tonyh29 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Ah, Wagner. Went to his home in Bayreuth when i was travelling through Germany a few years back , it's now a museum and quite interesting ... Franz Liszt lived in the town for a while as well but his house is just someone's home with a plaque out the front , guess he isn't as popular as Wagner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Last concert I went to was Birmingham Philharmonic performing the works of Dmitri Shostakovich - very very good, and a very very underrated composer.Careful, or we'll start replicating the "underrated"/"overrated" argument from the pop threads! Shostakovich is a strong contender for my favourite composer. He could do it all - nice tuneful stuff, film soundtracks, big symphonies, demanding experimental chamber music, you name it. The 5th symphony would be in my desert island list. True. I would argue only classical music fans have heard of Shostakovich though, like everyones heard of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Wagner etc. But mention shostakovich and you get blank looks. Fwiw Shostakovich is also one of my favourites, Beethoven is another, Tchaikovsky was also an excellent composer, and obviously with a bit of local bias, Holst and Elgar. Mozart was a flawed genius, I can't help thinking he had the potential to write far better compositions than he did. And the ones he did were excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 28, 2011 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2011 Ah, Wagner. Went to his home in Bayreuth when i was travelling through Germany a few years back , it's now a museum and quite interesting ... Franz Liszt lived in the town for a while as well but his house is just someone's home with a plaque out the front , guess he isn't as popular as WagnerIronic, really, because Liszt was a megastar in his day. Honours were showered on him and he was adulated everywhere he went. Since Liszt often appeared three or four times a week in concert, it could be safe to assume that he appeared in public well over a thousand times during this eight-year period. Moreover, his great fame as a pianist, which he would continue to enjoy long after he had officially retired from the concert stage, was based mainly on his accomplishments during this time. After 1842 "Lisztomania" swept across Europe. The reception Liszt enjoyed as a result can only be described as hysterical. Women fought over his silk handkerchiefs and velvet gloves, which they ripped to shreds as souvenirs. Helping fuel this atmosphere was the artist's mesmeric personality and stage presence. Many witnesses later testified that Liszt's playing raised the mood of audiences to a level of mystical ecstasy.Wiki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Throwing a curveball in here - Mike I'm assuming you have heard of Antonio Lauro? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 But please don't talk to me about The Farm's "All Together Now". well it was just to show how classical music is still used now possibly without people even being aware I doubt anyone is going to be sampling from "The Farm" 400 years after their death so worry not :winkold: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juanpabloangel18 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 I go a bit soft during Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of a Paganini :winkold: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Rachmaninov, good call there. I also agree with Nays' call on Vivaldi, very good bits of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Pachelbel's Canon is one of my fav pieces for what it's worth Mine too. Simple, but perfect. But please don't talk to me about The Farm's "All Together Now". Spiritualized use the chord progression from Pachelbel's Canon in their song "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" to altogether better effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 28, 2011 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2011 Mozart was a flawed genius, I can't help thinking he had the potential to write far better compositions than he did. And the ones he did were excellent.One of the reasons I started this thread. I don't "get" Mozart. It's like everybody tells me that Dickens is the greatest English novelist, and yet I think he's utter shite. Mozart seems to have the same "giant" status in music, and while I wouldn't say it's shite, his stuff doesn't move me at all. I mean, I love the precise, almost mathematical, musical architecture of the baroque - especially J.S. Bach. And I equally love the sturm und drang of Beethoven and the later romantics. But Mozart falls between the two, and seem to be neither one thing nor the other. It's just a bunch of tunes. Great tunes, I grant you, but it sounds like wallpaper music to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 For Tchaikovksky, I maintain the Swan Lake Theme is an aural masterpiece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 28, 2011 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2011 Throwing a curveball in here - Mike I'm assuming you have heard of Antonio Lauro?No, I haven't - had to Google. Classical guitar is one of my blind spots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 28, 2011 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2011 For Tchaikovksky, I maintain the Swan Lake Theme is an aural masterpiece.Went to a performance (Sinfonia of Leeds) of Tchaikovsky's 3rd symphony last saturday. For an amateur orchestra they were damn good. And the 3rd is one of PIT's lesser known works, so it made a nice change from the endless repetitions of Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Pathetique and 1812. EDIT: And as a bonus, the programme also featured one of my all-time favourites, the Elgar cello concerto (they didn't disgrace it at all). And a new piece called "Metro" by a bloke called Paul Ayres (he was in the audience). It's great - like a piece of classic film noir/Hitchcock soundtrack. I just emailed him to see if I can get a recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Mozart was a flawed genius, I can't help thinking he had the potential to write far better compositions than he did. And the ones he did were excellent.One of the reasons I started this thread. I don't "get" Mozart. It's like everybody tells me that Dickens is the greatest English novelist, and yet I think he's utter shite. Mozart seems to have the same "giant" status in music, and while I wouldn't say it's shite, his stuff doesn't move me at all. I mean, I love the precise, almost mathematical, musical architecture of the baroque - especially J.S. Bach. And I equally love the sturm und drang of Beethoven and the later romantics. But Mozart falls between the two, and seem to be neither one thing nor the other. It's just a bunch of tunes. Great tunes, I grant you, but it sounds like wallpaper music to me. Agree on Dickens (different argument here!) But with regards to Mozart, he was a rebel. He wasn't one to follow the trend he created his own, genius with a piano but only in his own way. I think his music, while it isn't anywhere near the best (iMO) he had the potential to be the best quite easily. As you said, Shostakovich had far more in his locker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 I don't "get" Mozart Mozart tended to explore chromatic harmony , could be why his stuff sounds like wallpaper music ? people like Mozart were churning out music on a vast scale , over six hundred works for Mozart i believe ? .. could be that some of it just gets lost in the mundane but Don Giovanni is a masterpiece ( OT but it was the first opera i saw ) .... and it was heavily borrowed from by Liszt on Reminiscences de Don Juan .. seeing as we just mentioned him :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Throwing a curveball in here - Mike I'm assuming you have heard of Antonio Lauro?No, I haven't - had to Google. Classical guitar is one of my blind spots. Now that is a surprise to me. He's my guitar idol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 28, 2011 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 28, 2011 This thread has taken off a lot more than I expected! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 El Negrito is a very good work by Lauro - Very ticky bugger to play though. His music is very distinctive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Not too surprised Mike - classical music is very influential, and you could argue no other music helps you work and relaxes you better than classical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Ah, Wagner. Went to his home in Bayreuth when i was travelling through Germany a few years back , it's now a museum and quite interesting ... Franz Liszt lived in the town for a while as well but his house is just someone's home with a plaque out the front , guess he isn't as popular as Wagner It appears as though there is a Liszt museum now. Liszt is utterly brilliant. I don't "get" Mozart. It's like everybody tells me that Dickens is the greatest English novelist, and yet I think he's utter shite. Mozart seems to have the same "giant" status in music, and while I wouldn't say it's shite, his stuff doesn't move me at all. I'm a big Mozart fan most especially his Requiem. His Dies Irae is the alarm on my 'phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 It appears as though there is a Liszt museum now. got a picture of that statue that I took as I walked past ... I'm hoping it just wasn't open when I went rather than me walking past it like a donut :-( (museum opened in 1993 , i was there in 2005 so let's just assume it was closed that day rather than the more obvious conclusion :-) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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