Dream concert

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Peter:
Saint-saens was described as an even greater organist than pianist - I think I'm right in saying he could play all of the Beethoven 32 sonatas from memory at age 10!

Wagner once met the young Saint-Saens and was astounded to find that he knew by heart every vocal and instrumental part -- including the dynamic markings -- of several of Wagner's 4-hour operas. Saint Saens must have had a photographic memory.

[dice45]

Objection,
when Beethoven was composing op.106 "Hammerklavier", he was out of practice and and out of hearing.
Now, as we have this silly time machine stolen out of H.G.Wells novel, we travel back, fetch Beethoven, travel to, say, 2020, get his hearing repaired, travel back to 1955 at a concert where Solomon plays the op.106.
And then i want to introduce both and listen what Beethoven tells Solomon about his performance. I bet it will be something enthusing.
We won't let Beethoven travel back (so that he cannot change a single note of his works), and he won't want anyway, he would get himself a stereo and listen to records on and on, discovering what happened after him.
I bet, he would be stunned by Wagner's harmonics and fascinating moments but annoyed by Wagner's unbearable half-hours.
I bet he then would discover early, Schönberg, then 12tonal Schönberg and Webern and be tucked away for some months.
And we could not organize a 2nd dream concert [bawling .... ]

------------------
Greets,
Bernhard

[Rutradelusasa]

Originally posted by Peter:
Saint-saens was described as an even greater organist than pianist - I think I'm right in saying he could play all of the Beethoven 32 sonatas from memory at age 10!

Wasn't it Mendelssohn? I'm pretty sure it was him, for he was known as more a genious kid than mozart (just listen to what he did when he was 15 - A Midsummer Night Dream Overture).

[Joy]

Originally posted by Rutradelusasa:
Wasn't it Mendelssohn? I'm pretty sure it was him, for he was known as more a genious kid than mozart (just listen to what he did when he was 15 - A Midsummer Night Dream Overture).

You might be right with it being Mendelssohn, I'm not sure, can't remember. I agree with you about 'A Midsummer Night's Dream OT'. Always been one of my favourites.

[Joy]

Originally posted by Peter:
I'd pay to see Beethoven practising scales or playing chopsticks! Instead my pupils pay me to hear their scales!

So would I!!

[Joy]

Originally posted by Peter:
Saint-saens was described as an even greater organist than pianist - I think I'm right in saying he could play all of the Beethoven 32 sonatas from memory at age 10!

Whoever it was, Saint Saens or Mendelssohn, it was a remarkable feat indeed! He must have had a photographic memory. I think there's a pianist out there now that plays all 32 Sonatas from memory. They showcase him on the radio sometimes, but I can't remember his name.

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited December 07, 2002).]

[spaceray]

. I think there's a pianist out there now that plays all 32 Sonatas from memory. They showcase him on the radio sometimes, but I can't remember his name.

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited December 07, 2002).][/B]

Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti!

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by Rutradelusasa:
Wasn't it Mendelssohn? I'm pretty sure it was him, for he was known as more a genious kid than mozart (just listen to what he did when he was 15 - A Midsummer Night Dream Overture).

And if you think that's good (I do too), when he was 16 he wrote my absolute favorite piece of chamber music by anyone, anywhere, the Octet for 2 String Quartets, in Eb Opus 20. Even though (sacrilege!!!) I am a HUGE fan of Mozart, and as big a fan of Beethoven, Schubert and Haydn as anyone here, I must say that I would listen to Mendelssohn's Octet every day, if necessary! As far as who plays it, pick any 2 of the top string quartets of the last 200 years and put them together, and I'll listen. Ahhh!
Gurn

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
Originally posted by Rutradelusasa:
Wasn't it Mendelssohn? I'm pretty sure it was him, for he was known as more a genious kid than mozart (just listen to what he did when he was 15 - A Midsummer Night Dream Overture).

