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
…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
I just got home. And I’m exhausted. So I probably won’t finish this tonight. Gurre-Lieder Gotta give credit where credit is due This was the first time I’ve heard a piece anything like this performed live, and while some little … Continue reading Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder (part 2 of 2)
performed live by the National Symphony Orchestra (aka Taiwan Philharmonic, aka 國家交響樂團) on 12.31.14 and 1.1.15 in Taiwan’s National Concert Hall in the Taiwanese premiere, or as below by lots of people (details in the YouTube page for the video) … Continue reading Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder (one of two)
performed by the Hamburg Symphony under Miguel A. Gómez-Martinez Last week’s symphony moved a bit out of the realm of that deep rabbit hole of associations among Mahler and Rott and Bruckner and Brahms that all started with Beethoven. It … Continue reading Felix Woyrsch: Symphony No. 1 in Cm, op 52
performed by the Chicago symphony orchestra under Sir Georg Solti Watch both of these above. In the second video, Maestro Bernstein begins talking about the second symphony just before the three minute mark. This is such a pleasant symphony, and … Continue reading Brahms Symphony no. 2 in D major, op. 73
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
After the two little hiatuses for the past two weeks of smaller pieces, we will be starting another long train of thought I’ve been brewing up for a long time. I may even name the little series in parts, but … Continue reading Get Ready for German
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
performed by the Cleveland Philharmonic under George Szell, or the below video of Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago symphony I mentioned in a tweet the other day that Schubert feels like the gateway drug to classical-era music, at least … Continue reading Beethoven symphony no. 1 in C, op. 21
performed by the Royal Philharmonic under Thomas Beecham, Jascha Heifetz, violin It’s been piano, piano, piano… Concertos, sonatas, other stuff. Was definitely on a piano kick for a while, and still have lots of other pieces on the back burner that didn’t … Continue reading Felix Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in Em, op. 64
This article has been marked as in need of a revisit. That’s where I feel like I didn’t do the piece justice or have more to say (usually because I didn’t know it nearly well enough or didn’t have the … Continue reading Brahms Symphony no. 1 in Cm, op. 68
performed by whoever plays it in the following videos: Section 1Section 2Section 3 Julius Reubke was a student of Franz Liszt, his favorite pupil at one point, as Liszt himself apparently stated. It shows. While the previous piece I wrote about is a concerto dedicated to the memory of a man whose life was at its end, and written in his style, this piece, dedicated to the composer’s teacher, shows heavy direct influence from the man himself, even quotes directly from Liszt’s piano sonata in a place or two. The sonata was written in 1857, when the composer was 23, … Continue reading Julius Reubke: piano sonata in Bb minor
This article has been marked as in need of a revisit. That’s where I feel like I didn’t do the piece justice or have more to say (usually because I didn’t know it nearly well enough or didn’t have the … Continue reading Schumann Symphony no. 1, op. 38
This article has been marked as in need of a revisit. That’s where I feel like I didn’t do the piece justice or have more to say (usually because I didn’t know it nearly well enough or didn’t have the … Continue reading Schumann Symphony no. 4 in Dm (1851 version)
This article has been marked as in need of a revisit. That’s where I feel like I didn’t do the piece justice or have more to say (usually because I didn’t know it nearly well enough or didn’t have the right perspective). I’ll keep the original article for posterity, but publish a new version that will eventually be linked here for my new take on it. Performed by the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell I kinda loved this. I generally try to read up on the history of the piece before or as I am listening, but leave any artistic … Continue reading Robert Schumann: Symphony no. 3 in Ebm, op. 97
Fugue for Thought 