Classical and Opera

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Mozart - Piano Sonata No. 16 in C, K. 545

 

Which inspired Raymond Scott to write "In An 18th Century Drawing Room".

Those of you that grew up watching Warner Bros cartoons as a kid will recognize that piece as it was used quite a bit as incidental music. In fact, Warner Bros cartoons were often times full of classical music. Whole cartoons were based on classical pieces - Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and Rossini's Barber of Seville being two notable ones.

Cartoons were both lowbrow and highbrow back in the day.

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Waltz for Violin and Piano

A nice little piece composed by Ivan Bessonov when he was 16 or 17 yrs old.

Piano - Ivan Bessonov
Violin - Daniil Bessonov

Bessonov Brothers YouTube Channel

Ivan Bessonov Wikipedia article

 

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On 01/09/2023 at 03:26, [[N...] said:

Not really classical or opera (more Russian traditional).  "Dorogoj Dlinnoju" sung by Manca Izmajlova. But it's good enough it belongs somewhere.

 

I did not realise that Those Were the Days my Friend was a translation of a Russian song until you posted that, @[Na...]

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Daniil Bessonov performs Gypsy Airs, Op.20 by Pablo de Sarasate
Don't know who's on piano, but I'm pretty sure that this time
it's not his brother Ivan Bessonov.

But here's his other brother, Nikita Bessonov, covering on violin
an original guitar composition called Crow, by Jin San Kim.

 

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This is a student production of Peer Gynt  filmed in northern Illinois and Wisconsin in 1941, and starring a local 17-year-old highschool student by the name of Charlton Heston. The unedited original is not available on line, but I did find two edited versions, which I've posted below. The first has been colorized, with substantial editing, including the soundtrack. But it's very nice-looking, and it's long enough, so you might actually like it better than the original. The second seems to be the full-length black-and-white original, defaced with some superimposed Portuguese subtitles.

 

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Anna Fedorova

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On 02/09/2023 at 04:31, [[C...] said:

I did not realise that Those Were the Days my Friend was a translation of a Russian song until you posted that, @[Na...]

Yeah, big hit for Mary Hopkin in the latter 60s. It just sounds Russian to me. Melancholy. If she'd thrown a couple of balalaikas on there it would have been obvious.

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Glenn Gould

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4 hours ago, [[N...] said:

Yeah, big hit for Mary Hopkin in the latter 60s. It just sounds Russian to me. Melancholy. If she'd thrown a couple of balalaikas on there it would have been obvious.

Yes! I too thought, 'but of course Those Were the Days my Friend is Russian' once I heard it.

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On 07/09/2023 at 00:24, [[r...] said:

Glenn Gould

As strange as he was, he was likely one of the best performers of Bach.  However, he didn't play Mozart very well. He took the Baroque technique to the Mozart Sonata's and played them mostly non legato. Mozart is lyrical, so it missed the mark.

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@[pi...] - So what did you think of this performance? How did he do with Beethoven? I wasn't all that impressed with it, though of course it's much better than I can do.   But I posted it because it's a good video that shows his strange hand movements and some of his other quirks - like that chair of his. And it is Glenn Gould, who did need to be included somewhere in this string. But I'd be interested in your professional assessment of this performance. Something was wrong with it, but I can't quite put my finger on it - so to speak.

Edited September 8, 2023 by [re...]
Made it more beautiful and poetic

[[pi...]]

On 08/09/2023 at 09:41, [[r...] said:

@[pi...] - So what did you think of this performance? How did he do with Beethoven? I wasn't all that impressed with it, though of course it's much better than I can do.   But I posted it because it's a good video that shows his strange hand movements and some of his other quirks - like that chair of his. And it is Glenn Gould, who did need to be included somewhere in this string. But I'd be interested in your professional assessment of this performance. Something was wrong with it, but I can't quite put my finger on it - so to speak.

