performed by the Gewandhausorchester under Riccardo Chailly, or below by the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado in a performance very worth watching (cover image by Annie Gray) Now that we’re back to Bach, it’s a good time to discuss the … Continue reading Bach Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G, BWV. 1048
performed by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, or below with the Columbia Orchestra under the composer’s baton (cover image by Jingda Chen) And now for something completely different. It’s almost shocking to me, despite being the sole writer and … Continue reading Stravinsky: Feu d’artifice
performed by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Riccardo Chailly, or below with the London Symphony Orchestra under István Kertész (cover image by Saketh Garuda) In our discussion of Brahms on the blog over the years, we first addressed his symphonies, and … Continue reading Brahms Serenade no. 2 in A, op. 16
performed by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Riccardo Chailly, or below with the London Symphony Orchestra under István Kertész (cover image by Liam Pozz) Brahms may have only written four symphonies, but the symphonic works that come before it, of which … Continue reading Brahms Serenade no. 1 in D, op. 11
performed by The Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly (cover image by Sorin Tudorut) Beethoven’s op. 84 is actually an overture with incidental music (nine pieces) for soprano, male narrator, and orchestra for Goethe’s play of the same name. I thought … Continue reading Beethoven: Egmont Overture, op. 84
performed by the Gewandhausorchester under Riccardo Chailly, or below by the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado (cover image by Aaron Burden) We have made it to only the second of Bach’s six Brandenburg concertos. As you may recall, or else … Continue reading Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 in F major, BWV 1047
performed by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Riccardo Chailly (cover image by Shirly Niv Marton) Ah, Beethoven. As I’ve written about before, there’s that great sense of ‘spirituality’ in his music, an underlying, captivating magic about the beauty and often subtle … Continue reading Beethoven Coriolan Overture, op. 62
performed by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Riccardo Chailly, or below by the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado (cover image by Brooke Lark) I feel such a sense of distance from people like Bach and Telemann and Handel and all the … Continue reading Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no. 1, BWV 1046
performed by the RSO Berlin, Dunn, Fassbaender, Baur, Hollweg, and Schmidt under Riccardo Chailly, or below by The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and lots of people under Sir Simon Rattle (cover image by Roman Mavrin) We got around to … Continue reading Mahler: Das klagende Lied
performed by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Riccardo Chailly, or below by the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra under the late Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (cover image by Adam Edgerton) It’s been sometime since we’ve seen Bruckner. And aside from the revisit article … Continue reading Bruckner Symphony No. 3 in D minor, WAB 103
performed by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2omAt97OAME or (very) alternatively, here by Klemperer and the Philharmonia, which I’ll talk about below “In the deep twilight we went today to the palace were Queen Mary lived and loved…The chapel … Continue reading Mendelssohn Symphony no. 3 in Am, op. 56 ‘Scottish’
The Overture to the Ballet performed by the Gewandhausorchester under Riccardo Chailly, or below by the Vienna Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado So we’re not talking about the entire ballet, at least not yet. Maybe we should. In any case, if you’ve … Continue reading Beethoven’s Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, op. 43
performed by Mitsuko Uchida and the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, or below by Argerich/Chailly/Gewandhaus The idea of inspiration is an interesting one. This is the first husband-and-wife couple we’ve featured on the blog, as I mentioned yesterday with … Continue reading Schumann Piano Concerto in Am, op. 54
In preparation for another third symphony this week, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss for a bit something that struck me recently. I ran it by a few other friends to see if my idea was just kind … Continue reading Beethoven’s Eroica: A Litmus
performed by Nicolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (which seems not to be available online, so we will go with a slightly less favorite but almost equally as wonderful interpretation, and very much along the same lines, our … Continue reading Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in Eb, op. 55, Eroica
performed by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin under Riccardo Chailly; Martha Argerich, piano //player.vimeo.com/video/63725542 This is intimidating. I guess everything about this piece is except for listening to it, and sometimes even that. There’s so. much. to. say. about this piece that I almost don’t want to try. There are so many theses, recordings, liner notes, program notes, concert talks and everything else about this piece that it would be ludicrous for me to think I have anything else to add but my own opinion and feelings of the piece, so that’s pretty much all I’m going to share, aside from some basics. For the technical bits … Continue reading Centenniel Music Post: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in Dm, op. 30
…on themes of Carl Maria von Weber in an absolutely phenomenal performance by Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony, here, or below by the Royal Concertgebouw under Riccardo Chailly So again, relative to last week’s sprawling, enormous piece, this … Continue reading Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis
performed by the Gewändhausorchester under Riccardo Chailly Bear with me. There are a lot of videos to see in today’s post. We begin the first part of our very German[ic] series with Beethoven. (I say Germanic because some are Austrian, … Continue reading Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D, op. 36
Fugue for Thought 