a tiny quibble. Orchestra almost sublime. Glorious. E2: I think I recognise this, and l...

Burbage

Votes below, invisibly I hope. Can I have some more, please? B2, B4, B3, B1 B1 Extraordinary opening, earthy brass, and a powerful word-swallower at work. Not a German-speaker, I'd guess. Orchestra seems slightly off at times. A little nautical in places, but conductor manages to hold it together, a...

Burbage

I'll play along, if I may.

Burbage

The opera house supports its artists by hiring and paying them; it has the right, sometimes amounting to an obligation, to fire them as well if their work is unacceptable. I think things are a bit different in Germany. According to this report from Deutsche Welle, In an intensive discussion with th...

Burbage

Unfortunately, this isn't a joke. And it happened right down the street from me. :( It's not all bad. There are points that venue managers and program-note writers might do well to take note of, the opinions of concession managers surely count for something and "pounding on the bassoon" isn't a phr...

Burbage

The nearest I can find is this auto-translated version of a libretto . It's not as concise as the average synopsis, but it is at least as clear. The page includes the address of the source libretto, which may be more helpful if your Italian is any good. If it isn't, then you'll first have to replace...

Burbage

Siegmund is far from renouncing love as Alberich did - to the contrary! So what does this Leitmotif tell us at this crucial moment? If Ernest Newman hadn't written it already, I'd have guessed that: "When Siegmund sings...it is to the motive to which, at its first appearance in the Rheingold, the c...

Burbage

I haven't counted. But I reckon it must be at least a six times in concerts, at least a dozen on the radio and about twice a year from recordings. Depending on my age, that would put me somewhere north of forty times. I can't usefully add to the observations of others, except to respectfully suggest...

Burbage

he was cheapening it by making it about something other than Tchaikovksy! Perhaps. But I, too, am broadly in favour. For a start, this is the sort of thing Hahn-Bin does and, by all accounts, he does it well. There is no good reason why he shouldn't, provided he can get the bookings. And, as the ar...

Burbage

Movement is an inherent element of music-making; yet, its impact goes largely unexplored in the orchestral setting.

Haydn, as always, did it best.

Burbage

His Symphony #3 is big, bold and brassy (15!!.. count 'em...15 extra trumpets!!) But only get the Stokowski/CSO recording. I don't think the choice of recording makes much of a difference. Nobody chooses a dentist by the brand of drill they use. Sure, the symphony (if that's the right word - a matt...

Burbage

The brackets down the side usually signify that the texts in questions are sung simultaneously (or as near as makes no difference). This prevents the assiduous follower from having too much libretto left at the end of the music, provided they can keep track of the repeats and reprises, which are usu...

Burbage

John F wrote:The arousal theory of music just doesn't pass muster.

I can only agree. Emotions such as indifference, boredom and irritation seem difficult for composers to express, but easy enough to inspire.

Burbage

With music by Marc-Anthony Turnage, a legitimate, and well respected contemporary composer. What's the problem with that? Nothing. In fact, that last sentence has very little to do with the rest of the article, but that's not unusual for the Independent, which appears to be run by three journalists...

Burbage

I guess this means that he was not really born in Italy... :shock: That doesn't make much difference, to be fair. Barenboim got a knighthood, and he wasn't born in Britain (or the Commonwealth). Admittedly, he doesn't get referred to as 'Sir', but that's because it's considered rude for citizens of...

Burbage

But the test is very silly. In common with every other "scientific" study of music I've ever seen, it makes a lot of assumptions about what "music" is but never defines it explicitly. Perhaps. But most well-designed tests involving human subjects often go to some length to hide exactly what they're...

Burbage

Could be - I've never seen an expression like that on Hvorostovsky's face, so I can't tell. Quite. It would take a month of airbrushing before I'd recognize most of them. But if that's Pappano at the back, I'll guess this is the Royal Opera House grinding into what autumnal life it'll have before t...

Burbage

This is ironic, because 70-80 years ago a poll was taken...and Sibelius turned up as no. 1... What has happened in the past 70-80 that we now have to reassure potential listeners ...? I can't be certain, but I doubt the folk who voted in that poll will be buying many tickets in Prince George's. I'd...

Burbage

OK, Lance and I have spoken. What about you all? I, too, become more disagreeable as I age. I like to think of it more of a talent than a flaw and, as one ages, it become expected, like muttering and dressing like landfill. That's no bad thing and, as ambitions go, it's a lot easier to manage than ...

Burbage

That raises the question: what is Science Fiction exactly? Did it start with Mary Shelley, Cyrano de Bergerac or even Lucian? Is it always at least partially a critique of the writer's society, like 1984 ? Slowly, a long time after Wells, it seems that awareness is growing that so-called "genre" fi...

Burbage

I suppose I should get an original instruments set but feel much about that movement as many of the critics of "Record Guide". I have the Tan/Norrington set, which isn't immediately irritating. The recordings aren't exactly relaxing, but they're not like being hit with a mallet, either. The modern-...

