Is the world moving just a bit too fast for you? High-speed internet, instant messaging, faster connections, everything is just faster-faster, faster!? Now-days, it seems like everyone is talking about the latest buzz, newest fads, what's in and what's out.

But if you need something that's enduring, something that's charming, classic, and cool, then calm yourself with classical music. Classical music takes its time, telling you a story and painting a musical picture that can't be rushed.

Be it from the Baroque to Bartok; from the early days of the Medieval Gregorian chants and right up to the post-classical composers of today, classical music is always there for you no matter what your mood. Essential is almost each and every form of musical expression, classical music encompasses a virtually infinite spectrum of sounds, style, and information.

A thread dedicated to music lovers young and old.



(The Mozart family: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl. Circa 1763)

I know we have several classical music aficionados here on the bb and hopefully we can generate some great discussion that's fun and enlightening for all. I think it'd only be right to start with a work from a very good friend of ours, Mr. Nino Rota, the composer of our beloved Godfather Waltz and accompanying pieces. This is a very heartmoving piece from Rota written for the 1968 film, "Romeo and Juliet," appropriately entitled "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet."

Rota's love theme was rerecorded and arranged with great success by another legend; Henry Mancini, a composer, conductor, and arranger also known for his jazz movements, his most notable work being the jazzy score from "The Pink Panther" film series. Mancini's instrumental version of Rota's Love Theme (originally titled "What Is A Youth," and later remaned "A Time For Us") actually crossed over all genres, becoming a smash-hit among pop audiences and ascending to the 1969 Billboards #1 spot for 2 weeks! Supplanting songs from the likes of the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

Ralph Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending" for violin and orchestra is one of the more stirring and moving pieces of classical music that I've ever heard. It's a dreamy, tranquil, freeflowing work that was considered very progressive and innovative for its day, yet one that is nonetheless steeped in the English folk traditions that are prevelant in most of Williams' music.

To me, the song is more than just a musical expression, it also has poetic value and is in fact based on a poem by the same title. The music harmoniously tells the story of a lark's ascent into the skies on a sunny, English afternoon, but does so through the viewpoint of an observer watching from the ground; we the audience. The higher the bird ascends, the more enchanting and compelling the music becomes. The lark soars toward the heavens and slowly makes its way out of our view, the music carried away along with it. The euphoria of watching the ascent is expressed through the extreme variances of tone in the violin.

But the lark analogizes us, I think. That we are all larks in ascension at each and every moment of our lives.





Part 2-2 Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos was written in 1779, just before Mozart would leave Salzburg to take his talents to Vienna, "The City of Music." The former child prodigy was now 23 at this time, and would spend the rest of his days in Vienna, where he composed some of his best works right up until his early death.

This concerto for double pianos is certainly one of the more livelier and lyrical works ever produced: The finale is a rondo filled with rhythmic drive and, after passages of lyrical grace, there is an exuberant return to the main rondo theme. Now, why Mozart left Salzburg for Vienna shortly after this piano concerto remains in question. But undoubtably, the reason Mozart chose to write this particular concerto for DOUBLE piano was so that he could play it with his sister, who had taught her little brother to play piano when the two were just 7 and 3 years of age.

This is the 3rd and final movement of this striking piece; a very fun and lively little number performed by a male-female team on pianos, who give us an idea of what the interplay between Mozart and his sister Nannerl might have looked and sounded like as the two pianos exhanged musical ideas. Mozart may not have invented the double piano concerto, but he certainly perfected it:

The Bach Suite in G Major, played by Yo Yo Ma. This music is incredibly beautiful, but he brings it to another dimension.

The chorus "va peniero sull'a li dorate" from Nabucco by Verdi sends chills up my spine whenever I hear it.

dt, from what I understand, "The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" is the only chorus that has ever been allowed an encore at the Metropolitan Opera.

SB, that is such a great song to start the morning with and a very cool performance. The performer makes all the difference in classical music. And I love Bach. Without Bach there is no Mozart, no Schubert, no Beethoven.

What do you guys think of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"? The piece was inspired by Dvorak's trip to New York from his native Bohemia in 1893, incorporating various indigenous American sounds that Dvorak heard during his 3 year travels across the country - most notably Native and African American spirituals. Though inevitably the song more closely resembles the sounds of Dvorak's Bohemian roots of which he was very fond, it does have a connection to very contempary American pop culture in that, the first line of the fourth movement is the source from which the famous two-note main theme from "Jaws" is derived.

