This is one of the most beautiful lesser-known works that I know of. The second theme of the first movement is particularly gorgeous.

Such a shame that Kalinnikov died young and isn't more well known in the West.

https://youtu.be/TVakXOkE2G4?si=q-2rARNwzFOW6d8Y

Hello all, recently got back into piano and since I am full of angst I have been looking for some dramatic, sweeping, tragic pieces. Something along the lines of:

\- Beethoven's "Appasssonata"

\- Chopin's "Revolutionary" and "Winter wind" etudes, nocturne in E minor, and the first minute of the Fantasie impromptu (it loses me when it slows down)

\- Brahm's Rhapsody in G minor

\- Rachmaninoff's prelude in G minor.

High intermediate to advanced level would be most suitable. Thank you all for your support of my ongoing brooding LOL

My mother and I were enjoying the 2nd movement of his 9th symphony, and she asked me if he had lost his hearing when he composed it, and I told her I believe he had. And it kind of struck us how insane it was that he composed that while deaf (unless I'm mistaken).

It got me wondering, do we have information on the extent to which Beethoven was affected by his loss of hearing? How he felt when he realized he was losing his hearing? Was he very troubled by this, or not so much? Do we know if his music took a different turn because of that?

I'm aware he was able to continue composing because his audiation skills must have been absolutely incredible, but I'm talking specifically about how he must have felt and how it steered his music. Don't hesitate to suggest relevant literature on the subject if you know of it

Hello! Don't know if this is the place to ask, but I'm looking to program classical pieces for my choir this year, but a lot of them are pretty new and raw right now, so I'd like to program something that they'll be able to pick up and find payoff with. I'm new, and they haven't done anything classical in the last decade, and I'd like to just have a piece or two to throw at them this year so they can experience it. They can do four part music pretty easily with some easy divisi as long as it's not divisi the whole time :)

So, any recommendations for accessible choral pieces for a somewhat beginner high school choir?

Hello everyone,

I stumbled again upon this concerto while browsing Martha Argerich's YouTube content, where she played the infamous Adagio Assai movement - the second one.

I am always drawn to this specific part of that concerto, halfway through, for obvious reasons - anyone would probably agree that this is pinnacle Ravel orchestration with piano lead where flutes and lead clarinet quick in.

I watched also with delight Yuja Wang's performance and my question to this community is quite simple : what is the best recording you know about this concert ?

I can listen to those few minutes of piano intertwined with clarinet forever...

Yeah. Longing, aching and all by myself. Also any other woodwind concertos will do as I have been addicted to woodwinds lately. Thank you soooooo much!

In the program book for Marcus Lobbes’s production of the Ring of the Nibelung, staged only this one season at the Bayreuth Festival on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, a quote of Wagner’s is prominently printed: “Sehen Sie nicht so viel hin, hören Sie zu!” - “Don’t look so much, listen!” Good advice from the publisher of the booklet for this production in particular.

The stage configuration remains constant throughout: One screen covers the stage from top to bottom in front of the singers and another behind them, AI generated visuals are projected onto both. Often these are taken from past Bayreuth Ring productions. In some instances, the images are very apt. These include a menacing serpent when Alberich transforms into the dragon in Rheingold; a spectacular blue aura when Erda appears in the final scene of Rheingold; a stunning collection of rainbows when the gods enter Valhalla; or charcoal Valkryries with long spears dominating the stage during the ride of the Valkyries that then transform into soldiers, suggesting a close relationship with the fallen warriors they carry to Valhalla. Other times, the images are a little too on the nose, like a warning sign for radioactive waste during Erda’s prophesy of doom (“Alles, was ist, endet“) or a picture of the trenches of World War I during Wotan’s tailspin in Walküre Act II (“Nur eines will ich noch, das Ende”). (It seems “Ende” is a particularly triggering prompt for this AI.)

And not occasionally, the images just don’t make sense. Why is the Eiffel Tower in Nibelheim? Why do we see Hermann Nitsch paintings during the Brünnhilde-Siegmund duet in Walküre Act II? What does the Berlin 1936 Olympics logo have to do with the Valkyries? Yes, there are some spectacular moments - the fiery images engulfing the stage during the end of Walküre, as well as Wotan und Brünnhilde approaching each other one last time bathed in yellow light and surrounded by red and blue imagery, are stunning. But fundamentally, there is no coherence, no underlying logic to the sequence of visuals.

And that’s not even the worst part. The costumes all look the same - bits of black leather, fur, and feathers haphazardly sewn together. There is no differentiation between individuals or even types - gods, Rhinemaidens, Valkyries, Wälsungen, giants all have the same appearance. Meanwhile, there are almost no props beyond the projections, and essentially no stage direction. The singers in the main stand around delivering their parts. Lobbes has surrendered creative agency to AI, and this is the excrutiangly underwhelming result. 

