We’ve taken the Mahler symphonies quite out of order so far. But Thursday’s piece is a big one. A big place filled by his smallest symphony. Let’s talk about that. In many of my other endeavors with other composers, I’ve … Continue reading Mahler: Thus Far
performed by the ASMF under Sir Neville Marriner, or below by the Vienna Philharmonic under Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Muskverein Mini-German part 3 I’ve never really cared much for nicknames or monikers for pieces… They are often not chosen by the composer, sometimes not even approved of, and sometimes not even coined until long after the composer is gone.At least in the instance of Schubert’s Tragische, the name was of his own devising. My other gripe with names like this is that I don’t always (in fact, rarely do I) agree with them. ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Titan’ come to mind. ‘From … Continue reading Schubert Symphony no. 4 in Cm, D. 417, ‘Tragic,
performed, as always, by Neville Marriner and the ASMF, or below by Marriss Jansons and the Concertgebouw (apologies for the anime image, but it’s a nice performance) Mini-German: Part 2(I know he’s Austrian) Now for a slight change of pace. Sort of. While this work came a decade after last week’s Beethoven piece, it is… at least to my ears, not as far ahead of its time. That’s no criticism at all. Let me explain.For one, Eroica was just kind of a phenomenal thing. Beethoven was already into his thirties when this piece was written. Schubert was about half that … Continue reading Schubert Symphony no. 3 in D major, D. 200
For the next few weeks, we’ll be taking the chance to visit a few symphonies that didn’t get inclusion into our rather large German(ic) Symphony series at the end of last year. Obviously not everything could be included in that, and there was a rather specific train of thought I was working on for it, so some really good candidates were excluded. We’ll be adding to that a bit with a slightly smaller (by half) and not so narrative-like series starting this week.I’m excited about this one. The first and last in the series are really some of my absolute … Continue reading Mini German: A four-part series
This week, as you may have seen from yesterday’s post, is going to be a miniature Beethoven week. Actually, I don’t know what’s miniature about it; Beethoven certainly isn’t, and it’s a full seven-day week like any other. Beethoven week. … Continue reading Uchida on Beethoven, Schubert and Vienna
or the 2014 concert of the music department of the best music school in Taiwan. I have kind of a tenuous relationship with this university. It’s the one that a lot of foreigners attend to study Chinese when they move here, but their music department is generally regarded as the best in the country. I took piano lessons for a few years with a frighteningly talented and very friendly student at this university, and have been able to meet and stay in touch with a few others; it’s also like a block away from my office and makes me feel … Continue reading Concert Review: 2014師大音樂系交響樂團公演
First, some apologies and honorable mentions. So that’s it. We have, in order: Beethoven’s Symphony no. 2 Brahms’s Symphony no. 2 Bruckner’s Symphony no. 4 Hans Rott’s Symphony in E Mahler’s Symphony no. 3 Weingartner’s Symphony no. 1 Felix Woyrsch’s … Continue reading German(ic) Symphony Series: A wrap up
performed by the Basel Symphony Orchestra under Marko Lentoja So this is (perhaps thankfully) where our saga of the Beethoven quote ends. It’s been with us for around a month now, and it’s time we close that chapter. Mahler 3 … Continue reading Felix Weingartner: Symphony No. 1 in G
As has been common for the past few installments of our German(ic) Symphonies series, things got out of hand, and the most consuming idea of the piece itself expanded to take up a huge portion of what was supposed to … Continue reading Mahler’s third: An epilogue
performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado, or as below, Abbado with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a wonderful performance So here we are, at kind of the middle point of our series, and we have reached quite a point in … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 3
performed by the Radio Symphonieorchester Wien under Dennis Russell Davies It is completely impossible to estimate what music has lost in him. His genius soars to such heights even in his first symphony, written at the age of twenty, and … Continue reading Hans Rott: Symphony in E major
– a foreword The Artist. Inspiration. Intensity. Devotion. Drama Genius. Talent. Tragedy. Success. Failure. And usually a little bit of crazy. Most of these things come to mind when people think of the typical ‘artist’ in whatever medium, be … Continue reading Hans Rott: The Real Genius?
performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Böhm (1973 recording), or below with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Claudio Abbado So did I have that epiphany (from Tuesday’s post)? I think I may have. It seems there comes some point … Continue reading Bruckner Symphony no. 4 in Eb major, ‘Romantic’ (Haas, 1881)
It looks like the way in is not always from the beginning. This is also the first time I feel comfortable being so…. forwardly critical or (not indifferent but…) puzzled about the works of someone so well known and highly … Continue reading Thoughts on Bruckner: A foreword
Music You Can Understand: Part 4 (I use this title not condescendingly, but to suggest that the featured piece is not one obscured by highbrow classical ideas or too difficult to grasp. It is easy to understand and enjoy.) performed … Continue reading Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
I went a few weeks ago to hear this ensemble (see my remarks below about the name) play in our National Concert Hall here in Taipei. This past year or so, I’ve been working through an obsession with the works of Mahler. I still haven’t cracked into Das Lied or some of the song cycles much, but have gotten my head around most of the symphonies. It’s mostly three and nine that are left to really be explored, as well as whatever exists of the tenth in its various forms. I spent most of the summer not going to … Continue reading Concert Review: 臺北世紀青年管弦樂團- An Evening of Mahler
performed by Alfred Brendel Back to Schubert and back to the piano. We did Schubert and Mahler symphonies a while back, and I feel like a more appropriate follow up to those two would have been like, Schubert’s string quartet no. 14, Death and the Maiden, a work which Mahler himself was interested in (and would have related to at certain times in his life, I’m sure) but I am terribly underprepared for anything that logical. Also, we are back to piano for the next few weeks or so (and wonderfully have an interview with a pianist coming up next week!), … Continue reading Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy
sung by Dietrich Fischer–Dieskau; Gerald Moore, piano Music You Can Understand: Part 3 https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/BR8_n-B8qu0&source=uds This is an actual ‘song,’ in the actual sense of having lyrics, although we could more properly call it by its German name, a Lied (rhymes with ‘need’), plural Lieder (rhymes with feeder). I was preparing for what will now be next week’s post, and it is based on this song, so I thought it only logical to get familiar with this one first. It nearly made me weep. The video above has the German text with English translation, but below is the German text. Ich komme vom Gebirge her, … Continue reading Schubert: Der Wanderer, D. 489
This piece has been revisited, and an updated article has been written. Please read it here. I’ll keep the original article (below) for posterity, but I would suggest reading the new article instead. performed by the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 6
There’s something about these two…. This is a complicated heavy topic, one which I am not really quite ready to address. I have been more and more enthralled with the music of each of these great composers (mostly the symphonies), but I see similarities that link them on an intriguing, deep, almost spiritual level. (They even look a bit like each other in the photos above, no?) There are the obvious parallels: they were both Austrian composers who left the world nine-ish symphonies with some unfinished bits. They are both known for their ninth symphonies (among other works) (see the … Continue reading Schubert and Mahler
performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner In honor of the late Maestro Lorin Maazel, the above video is a recording he did with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. I haven’t listened to the whole thing, but the first movement is crisp and clean, at at a much brisker pace than Marriner’s version with the ASMF, which I quite adore. Lorin Maazel (March 6, 1930 – July 13, 2014) I am pleased and surprised at how much I have begun to enjoy the more traditionally classical, less Romantic (or extremely early ‘pre-Romantic) symphonies. … Continue reading Schubert symphony no. 2 in Bb, D. 125
Fugue for Thought 