And talk about a song that transcends sheer musical form, the introduction rises slowly and dramatically, giving the listener a sense of the anticipation one might have felt aboard a boat as she first caught sight of the "New World."

Neil Armstrong is said to have taken a copy of the song with him on his maiden voyage to the moon.



Dvorak Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" 2nd movement

Dvorak Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" 3rd movement

Borodin's String Quartets Nos. 1&2 are among my favorites, especially the "Nocturne." Among the musical intermezzos from opera: "Cavalleria's" is the best known of Mascagni's, and always moves me. But I also love his "Barcarole" from "Sylvano," and the "Intermezzo" from "Guglielmo Ratcliff."

Not to be a party pooper, but I must inject here that IMHO
the most overrated piece of classical music of all time is
Handel's Messiah.

Chopin's my homeboy.

Whenever I hear it, his work reduces me or inflates me to an indescribable feeling, without fail.

In addition to musical innovatar, Chopin was also a patriotic hero in his native Poland. So much so that the Nazi's destroyed a statue of him in downtown Warsaw during WWII. You should check out the film "A Song To Remember" from 1945, a somewhat fictionalized account of the composer's life directed by Charles Vidor (also directed "Gilda").

And I'm sure that Turnbull & dt are well aware that September is an exciting time for Classical fans everywhere, as this month marks the beginning of Opera season all over the world! The Met will kick off its season on the 21st with Puccini's "Tosca," and the week will include performances of Mozart's "The Magic Flute," AND "The Marriage of Figaro." One way to listen live (1:00e.t) on Saturdays from the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center is through www.kmfa.org. One of very few 24-hour classical stations around the nation that's also commercial free, the station airs live broadcasts from the Met every Saturday amongst a bevy of other daily programming. I highly recommend kmfa to anyone at anytime of the day.

Oh, and I just checked the schedule at the Novaya Opera in Moscow, where our good friend 'Just Me' is a pianist, and I noticed their season started Wednesday night with Strauss's "Die Fledermaus (The Bat)", and this weekend's performances will include Rossini's "The Barber of Seville." So best of luck to JM and the rest of the crew there.

Yes, it's an exciting time of year at home and abroad as the start of Football season coincides with the start of Opera season, and husbands all over the world are finding ways to avoid taking their wives to the Opera so they can stay home and watch Football.

LOVE Chopin, but my favorite piece is Prelude in A Major.

I love the Met. My dad loved opera and used to take me to the Met when I was a little girl. Back then, evening wear was expected, if not required. Half of the experience was dressing up, seeing my parents in evening clothes, the beauty of the theater and the audience, watching the chandeliers ascend before the performance. It was wonderful.

He took me to see "Madame Butterfly", "La Boheme", "Rigoletto", "Cavalleria"/"Pagliacci" and "La Traviata". They were experiences I'll never forget.

Alas, no Met here in AZ, although if I drive to Scottsdale, I can see the Met broadcasts in HD at one of the movie theaters. NPR station here doesn't carry Met Live.

"Tosca" isn't one of my favorite operas. But I have a recording of Leontyne Price singing "Vissi d'Arte" that is just unsurpassed.

TB you ever get up to Santa Fe? I hear they have a pretty good opera house and company there.

Kudos for the blasphemy on Tosca! I feel the same way about Lucia del Amamoor.

This is me singing the Leporello Aria of Mozart's Don Giovanni (in German).

The Santa Fe Opera Company is highly regarded, but it's next to impossible to get tix. I also can't stand "Lucia."

Very nice, Danito!

Good stuff Danito!


I love these two :

Moonlight Sonata





Claude Debussy, "Clair de Lune"






But Rachmaninov - Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Var 18 is my all time favorite :

Very impressive, Danito. You have a good, powerful voice.

Danito,

I won't pretend to be an opera expert, and don't have a clue what words you are singing, but you do have a nice voice and obviously put a lot of feeling into your performance. Let me add too, that you appear very comfortale performing.

Very nice.


TIS

Turnbull my friend, this one's for you!

I wonder how many American and Western brides know that the famous "bridal chorus" accompanying their epic walk down the aisle actually originates from the 3rd act of a German fairy-tale Opera called Lohengrin, written by Richard Wagner in 1850. The essential wedding song for almost every American bride was of course originally sung in German, and is about 5 minutes in length. Lohengrin is a love story that involves the quest for the Holy Grail, but one that ends tragically soon after the "bridal chorus" welcomes the opera's newly wed couple home. The opera inspried King Ludwig II (The 'fairy-tale' King) of Bavaria to build a fairy-tale castle called "New Swan Stone," after the main character.

