Classical music and its imagery - please add your favorites

[bob perry]

Moe:
I think you may be overthinking those later symphonies. I love Mahler to bits. I love Brukner. Never quite warmed up to the symnponies of Brahms, love his chamber stuff. I'm a big Mendelsohn fan. I love Franky Schubert. I pretty much all of it with a few isolated exceptions. I think you make a very good point. Big symphonies do not sound good on cd's. The sound becomes constipated mush. Lp's work though. Mozart is very big in my house. One night Spike came in after a long day at the forge and crashed on the couch. I put on some Mozart string quartets and he said, "Ahhh, the sound of the cabin." Mozart is special here.

I am now into the second cd of the Bernstein St. Mathew Passion. I've been playing it since I got it yesterday. I am starting to really enjoy it. "Verily I say to you,,,,,,"
People don't say verily things anymore.

There is also a quite long lecture by Berntein on the Passion at the end of the cd. It's mostly slightly over my head but I'll struggle along with it. He is Lenny afterall.

[Orestes Munn]

How do you delete a post?

[Orestes Munn]

Verily, I say unto you: I don't think it's a sound problem with me. I find live symphonic performances interesting, mainly because you can see what's going on and that facilitates attention to the music. I can also enjoy concerti by the same composers, scored for the same forces, on recordings. It just helps me to have the piece organized around a soloist. Maybe, I need to feel a human being on the other end of the communication.

[bob perry]

Moe:
I live an hour north of Seattle so running down to the concert hall is not so appealing anymore. I have gone North to Mt. Vernon where the college has put on some very good operas. I really miss deciding at the last minute to go to the symphony.

The Bernstein lesson on the Passion is very good. He points out things that I would not have noticed like the shimmerings strings around the voice of Jesus ( halo) that are absent at the moment of death when Jesus is truly mortal.
About the time I die I am going to be really smart.

[Orestes Munn]

Moe:
I live an hour north of Seattle so running down to the concert hall is not so appealing anymore. I have gone North to Mt. Vernon where the college has put on some very good operas. I really miss deciding at the last minute to go to the symphony.

The Bernstein lesson on the Passion is very good. He points out things that I would not have noticed like the shimmerings strings around the voice of Jesus ( halo) that are absent at the moment of death when Jesus is truly mortal.
About the time I die I am going to be really smart.

We moved into town this year and must start going to hear music again. My parents went to the opera or chamber music nearly once a week when I was a child. My mom was glad when my brothers and I got old enough to sit through the heavier operas (on a school night) so she didn't have to go every time. Life has certainly changed since then.

My daughter, an educated and otherwise cultured young woman who can quote Joyce and Trollope, finds classical music aversive, even though she was exposed to it since she developed functioning ears.

I'm getting dumber by perceptible increments.

[bob perry]

Moe:
Spike had been in several operas when he was younger. He had a tremendous baritone voice. He could shake walls. But he really didn't respect that talent. It all came too easy for him. But he did have eclectic taste in music and was very open minded. Max also. Although Max does not have the voice Spike had. Max plays the piano and guitar. Max and I share music. He has me listening now to M. Ward and IRON and WINE. It's not really my kind of stuff but it's well done and very well recorded and I need to be able to relate to what he is listening to. It's fun to sit around the shack with him and spin some platters. When we moved out I left a lot of my old LP's in the wine cellar. Max bought the house. About 6 months ago he discovered the stash if lp's and showed interest in them, the old pop ones. I set him up with a good vinyl playback system and he has been a convert ever since. I have no doubt that in time he will discover classical music. He has a good collection of it already in the stuff I left.

[Lin]

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” - Plato

A wonderful quote that I was reminded of today.

[bob perry]

Lin:
Good quote. One wonders what music Plato was listening to.
Bach?

I'm still listeining to the Bach St. Mathew Passion, Bernstein recording in English. I had been playing this cd non stop since I got it early in the week. Still not tired of it.
It soothes the savage beast in me.

[Orestes Munn]

If anyone is a chamber music aficionado, check out the Belcea Quartet on YouTube. They have posted superb, passionate, crystalline, live performances of seemingly all the Beethoven quartets in 1080p HD. No idea who subsidized this wonderful public service, but thank you!

I own recordings of these works by various other artists, including the great Quartetto Itialiano and seen some of them performed by other find groups, but these people are the best I have ever heard and the video adds hugely to the experience and understanding of this beautiful and complex music.