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Post by Rabbit on Feb 19, 2016 8:35:13 GMT
One thing about Baroque music that caused a reaction was how the parts weaved with each other. This is technically know as polyphony, where the main focus of the music is to have the parts interacting with each other. Harmony was almost a secondary feature and happened as a result of the weaving parts. So to many (untrained) ears, Baroque music sounds complex and too full of notes!!
JS Bach had many musical sons. CPE Bach almost did a kind of 'dirty' on his Dad's work in a way because people wanted a simpler, 'easier to listen to' type of music.
This meant that polyphony as a 'main focus' of music was about to be unfashionable, thanks to CPE Bach. There was the development of Homophony - the idea that there should be a tune with harmony or chords behind it. Simpler music.
Also, the idea of contrast in music started to appear. Whereas Baroque music tended to set some kind of mood and stick with it throughout each movement, Classical composers wanted to create the idea of contrasting ideas in the same movement so that 'conflict' could produce the interaction within pieces.
Composers began to work very much more for 'patrons'. Rich people with large houses. Some in palaces. So orchestral music became music for the rich, which is possible where the rumour that Classical Music is only for snobs might come from. There were no record players or cd players, so these rich people employed a 'living music player'. They would employ musicians as servants to be called on to entertain, fix their own instrumemts and compose their own music. This also affected the production of music, since it was important for composers that their 'patrons' actually liked their music or else they'd find themselves unemployed.
Working for a patron also put the added pressure onto composers of needing to produce compositions quickly and very often for 'special occasions', so a formula was adopted by most that enabled this.
It was a time of rules so that everyone knew what to expect. The orchestra was standardised. It became a group of strings, (two sets of violins, violas, cellos) plus two of each woodwind (clarinets though were just being invented), then two french horns and two trumpets perhaps plus just two timpani in the percussion section. The drums were tuned to 'doh' and 'soh', the tonic and dominant.
So if you were rich, you might employ a 'standard' orchestra.
The symphony was invented. It developed over a period and emerged from the operatic overture. It was common for an overture in Baroque times to have three sections. The Italian model was fast/slow/fast and the French version was slow/fast/slow. The Italian model was used for symphonies which started as three movement pieces. Fast - slow - fast.
However, each movement had a 'formula' for its construction.
The first movement would be in what we call, 'sonata form'. There would be a first theme in the tonic. (Doh) a link to a second theme that would contrast in some way with the first in the dominant. (Soh). This section was called the 'exposition' and was then repeated. The middle section was where composers battled the two themes out in a way, using their differences to create tension. Still, they might use fugal ideas, imitation but now there was contrast. This section was called the 'development'. The last section was called the 'recapitulation' where the first theme would return in the tonic (doh) and the second theme would also follow in the tonic, leading to the 'coda' or ending. That was just the first movement.
So music was becoming longer because the rules kind of dictated it.
Following the first movement in sonata form would be the slow movement. A reflective, slow melody or perhaps a set of variations where the composer would change aspects of the tune and then the last movement, which might return to sonata form or even a new form called 'Rondo' form. The rondo had kind of been invented in the Baroque times in what we call 'ritornello' form. The idea that a tune keeps returning. Vivaldi used it in 'The Seasons'. Rondo form had slightly stricter rules about the repeats.
If we give each section a letter, it would go something along the lines of ... A,B,A,C,A,B,A. (Always makes me think of Genesis' album, Abacab)
The symphony started as a three movement piece and then later, a fourth was added, the 'minuet'. A three beat, light hearted movement, like a slow waltz.
So the symphony ended up being a four movement piece.
Since rules allowed the fast writing of music, composers became quite prolific. Mozart wrote 41 symphonies and Haydn, a staggering 104 or even more perhaps!!
The concerto was a three movement solo concerto. The Baroque concerto grosso was forgotten about. The harpsichord was dumped and no longer appeared in the standardised orchestra and the emergence of the conductor, to hold things together with the associated signs that he gave. Dynamics started to appear. The orchestra sat in a set pattern.