And if you think that's good (I do too), when he was 16 he wrote my absolute favorite piece of chamber music by anyone, anywhere, the Octet for 2 String Quartets, in Eb Opus 20. Even though (sacrilege!!!) I am a HUGE fan of Mozart, and as big a fan of Beethoven, Schubert and Haydn as anyone here, I must say that I would listen to Mendelssohn's Octet every day, if necessary! As far as who plays it, pick any 2 of the top string quartets of the last 200 years and put them together, and I'll listen. Ahhh!
Gurn

I agree - both of these are wonderful works.

[Chaszz]

Dice45, in the following two quotes (one from a different thread) you have ably pinpointed the weaknesses of my two lieber meisters:

(1) When Whiteman was the masses adored star, Armstrong was but a musician's musician. When Armstrong later became a bit more popular, the funkyness was gone down the tubes and it was gleeful entertainment only.....

(2)I bet, [Beethoven] would be stunned by Wagner's harmonics and fascinating moments but annoyed by Wagner's unbearable half-hours.

Still, in defense, I must say that many of Armstrong's pop records of the thirties contain great jazz, e.g., Lazy River, You're Driving Me Crazy, Sleepy Time Down South, Sweethearts on Parade, Stardust, I'm Confessin', etc., etc. I will admit that after the late 30s he was mainly a good pop entertainer, with the exception of some great All Stars sessions, such as 'Satchmo at Symphony Hall' (1947).

...And in Wagner's 'unbearable half-hours' I listen to the orchestra, which still rocks me on a sea of bliss.

But fair is fair, you did a concise and skillful job with these 2 musisians. Could you perhaps write a series of articles on George Bush for a major Americian publication?

(Also, how thrilled would Wagner be to have his picture next to Louis Armstrong on my bulletin board at work?)

[dice45]

Chazz,
i came to Wagner backwards, from Schönberg.
before university i refused to listen to Wagner's unbearable half-hours.
I got introduced into his fancy harmonic achievements by a non-technical lecture i had to choose at university. I chose 20th century music. The professor pointed out how Wagner was trying to get rid of the corset of tonality and tended more and more to have toinality floating or or to have two keys equally valid on which the music was based. Which led directly to what Schönberg was doing; Schönberg is a pupil of Wagner. So i discovered Wagner's magic moments. When much is happening at his operas, harmonics are fancy, very modern.
Meanwhile, i collect "Best of XXX" Wagner records, i still refuse to undergo the full treatment and listen to a whole opera. Birgit Nilson, Christa Ludwig anf Hans Hotter are my favourite singers for Wagner. "Best of XXX" always has the magic moments

If you are into Wagner, then you must try out Schönbergs early works, Verklärte Nacht, chamber sympony. As complex harmonically if not more, as romantic, in any case way more taut and concise than Wagner. A must. And maybe you find into the 12-tonal Schönberg too

Armstrong:
I am glad to admit i am not deep enough into Armstrong, he was a truly muscian and i will try your hint out. You do not have to defend, i just uttered my personal POV.
I do feel bad if i downtalked your preferences, really not my intention. I understand my contributions as potential inspriation, hints for others. As i consider other's conntributions as hints for me. Rod got me to get more acquainted with Händel, for which i am glad.

You should not limit yourself to Armstrng, there is soooo much to discover in Jazz. I always thot, swing era? {yuck} but meanhwile i am looking for Count Basie, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster. But i am still happy with the modern Jazz i 1st discovered, the best of those performances are incredibly wearproof. I still am deep into Free Jazz.


George DabbelYou:
Why should i waste my positive spirit and skills on a man preparing to get his place in the school room history books? If i really write what i think about him and the men holding the G.W.Bush remote control, i get kicked out of this forum .. *speed-of-light*-fast and justified so. This is a music BBS, email me privately if you want to discuss politics.

