What are you listening to now?

[Peter]

Continuing on with this extremely long running topic (I'm not sure how many years ago it started now!). I'm listening to a lot of Debussy at the moment, especially the orchestral music - Images and Jeux. The Spanish influence in Debussy and Ravel is striking, yet De Falla learnt from Debussy!

[Sorrano]

A note to Hofrat: I got the Raff symphonies in and will be listening to them as I recover from a current cold. I am looking forwards to them!

[Hofrat]

Sorrano;

You will enjoy them. Believe me.

[Sorrano]

I had the opportunity to listen to Raff's Symphony No. 8 last night and enjoyed it very much! After listening to an entire work from a composer with whom I am not familiar it is difficult to pin down any specific impressions, however I felt that the second movement had a lot of Mendelssohn in it.

[Peter]

Faure's songs with the wonderful Janet Baker and I'm looking forward to my cd of Chausson's songs (with the equally wonderful Jesse Norman) which should arrive soon (hopefully!).

[Chris]

The Bach Inventions and Sinfonias, played by Janos Sebestyen.

[Chris]

The complete organ works by Bach, played by George Ritchie...which should take a while to get through.

[Sorrano]

The complete organ works by Bach, played by George Ritchie...which should take a while to get through.

But it will be worth it! I have the complete organ works with Marie-Alain Claire. (Not sure of the spelling; the set is buried at the moment in stacks of CD's).

[Chris]

Hm...I don't know about the Bach organ works. I picked up the set because I will be studying the organ soon, but it was like a lot of Bach's other work, and like the organ itself, for that matter - interesting, but not really enjoyable or beautiful. Not really memorable. When I am learning a Beethoven piece, I have it memorized by the time I have learned it. Everything seems so inevitable. But with Bach it seems like he could have done a hundred things at every point that would have been just as good. Memorizing a Bach piece takes a lot of effort, because he never seems to be going anywhere with it, he's just...going. That modulation was...weird. What was the point of that? Those are throughts that go through my head when listening to or playing Bach. I have made a strong effort this past year to come to love Bach, and I do recognize the greatness in his music, but there are only a handful of his pieces that I really love or that really move me.

Now I am on to the Haydn piano trios. Now this is more like it. I am enjoying all of these pieces. Many of them do tend to sound the same, something I am sure I will be seeing a lot next week when I launch into the Haydn symphonies, but these are very enjoyable pieces. It is clear from listening to these pieces just how much Beethoven learned from Haydn.

[Peter]

Hm...I don't know about the Bach organ works. I picked up the set because I will be studying the organ soon, but it was like a lot of Bach's other work, and like the organ itself, for that matter - interesting, but not really enjoyable or beautiful. Not really memorable. When I am learning a Beethoven piece, I have it memorized by the time I have learned it. Everything seems so inevitable. But with Bach it seems like he could have done a hundred things at every point that would have been just as good. Memorizing a Bach piece takes a lot of effort, because he never seems to be going anywhere with it, he's just...going. That modulation was...weird. What was the point of that? Those are throughts that go through my head when listening to or playing Bach. I have made a strong effort this past year to come to love Bach, and I do recognize the greatness in his music, but there are only a handful of his pieces that I really love or that really move me.

Now I am on to the Haydn piano trios. Now this is more like it. I am enjoying all of these pieces. Many of them do tend to sound the same, something I am sure I will be seeing a lot next week when I launch into the Haydn symphonies, but these are very enjoyable pieces. It is clear from listening to these pieces just how much Beethoven learned from Haydn.

Now I can't agree with you at all about Bach so we'll leave that one aside, although you've admirably made an effort! However with your Haydn views I concur. There are amongst the early and middle symphonies some really outstanding gems starting with the set nos 6-8. No.39 is a special favourite of mine, and virtually all the symphonies in the 40s are outstanding.

[Sorrano]

Bach has been very difficult for me, as well. In part I've struggled with the difficulty of his music in regards to playing it and I've had a lot of frustration. The orchestral works have not interested me at all, but the organ music, on the other hand, has been my key to enjoying Bach. Until recently, when I listened to a disc featuring Hillary Hahn playing some of Bach's solo instrumental work I really got excited about his music and ever since I've been trying to "conquer" some of the keyboard music that is within my reach. All too often I think performers are way too mechanical in their approach and fail to portray the real beauty that comes with the music. Anyway, good luck with his music, Chris. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance!

[Chris]

I probably enjoy Bach's orchestral music more, actually. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 might be the first Bach piece I really loved.

Maybe it does go back to my frustration with trying to learn it. I remember the complete despair I felt when it was time to do another of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin or one of the Inventions and Sinfonias for the piano.

[Peter]

Bach has been very difficult for me, as well. In part I've struggled with the difficulty of his music in regards to playing it and I've had a lot of frustration. The orchestral works have not interested me at all, but the organ music, on the other hand, has been my key to enjoying Bach. Until recently, when I listened to a disc featuring Hillary Hahn playing some of Bach's solo instrumental work I really got excited about his music and ever since I've been trying to "conquer" some of the keyboard music that is within my reach. All too often I think performers are way too mechanical in their approach and fail to portray the real beauty that comes with the music. Anyway, good luck with his music, Chris. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance!

I sympathise with this as I find Bach by far the most difficult and demanding of composers to perform on the piano - making each independent part have its own sound and yet balance within the whole is extremely exacting!

[Sorrano]

I sympathise with this as I find Bach by far the most difficult and demanding of composers to perform on the piano - making each independent part have its own sound and yet balance within the whole is extremely exacting!

The real key to learning to play Bach is to learn to love his music. That takes away most of the pain!

[Preston]

Do you all feel that any of Bach's music was as deep as Beethoven's music during his late period? Also, how do you feel that Bach's music compares to Beethoven's middle period?

Thanks,
Preston