The two biggies of the Classical period were Haydn and Mozart. Hadyn worked for a very rich family called, 'Esterhazy' and he enjoyed his position as MD. Mozart though was different. He'd been brought up by his family as a protege, and very often, a protege starts to get a different idea of their importance. Mozart was an 'odd' character who didn't sit easily with the idea of working as a servant. This always caused him enormous problems and he often got the sack.
His operas portray some of the characters that he knew of in disguise. The audience knew it and it could be the talking point of the opera. So Mozart was considered a bit naughty at times as a musician.
He also wrote concertos for the new instrument, the piano which are wonderful. He also wrote a concerto for the clarinet, which again was a new instrument. Mozart was quite different from many other composers in that he used 'out of key' notes or what we call 'chromaticism'. He hated repeating themes exactly and often varied them slightly. He was a bit of a rebel for those times.
Of course, pop music did exist in the form of 'street musicians'. Pop stands for popular music and that's what they did for the poorer people, often telling stories about locals etc.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 19, 2016 14:35:35 GMT
Mozart's clarinet concerto might well have been written originally for an insteument called the 'bassett horn' which is actually a slightly deeper clarinet.
He wrote it for a friend and would have been a really modern thing at the time, since clarinets had only just been invented, although they had less keys on them in those days.
So this version of the 'clarinet' concerto is being played on a basset horn, which is how it was originally intended. It has a slightly more mellow sound than the clarinet.
If you want to compare .... This is what the same concerto soumds like as it is generally played nowadays ....
(She's a slightly 'wiggly' player, which I find a bit annoying!!!)
In this concerto, you can really hear the difference in mood between the first melody and the second melody that makes up the two themes for the sonata form that I mentioned. The clarinet enters quite cheerfully and the second theme is smoother and sounds slightly sadder.
This concerto really exploits the clarinet's wide range of notes from the deep, haunting kind of sound in the low register, which is known as the Chalumeau register and the screechy top sound.
Mozart had a great skill in the way that he wrote for instruments because he seemed to understand their registers and capabilities so well.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 19, 2016 14:51:50 GMT
Of course, there's the oboe concerto, which also exploits the oboe's capabilities really well.
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 20, 2016 11:00:02 GMT
I've never heard Bernstein perform Mozart before Ian, but this is mesmerising. The wonderful Boston orchestra helps of course. For me Bernstein was the greatest 'all round' musical genius of the Twentieth Century.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 20, 2016 11:26:58 GMT
Bernstein was a great conductor. With him though, there is always a sense of his 'character' imposed onto the music. Not always a bad thing though.
I don't know whether you knew Israel on here before he died, but he had played under Bernstein and had some great stories about it. Israel was an American flute player and 'professor' of music. Once he knew that I was an oboe player who lapsed into pop, we wrote back and forth for quite some time until he became very ill.
I remember first hearing a piece by Bernstein called 'Candide'. The story is totally mental and just 'odd' at times with characters miraculously appearing after death and all that. It ends with a chorus that just sends shivers down my spine, where they sing about everything that happens in life is 'for the best', which was a thing said by Voltaire and also rings in my own outlook, I think. (And my father when he was alive) It's a massively emotional moment in music.
If you like Bernstein, try any Mahler symphony. Absolutely terrifying. He seemed to identify well with Mahler. The first symphony is raucous but brilliant. The 'Jewishness' of it's themes is right in your face. At one point, it launches into a dance that could almost be a Jewish festival.
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 20, 2016 12:33:38 GMT
Totally agree. I've got one of his boxed sets of Mahler Symphonies. He really does identify. Nobody does the 1st Symphony 'Frere Jacques' like he does. I think it's the dance that immediately follows that you must be referring to. For me, only Walter (who personally knew Mahler) equals Bernstein for interpreting him. Klemperer did a titanic recording of the 1st too. It took me 20 years to appreciate Mahler when I reluctantly went to a performance by good old Charles Groves performing the 8th and I've been hooked ever since. I believe Groves and the RLPO were the first ever to perform all the Mahler Symphonies in the one concert series, and that was half a Century after Mahler had died. Mahler was much better known as a conductor than a composer in his time. I have a 1940's Penguin paperback, you know, one of those blue and white cover ones, entitled 'The Symphony' and only 16 of over 400 pages are given to discussing Mahler.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 20, 2016 13:05:43 GMT
Charles Groves was well known for his work with the Liverpool Phil. A real English character and loved his rugby too.
