Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #55)

First listen to "Georg Philipp Telemann - Werke Mit Obligatem Cembalo Aus Den Essercizzi Musici" from the "Andreas Staier Edition" box set. With Jesper Christensen, Paolo Pandolfo, Oskar Peter, Michel Piguet, Conrad Steinmann and Imke David.

 

No. Only supplied audio feeds for a few concerts, mostly did documentation for grant writing.

I did a lot of recordings of Ensemble Alcatraz because I befriended the group, and recorded a lot of concerts of theirs gratis. I met Kit Higginson while we both were working at Tower Records, Berkeley. I was very excited when he told me of the group he was a member of being recorded by Nonesuch. This was a big deal in several ways. Jack Vad, their editor and later recording engineer, made the first digitally recorded and edited CD with Visions and Miracles:



Kit's second from the left. Actually, this is a pre existing painting that everybody fell in love with [more or less]. Considering the nature of the music/storytelling of Alfonso X, the cover seems a perfect fit. I ended up working on a lot of projects with or thanks to Jack Vad. Also ended up being recording engineer for Kit Higginson [as producer] on numerous occasions as well.

 

I have this album on CD and vinyl.

Also have this CD (but I don't think it's appropriate for posting in this thread. )

 

A symphony with a barking doggie.
How American can classical music get?

I just got this on LP:

(skip to 8:01 the start of Part III Rip Van Winkle)


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Now listening to "O Tu Chara Scienca - La Musique Dans La Pensee Medievale" performed by La Reverdie on Arcana. This is from 1991, 23 years ago but it's new to me. No internet back then but I'm grateful to have it now to help expand the world of music for me.

 

I just have to post this.

 

Leaving aside the various Hoffnung festivals, if you like classical music with "sound effects," WA Mozart's daddy, Leopold, seems to have made a specialty of such things (and wasn't even American!): the so-called "Toy Symphony," formerly attributed to Haydn, actually three movements of a cassation; the "Musical Sleigh Ride," with its interpolated sleigh bells; and most spectacularly the Sinfonia in D with Bagpipes and Hurdy Gurdy "Peasant Wedding"

().

The last-named, aside from the colorful folk instrumentation, in its first mvt. features gun shots and all manner of lewd whoops from the orchestra ad lib. As to the "toy symphony," this lighthearted, humorous piece of fluff is hardly the sort of thing you'd think Toscanini would have undertaken, but he did with the NBCSO, and whether intentionally or not in that context his sort of fierce precision is a real hoot. Another delightful performance of the same era was by Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston SO, originally released on Victor 78 RPM and then in the '50s as a clear red vinyl 45. Dunno if it has ever resurfaced since then.

Incidentally, Leopold also wrote a sinfonia pastorella for alphorn and orchestra, more of a challenge than you might think, as for all its size the alphorn apparently can play only 5 notes or so. I find that in all these works the outer mvts. are loads of fun, but the slow mvts. take some skillful handling if they are not to wear out their welcome. If any proof is needed that the son was the greater musician, there's a good place to start.

[addendum] OK, I went to see if the Koussevitzky toy sym. might be on YouTube, and sure enough, here it is (although I'm getting it on only one channel): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo3Dskbb0x8

The person who posted it included this "news to me" annotation: "The Toy Symphony has long been attributed to Joseph Haydn, then to Leopold Mozart, but recent research proved that the true author of this divertimento is Edmund Angerer (1740-1794), a Benedictine monk of Fiecht Monastery in the western Tyrol lowlands. Angerer originally called the work "Berchtoldsgaden Musick" after the town where the children's instruments were being made in large quantities. The name "Kindersinfonie" and the attribution to Haydn came from its first publisher." Well, you learn something new every day!

 

Track 18, "Ysaias cecini/Tytire tu patule," has a definite 'Mediaeval Baebes' vibe to it. Any of you EM fans ever heard the Baebes? I get a kick out of them. Also noticed this kind of sound from 'Kitka,' who perform on Ensemble Alcatraz's album "Cantigas de Amigo" that I purchased recently.

 

Iwill get my second listen to ths CD done one of these days ...

 

It is unnatural way of singing. But then again, the art in general is nothing but artifacts, i.e. something "unnatural"...

I was cured by the great Christa Ludwig sometime in 1982-84. It was not an accident: because I loved Mahler's symphonies, I also ended up listening to his orchestral songs. And on the LP boxes there was some additional material, like songs, when there was one LP-side unused. In some cases there was Rickert Songs, and perhaps slightly rarely even (some of the) Kindertotenlieder. After that I tested Richard Strauss' late songs. Same drama, same quality.

Yet, I still think that most of the "classical" singing is unnatural and I don't much like to listen to it. But there are cases like Christa Ludwig with Mahler and Strauss songs...

 

Now playing CD15 - Bruckner 4th from the following box for a first listen ...

 

Kitka I know from.

 

Now playing CD11 - new works for me from the following box for a first listen ...

 

Now playing CD16 - Bruckner 6th from the following box for a first listen ...

 

Looks lik BBQ started early for almost everyone. Now playing CD7 from the following box for a first listen ...

Taking a break from EM

 

Back to EM, now playing the following SACD by the A4 for a second listen ...