Burbage

...we are still listening to Bach, Telemann, Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann... To make a point that Piston almost made, music is not so much about what people listen to as what people play. I reckon that list of composers will stand in a century or two, with the probable excepti...

Burbage

I'm more or less of a mind with absinthe, though I've had the Ortiz set for a few years and seem to play at least one of them every few months. They're a tough listen in the wrong frame of mind - the second sounds (to me) like Puccini crossed with Malcolm Arnold - but they paint interesting pictures...

Burbage

Lance wrote:After seeing TWO newpapers reviews on Pogorelich and how he is acting/performing with/for his public, what is the opinion of readers? Is Pogorelich way out of line?

Make that three

I'm sure I'll live to regret this, but I don't see Pogorelich getting many bookings in future.

Burbage

smitty1931 wrote:Who would it be? What qualities would be important to you? Rimsky-Karsakov seemed to have had a very well rounded personality and led an interesting life.

Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Although I don't care much for his music, I admire him enormously for being both alive and very wealthy.

Burbage

John, It is clear that baroque trills do begin on the upper note "normally". I'm far from qualified to comment on any of this, but being easily distracted, I googled up a book by Frederick Neumann that seems to claim that an "Italo-German tradition (still fully operational in Buxtehude)", often kic...

Burbage

As I understand it, Chalkperson's response isn't frivolous. It's just short. A slightly longer version might go thus: The parallels between Verdi and Wagner are stark. Both have rags-to-riches tales, lived and composed at the same time, were influenced by much the same music (Bellini, especially) an...

Burbage

I don't doubt this research at all. A lot of people seem to think they have skills that they don't possess - governments are the best example, but no place I've worked has ever been short of them. It's happened to me - a couple of years ago, I participated in some research tests in music perception....

Burbage

Hello all, There are a lot of "troubles" going on with the Dutch Radio 4. Programming is popularized and there have been a lot of protests on the radio 4 forum. The forum was therefore... deleted. But it raises the question, why do you listen to (classical) radio? Similar things have happened in re...

Burbage

That is already a thing of the past at the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Massachusetts What, no music festival? That's very sad, but it wouldn't be the first festival to close. The Southern Cathedrals Festival (most famous for commissioning the Chichester Psalms) shut down completely more than...

Burbage

...the problem is that the Church was in a struggle to survive since the time of the Revolt of the Catholic Kings and the French Revolution, and therefore had few resources to spare for religious art. I've always felt that the Anglican Church has been particularly successful in fostering music, pos...

Burbage

Sure, debates, disputes, and arguments usually bear certain similarities. But conductors don't hold the fates of nations in their hands;they don't influence vast populations with their program choices. The superficial similarities in the way people discuss the two don't conceal the fact that one is...

Burbage

Mahler - 3rd Symphony (Inbal/Frankfurt) - Loads of great recordings. This is one that avoids indulgence. Bach - Goldberg Variations (Perahia) - Ditto. Tallis - Spem in Alium (Winchester Cathedral Ch) - Because it's there. Harris - Chorale for Organ and Brass (Larkin/Gabrieli) - It'll do for my funer...

Burbage

I appreciate the "real" comments on these pieces by most of you so far. It seems like this thread is now going toward recordings of these pieces rather than the pieces themselves. Why is it so hard to talk of the pieces instead of recordings ? It seems to be the case about every thread that I read....

Burbage

Roy Goodman was recording a cycle for Hyperion. Did he ever finish it? John No, he didn't. But he managed to record at least half of them before Hyperion pulled the plug. I like them a lot, mainly because the Hanover Band seem to be having a lot of fun, and I've gradually acquired most of them. It'...

Burbage

Nancy Argenta.

Burbage

I idly browsed an review* of an Orff collection the other day, and it seems he did some 're-interpretations' which may or may not be relevant.

*http://www.musicweb-international.com/c ... 430502.htm

Burbage

Mozart's Piano Co. 17 (Pires/Abbado) is getting an outing, after Haydn's 87th Symphony (Goodman/Hanover). After that, I'll get round to listening to the Schulhoff first quartet (Talich Qt) and wonder whether, if/when CDs give way to downloads, I'll spend more or less time with pieces I never heard of.

Burbage

...It is perhaps a subject perhaps best avoided unless one has a thick skin. I've been thinking about this, on and off, and I can't think of a composer all of whose music I can't stand. I'm sure there are plenty of really bad composers I've never heard of. And some of the mediocre talent surely lef...

Burbage

BBC Magazine of one of the three best British publications, along with Gramophone and International Record Review... More's the pity. I stopped reading Gramophone before they started gluing disks to the front, when the BBC launched a 'Radio 3' magazine; Radio 3 being then, as now, the BBC's station...

Burbage

I like the Third best. It well repays the time spent, and it seems to have everything in it (except cowbells). The sixth is my second favourite, and good for cowbells, but the hammer issue can be a bit distracting.

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