Yes, the Jewish bit I was talking about was that weird passage after the Frere Jacque section. The trumpets going ..... Wah wah wah following each phrase before it turns almost into an army march bing mocked. Mahler was brought up (I think) in army barracks and that army mock marching often turns up.
His symphonies kind of reflect his feelings about life. I saw the famous film on Mahler and never forgot the opening shot in some woods. It was supposed to be his Summer house which suddenly burst into flames with a screaming chord, I think from the unfinished 10th symphony. It kind of pinned me in shock to the seat. It was that Ken Russel film which was very odd.
Funny that after being 'invented' in the Classical period, the symphony really hung on in a different form right through to modern times. Mahler's symphonies just don't bear any resemblance to Mozart's and Haydn's. The form and intent behind them was totally gone.
Another 20th C symphony writer I like is Vaughan Williams. He knew one of my composition teachers at the RCM. Herbert Howells. I heard some great stories from Herbert about him and I played for his funeral in Kensington in the early 80s, I think it was. Herbert wrote a lot of church music and taught me in the early 70s.
Do you find it strange that most hifi people very rarely write about orchestral music? Yet, often more is known about it than rock or pop groups. Maybe its lack of popularity causes it?
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 20, 2016 13:48:14 GMT
Yes very few reviews use much Classical music yet it's very demanding of Hi-Fi equipment, and with so many genres I can't ever imagine a 'one fits all' situation with my kit. That's why Garage amps, with their ease of tube rolling, are so good for me. I know what you mean about the development of the Symphony but don't you think there are times when Mahler, in particular, uses different sections of the orchestra almost like separate chamber ensembles within the larger whole, if you get what I mean? I also hear a lot of Schubert in Mahler. At some point when Mahler was a child his father was an innkeeper. He talks about remembering the deep effect the music and singing he could hear while trying to get to sleep had on him. There was a hurdy-gurdy man playing outside and I've read his music can be heard in some of Mahler's work,(can't remember where though). I don't know much Vaughan Williams, except for the 'Sea Symphony', and some other choral works. I know the Wasps Overture, Thomas Tallis Fantasia (that is fantastic), the Folk Song suite and the ubiquitous 'Lark' and Greensleeves. I guess he was composing at a time of great change, socially as well as musically-I'm never quite sure which Century to place him. Oh, and about Charles Groves he did do a lot to improve the repertoire of the RLPO. He followed John Pritchard, who had the lack of foresight and vision to employ a very young Simon Rattle as an Assistant Conductor!
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 20, 2016 15:13:02 GMT
Oh really? Rattle wasn't given the job there? He did such a lot for the CBSO. Shame he shot of to Berlin. In the 70's, most students in the RCM loved the Berlin Phil work in particular and they were pretty much regarded as the best lrchestra in the world.
I think you are right about Mahler splitting the already huge orchestra into collections. The off stage miltary bands always made me smile. I did a performance of one where the off stage band had problems keeping in time with the orchestra. (Symphony 2 I think it was) There was a big hoo ha and then some cameras and monitors had to be installed so that the conductor off stage could see the conductor on stage more clearly. Same thing happened in Verdi Requiem with an off stage brass band.
Vaughan Williams fourth symphony is violent. It's about war and is the most dissonant work I've heard by him. Smacks you in the face. Sea symphony is lovely, although I find it a bit long. Vaughan Williams was a secret 'naughty boy' and to look at him, you'd think he was pretty staid in his outlook. He kept a wife as well as a long term girlfriend!!! Howard even talked about it in my lessons.
