As I mature I'm appreciating classical music a lot more
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- KVRAF
- 1585 posts since 15 Aug, 2001 from montreal, canada
I get to hear a lot of classical on a daily basis as I clean the maison symphonique's concert hall (in montreal) after every concert since the opening. Pretty impressive to hear orchestras play live in this awesome hall.
There's also a new organ that they've installed and I got to listen to the organist from the cathedral notre-dame de paris just pretty much improvise and test the organ. Never heard anybody play like that. It was really mind blowing.
The repertoire is really varied from opera to really dissonant abstract stuff. I'm not really fond of opera though but these singers can really move some air. I can imagine their kids getting yelled at. hahaha
There's also a new organ that they've installed and I got to listen to the organist from the cathedral notre-dame de paris just pretty much improvise and test the organ. Never heard anybody play like that. It was really mind blowing.
The repertoire is really varied from opera to really dissonant abstract stuff. I'm not really fond of opera though but these singers can really move some air. I can imagine their kids getting yelled at. hahaha
Stuck in Aperture Laboratories for a 2nd time!
- KVRAF
- 35297 posts since 14 Sep, 2002 from In teh net
Salome is amazing, I love Richard Strauss, his 4 last songs are amongst my favourite vocal works by any composer.
- KVRAF
- 8680 posts since 9 Jan, 2004 from leroyaumeuni
aMUSEd wrote:Salome is amazing, I love Richard Strauss, his 4 last songs are amongst my favourite vocal works by any composer.
Did some great piano stuff as well.
My other host is Bruce Forsyth
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- KVRAF
- 2179 posts since 11 Mar, 2003
Four Last Songs. Have a great version with Jessye Norman (you know, that singer that sounds like all other opera singers ).
Anyway, one of my favourite opera moments:
Glass' Rome Section from Robert Wilson's the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVqMQ4BbHw
Anyway, one of my favourite opera moments:
Glass' Rome Section from Robert Wilson's the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVqMQ4BbHw
- KVRAF
- 35297 posts since 14 Sep, 2002 from In teh net
Yes I think her version is the best, also she does a great Isolde (somewhat ironically considering Wagner's racism)Mr Arkadin wrote:Four Last Songs. Have a great version with Jessye Norman (you know, that singer that sounds like all other opera singers ).
- KVRAF
- 11093 posts since 16 Mar, 2003 from Porto - Portugal
Wagner is a paradigm of someone whom we have to separate the artist from the man. As a composer he was one of the greatest of all time. As a man, he was... unclassifiable - with an ego that surpassed everything. But the man is death now, and the music remains, and that's all that matters. There are many examples of great artists that had big flaws in terms of character.aMUSEd wrote:Yes I think her version is the best, also she does a great Isolde (somewhat ironically considering Wagner's racism)Mr Arkadin wrote:Four Last Songs. Have a great version with Jessye Norman (you know, that singer that sounds like all other opera singers ).
BTW - Richard Strauss was one of the two last late romantics, together with Rachmaninoff (Scriabin was contemporary and in the same path, but he died much earlier). Two anacronisms, considering they lived in the 20th century, but both were so right in what they did. Harmonies, melodies, and, especially with Strauss, orchestrations. Sumptuary
Last edited by fmr on Tue Apr 08, 2014 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fernando (FMR)
- KVRAF
- 11093 posts since 16 Mar, 2003 from Porto - Portugal
Around here too Catholicism teaches that Jesus died for us to have the chance to live happily in communion with God.jancivil wrote:Around here they believe Jesus wants you to get happy and drop your burden for a minute.
The difference is that, around here, people don't feel that, to be happy, we have to transform a church into a circus
Fernando (FMR)
- KVRAF
- 35297 posts since 14 Sep, 2002 from In teh net
Oh yes I agree - he is not the only composer to have had character weaknesses, Richard Strauss and Carl Orff, both of whose music I count amongst my favourites, did not exactly acquit themselves well during the Nazi period (even though they may not have entirely agreed with it ideologically in the same way Wagner may have had he been alive at the time). Composers are human, their flaws are there and we can't ignore them, in fact they probably played a role in their creativity too, contradiction and complexity are often the drivers of creativity. But if I was to only choose artists I admire as people I would be left with a very short list of musical and artistic influences.fmr wrote:Wagner is a paradigm of someone whom we have to separate the artist from the man. As a composer he was one of the greatest of all time. As a man, he was... unclassifiable - with an ego that surpassed everything. But the man is death now, and the music remains, and that's all that matters. There are many examples of great artists that had big flaws in terms of character.aMUSEd wrote:Yes I think her version is the best, also she does a great Isolde (somewhat ironically considering Wagner's racism)Mr Arkadin wrote:Four Last Songs. Have a great version with Jessye Norman (you know, that singer that sounds like all other opera singers ).
- KVRAF
- 3879 posts since 28 Jun, 2009 from Wherever I lay my hat
I much prefer both Kiri Te Kenawa and Kirsten Flagstad here.aMUSEd wrote:Yes I think her version is the best, also she does a great Isolde (somewhat ironically considering Wagner's racism)Mr Arkadin wrote:Four Last Songs. Have a great version with Jessye Norman (you know, that singer that sounds like all other opera singers ).
- KVRAF
- 35297 posts since 14 Sep, 2002 from In teh net
Not Kiri for Strauss or Wagner - her voice is lovely for Puccini etc but too delicate for the Germanic stuff. Flagstad is OK but Jessye is more subtle imho.ariston wrote:I much prefer both Kiri Te Kenawa and Kirsten Flagstad here.aMUSEd wrote:Yes I think her version is the best, also she does a great Isolde (somewhat ironically considering Wagner's racism)Mr Arkadin wrote:Four Last Songs. Have a great version with Jessye Norman (you know, that singer that sounds like all other opera singers ).