 

There are singers that fit perfectly into the 'pop singing mileau' and yet when strictly judged from a classical singing standard ........are 100% acceptable to classical ears.
Nor is that comment meant as any 'put-down or condescending back-handed remark'. Take Blossom Dearie and the various composed songs she performed...she knew her vocal limitations and never went beyond them. Yet she could sell to a listener, her particular artistry and totally convey the full power of meaning and intrinsic value of the words. Another example: Ella Fitzgerald... she also by classical stands had what would in those terms be called a limited vocal range................BUT take note................what vocal compass ( with a perfect even column of air delivery from her top to bottom!) ...just as the same criteria - would be expected out of any classical trained singer, under scutiny. And Miss Fitzgerald , personally could 'sell the singing performances she produced' in a way, many an opera or classical concert singer would envy.
There was none of that common squeezing / spreading / uise of throat muscles.... that bouncing off and potential toughening of a singer's vocal nodes as we see today in Fitzgerald either. We only have to look at the 'attempts at Broadway and and other similar genre music by many a high esteemed opera singer. The only example I can recall that was successsful was Dawn Upshaw with her series of Broadway recordings. She did get inside the "idiom" of Sondheim, Gershwin and thje like.
IE: Luciano Pavarotti's 'soundtrack recording' to his massiver flop of a movie "Yes Georgio". That was a gilt-edge mirth-filled 'bad party joke' record spinner example, to trot out for friends at classical musical gatherings. For them, to be also reminded of the flm's silly plot of a very overwieight opera singer 'in love' with a glamourous woman doctor!!!!
Kiri te Kanawa vain attempts at this genre remind of something akin to "a haughty smack across the face with a cold fish".
Jessye Norman in her similar attempts, though sung 'perfectly'...came across with a too much regal Grande Dame
approach to this type of music.

Now to Striesland.... that Classical Barbara album. . Some classical magazine critics at the time took it seriously , and while having 'reservations' stated she had the vocal ability to 'really make something of it'. And .... if she was serious and wanted to go to the classical discipline, the best thing to do was....extra training.
Though, she would not have earned all the money she subsequently did, - from films. hit records and concerts.
And finally I will go out on a limb and make what to some , will be an unpopular unothodox statement ....about Julie Andrews and the the real cause of her vocal node problem.....said to be completely exasperated by medical surgery to remove them.
I can appreciate Julie Andrews contributions ot musical entertainment , even back to the 50's show The Boy Friend.
She finally recreated on Broadway the 'feigned cross gender role ' of Victor /Victoria in a Broadway show of the same name of which she had previously filmed as more of a comedy.
It called for her to severely alter the 'centre of gravity' of her vocal support throughtout the role.
O.K...when she previously made the film..... a film take here / a film take there ....on say... days/ a month or two ...she had the physical ability to alter her range to suit over a good time period.
When she was performing the show on Broadway....8 times a week...remember.....NO WAY could she keep her voice from suffering detriment. A human trained voice from which she earned her livlihood ...cannot stand that sort of QUICK adjustment and punishment.... 8 time s a week.

Her's the proof ....if anyone has the DVD in 5/1 sound and W/S of the entire film show....watch her during the "Le Jazz Hot" number where she finally goes for a soaring run from the bottom to the absolute top of her voice range. At theis point she is performing as a character trying to convince 'an audience inside the same show' that she is a man impersonating a woman'.
As she goes up her vocal scale , there is a decided 'crack/ break' in her delivery...... Nodes! Nodes!Nodes!
I would say the 'vocal damage' was already clearly manifest to any aware ear

 

I hear your points. But the young millennials listen to the likes of Lady Gaga and for dino like me, who at first did not even have a clue as to who the hell Lady Gaga was when my wife's nephew from Martha Vineyard asked to spend the night at our house with a friend a few years ago so they could attend Lady Gaga's concert at Madison Square Garden. When I saw pictures of Lady Gaga, I said "hell, she just copied Alice Cooper, who wore the same weird makeup some 40 years ago". Bottomline, I do not know what the millennials musical tastes are and frankly do not give a damn since my wife and I have no children and we cannot care less about what kinds of muisc our nephews or nieces listen to since we are just the uncle and aunt. I never care for Streisand, though I have always like Julie Andrews for non-classical. Give me Emma Kirkby, Judith Nelson, Elly Ameling etc, and I am a happy camper in the vocal dept ...

 

What I find so amusing.........
Having been at times in recent times past (on freebees - what else!) , to various junkets of 5 star dinners and drinks accompanied with big rock concerts with long successful international known groups and locals as well , I found it fascinating for just one thing. While "plugging my ears' for hearing safety, just to watch the antics of those in their 50's/60's in the audience.... totally animated, mouthing every line of what to me, is "indiscipherable garbage".
It becomes their "magic show".....For a couple of hours, they are comically and redundantly transposed back to when they were young/ cool/hip and this wall of music garbage was 'the deal'

 

I still would not know what Lady Gaga actually is, or stands for! Though one reads of her Guy Fawkes make up clown get-up

 

Love Blossom. Love Ella. My favorite female pop singer is Doris Day.

 

We don't have children either, but are close to our nieces & have tried exposing them to some good music. Molly seems to be developing better taste as she gets older, so maybe we've done some good. One out of two ain't so bad!

 

You certainly meet more people in Fresno than I do in Frenchtown.

 

Is this a compilation or new material?

 

This was in Berkeley. I was married to the manager/performer Shira Cion.