What are you reading now?

[Peter]

As a half-Spaniard, I am delighted to see we share a certain 'Iberian' interest! I'll have to dig out a few titles for you, Peter, especially on the Spanish Civil War. There's also the excellent account of Orwell's involvement in the conflict in his Homage to Catalonia. His description of events in Barcelona at the outset of the war, the ensuing chaos and various communist factions' in-fighting are incomparable.

Yes indeed Philip I do love a great deal of Spanish music, Victoria, Granados, Albeniz, de Falla. By all means recommend some books but they shall have to join an enormously long queue on my in tray! I am only half way through Lorca and next up is the centenary (1928) edition of Schubert letters and then it's over to Russia and Turgenev.

[Chris]

If this is ironic, ok. If this is true, I think it sad. My time at University was radical, as well as mind (and ear) opening. The expression "halcyon days" comes to mind. Apologies for this rather hackneyed cliché.

Maybe a little of both - there is certainly some truth there, I'm sorry to say. University was by far the worst experience of my life.

[Quijote]

By all means recommend some books but they shall have to join an enormously long queue on my in tray! I am only half way through Lorca and next up is the centenary (1928) edition of Schubert letters and then it's over to Russia and Turgenev.

To fellow Hispanophile Peter : Just thought I'd let you know that tommorow (1st April) was the date on which the Spanish Civil War officially ended in 1939.

No pasaran!
(Please excuse the incorrect spelling, I don't have a Spanish keyboard for the right accents : the phrase should begin with the inverted exclamation mark, and the third letter "a" should have an a-acute accent.)

[Quijote]

Not exactly what I'm reading at the moment, rather what I hope to be reading soon :

Abstract
Commentators have sometimes remarked on similarities between contemporaneous piano sonatas and quartets by Beethoven, as if the composer were developing ideas at the keyboard before transferring them to other genres. A particularly close connection can be seen, however, between two works in B-flat major that are separated by a greater distance in time: the Piano Sonata in B-flat , op. 106 (Hammerklavier) and the String Quartet in B-flat , op. 130. Correspondences between the respective first movements are particularly strong, and they suggest that the sonata may have served as something of model for the quartet.
Yet the same elements that contribute to a highly integrated structure in the sonata seem to serve quite different purposes in a quartet characterized by a pointed disintegration of normative procedures. A comparison of the two works shows not only how Beethoven's style underwent significant change in the intervening time, but also how the quartet may serve as a critique of the sonata in an act of deliberate stylistic distancing. This brings into question the well established concept of a unified “late” or “third-period” style.

Source : Sterling Lambert, Beethoven in B-flat : Op. 130 and the Hammerklavier, Journal of Musicology, Fall 2008, Vol. 25, No. 4, Pages 434–472

[Michael]

Not exactly what I'm reading at the moment, rather what I hope to be reading soon :

Abstract
Commentators have sometimes remarked on similarities between contemporaneous piano sonatas and quartets by Beethoven, as if the composer were developing ideas at the keyboard before transferring them to other genres. A particularly close connection can be seen, however, between two works in B-flat major that are separated by a greater distance in time: the Piano Sonata in B-flat , op. 106 (Hammerklavier) and the String Quartet in B-flat , op. 130. Source : Sterling Lambert, Beethoven in B-flat : Op. 130 and the Hammerklavier, Journal of Musicology, Fall 2008, Vol. 25, No. 4, Pages 434–472

I know this is slightly off the point, but one of the main themes in the first movement of the Hammerklavier is almost identical (by ear anyway) to a theme in the second movement of the Fourth Symphony. (In the case of the symphony, it's the last theme heard before the development section starts).
I just wondered if anybody else had notice it.

[Quijote]

I know this is slightly off the point, but one of the main themes in the first movement of the Hammerklavier is almost identical (by ear anyway) to a theme in the second movement of the Fourth Symphony. (In the case of the symphony, it's the last theme heard before the development section starts).
I just wondered if anybody else had notice it.

I can't honestly say that I have noticed this, Michael. I'll take another listen when I get a moment. Another case of "cross fertilization", so to speak?

[Peter]

Reading Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych - the finest of his short stories, a terrific study in human nature and mortality.

[PDG]

I know this is slightly off the point, but one of the main themes in the first movement of the Hammerklavier is almost identical (by ear anyway) to a theme in the second movement of the Fourth Symphony. (In the case of the symphony, it's the last theme heard before the development section starts).
I just wondered if anybody else had notice it.

Call me mad, but I strongly detect 'Tip-Toe Through the Tulips' (Tiny Tim) during the mayhem in the middle of the Hammerklavier fugue finale...

[Quijote]

Call me mad, but I strongly detect 'Tip-Toe Through the Tulips' (Tiny Tim) during the mayhem in the middle of the Hammerklavier fugue finale...

You are mad. Get back in the attic...

[Quijote]

I hear shades of T Rex in the Hammerkavier.

[PDG]

I hear shades of T Rex in the Hammerkavier.

Hi Phil. You, me and Barack. Tea at the White House to discuss T Rex and Beethoven? A worthy State Visit, surely?

Don't respond, just Bang a Gong...

[Michael]

Call me mad, but I strongly detect 'Tip-Toe Through the Tulips' (Tiny Tim) during the mayhem in the middle of the Hammerklavier fugue finale...

If you hear any Petula Clark in there, you must have Glenn Gould's version.
(Seriously, he was obsessed with Petula.)
And you have given me an idea for another thread!

[Quijote]

If you hear any Petula Clark in there, you must have Glenn Gould's version.
(Seriously, he was obsessed with Petula.)
And you have given me an idea for another thread!

Oh God preserve us ...

[Peter]

Suitably morbid after the Death of Ivan Ilych now reading Zola's Germinal.

[Quijote]

I hear shades of T Rex in the Hammerkavier.

Always a bad idea to quote oneself. Anyway, nobody noticed my poor spelling. Hammerkaviar? Must be Beethoven's favourite apéritif.