POO: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven

(If we're talking opera, that's a totally different story.)

(xpost)

Beethoven verily rocks.

I forgot Glenn Gould's Little Bach Book

haha snap john d. Yeah Mozart was really everything that Mahler really wanted to be, but he was a Beethovinian (out of that list; he's also Schubertian).

Yes I was going to add 'cheeky' or mischievous' or something, but I left it at 'witty'. As for the others, well obviously I've emphasised some characteristics over others, so it doesn't get too confusing as a personality match. I mean 'abundant' could equally apply to Mozart, 'inspired' to Bach, 'cosmic' to Beethoven.

More wisdom from my piano teacher: she reckoned that when Beethoven started going deaf he got really, really cranky and decided to make his music as bastardy difficult as possible to play. At the time I was learning a piece with four-finger chords all over the fucking keyboard in very quick succession, so I had no reason to doubt her.

I love listening to my Gould Variations CD, but find playing Bach a bit dull. It's the sort of music that makes me feel like I need to sit up straight with my elbows tucked in and be a nice girl.

So Mozart wins.

http://www.btm.de/sevenstars/pics/salzburg/culinary_mozartkugeln.jpg

Beethoven, eh, I reall don't know what happened there. I think he's someone else's fault actualy.

But I won't go into all that now. Not here.

in re: chamber music search also the Mozart clarinet quintet which is to die for

Bear in mind I've had this keyboard for sixty eight trillion years so the keys are a bit wobbly.

Btw, Beethoven's string quartet op.131 is my influence. I just had to stop him working on his 10th symphony Grrrrr. That would have been worse than the Grosse Fugue!

Mozart's music is like a perfectly woven braid in which no instrument is by itself - the integration of all parts, the marriage of piano & violin in the sonatas for example, is total: there's just the music

he is a little miracle, is what, a little life-saving miracle

Bach's partitas for unaccompanied violin are imo the greatest solo instrumental pieces ever written.

for solo instrumental classical music I am most partial to Chopin.

Everything in Mozart always sounds a little too in its place to me. His music for me is like the most ornate and beautifully crafted chest of drawers ever made -- I admire it but in the end it's still just a chest of drawers, and I can't get that excited about that.

straight fire m8

"Beethoven surprises us with what we do not expect; but Mozart manages to surprise us with what we DO expect."

Whose is that? The problem is I feel like it's the other way around for Mozart -- he manages to bore me with what I don't expect.

Alfred Brendel

I listen to Bach the least of these three but when I do he always knocks me over

I listen to Bach all the time and he always knocks me over. Beethoven was my favorite when I was younger but now I don't listen to him so much.

Is there a good, non-boring Bach biography out there, preferably not on the tome end of things?

Bach definitely my fave of these three, then Mozart, then Beethoven. All great of course.

xp I mean to start on this soon http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Castle-John-Eliot-Gardiner/dp/0375415297

Don't know how much classical biographical stuff is in it though.

I've never sought out a Bach biography, I always just assumed it'd be 50 uninterrupted years of writing, praying and humping

neither have I, but that Gardiner book looks good

this film is wildly recommended if you're already beyond the pale into Bach fandom: http://www.amazon.com/Chronicle-Anna-Magdalena-Gustav-Leonhardt/dp/B0009WIE8O

uses his second wife's diary as a thread to show Bach at work rehearsing & performing, but it's basically 100 minutes of musicians in period dress, at historical locations, performing the music live (single camera shots). total immersion. so, mostly about the music, but with just the occasional narrative tweak to let you imagine the life that the music demanded. production levels are modest, and it's such all out Bach worship that it must be said that this hardly for everyone, but oh my god was it ever for me. it's currently on youtube if you demand a safety check but it rewards commitment

+1, that film is amazing

"Bach had 17 children because his organ didn't have any stops"

--leo kottke

brandenburg concerto 3, movement 1, a++++++++

Gardiner made this documentary (more or less the book in digest) for the BBC, which was shown earlier this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiQbppQq54E

who knew john eliot gardiner's father was a nazi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Gardiner

Despise Eliot Gardiner.

Now I understand Straub's film can be tough for some (especially in the way it is shot) but its a much better way of approaching Bach, or any other kind of "giant" of past art.

Watched the beginning of the Straub film this afternoon seems like something I'd like. Has anyone read that recent book about The Cello Suites?

I actually didn't know that Casals was responsible for resurrecting them. I do get the impression that they've increased in popularity over time and have become one of *the* iconic bach pieces (maybe even moreso than the brandenburg concertos for modern audiences?). I think it would be interesting to look at why that is. Maybe there's something about the simultaneously lush and minimal/spare sound that suits modern tastes.

Despise Eliot Gardiner.

--xyzzzz__

Why?

Don't like his approach, completely the opposite to the Straubs. There is a section in that doc, iirc, where he gives short shrift to Telemann (whom I really like) that is simply infuriating.