------------------
Greets,
Bernhard

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by dice45:
Chazz,
i came to Wagner backwards, from Schönberg.
before university i refused to listen to Wagner's unbearable half-hours.
I got introduced into his fancy harmonic achievements by a non-technical lecture i had to choose at university. I chose 20th century music. The professor pointed out how Wagner was trying to get rid of the corset of tonality and tended more and more to have toinality floating or or to have two keys equally valid on which the music was based. Which led directly to what Schönberg was doing; Schönberg is a pupil of Wagner. So i discovered Wagner's magic moments. When much is happening at his operas, harmonics are fancy, very modern.
Meanwhile, i collect "Best of XXX" Wagner records, i still refuse to undergo the full treatment and listen to a whole opera. Birgit Nilson, Christa Ludwig anf Hans Hotter are my favourite singers for Wagner. "Best of XXX" always has the magic moments

If you are into Wagner, then you must try out Schönbergs early works, Verklärte Nacht, chamber sympony. As complex harmonically if not more, as romantic, in any case way more taut and concise than Wagner. A must. And maybe you find into the 12-tonal Schönberg too

Armstrong:
I am glad to admit i am not deep enough into Armstrong, he was a truly muscian and i will try your hint out. You do not have to defend, i just uttered my personal POV.
I do feel bad if i downtalked your preferences, really not my intention. I understand my contributions as potential inspriation, hints for others. As i consider other's conntributions as hints for me. Rod got me to get more acquainted with Händel, for which i am glad.

You should not limit yourself to Armstrng, there is soooo much to discover in Jazz. I always thot, swing era? {yuck} but meanhwile i am looking for Count Basie, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster. But i am still happy with the modern Jazz i 1st discovered, the best of those performances are incredibly wearproof. I still am deep into Free Jazz.


George DabbelYou:
Why should i waste my positive spirit and skills on a man preparing to get his place in the school room history books? If i really write what i think about him and the men holding the G.W.Bush remote control, i get kicked out of this forum .. *speed-of-light*-fast and justified so. This is a music BBS, email me privately if you want to discuss politics.

The Meistersinger I think has not one dull moment, the music is as fresh as springtime from beginning to end, a tour de force of almost endless inspired variations on a small number of themes. The other operas I admit have some duller patches among the golden ones.

I have been listening to jazz for 45 years and have heard virtually everything in it. I started at 14 with Louis and I am still with him. Basie, Lester, of course, all the rest are great, but Louis of the 1920s is to me the ultimate. In the last chorus of Muskrat Ramble of 1926 there is a piercing glimpse of the higher beauty we go to Beethoven and Bach for. In the final chorus of Potato Head Blues is a variation of such stunning simplicity and greatness it still amazes me after 45 years. Actually, not in his solos but in his final lead trumpet in the counterpoint ensembles is where he often shows his greatest genius.

I also have experienced Schoenberg's early modernist works and like them very much, I also like some of Berg and Webern. I have not tried the 12-tone music very much but it is on my list.

And the reference about GW Bush was just a joke, alluding to your abilities as a writer.

[BKistner]

Chazz,

1st, i have asked the administrator to change my moniker, my old one reminds me on something quite nasty. dice45 before, now BKistner.
This GWB guy is considered a warmonger by many Europeans including me. Methinks, war is not something useful, except for a few earning (truck loads of) money with it.

Anyway, thank you fo the compliment, i am not yet a writer. But, that can happen soon, i have some stuff in my head which has to go on paper.
In German languege the same word "Kunst" can be used for art and ability in the sense of skill. The word for "having ability" is "können". So we have a proverb
"Kunst kommt von können" (art is derived from having ability). I always object to that statement, i say, "Kunst kommt von müssen" (art is derived from inner urge)

Armstrong/Coltrane.
you are obviously deep into Satchmo, way deeper than me. Although i am always open to new suggestions (one of the reasons i am participating here and currently exploring my Händel collection, stirred by Rod ) and will certainly follow your hints, i doubt i ever will be as fond of Armstrong as you are. It is a question of the instrumentalist's tone, his personal message, a thing severely under-estimated in composed music but highly regarded in Jazz and other improvised music. I do not respond to Armstrong's tone personally as much as to Bix Beiderbecke's one or John Coltrane's one.
Coltrane's playing a few notes and it's bliss for me, i'm flying.
Normally i am more fond of horizantal, melodic improvisers like Bird and Brownie and Rollins. Coltrane is a vertical, harmonic improviser and it is hard work to integratively listen to what he is doing. I only do this occasionally, usually i am happy with his "voice", be it calm or intense on that particular tune. BTW, i have several acquaintants who are not into Jazz at all, not to speak of modern, post-swing Jazz, but who are deeply into Coltrane. Because of the tone. I showed them and they were hooked on the tone alone.