Where I live here in Crocham Hill, we have Delius' grave and Michael Tippett used to live up the road in Oxted. So there's quite a history of English Orchestral and choral writers here. I must admit that when I was younger, I found the English composers hard to listen to. I found them a bit staid and stuck in their ruts but as I have got older, I appreciate their stuff much more. Not as flashy as Mahler. However, I still occasionally find some individual phrases written by Vaughan Williams in particular a little bit clumsy and I feel a kind of amateurism comes through sometimes. Verging on corny!!
As a kid in the 60's, I was studying folk music in school and people like Percy Grainger, Vaughan Williams, and Elgar were regarded very much as major composers. Still writing symphonies as well. That's why I enjoy folk rock type groups like Fairplrt Convention, since they not only write new stuff, but also perform old stuff in a different guise.
Orchestral music is a real test for headphones. Rock or pop, much less so really. The sheer density of sound possible is hard for them to deal with from the full band down to a single instrument. The dynamic range is extreme. Not only that, but imaging becomes a massive thing with depth as well as left/right information plus the acoustics of the hall that they are performing in. Way more complex than anything in pop or rock imo.
I also don't agree with people saying that or hestral headphones don't need as much bass. That is totally wrong. Without a good low bass, timps, double basses and lower brass just melt away into nothing. You also need a good clean treble with double basses in partticular because they produce a complex mix of string scraping sounds along with the fundamental note and all of the associated harmonics. Without that, basses just make a dull thuddy noise with no definition, which is definately not what they sound like live.
I think that's why even a Sony V6 works fairly well for me.The elevated treble lets you hear the scarping sound of strings, although deep bass is missing, it has a mid bass hump which gives a little more weight to the sound though. The th900 gives the treble but also sub-bass so you vertainly know when double basses come in.
That is quite important in Mahler Frere Jacque section, since they are playing the melody and without bass definition, it's just a muddy noise. Sa,e for bass buitar. I like to hear the thud of the note, but also the stringiness of the string itself. Very often, poor headphones don't produce the stringy part of the sound but bive a thud.
Makes me laugh when I think about the crappy gear in the RCM for students. When we were studying pieces, we could go i to a big record library where the poece that we were studying would be put on for us and we'd listen in a booth with really awful headphones. God knows what bass players did!! They couldn't produce bass with any real power before distortion crept in.....
So, orchestral music really is a good test for all hifi gear really.
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 20, 2016 16:32:02 GMT
Yes I don't think Pritchard and Rattle got on and Rattle then went to Bournemouth where he did great things and made that amazing recording of Deryck Cooke's realisation of Mahler's 10th. I think Rattle is returning to the UK to conduct the LSO but he wants a replacement for the Royal Festival Hall. A friend of mine asked me recently what it was in musical terms about 'English' music that made it instantly recognisable. I knew what he meant Grainger, VW, Elgar, Coates, etc are all so obviously 'English'. Something to do with the cadences and folksy pastoral mood I suppose. He's coming for lunch tomorrow, if you have anything I can tell him about this I would be most grateful. Talking about the V6 I used to have one until the cord twisted and snapped. I was lucky enough to win a raffle to observe a recording session of the SNO with Bryden Thomson, I think it was a Bruckner Symphony. Anyway, the Chandos Records sound engineer was monitoring with the V6 so you are in good company! Incidently, I remember Rattle from school. He was obviously gifted even at 10, playing the drums in the senior school orchestra. There's a story that at around 12 he got a group of friends together and he conducted them through the Unfinished Symphony. Apparently he says it's the hardest stint of conducting he has ever experienced.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 20, 2016 17:47:59 GMT
Wow. He was at your school? That must have been a musical place to nurture someone like him. Great musician. Schubert's unfinished is a biggie for the oboe too. Beautiful piece. I'll do a little 'Romantic' write up in another thread so we have a little collection and if anyone has seen good pieces from each era, they can be planted in the areas. I think some get nervous talking about orchestral music because I guess the world is full of 'snobs'!! The 'Englishness' is caused by cartain dance rhythms that appear like .... Oom cha .... Cha....cha.....cha (then keep repeating) and also, the use of modes rather than scales. If I refer to 'mooh' that means a flattened note by a semi-tone so ........ A normal scale goes doh, ray, meh, fah, soh, lah, teh, doh. One of the modes goes .... Doh, ray, mooh, fah soh, lah, tooh, doh. (Tooh is a flattened note as well) If you think of Greensleeves, you can sing slight variations in a scale or in a mode. Without physically showing you, it's difficult to describe. Also, V Williams used real folk somgs in his music which people back in those days would have recognised but unfortunately, kids are no longer taught them because political correctness seems to have dubbed it as 'exclusive" and potentially racist. Great pity since it was part of the English culture of old.