This is one of our favorite piano concertos, my husband and I play some of the first movement together. One person plays the piano part and the other plays the orchestra part. I’m particularly critical about performances of this piece.

In my opinion, it’s too vertical. Yes, very clean and articulated, but also too incisive. The phrases don’t flow and there are few nuances. Additionally, there should be real and genuine communication between the piano and the orchestra, it’s missing here. 
 

I remember back in the day we had LP’s of Gould and you could here more humming than music sometimes.

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42 minutes ago, [[p...] said:

This is one of our favorite piano concertos, my husband and I play some of the first movement together. One person plays the piano part and the other plays the orchestra part. I’m particularly critical about performances of this piece.

In my opinion, it’s too vertical. Yes, very clean and articulated, but also too incisive. The phrases don’t flow and there are few nuances. Additionally, there should be real and genuine communication between the piano and the orchestra, it’s missing here. 
 

I remember back in the day we had LP’s of Gould and you could here more humming than music sometimes.

@[pi...] There was a movie released in 1970, the same year as this Glenn Gould performance, called Five Easy Pieces, with Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, and Lois Smith as "Partita Dupea", a prominent classical pianist who would start humming during her performances, to the point where it would disrupt recording sessions. I'm pretty sure that was a reference to Gould. You've probably seen that movie, and more than once.

Maybe you could click around YouTube and find what you consider a really good performance of the Emperor concerto, preferably a live video. It would be very educational to compare it to this Gould performance. I'm sure you're busy, but if you had a few spare minutes, your expertise would add a lot to this topic. Thanks

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12 minutes ago, [[r...] said:

@[pi...] There was a movie released in 1970, the same year as this Glenn Gould performance, called Five Easy Pieces, with Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, and Lois Smith as "Partita Dupea", a prominent classical pianist who would start humming during her performances, to the point where it would disrupt recording sessions. I'm pretty sure that was a reference to Gould. You've probably seen that movie, and more than once.

Maybe you could click around YouTube and find what you consider a really good performance of the Emperor concerto, preferably a live video. It would be very educational to compare it to this Gould performance. I'm sure you're busy, but if you had a few spare minutes, your expertise would add a lot to this topic. Thanks

Will do, when I get some time.

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-  Happy Birthday, Jessye Mae  -  Sweet Magnolia from Augusta GA  -

from the opera Alceste (1767; French rewrite 1776) by C.W. Gluck

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by [re...]
I was prepositioned

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Joyeux anniversaire à Nadia Boulanger 1887.09.16 - 1979.10.22

               Behind every great musician stands a great teacher

 

 

 

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Edited September 17, 2023 by [re...]

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26.Sept.1898 - Happy Birthday  George Gershwin --- Hear His Voice

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by [re...]

[[Br...]]

 

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[[pi...]]

1 hour ago, [[B...] said:

This is gorgeous! I was in a choir that sang this eons ago. Out soloists we’re awesome and it went well until one of tenors in the choir came in early, really loud! 

[[Br...]]

1 hour ago, [[p...] said:

This is gorgeous! I was in a choir that sang this eons ago.

So gorgeous!  

1 hour ago, [[p...] said:

it went well until one of tenors in the choir came in early, really loud! 

oh dear!  Poor guy, I'm sure he was mortified!

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... one more Lucia Popp - from Louise by Gustave Charpentier

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by [re...]

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from La Boheme, Act IV  - Luciano Pavarotti and Gino Quilico  (1989)

Edited September 29, 2023 by [re...]

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Piano Concerto No.3 in D-minor, Op.30, by Sergei Rachmaninoff

Yunchan Lim, Gold Medalist, 16th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (2022)
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra,  Marin Alsop conducting

Just how good was that performance? Watch this..

Ben Laude is joined by Cliburn Competition jury members Anne-Marie
McDermott and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet to break down Yunchan Lim's
highly touted Rach 3 performance.

Edited October 1, 2023 by [re...]