What are you listening to now :)

[Peter]

Yes Philip, I was referring to Bruckner's 9th.
I always think with Bruckner that he is like life itself, in that his music widens and broadens out in and through the symphonies, leading into a great sea of eternity. It's the sense that we are part of the whole that I get with Bruckner. Mahler is a bit different for me, there is always a kind of contraction in him , even though he can be exquisite in the 3rd and the 5th.
I don't feel his symphonies really go anywhere and there seem to be so much unresolved or puzzling at the end of them. Of course, both Bruckner and Mahler are symphonic masters.
With Bruckner I do feel he was a person of great faith, very simple and appealing , you always get there in the end with Bruckner. With Mahler it's quite otherwise , I think.

No I don't agree about Mahler - yes he's far more of an emotional wreck than Bruckner and takes you on a more traumatic journey, but I think in the end he comes through triumphant. How can you listen to the 8th for example and not feel at the end as though you've overcome everything and ended up in paradise?

[Sorrano]

When I listen to Bruckner I often feel as if I am in a massive and beautiful building, admiring the architecture and just being surrounded by sound.

[Megan]

No I don't agree about Mahler - yes he's far more of an emotional wreck than Bruckner and takes you on a more traumatic journey, but I think in the end he comes through triumphant. How can you listen to the 8th for example and not feel at the end as though you've overcome everything and ended up in paradise?

True Peter, there is in a sense a musical and an emotional overcoming at the end of the great Mahler symphonies, but really I just don't find a spiritual truimph, or it seems to me that he is really straining to get an effect, by I find it to be honest a bit bogus. Mahler glories in the senses and in the earth, Das liede von der Erde, and he went through, [poor chap], absolute agonies which comes out in his music.
Mahler for me seeks for an apotheosis through and by man and his own efforts with a few nods to the Deity, but it is all on a human level. Its' totally different in Bruckner, because his perspective is God and mans relation to God, hence those massive ascending chords in Bruckner. I suppose it is the differece between a man who struggled to try to find some kind of faith, and one who was supremely confident of his faith.

If you found paradise at the end of Mahlers 8th , well that's got to be good.

[Roehre]

Webern's death was caused by a trigger-happy American soldier, who thought that Webern's cigar was a fire arm directed at him. Typical American collateral damage I'm afraid.

[Roehre]

Today:

Moyzes:
Symphony No.4 in E flat Major opus 38 (1947)(R3: TtN)

Channel Classics CD Bolivian Baroque vol.2Again excellently performed, but compared with vol.1 less interesting music, though it is still miraculous to find these piece in a south american missionary archive.

[Quijote]

Two works by Xenakis :
a) Kottos, for solo 'cello. A virtuoso tour de force, and likely to offend conservatoire-trained (and conservative) 'cellists for its extended technique (might damage their bows);
b) La Légende d'Eer (for 8-track tape). Proof that Xenakis did well not to pursue an electroacoustic (EA) path. I am a great fan of EA music, but this work is simply boring.

[Roehre]

Today:

Elgar:
“Symphony no.0” (Organ sonata opus 28 orchestrated by Gordon Jacob that is )

Thomson:
Three Portraits for orchestra (1944)
Symphony no.2 (1930)
Four Blake Songs (1951)

[Quijote]

Right now, nothing. But there is no such thing. Id est, I am listening to the "white noise" produced by my computer as I read through this forum and make my various comments.

[Quijote]

Though if I listen very carefully, there is some sort of "fundamental" pitch to the noise my computer makes (somewhere between F and F#). Is this revelatory?

[Quijote]

No, but my ear is acute. And I am not cute at all.

[Quijote]

Talking of pitch and so on, I recently read the "diary" that Robert and Clara Schumann maintained during their marriage. In one entry, Robert sets out the ear training expected of his children : to listen to every commonplace sound that they hear (a church bell, a crystal glass, a note on the piano, a bird call and so on ...) so that they could eventually identify the note (pitch) automatically. Not a bad idea. I do this everyday. And it bores my entourage to death.

[Quijote]

An example:
Me (to my son, 13 years old) on hearing a car horn : That was a G.
My son : So what?

QED.

[Quijote]

[...] Elgar [...]

Roehre, your post above (that mentions Elgar, inter alia) reminds me of something. I was listening (I'm afraid a bit inattentively) to the radio today and I heard a violin concerto being played. I thought : "Hmm, is that Sibelius?". How wrong could I be? It was Elgar !!

[Roehre]

Today:

Thompson:
Symphony no.1 (1931)
Symphony no.2 in e (1931)

Looking forward to Pintscher and Rihm in Hear & Now tonight

Roehre, your post above (that mentions Elgar, inter alia) reminds me of something. I was listening (I'm afraid a bit inattentively) to the radio today and I heard a violin concerto being played. I thought : "Hmm, is that Sibelius?". How wrong could I be? It was Elgar !!

Yes, all those high romantic composers, they all seem to compose very similar, dark brown wooden music. I really don't understand how people can enjoy them

[Roehre]

Today:

JSBach:
Cantatas BWV 6, 27 and 161 (Cantatas for Trinity 16, today)
Cantatas BWV 195, 196 and 197, as it is our Anniversary today

Pintscher:
Celestial Object I
Transir
Study IV

Thompson:
Symphony no.3 in a (1947/’49)