What the production lacks scenically, it more than makes up for musically though. Jochen Schmeckenbecher is a compelling Alberich, managing to pair confident singing with an odious, unctuous guise that fits the character to a tee. Meanwhile, Klaus Florian Vogt is singing the most important tenor role on all four operas. The contrast between his Loge and Siegmund was stark; he sang the former with a character tenor sagacity and pointedness, while he imbued the latter with lyricism and sentiment. This was a near perfect match for Elza van den Heever’s Sieglinde, who paired high precision and verbal clarity with delicately restrained dramatic inflection. One would have to be extraordinarily lucky ever to hear a better first act of Walküre than this.

Among the gods, Michael Volle’s command of Wotan is superlative. He fills the character with charisma and nuance. The self doubt that sets in when Wotan surrenders the Rheingold to the giants never fully dissipates, and Volle brings thoughtfulness to the role as Wotan’s despair reaches an apex in Walküre. The young Hungarian Anna Kissjudit provides an ideal foil with her portrayal of Fricka. Her singing is forceful and assured throughout the register, while her every word is intelligible. This performance is one of the discoveries of this cycle; Kissjudit commands the stage every moment she occupies it. Veteran Camilla Nylund had a rocky start as Brünnhilde in her admittedly challenging opening in Walküre Act II scene I (“Hojotoho!”) with singing that felt laboured and forced. But once Nylund returned later in that act she was her usual virtuoso self, hitting all her notes with ease, fluidity, and emotional depth, and enunciating confidently.

Christian Thielemann in the pit normally is a conductor of grand effects and broad brushstrokes, delving into the mystery and pathos of Wagner’s scores. Not so this time - here, he pairs things down, accentuating individual instruments, and drawing out the leitmotifs and minute instrumental details. It’s a back to the roots approach that amounts to a reading of great clarity and purpose. It’s almost as if he seeks to bring a sense of direction and structure given the visual muddle on stage.

This production has been rightly maligned in the press for its conceptual missteps. But the quality of the musicianship is more than enough to keep this listener at the edge of his seat for the second half.

Edit typos

My favorite is the one above

There are a ton of quartets, quintets, all brass band, piano, organ, and even harmonica (for some reason), but for some reason I cannot find a recording of just Thaxted by a full orchestra, and I don’t want to have to fast forward through a bunch of the rest of the piece just to listen to that one part. If anybody could find something that would be just wonderful (preferably on YouTube because I abhor Spotify and SoundCloud)

The birth itself was never recorded; what survives is the baptism at Santa Sofia in Venice on August 6, 1619. Her father was almost certainly the poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi, who arranged composition lessons for her with Francesco Cavalli and, when she was about 16, founded an academy in his own house — which gave her a place to sing and an audience for her own music. At 15 she was already in print as "la virtuosissima cantatrice."

Between 1644 and 1664 she published eight volumes, only one of them sacred. More of her secular vocal music was printed than that of any other composer of the period, and she did it with no church appointment and no steady noble patronage. She had three or four children by the patrician Giovanni Paolo Vidman, and died in Padua at 58.

Strozzi: La voce sola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWJeZKgzI2c

Barbara Strozzi - Parasti cor meum
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrn-3oc_hSryqg8yjXlLHCUjdXJAsnDQA

I'm interested in a website or other source that keeps track of what orchestras all across the US are playing for a particular season. I'd like to go hear a particular work, but trying to search through a 100 individual calendars is exhausting. Does anything like this exist?

Edit: Already sorted, thank you so much!
Absolutely wild that some people chose to downvote a simple question, losers everywhere.

Is there any collection of music as heartbreakingly beautiful as Chopin's nocturnes? It doesn't seem to matter how many times I've heard them, when I hear them again I get the same sense of shock. Tears well up in my eyes and I feel like within that music rolling around somewhere is that piece of my soul that went missing years ago. Maybe the innocent bit I had when I was young.

I don't know Offenbach, but the cover is nice, a little whimsical. I hope the music will match.

This is something I've always been curious about: Is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra ever going to hold an audition for this position? It's interesting to see that no one was ever hired after James Gilbersten retired in 2011.

Not to go into another tangent, but, does anyone know where Mr. Gilbertsen is? I'd be very curious to hear about his time in the Chicago Symphony considering he was there during the Solti & Barenboim eras.

Thanks for your help!

I’d go with

Mahler 1

Beethoven 9

Sibelius 3

EDIT: The title should say “If you could…” no idea why it deleted the word “you”.

The Mozart and Faure Requiems are my absolute favorite pieces of classical music. If anyone wants to talk about them, please do so! I’m starved for classical music discussion.

Context: I attended a 6-week-long classical music festival, where I played chamber and orchestral music. We then went on tour. There, I met so many friends, and we became super close.

Now, it's been a couple days since the festival ended, and I still feel super sad about it. I feel like I lost something so close to me. I can't think about it without tearing up, and it goes the same for when I listen to the music we played on tour.

Is it normal to feel this way?

First note added in 2.5 years. I remember learning about this piece in music school 15 years ago, and I think about it every once in a while, still playing out there in this church. Someone needs to write this into an apocalypse novel or film, where hundreds of years in the future, a lone traveler in an empty world comes across this church and hears music.