Oh, right. That wording made me think you have something against him as a conductor rather than a documentarian.

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick, but I've noticed once or twice that his Amazon reviews are peppered with insulting remarks and general character assassination. Was wondering what bothers some people about Gardiner - have never had any problem with his music making personally.

What you guys know about Rosalyn Tureck?

I discovered Mozart I like -- the Haffner Symphony (No. 35).

What you guys know about Rosalyn Tureck?

I've listened to a couple of Bach piano recordings by her, and while they're not bad, they sound a bit too mannered and dry to my taste... If you want to listen to mannered Bach on piano (which can be cool, it's not necessarily a bad thing, especially since Bach was a bit of a formalist in his keyboard music), I'd recommend the more recent recordings by Angela Hewitt (on Hyperion) instead.

the full range of the possible, even just within an 8 (or 9) planet solar system is just so extreme that you can only vacillate between awe and terror when you contemplate it.

wrong thread obv!

Right that should be on the POO: Holst, Haydn, Handel thread.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/music-of-the-heavenly-spheres-part-2-holst-haydn-handel-and-more-30519469/

Xpost the Haffner is my favorite Mozart symphony. The Beecham/LPO recording from the 78 rpm era kicks ass.

I've been listening to the szell/Cleveland recording. Szell was the man.

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/_mrqiXtktPI/maxresdefault.jpg

Ok mozart symphony 28 second movement. Man.

I would love to be schooled on Mozart! Nevertheless, going with Bach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRocnRu6Kxg

His music is inspiring and relevant to me in no less a fashion than any current musician, and though I wouldn't say it matters, I bet even Beethoven and Mozart would choose him.

Yeah bach is still my guy. Appreciating mozart is still a new thing for me.

I think about Bach more than any modern musician, he's the best ever

No contest.

Although I listen to Beethoven and Mozart way more than I did at the dawn of this thread.

The last 3 Mozart pcs to go all god on me were the clarinet quintet, figaro, and the gran partita.

This would turn anyone around on Mozart: http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Piano-Sonatas-Kv310-Fantasias/dp/B000E0LBAY

I think about Bach more than any modern musician, he's the best ever

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, April 16, 2014 12:36 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too. I spent all winter listening to a way disproportionate amount of Bach compared to everything else combined. Especially Bach keyboard music. Sometimes a Bach piece is in my head all day. Now that it's spring I guess I'm feeling more Beethoven and Mozart though all of a sudden.

I think this might be my favorite piece of music ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fhqqxEQRRY

and that's the best performance/recording I've heard of it by like a million miles

One thing about Bach is, even when his stuff is played by beginners like at a kids' piano recital it will usually sound pretty good, and if you play it yourself you feel like you are learning a ton of stuff. It's just so well-made, well-crafted and at the same time infused with genius.

What is the board consensus on Fur Elise? I think it is one of my least favorite pieces of music.

I like it fine but it is not as sturdy as anything from JSB, as the recent kids' recital mentioned above demonstrated.

It's fine, it's just been driven into the ground. The three sets of Bagatelles (op. 33, 119 and 126) are more exciting displays of what beethoven could do in the short fragmentary mode that would be the bread and butter of the romantics.

otm. Bought a Dover book of the Bagatelles and Für Elise and fooled around with learning the latter, but only as a comedy punch line and in fact saw those two popular comedy musicians -I forget their names, one is Russian one is Korean-American I think- do exactly that when I saw them this past New Year's Eve.

One thing about Bach is, even when his stuff is played by beginners like at a kids' piano recital it will usually sound pretty good, and if you play it yourself you feel like you are learning a ton of stuff. It's just so well-made, well-crafted and at the same time infused with genius.

― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, April 17, 2014 1:11 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This. 99% of what's good about the music is in the notes on the page, so all you need is for someone to competently and clearly articulate the notes. That's why I like Gould so much for Bach and rarely enjoy him playing almost anything else, whereas a lot of otherwise wonderful pianists sound goofy to me playing their affected bach.

After too much coffee I was thinking that Mozart is sort of the Motown (lol almost pun) of classical music -- constant, polished hitmaker, everything sounds good and clean. Beethoven is a bit more like Stax -- raw, emotive, tumultuous. IDK what that makes Bach though.

Beethoven > Bach >>>>>>>>> Mozart

(I am Salieri.)

Bach = Fortune Records

Wow, the Kempff and the Lipatti upthread are phenomenal

Mozart has given me the most pleasure.

Mozart more and more. I'm mulling whether to go see Figaro in a couple weeks.

Speaking of Salieri: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/03/antonio-salieris-revenge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JauII1jCG6Q

I see I never specified my primary allegiance. It's Bach.

Bach for me too, perhaps more unusual is that I mostly like to listen to the cantatas.