I know you're past this Renaissance/Baroque style, but could you tell me what you think about this album, because I want to know if it's any good or not.
I know you're past this Renaissance/Baroque style, but could you tell me what you think about this album, because I want to know if it's any good or not.
Good, yes. Great, no. Not sure why death of reason was selected as the title seeing as this was supposed to be the period of the birth of reason. This was a nice travel back to a time when "complex" polyphonic voicing is really awe inspiring. I think it's easy to think of music of the past as less "advanced", yet it seems often the opposite.
Pros: great compilation of some manneristic/ars subtulior into early baroque, and a few composers I hadn't heard of before. So it was some nice discovery. The flutist is a fantastic performer - possibly the best flute music from this period. The wide palate of instrumentation was intriguing and appreciated (something that can get boring for this period, oh here's 3 hours of a solo flutist who basically sounds the same the whole time, enjoy!)
Cons: This is supposed to be HIP (Historically Informed Performance), but it sounds the most modern of HIP I've heard - mostly due to the horn performances. Maybe it was on replica horn performances, but there were moments that sounded like a modern horn to the point of near jazz like sounds. I also didn't like the flutist... meaning it's clear he's the leader of the group and chose stuff that matches him instead of something that in of itself is inspiring. Maybe that's a harsh take, but that was my take.
So totally fits in with an average album from the era, so like at least 30-50 albums I listened to during this period are at this caliber. Having said that there are probably 500-20k albums worse than this, so it's not bad at all, just not great, imo.
Hope that helps.
RoundTheBendI miss the comfort in being sadProfile Ground Control
For anyone interested, I've added a playlist at the beginning of this blog for each era. About 630 hours/albums of music from antiquity to Early Romantic era... and counting. As well as the first "top" classical works according to Talk Classical users.
Last edited by RoundTheBend on 12/08/2019 04:57; edited 1 time in total
This was an interesting look into what I can imagine as the pop music of the era - instead of clubin' they be walzin'. Ok maybe that's over simplified, but while there were some moments of beauty (see josef strauss sphärenklänge (music of the spheres) waltz), the fanfare was a bit cheap feeling, even if rousing, kind of like some club music. A decent collection of music from the Strauss family (and no Richard is not related): http://www.52composers.com/straussfamily.html
Still an intriguing view into Wiener Kultur in the mid 19th century. 80
Though the music of Johann Strauss I was eclipsed by that of his more famous son, "Waltz King" Johann Strauss II, Strauss père wrote a number of works that have remained durable favorites, particularly on New Year's Eve and pops programs. His best-known effort is the Radetzky March, Op. 228 (1848), written in honor of the Austrian general Joseph Radetzky, who had rousted the Italian rebellion at Custozza earlier that year. Despite its usual military band instrumentation, the tone of the march is more elegantly celebratory than rousingly martial; indeed, it seems but a small distance removed from the dance music for which the Strauss clan was renowned.
- Description by Rovi Staff, AllMusic
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Era: Romantic
Year: 1850 for Liebesträume
Score: 84
Liebesträume is incredibly pleasant to listen to. Some of the previous tracks were a bit more flamboyant and was less interested/not in the mood for virtuosity for piano.
Quote:
Franz Liszt loved crafting solo piano transcriptions of lieder and other kinds of voice/piano songs (but, then again, he loved making solo piano transcriptions of just about anything), and he didn't limit himself to just the standard catalog of Schubert favorites; often he took his own songs to the re-arranging room. The three Liebesträume for piano, S. 541, the third of which is the famous Liebesträum that seems to be on every pianist's encore list and every romantic piano music CD sampler, are such items -- they and their song equivalents were in fact published simultaneously in 1850. Liszt's songs, including these, are unjustly neglected, but the Liebesträume -- or one of them, anyway -- never have been.
The three Liebesträume, which Liszt also called notturnos (nocturnes, in English), are based on the following three songs: 1. "Hohe Liebe," S. 307, to a text by Johann Ludwig Uhland and probably composed in 1849, 2. "Gestorben war ich," S. 308, likewise Uhland and 1849, 3. "O Lieb, so lang du lieben kannst," S. 298, with a text by Ferdinand Freiligrath and first sketched by Liszt nearly six years before the other two.