Sometimes one has to grow into liking a certain kind of music. So it was with me and Mozart and Haydn. And with Clifford Brown and Dizzy Gillespie.
I never likes Gillespie when he was Bird's buddy. He was hot, sure, he played fast an high and spectacular. I never thought of him as being particularly imaginative, such as Bird. And he made the money. Not Bird. I detested that as well as his big ego with not enough behind to justify it, which both could be sensed in his music IMO. The i stumbled over that record: Dizzy Gillespie "The greatest trumpet of them all" (on Verve records). Go, get it. A crown jewel. And if you find anything alike, tell me, i buy it.

Schönberg, Berg, Webern (12-tonal):
if you want to explore that, you have to carefully distinct between work and perfomance. You were expecting i would say that?
Well, Schönberg is atleast as hard to play as Bach of Mozart or Beethoven or one of the other ancient masters. I know many performance i refuse to listen to the end.
It's utterly demanding, technically, i've heard people say. It is not easy to get into and feel the vibe, it's too unusual for us, considering how we were brough up, worse, it's inherently unusual, "disharmonic", almost amelodic, no repetitions, unexpected rhythm changes and so on. Weird intellectual stuff, too brain-oriented, most people say.
But: below this intellectual layer is an emotional layer too and it is as intense as the intellectual one. Best entrances should give a good performance of Alban Berg's opera "Wozzeck", there emotions are very obvious and easy to grasp. Not necessarily pleasant. I recommend the Pierre Boulez / Walter Berry / Isabel Strauss performance from the late 60ies.
I know some performances where i am uncertain if it's played right and have to seek for comparisons with other performances. And i know a few where i do not need comparison to say: that's it, that is the definitive performance for me, as definitive as Solomons LvB op.106 or op.111.
Some performance hints:

Alban Berg, Wozzeck: see above, on CBS

Everything from 20th century, played by the Zagreb Soloists under Antonio Janigro, just wonderful. On amadeo (Austria)

Schönberg: complete piano compositions, played by Otto M Zykan. On amadeo (Austria).

Schönberg: piano concerto op.36 & violin concerto op.42, cond.Michael Gielen, A.Brendel,piano, W.Marschner, violin.

Schönberg/Berg/Webern: "Vienna 1908-1914", pievces for orchestra by all 3 composers.
Antal Dorati cond.LSO.
This record definitely is avaialble on CD: Philips 432006-2
and as vinyl: Mercury SR90316
Sonics: one of the best recordings ever made. To get the vinyl as an original, you need a kingsize wallet. If you find it.

On of the most vital things (and most difficult to get right) of all those pieces is to let the inherent rhythmic flow intact. I say inherent as me layman could not detect any noted rhythm, syncopatopations, stressed notes in the scores i looked at. Nothing. And the professor agreed there are few if present, the artist is on its own with rhythm and phrasing. And from listening i can tell most musician do not find the rhythm and big bow of tension either.
I also can tell that those performances i named do not have that flaw, tension never collapses, rhythm changes often but never has a break or a gap in it. The music breathes.
So if you do not find the rhythm, can be you are not up to it as listener. Way more probable the performer is not up to it.
The Dorati orchestra performance and the Zykan piano performance are something really special, particularly concerning rhythm.
Crown jewels, artistically and sonically.

All for now.

