Various threads or chunks of history or music organized into strings of posts.
performed by David Pyatt and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner, or below with the fantastic Radek Baborák and the Mito Chamber Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa W. A. Mozart took pity on Leitgeb, ass, ox and fool … Continue reading Mozart Horn Concerto no. 2 in E flat, K. 417
It’s a beautiful instrument. It sings and soars and highlights some of the most spine-tingling, heroic, tragic, powerful, epic, angelic moments in the pieces that we as classical music audiences love and adore. And I couldn’t find an image of … Continue reading Series: The Horn
performed by David Pyatt, horn; Kenneth Sillito, Robert Smissen, Stephen Orton & Stephen Tees, or below by members of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Ensemble, with Timothy Brown as soloist (I’d also like to mention Andrew Clark’s recording with Ensemble Galant, … Continue reading Mozart Horn Quintet in E flat, K. 407
performed by the Amadeus Quartet, or below by the Festetics Quartet Mozart’s fifth string quartet was written in 1773, the fourth of the Milanese quartets, as they are called, for where they were composed. Like all of the Milanese quartets, … Continue reading Mozart String Quartet no. 5 in F major, K. 158
performed by Judith Bettina and Parnassus under Anthony Korf (sorry, there’s no video here again today, but if you can spare the dollar or whatever, I highly recommend purchasing the recording [I guess it has to be the entire album, so about $10…] on … Continue reading Babbitt’s The Head of the Bed
performed by Barbara Hendricks and the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas, a remarkable performance, or below by Dawn Upshaw and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under David Zinman We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee … Continue reading Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915
performed by Anne Sofie von Otter and the Vienna Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado or, because she’s an outstanding performer and it’s a (somewhat unclear) video of a live performance, Jessye Norman and the London Symphony under Pierre Boulez If you’ve … Continue reading Berg: Sieben frühe Lieder
for clarinet and piano performed by Sabine Meyer and Oleg Maisenberg But I must thank you for your censure just as much as for everything you ever gave me, in the full knowledge that it is meant well—and for my … Continue reading Berg: Vier Stücke, op. 5
performed by the Quatuor Diotima and Sandrine Piau, or below by the New Vienna String Quartet and Evelyn Lear If I had to pinpoint a moment in musical history, a piece in particular that is the breaking point, the straw that … Continue reading Schoenberg String Quartet no. 2, op. 10
performed by Violeta Urmana, Michael Schade and the Vienna Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez With one stroke, I have lost everything I have gained in terms of who I thought I was, and have to learn my first steps again like … Continue reading Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
performed by the Hagen Quartet, or below by the Cherubini Quartet After Schumann’s vocal phase in 1840 and 1841, he turned to chamber music. All three quartets, collectively published under opus no. 41, as well as the piano quintet and … Continue reading Schumann String Quartet no. 2 in F, op. 41 no. 2
performed by Régine Crespin and the L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet [The poems] form a narrative which leads from a spring-born joie de vivre (Villanelle) and a loss of innocence (Le spectre de la rose), to the … Continue reading Berlioz: Les nuits d’été, op. 7
performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; Alfred Brendel, piano, or below with Günther Weissenborn as pianist (not to be confused with the earlier op. 24 of the same name) …my most romantic music ever, with much of you in it, dearest Clara The voice … Continue reading Schumann: Liederkreis, op. 39
performed by the Melos Quartet Quick on the heels of the young composer’s incomplete fifth quartet is his sixth, in D major. The composition of this work begun just days after the completion (or abandonment?) of the fifth quartet, and … Continue reading Schubert String Quartet no. 6 in D major, D. 74
performed by the Melos Quartet 1813 was a busy year for the young Franz Schubert. But then again, to have died at 31 and written as much as he did, perhaps every year was a busy year for Franz Schubert. … Continue reading Schubert String Quartet no. 5 in B flat, D. 68
performed by Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Hubert Giesen, piano While we’ve addressed Schubert as the composer of symphonies and some solo piano works, his real fame and the bulk of his output comes from Lieder, songs for voice, and our piece today is one … Continue reading Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795
performed by Peter Schreier and Andras Schiff, or below with Schreier and Walter Olbertz as pianist Here we are, jumping ahead to the latest of Beethoven’s works on the blog so far, after seven piano trios, eleven string quartets, ten … Continue reading Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte, op. 98
In the past, we’ve done series about different instruments (and another one is queued up), and I’ve spoken before about the difficulty of warming up to and appreciating opera the way I am currently used to listening to music, but … Continue reading The Human Voice
performed by the Artemis Quartet, or below by the Belcea Quartet Here we are, finally halfway through Beethoven’s Haydn-inspired (or at least influenced) installment of the six quartets, his first six, published as op. 18. As a matter of fact, … Continue reading Beethoven String Quartet no. 3 in D, op. 18 no. 3
Mozart’s fourth string quartet is the third of the six so-called Milanese quartets (no. 1 not included in that set). Like all the Milanese quartets, it’s in three movements, and like most of them, contains a middle movement in the … Continue reading Mozart String Quartet no. 4 in C, K.157
performed by Boris Berman and the Vermeer Quartet, or below by the Borodin trio and Mimi Zweig (violin), Jerry Horner (viola) The Gm piano quintet, one of the composer’s most enduring chamber works, comes right after the composer’s sixth symphony, … Continue reading Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor, op. 57
Fugue for Thought 