In the piano versions, as in his other piano transcriptions, Liszt moves in and out of the original musical text as he feels need to -- here is a passage virtually identical to the parallel one in the lied, but over there is a far more soloistic episode that would seem altogether out of place in a song. A handful of mini-cadenzas (of the type, not coincidentally, found in Chopin's nocturnes) pop up in each Liebestraum, usually to bridge one section of music to another.
Two of the S. 541 pieces, No. 1 and No. 3, are in the warm, ingratiating key of A flat major, a favorite tonal location of nocturne composers. No. 2 is set in E major. All are sewn from the smoothest melodic silk and the kind of rich, semi-chromatic harmonies so beloved of middle-Romantic composers. But it isn't hard to see, or rather hear, why No. 3 is universally known and the other two are only infrequently heard. Its gently arcing six-bar phrases and throbbing repeated notes, and that glowing, completely unexpected modulation to B major after the opening paragraph of music, make it a miniature masterpiece.
Liszt is someone who, for some reason, I've never really explored. Doesn't make much sense given his reputation as a virtuoso and my appreciation for amazing physical musical feats.
RoundTheBendI miss the comfort in being sadProfile Ground Control
There's spurts of this I really like. There's spurts I find intriguing and spurts I find messy. Dig the blaring horns even if for a moment in the 3rd movement. Worth a listen, but I didn't fall in love - it felt a bit too showy and there for a bit superficial for me after a couple of listens.
Quote:
Description by Robert Cummings [-]
The genesis of Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major dates to 1830, when the composer sketched out the main theme in a notebook. It wasn't until the 1840s, however, that Liszt actually commenced work on the concerto. As a neophyte in the art of orchestration -- his output to that point consisted almost entirely of keyboard music -- Liszt enlisted the assistance of his pupil Joachim Raff in providing the work an instrumental skin. Liszt completed the concerto in 1849 but made a number of revisions over the next several years. The final version of the work dates from 1856.
The concerto's three main sections -- Allegro maestoso, Quasi adagio-Allegretto vivace-Allegro animato, and Allegro marziale animato -- are joined seamlessly into a single large-scale structure. The opening statement, characterized by a bold, almost martial chromatic descent, contains the essential elements from which all subsequent thematic material is derived. The piano enters with a dramatic passage in characteristic Lisztian octaves, after which the main theme reappears in a more tranquil guise. The second subject in introduced in the piano, after which a dialogue between piano and clarinet ensues. The sweetness of the mood suddenly gives way to intensity as the main theme makes a dramatic, almost angry reappearance.
The second section begins with a quiet cantabile melody in the muted strings. After the piano takes up the theme, the mood grows restive with mercurial, dramatic statements from the orchestra that alternate with quasi-improvisatory passages in the piano. The tempo picks up as the flute, and then oboe and clarinet, take up the theme. Lyricism gives way to a more lighthearted spirit, signaled by a pair of delicate strokes on the triangle. (The prominence of this instrument in the latter portion of the work, in fact, elicited derisive commentary from a number of critics. Eduard Hanslick, for example, leapt on this feature in describing the work as Liszt's "Triangle Concerto.") The piano introduces a lively, playful theme in its upper register; other instruments gradually join the texture as the triangle continues to chime in with jovial comment. The mood darkens with the reappearance of the concerto's opening theme, as though to suggest a return to that musical sequence of events. Instead, the piano introduces the final section, which commences with a sped-up version of the cantabile theme from the second section. Other earlier themes reappear in various guises as the triangle continues to add its color throughout. Alternating between intricate passagework and thunderous octaves, the concerto draws to a close in the bravura manner with which Liszt is so closely associated.
This is a weak post, but whatevs. I actually listened to this in full a couple weeks ago or something. There's a part of me that wants to dig more into Verdi, but for now it will just be these bits of opera samples and then of course I'll revisit the Requiem in full. From the samples I am intrigued to listen more to some and others I'm like, meh.
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