Anybody Like Classical Music?

[Insidious Von]

My grandfather played the Sousaphone with the Earlscourt Marching Band. He passed away four years after his last Santa Claus Parade.

An obscure ditty by John Phillip Sousa.

 

[Insidious Von]

Mary had a little lamb, Mozart had a papagallo.

 

[Insidious Von]

Rising Canadian Operatic star Elisabeth Boudreault (above) while she was still at McGill.

 

[Ponderling]

Picked up a pristine pressing of a 1982 Angel Digital LP while thrift store shopping the other day
Strauss - Four last songs - Death and Transfiguration. London Philharmonic Under Klaus Tennstedt.

The soloist in it is Lucia Popp- she has a great voice. Was in her mid 40's when this was cut.
So Googled her up. Found out she died of a brain cancer at age 54.
So that was way spooky to discover while listening to her sing the last movement - Im Abenrot (at gloaming).

Good Strauss to the end.
Basically the last thing he wrote, at age 84.

 

[Insidious Von]

That piece is tough to listen to, especially if paired with Death and Transfiguration...not exactly hootenanny jingles.

I googled Lucia Pop, she looked like Dawn Wells. What a waste.

 

[Insidious Von]

 

[Insidious Von]

The violin nerds renew their friendship with Hilary Hahn.

 

[Insidious Von]

Don't know if the violin nerds have ever met Brandon Manitoba's James Ehnes.

 

[Ponderling]

Anything sung by Leontyne Price.
She started recordings with RCA on Red Seal in 1958 and kept at it for over 25 years.

I have 3-4 LP's with her one them, and picked up a good quiality compilation of her arias yesterday.

 

[Insidious Von]

Ponderling, Leontyne Price is almost 100.

 

[Insidious Von]

Russia is a mafia State, it also produces some of the very best musicians. The USA cannot compete.

Unfortunately they are moving out of the country due to Putin being a mafia boss. Ms Kuznetsova currently lives in Valencia Spain. As one of her Patronati I've been persuading her to play more classical music.

 

[Zoot Allures]

Zappa was meticulous in his orchestration, especially in the 80's. Sinister Footwear consumed 4 year of his dwindling health.

Can someone explain Sinister Footwear to me? Atonal notes mixed up with tempo variations. WTF?

 

[Insidious Von]

Zappa is beyond explanation.

Rodney Dangerfield said: When I was a kid I was was poor. For my birthday, my old man showed me a picture of a cake.

Heavy metal on strings.

 

[Insidious Von]

Russian Wild Man Daniil Tifonov holds the definitive recording of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3. As good as the legacy performance by Earl Wild from the late 60's.

I am shocked and astounded by his performance of John Cage's masterpiece.

 

[Zoot Allures]

Russian Wild Man Daniil Tifonov holds the definitive recording of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3. As good as the legacy performance by Earl Wild from the late 60's.

I am shocked and astounded by his performance of John Cage's masterpiece.

i never understood John Cage . I finally do.
It is not the silence between the notes but the silence between the silence, it is only in that silence, between the silence, that there is true silence.
Finally, i have experienced silence. I feared I never would. Thankyou, Maestro Cage. My life is forever changed.

 

[Insidious Von]

Finally a ray of light. In spite of cutbacks to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR Tiny Desk concert are not going off the air. Dua Lipa's concerts for Tiny Desk have drawn 150 million views.

When Tiny Desk was more niche, they had an eclectic mix of musicians. Among them Daniil (Russian Wild Man) Trifonov. Another Russian ex-pat, he left St Petersburg for NYC.

The concert that put Tiny Desk on the map. Correction 156 million views.

 

[Insidious Von]

I'm becoming mucho grande fan of The Russian Wildman. He's become for NYC what Igor Stravinsky once was.

The Canadian Brass won both a Juno and a Grammy for their interpretation of JS Bach's The Art of the Fugue. Bach's last masterpiece was written open ended to allow any arrangement of instruments to play it. Never heard a piano version until The Russian Wild Man took it up.

Correction Glenn Gould recorded The Art of the Fugue 3 times. The first recording on Grand Organ!

Trifonov recorded his Scriabin Etudes in a NYC dive bar.

 

[Insidious Von]

I'm going to watch the new Frankenstein film again.

Paul McCartney is a classically trained musician. If you asked him who the father of heavy metal is he'd fight the urge to say himself. Then he would answer Anton Bruckner. When he was not composing apocalyptic music The Metal God had a torrid affair with Frau Blucher.

Bruckner also made The White Stripes very rich.

 

[Ponderling]

I cant attach clips, but I have been working my way though a box set of CD's I bought at a thrift.
Karajan / Berlin Symphony. A few missing from the 38 disc set, but $10 for 35 CD's including the notes book and box is a good deal.

Nice clean Deutsche Grammophon recordings - Beethoven, Brahms Bruckner, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schumann, Tchaikovsky

 

[Insidious Von]

The Nazis nearly killed Bruckner off, it was the soundtrack to their regime. Bruckner was an extremely humble and devout man who spent his professional life as an organist and choir master at the DOM in Linz. He died in 1896, to know that the Nazis used his music as propaganda would have horrified him. His music was blacklisted after WWII, Karajan revived it. He did a complete set of his symphonies in the mid-70's, even seen the 3rd and the 7th live, it's an experience.

His music is in the public domain, Jack White didn't have to pay royalties.