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 20, 2016 18:58:29 GMT
I used to umpire hockey so I've been called a lot worse things than a 'snob' Thanks for the info, I'll sing to my friend and mention you in dispatches! The Unfinished is one of those pieces of music that send me to another place-the second movement especially. I can't bare to hear it played badly though. Yes the oboe and other woodwind are beautiful, those poignant downward cadences are magical-nothing like them anywhere else. I still go with the theory Schubert didn't finish it off because he felt it was perfect as it was. I know scholars don't subscribe to that theory much nowadays but I like it. I was listening to Schubert's G Major String Quartet last night- some incredible mood changes, harmonies and dissonances-even if string quartets aren't your cup of tea this has to be heard to be believed. Schubert at his most adventurous, and a largely neglected work. 1826!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaL-kLYxDIwEDIT:oh dear-wife nagging me to get ready to go out, so catch up with you later. Enjoy the Schubert.
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 20, 2016 19:12:36 GMT
Classical string quartets followed the exact same format as symphonies.
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howie
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Post by howie on Feb 21, 2016 8:20:56 GMT
It's impossible to talk about music without coming back to Mozart. Listened again to that Schubert String Quartet, this time through my DT1770's. Those tremulos that start at 0'36, so spooky, could be straight out of a Hammer Horror, and I wonder if Bernard Herrmann got the idea of the iconic murder music in the shower scene in 'Psycho' from the 2nd movement, 18'26 et seq.
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Post by Rabbit on Feb 21, 2016 9:17:42 GMT
I guess classical music is the basis of harmony for quite a while after until the modern period when ideas on harmony were shattered. Even the next period, the romantic period used the harmony of the classical times as the basis of what was going on with their 'modern' additions.
Classical musical also uses the idea of two opposing ideas, which is something we have retained in music since that gives us the tension in music. The next period is really interesting and very varied though since they did so much experimentation on the basis of classical harmonies.
Many listeners have difficulty with string quartets I've noticed. The sound of single strings I guess. Each with their own part. I went to someone's house a few weeks back and they'd put on a series of string quartets in the background. Trouble was that I found it hard to concentrate because I kept trying to identify the composer and sometimes the music became a bit too animated to talk over.
In the Classical period though, music was used as a backdrop rather than have a collection of people in a concert. Musicians were the ultimate hifi for the rich. They had better sound than we do!! So a lot of this stuff would be going on in the background.
So for anyone plannimg a 'posh' dinner party, use Classical music. I'd suggest Haydn, since he tends to follow rules more happily than Mozart and so was a little more predictable. Mozart was a rebel where Haydn got on with it and enjoyed his "servant' kind of work.
A good Classical recording on a revealing set of headphones is a great experience in learning how your headphone produces 'spacial' clues. I find imaging pretty tough on a headphone. I sometimes wonder whether it really exists, but if you do have an 'airy' headphone, Classical music will shine with it. Good string tone is difficult to capture though imo.
If your headphone is dull up top, strings sound plain poor. If they are sharp up there, they can sound like a laser. Having said that, even the V6 makes a good attempt at producing proper string tone, as long as you don't turn up too loud. Few headphones imo, do string tone well. They lose a silkiness that is there live, which just doesn't appear on recordings. Sure, you get the tone, but the subtleties of the live sound really aren't there, whether it's the recording process or the headphone, I'm not sure. It's a good approximation, but not exactly right.
Anyone going to a pro concert might notice this. I do, all of the time. Perhaps it's something to do with cone break up and how the frquency response become uneven up top that affects the 'silky' part of string tone? It's a good sound to test headphones with actually.
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