howie
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Post by howie on Feb 21, 2016 9:33:44 GMT
String quartets also have the first violin, seated far left, generally playing the loud high melodic notes straight into the left ear through headphones, and that can be very fatiguing. I'm not sure recording engineers think about this-probably not. One way I have found to prevent this left ear problem is using an NOS DAC. This more or less eliminates the excessive brightness of the first violin, but I'm not sure how. Actually I've heard one or two NOS DAC's and they sound pretty cool to me, at least for Classical. Haydn's chamber music sure makes great background music and I think Telemann wrote some music for the 'table' but I'm not sure if it was for a dinner table.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 21, 2016 9:36:59 GMT
Here is a great dinner party track. Over 5 hours long and all really good music.
Mozart was a really good pianist as well. Of course as a kid, his father who was also a musician took him on musical tours all over the place because he was something special to say the least. (Although it sounds like he had a very odd character! He played for many important people as a kid. That meant that his attitude was quite different to anyone else at the time. Imagine growing up where everyone keeps telling you how brilliant you are and then accepting that you're going to have to be a musical servant to a patron.
Exactly, Mozart didn't like that one bit!!
His music is defferent as well. For instance, he hated repeating tunes or themes 'exactly'. Very often, he'd slightly alter the repeat. He'd also start introducing much more 'chromatic' notes. That is, notes that were 'foreign' to the key of his music. (In simple terms, black notes on the piano) He was often critcised for composing 'too many notes"!!! He was innovative not only in the brilliant twists and turns of his tunes, but also quick to use new sounds like the clarinet and the piano.
The piano took over really from the harpsichord. It was taken out of the orchestra but pianos weren't put in. The conductor started to appear. The reason that the piano became so popular was that unlike the harpsichoed, it had a very powerful sound and also, it played loud and soft at the touch of the keys. This enabled a lot more expression. So when listening to a piano player, listen to how he expresses the music though dynamic changes and phrasing. Pianos ebb and wane in intensity depending on how the player plays. Mozart loved this since it was very expressive and he wrote many piano concertos and piano sonatas.
A sonata was a piece for an instrument and a piano acommpanyimg it. In Baroque times, a harpsichord. The Classical sonata though had more variation contained in it with the idea of two contrasting themes and sonata form holding it together.
A piano sonata though wasn't a piano accompanied by a piano, it was just a piano on its own. BTW, sonata means 'sounded' or played, while cantata means 'sung'.
So, this is 5 hours of Mozart, which makes great dinner party music, but is also bery high quality Classical music in its own right. I have a few recordings of all of his piano sonatas and each one sounds different, due to the idea that the performer now, is allowed to interpret the notes more. Classical music fres them up a little. (Within limits of good taste)
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 21, 2016 10:02:24 GMT
I'm going to play this at our lunch party today. Thanks. I think there's a final movement of one of Mozart's piano concertos, ? in A, which has about 12 different tunes packed into 7 or so minutes. I have the complete recordings of his sonatas by Uchida. Very good playing and sound. I have a few of Brendel, remastered from those cheap Turnabout LP's he recorded with before he became famous and moved to Philips. I think those early recordings he did in the '60s were more alive, fresher and imaginative than his later ones. His early 'Waldstein' is still regarded as one of the best ever recorded. Sorry, I'm digressing.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 21, 2016 10:11:07 GMT
No, you're not at all Howard!
I have the Uchida set as well. Some don't like it but I do. I really like Brendel. I saw him perform Beethoven sonatas a few years back mow, in the Albert Hall. What I really liked was his delicate touch and the 'space' of the sound in the Albert Hall. Really, Beethoven wouldn't have been designed for those comditions, nut it was really mesmorising. He released an excellent set of all of Beethoven's somatas.
With Mozart and his melodies..... He was an absolute genius at writing amazing melodies with all kinds of twists and turns. Even the 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' variations are astounding in the way that he twists and turns the melodic elements of such a basic tune.
Variation form also became very popular in the Classical period and really showed what a composer could do with a basic melodic idea.