------------------
Greets,
Bernhard

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by BKistner:
Chazz,

You are obviously deep into Satchmo, way deeper than me. Although i am always open to new suggestions (one of the reasons i am participating here and currently exploring my Händel collection, stirred by Rod ) and will certainly follow your hints, i doubt i ever will be as fond of Armstrong as you are. It is a question of the instrumentalist's tone, his personal message, a thing severely under-estimated in composed music but highly regarded in Jazz and other improvised music. I do not respond to Armstrong's tone personally as much as to Bix Beiderbecke's one or John Coltrane's one.
Coltrane's playing a few notes and it's bliss for me, i'm flying.

This is a very interesting observation. I am wholly into Louis' tone, especially on many of the 1920s records which were played on the slightly smaller and mellower cornet rather than on trumpet. This is true for me even in records from 1923 or '24 where the sound quality is very poor. A few notes and I am in heaven, as with you and Coltrane.
I also love Bix's tone very much. I hear it as pure silver to Louis' pure gold.

However, I would think strongly emotional melodic and harmonic ideas are as or more important than tone, and here I think Louis outdistances all except Bird. But this observation of yours may help to shed light on the puzzling differences people have in likes and dislikes. For instance, is it possible that Rod doesn't grasp much of Bach because the texture of counterpoint is less appealing to him than the texture of a dominant single line? (See today's exchange on the Bach vs. Handel thread.)

[BKistner]

Chazz,

i cannot speculate what Rod grasps and what not, i am sitting caught in my skin, not in Rod's ... and even if i could, i would not do it in public and only after careful preparations in private, means: after having established a solid friendship. It's highly confrontational if not offensive to speculate about another person's mind set.

Concerning the Bach vs. Händel comparison, i am re-reading the Fernau book at the moment i was referring to and have just found an interesting comparison between Händel and Bach there, where the author, who has forgotten more about the topic than i ever will know, describes why he thinks Bach was the "local genius" and not Händel although he readily seconds almost all points of Rod and credits Händel with much higher popularity back in his own time.

It's happeing on that emotional rail. It's the "voice". And it is a new soul-wise quality he brought to people. Händel did not bring anything new, soul-wise.
I come back later with details in the Händel vs Bach thread as soon as i have i have processed what i've read.

But from what i hear, Bach is definetely more vertically oriented than Händel. Coltrane's "Giant Steps" and particularly the "Giant Steps" and "Countdown" solo has been called the equivalent to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in modern Jazz. Because the harmonic progression he develops there have similar importance and impact on others.
And Coltrane is a vertical, harmonic improviser as much and on same level as Bird was a horizontal, melodic one.

Oops, we are threadjacking. Back to the thread's topic.
One dream concert, make that two:
I want to make a time travel back to 1946 and hear Bird live. And Trane. I guess i would not travel back at once, i would like to experience the whole time, i would hang around until Trane passed away and then travel back. And i would listen to him as often as i could.

Recently i got a rough grasp what it must have been like listening to Trane. In Munich Pharoah Sanders gave a concert, in some fusion/Jazzrock context. Really not bad, those musicians he had with him. But he himself has a tone of the same spiritual intensity like Trane had. I know it from records. Tellya, he lost nothing of it!
He did not play many freejazz solos that evening but it was bliss to me, i was flying. Man, did he pull the trigger! Never experienced that before live. Now that was my dream concert.

But to imagine someone is doing right that, pulling the trigger that way, the whole evening, one solo 30 min @ , that's Trane. And that's Bird.

I bet that Bach and Beethoven had this mesmerizing intensity too, when they performed themselves. It has been observed with Paganini. An ability lost to day with people playing composed music. They all have a beautiful tone. Dying in beauty. Boring. Not mesmerizing like Satchmo, Bix, Bean, Bird, Trane, Monk.

Did i say Monk? Did i say Paganini? Another 2 dream concerts. I want to hear both live. No matter how crappy the environment. And unless i get this time machine, i listen to them on records. Monk plays himself. For Paginini i prefer Michael Rabin as performer. Even if he has slight pitch problems (a pain to me). It's magic. Go get the Paganini Caprices played by Michael Rabin.

------------------
Greets,
Bernhard