The Classical Music Guide Forums

barney

Really? There's lots there I hope to follow up, and it's excellent to have some guidance in an area of which I am rather ignorant. Well posted, Len.
But it will mostly be via YouTube that I do my exploring.

barney

I've used up my CD allowance well into January 2020. But the decision has been made NOT to acquire yet another set of Beethoven concertos. I even hate to tell you how many I already have and love. I will, of course, be interested to hear the pianist in the YouTube links mentioned. I mean, after Sch...

barney

Thanks Len. Fascinating and terrible at once.

barney

Thanks for the Weber, John. Here's my preferred version: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51iLEslgVjL.jpg I have that CD too, and esteem it. I also have accounts by a pianist Elizabeth Rich with the Janacek Philharmonic and Dennis Burkh, which I cannot bring to mind at all. Might pl...

barney

I don't think he's my cup of tea. But I don't begrudge him any success - the classical world is big enough for him and the rest of us.

barney

Brendel's first Beethoven sonata cycle, recorded for the cut-price Vox Box label in the early '60s when he was in his thirties, is praised by some but not particularly by me. The playing is accurate and intelligent but has nothing like the character of Brendel's later recorded and concert cycles, a...

barney

Music should be complex, original, architectural, inspirational, challenging, ingenius and musical. "Beautiful" is a bonus, but not absolutely essential. I wouldn't necessarily call a lot of Bach's music "beautiful" at all. This piece is a balm, a salve for life's depredations: contemplative and tr...

barney

Thank you John. That probably was the quote, in a slightly different translation. And that is an extraordinary opening, is it not? The first few bars could easily be Stravinsky.

barney

Belle wrote: ↑
Sun Sep 08, 2019 8:49 pm
Len, are you suggesting that Falstaff ate food like that in your pictures??

Yes, but that was just the entree! Have you looked at menus from Tudor times? Staggering, not least for mixing up sweets and savouries in the same course.

barney

Don't know Nerone, but I really like Mefistofele.

barney

I particularly resonate with Luisi's dictum: "Never go beyond beautiful." That makes sense to me. 8) Mozart said the same thing. Did he? I've read many of his letters and never seen any such statement - indeed, I don't think he used the word "beautiful" ("schön") when speaking of music. Can you giv...

barney

maestrob wrote: ↑
Fri Sep 06, 2019 11:24 am
I liked Luisi's conducting while he was at the MET, and the Dallas Symphony is indeed a fine orchestra. I particularly resonate with Luisi's dictum: "Never go beyond beautiful." That makes sense to me.

Mozart said the same thing.

barney

Thanks Sue. I wondered about that because of the accent. I've never met Michael, but I have spoken to him on the phone more than once.
Many thanks for posting more appropriate links.

barney

I walk the walk, Sue. Just in my case, it's more of a waddle.

barney

This is a sweet clip in which Michael Keiran Harvey explains how he composed a bravura piece for a student with small hands, then plays it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMv1JbYjJpw

barney

I got to know the Beethoven symphonies through Klemperer. I agree they sound even slower this side of HIP, and were slow even then, but I prefer to call it "magisterial" than "leaden". :D I haven't played those for years, partly because my turntable is covered foot deep in piles of CDs. But I too en...

barney

Good on you, Brian. I like the idea of an annual homage to what started it all. I should do the same.

barney

I've always found Carl Vine's music interesting and accessible. Perhaps my favourite Australian composer right now is Brett Dean, who's had quite a success in the past couple of years with his opera Hamlet. He's also a violist who used to play in the Berlin Phil before deciding to concentrate on com...

barney

I have over 100 discs with Zubin Mehta's involvement, major labels, and non-major. However, this 97-CD boxed set doesn't resonate with me enough to acquire it. He has apparently had a fine career, and the 100+ discs I have represents his art enough for me. But, Brian, if you DO get the set, I'd lik...

barney

To what do you attribute, if anything, your changing tastes? To some degree I suspect over-hearing the "canon" is a factor, but I still do hear, and enjoy the greats.More I think just realizing, discovering there is other music out there , as great or nearly as great as the canon, that does not get...

barney

I do have enthusiasm for Haydn more and more these days, with a special fondness for the masses, The Seasons, The Creation and the piano sonatas. I've been to this very Schloss, just an hour by train from Vienna! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIpSNMQZH9M To which I add the piano trios and string ...

barney

Rach3, if you make it to Melbourne, we'll share a bottle or two of shiraz. I have many, many cases to get through, and need a little help! I'm always glad to help ! " I dont worry about being driven to drink , just being driven home." WC Fields. Gave my son a bottle of Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shira...

barney

John F wrote: ↑
Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:32 am

barney wrote:To Rach3's slow movements of 21 and 27, with which I entirely concur, I would add 9 and 20
<ahem>

Oh dear. Sincere apologies. I should have known it was your impeccable taste, John (mops brow, and wonders if that's enough to get me out of that solecism).

barney

Oh dear! I've learned over the years not to invest too much in certainty - at least in theory - because I just may be wrong. (I speak only of music, of course!

)

barney

Finally got to listen to the Rachmaninov you posted above, John. You are right - quite astounding pianism. Incomparable.

barney

Sue, you must find all of us annoying. We ALL know all there is to know about classical music, even when we're entirely wrong.