"The Bridal Chorus" is of course excluded from Jewish weddings and is deemed secular by the Roman Catholic church. Few of Wagner's works are shown in Israel b/c of their appropriation by the Nazis. Thanks to the efforts of Jewish artists like Leonard Bernstein, who long petitioned to have Wagner's music played in Israel, Wagner's works have been on display but are sometimes met with stiff resistance and protest. "The Ring" was used by Nazi propagandists to promote the idea of an Aryan Super Man, and it's true, many of Wagner's operas involve ancient Nordic myths and tales of Knights and their fair maidens, but I think he's somewhat unfairly portrayed as anti-semitic due to Hitler and Goebbels' absolute adoration for "the master."

Let's listen to "The Bridal Chorus" sung in its original German from the 3rd act of Wagner's Lohengrin. This is a very beautiful performance from Stockholm in 1966 (You may have to adjust your volume a bit upwards).

Meanwhile, patrons of NY's Metropolitan Opera got rowdy at the premier of a new production of "Tosca" (attention: dt!):

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...osca&st=cse

Meanwhile Wagner's music has been performed in Israel.

Meanwhile, after careful reevaluation, Wagner's essay "Judaism in Music" has been added to the Wiesenthal Center's library and archives.

Well, I just want it known that my understanding of classical music is quite elementary, by no means am I a "patron of the arts."

But hey, I know what I like.

I've found about 50-100 of my favorite songs on youtube that I'm dieing to share in this thread, but for me, music is really all about mood, and one of my great pleasures is coming home at the end of a long day and listening to composers like Claude Debussy as the sun goes down.

So here's one for my fellow Debussy fan, Don Cardi!



And a shout-out to Capo's homey, Frederic f*ing Chopin. Have you heard this one, Capo? I'm not a HUGE Chopin fan as of yet, but this piece is very deep; one with great dissonance and resonance.

I also wonder how many of us are aware that the famous "Lullaby" we sing to babies is originally a German composition, written by Johannes Brahms in 1868. Below is a very beautiful performance sung in Hebrew, English and German.

If it's not already overtly obvious, I have extreme admiration for zee Germans.


Johannes Brahms' original version was composed in German:

Guten Abend, gute Nacht, mit Rosen bedacht,
Mit Näglein besteckt, schlüpf unter die Deck!'
Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt
Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt
Guten Abend, gute Nacht, von Englein bewacht
Die zeigen im Traum, dir Christkindleins Baum
Schlaf nun selig und süß, schau im Traum's Paradies
Schlaf nun selig und süß, schau im Traum's Paradies

A close English translation of which is:

Good evening, and good night, with roses adorned,
With carnations covered, slip under the covers.
Early tomorrow, God willing, you will wake once again.
Early tomorrow, God willing, you will wake once again.
Good evening, and good night. By angels watched,
Who show you in your dream the Christ-child's tree.
Sleep now peacefully and sweetly, see the paradise in your dream.
Sleep now peacefully and sweetly, see the paradise in your dream.

All of the back-and-forth between the German and Italian composers in this thread reminds of a line from a poem written to posthumously accompany Camille Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals (1886).

Puccini was Latin, and Wagner Teutonic,
And birds are incurable philharmonic,
Suburban yards and rural vistas
Are filled with avian Andrew Sisters.
The skylark sings a roundelay,
The crow sings “The Road to Mandalay,”
The nightingale sings a lullaby,
And the sea gull sings a gullaby.
That’s what shepherds listened to in Arcadia
Before somebody invented the radia.

Although I do have a special fondness for the 'Teutonic', French, Russian, and English composers; Italian composers, in addition to being the leaders of the post-Renaissance 'Baroque' era, all seem to have a certain richness and fullness to their sounds. One piece that comes to mind is Ottorino Respighi's 3rd movement from "Ancient Airs and Dances." Respighi, a neo-classical composer from the early 20th century who drew inspiration from preceding Italian composers, was also a musicologist who studied the sounds of various Italian contemporaries from the past.

The 3rd movement of this piece is comprised of two movements: the "Siciliana," and the "Italiana." The Italiana I especially enjoy; a banquet type piece noted for its refinement and elegance:

I see youtube removed the Antonin Dvorak vid I posted, so here's another.

It's Dvorak's "Romance" for violin...a sad romance.

Mozart's Requiem was used at the end of "Elizabeth" , which of course had a huge Godfather influence. Now I always associate that piece with "Elizabeth".