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 21, 2016 10:30:15 GMT
Brendel really put Schubert on the recording map here in the UK. He performed at the opening celebrations of the new concert hall here in Glasgow. He apparently brought five pianos with him, testing each one out before deciding on a magnificent Bosendorfer. He played the Brahms'second. Wonderful concert, even though the horn made a slight slip in his opening solo. Such a shame- the occasion must have got to him. He got a specially loud clap at the end though, when Gibson ostentatiously beckoned him to stand up and take a bow. By then he was laughing!
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 21, 2016 10:50:12 GMT
Well, that's actually part of live music, Howard. I think that on the other end of a headphone, we tend to forget that there's a human being at the source. One reason why I like the BBC live recordings is that vulnerability that you don't get on studio recordings. Believe it or not, some composers want some things that they write to sound as though the performer is struggling. It actually puts a sense of urgency into the music. The Rite of Spring for instance, where Stravinsky purposely write notes well out of the comfort range of most instruments. The effect live, is completely raw and raucous because the whole orchestra is fighting with the parts. On recordings, each section is recorded after detailed rehearsal very often, so that it's less of a struggle and sounds 'perfect'. To me, it destroys the point of the piece. We seem to want our music perfect nowadays, not 'performed' and I prefer the 'through' performances with struggles, errors and the sense of wffort that goes into it. I worry that music will become so perfect that machines will totally produce it. This is supposed to be true about Mozart ..... I BET dad put a few corrections in!!! I visited Mozart's house in the 70s where it has now become a museum. There was a letter there, written by him to his Mum describing of all things ..... Pooh!!!! He was obsessed. Something I hear that German people have retained is the ability to translate these things into an indication of their health .......... I can't see that catching on in the UK though!! I also visited Beethoven's 'pad' near Vienna which was interesting.
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 21, 2016 11:20:42 GMT
What you say about the 'struggle' is so true. Just listening to Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin I much prefer the performances with the rough edges rather than the super slick ones. The only exception to that is Heifetz!
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 21, 2016 11:57:32 GMT
I think that composers write music with the intention of hearing that 'struggle'. In anything played back to me of myself, I've normally felt that it's got something missing and is way glossier than what I hear.
For instance, with the oboe, you get different sounds on different notes. It's actually uneven when you're on the blowing end. That contributes to its 'character'. Some notes come out of the bell (bell notes) while other notes come out from the key holes or even the throat of the instrument. That means that the overtones change with each note. Plus key rattles.
Sound engineers always adjust mics to minimise this so it sounds pretty. A bit like going to a photographer's studio for a portait. You look prettier than you really are!!! (Except me)
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 21, 2016 12:39:42 GMT
LOL I'm going to rehearse my lecture on English music now for our lunch party.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 21, 2016 17:12:54 GMT
You'll come across as a Professor of music I'm sure!!
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 21, 2016 19:36:27 GMT
You trained me well-we were all singing Greensleeves.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 21, 2016 20:10:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2016 18:31:10 GMT
I read a lot of books. Mainly Nordic Noir because I'm a miserable git In the book I'm reading right now the lead character has something of a penchant for classical music (don't all detectives?) Anyway, he's going in to hospital for an operation and insists that his lieutenant sources a particular piece of music for him. This is pre-Google. So the lieutenant has never heard of the composer and has to trawl through libraries and second-hand shops before he finally finds it. I have to admit I'd never heard of this either but, it's not bad at all, if a bit grim. See what you guys think.. Edit - I should at least mention the book & it's author. The book is called The Return and it's by Håkkan Nesser. Part of the Inspector Van Veeteren Series. The books themselves are maybe the ones that created the whole Nordic Noir genre. Excellent stories told in quick-time. I like that. For me there's nothing worse than a story that takes two pages to tell me how green the grass was.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 23, 2016 18:35:52 GMT
Nice!! He's an unusual one. We don't see much of his music around.
Funny thing that there were loads of Classical composers, but most seem to be overshadowed by Mozart and Hatdn.
Quite dramatic for a Classical piece as well. I don't know it at all.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2016 18:39:13 GMT
Me neither. Never heard of the guy but it's pretty good. Although he has a French(?) name it does sound kind of Nordic.
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