That's a terrible story about your friend's boy, though. So sad, and so terrifying for him and his family.

barney

My start in classical music was Schubert's fifth symphony. My grandmother played it to me as one of my earliest memories, and I constantly asked for it. Like Rach3, I am mystified at your loss of enthusiasm for the Mozart piano concertos. They would be first into my desert island suitcase, probably ...

barney

Rach3, if you make it to Melbourne, we'll share a bottle or two of shiraz. I have many, many cases to get through, and need a little help! Oddly enough, the time most bottles get opened is when friends from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra come over. My current favourite is Landhaus, which I get thr...

barney

I'm not really interested in listening to music composed by somebody just because she is a woman. On their many many music nights at the Schumann house there is no record of either Clara, Robert or Brahms playing any of her music - and I've read books on Brahms and the Schumanns as well as the diar...

barney

Agreed, quite vacuous. Those young people who turn to opera (and I was once one) do so because the great works are compelling and moving and beautiful. And certainly new works come along that rightly become standard. But newness and "diversity" simply for the sake of it will not draw wider audiences.

barney

From UK's Gramophone : Famous for his his Prince of Denmark's March (aka the Trumpet Voluntary), Jeremiah Clarke fell for a high-born lady who couldn't (or wouldn't) return his affection. He decided to end it all in 1707 and tossed a coin: heads, he would hang himself; tails, he would drown himself...

barney

That's true for me too, Len, and I suspect for posterity in general.

barney

I'm sure you'd be welcome in Australia.

barney

Well that's most impressive, Philip. You clearly operated under the principle nothing ventured, nothing gained, and ventured most ambitiously. It's all very encouraging.

barney

the piano concerto is a piece of juvenilia, begun when she was 13 or 14. Barney I got to listen to it twice last evening while in the kitchen-an enjoyable experience for me-I'll be back to it again tonight! Regards, Len That's good Len, it is certainly a tremendous achievement for a teenager. Very ...

barney

Sordid and sad. A bit like much of life really.

barney

Yes, I own and have read (they don't always go together) Swafford's biography of Brahms. There are two stories that I find awe-inspiring, though again I tell them from memory a decade or more old. 1: He gave the premiere of a sonata by another composer that the audience didn't warm to. But they love...

barney

When a stranger approaches my house these days, I am tempted to lock the doors and not answer the bell. Could the tyrant and his toady Stephen Miller have covertly abolished birthright citizenship? Could this be an ICE agent come to send me back from whence I came? Being that my paternal grandfathe...

barney

Just pick me up a couple, Len, would you? Mail them to Melbourne, there's a good chap.

barney

I have the Isata Kanneh-Mason disc. The playing is very fine. The music, for the most part, is (to me) unremarkable. 3 violin romances are definitely good, a piano sonata is worth hearing, the piano concerto is a piece of juvenilia, begun when she was 13 or 14. For all the fuss about opportunities d...

barney

That's an amazing line up of pianists you've attracted. I've often wondered about that - how do you/does one do it? Is it because the festival has real momentum and therefore is attractive, like Verbier or Salzburg, or because it is fun for musicians to take part in, or because you can afford sizeab...

barney

I wonder if conductors have as much control as they once did. In the famous account of Beethoven's triple concerto with Karajan and the BPO I've heard that Richter and, I think, Oistrakh, hated it and wanted it not be issued, but Karajan overruled. This is from memory - no doubt others can be more ...

barney

I wonder if conductors have as much control as they once did. In the famous account of Beethoven's triple concerto with Karajan and the BPO I've heard that Richter and, I think, Oistrakh, hated it and wanted it not be issued, but Karajan overruled. This is from memory - no doubt others can be more ...

barney

I wonder if conductors have as much control as they once did. In the famous account of Beethoven's triple concerto with Karajan and the BPO I've heard that Richter and, I think, Oistrakh, hated it and wanted it not be issued, but Karajan overruled. This is from memory - no doubt others can be more ...

barney

Love to be there for that. 3 forces I admire: Haitink, Ax, VPO. 2 top works.

barney

I wonder whether his planes will have the copilot's seat exchanged for a podium? Might ease the transition.

barney

I wonder if conductors have as much control as they once did. In the famous account of Beethoven's triple concerto with Karajan and the BPO I've heard that Richter and, I think, Oistrakh, hated it and wanted it not be issued, but Karajan overruled. This is from memory - no doubt others can be more p...

barney

Thanks for posting those links, and I will listen. I have about 10 Horowitz CDs, including the Moscow concert, his last recital in Chicago and his last concert in Hamburg (from memory). In particular, what I will return to is his volumes in the Philips 200-CD Great Pianists series which include fabl...

barney

Thanks for those lovely reminiscences. Warren Carr was indeed a wonderful pianist. One needed a lot more than just technique, though of course they weren't playing Scriabin or Gaspard de la Nuit. I don't know the actor you mention, but will watch the clip you provided. My children grew up a bit late...

barney

Now Melbourne is catching up, according to today's Age https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/new-chapter-for-the-homeless-as-city-library-hires-social-worker-20190828-p52lp3.html New chapter for the homeless as City Library hires social worker Jewel Topsfield August 28, 2019 — 7.45pm Craig Far...

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