Which part of music is your absolute specialist subject ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think you know what my specialist subject is.

[teamsaint]

I think each of us has our preferred era - the groups of the early sixties shook up a doldrums of pop output, but the originality, evolution and bringing together of genres has never been repeated and punk heralded a polarisation of genres. However good things from the punk era were - yes I have some of it on my shelves - nothing had the impact that first hearing The Animals' House of the Rising Sun on 'Ready steady Go' in 1964. Nothing will change my view that the Sex Pistols were both sonically and visually awful (not awesome as some will claim!).

Well generational things are certainly an issue,and part of our musical journey. I guess I started to move much more decisively away from Rock etc when I realised I was listening to about fourth generation Bowie copyists. One or two generations I could just about cope with, given that Bowie was pretty much the sountrack of the time I was discovering Rock music. (Imagine hearing Starman, aged 10.............)

So I understand your view that it had all been done before.....but that is to miss out on so much.....asI am probably missing out on some great Rock music today.

I thought the Pistols were visually hilarious. I think we must have different dress sense , Cloughie !!

[verismissimo]

Well, mine has to be the recordings of Dame Nellie Melba and several other Aussies (and some Kiwis) of hers and the following generation.

Not, I think, that you'd get that from my posts here.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I suppose it must be the music of Elgar. I've lived with it since I was 16 and have vocal, miniature and full scores of most of his works, plus multiple copies of most of his works on CD.

N.B. I like the finale of B.9 and find Bolero rather interesting.

[pastoralguy]

I suppose it must be the music of Elgar. I've lived with it since I was 16 and have vocal, miniature and full scores of most of his works, plus multiple copies of most of his works on CD.

N.B. I like the finale of B.9 and find Bolero rather interesting.

I LOVE the fugue in the middle of the last movt. of Beethoven 9. A truly wonderful thing to play!

[Roehre]

I LOVE the fugue in the middle of the last movt. of Beethoven 9. A truly wonderful thing to play!

If you've the chance to play (or listen to) the Liszt reduction for piano solo (the one without the vocal parts therefore), you'll discover that the musical development in this movement is very similar to the Diabelli, and the fugue is an excellent example of what an orchestral/orchestrated Diabelli might have been.
To state things clearly: I do like the music, but I don't think it's a good finale following the first 3 mvts of the Ninth. As stand-alone cantate it's marvellous.

[John Wright]

I've been listening to 'classical' music since I was a teenager and back in 1975 when looking for old 78 rpm records by Elgar I stumbled on a record by the Savoy Havana Band, a dance band that played at the Savoy Hotel in the 1920's, that started a bit of an obsession to collect dance band music on 78's, the collection now is, well, it's a four figure number

I suppose I'm now an expert in the music, done a good bit of research and published articles. I provided the BBC with some 'missing' music when R2 did play music pre-1955, and when R2 stopped their 'Dance Band Days' I began a podcast in Jan 2009, having purchased software and good record decks to restore the music from the 78's to wav to mp3. Still going, I'm currently at podcast # 282

[John Wright]

and while I'm doing podcasts my colleagues populate Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj1ihou53bA&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3pbGOrg2u0&feature=youtu.be

[Roslynmuse]

I think my downfall is liking and being interested in too much music to be able to specialise to the degree that real specialists do...

Aged eight and my obsession was Chopin; eleven I moved onto Liszt; my love of French music probably started to really show itself in sixth form and I embraced Poulenc as an undergraduate and Roussel as a postgraduate. Although a pianist, my deepest enthusiasm now is for the song repertoire, especially French mélodie, rather than solo repertoire. And choral music. But my PhD was on an unexplored corner of contemporary British music demonstrating that these underground streams can bubble up in the most unexpected places.

[Mary Chambers]

No expertise, but I used to be able to bore on the subject of Mozart's Nozze v. Beaumarchais' Mariage. But I've forgotten all the fascinating little details, like why, um, well I've forgotten... But it was why the reordering of the scenes took place (because in the original production Bartolo and Antonio were sung by the same performer).

Pity my father's no longer with us. That was his pet subject, too. You could have got together and bored each other.

Many of you will know that I can bore for England on the subject of Benjamin Britten. Not that there's anything boring about the subject, of course.

Otherwise, vocal music, choral (because I've sing much of it) and lieder. My idea of a perfect evening is a recital of Schubert and Britten, preferably with Julius Drake as pianist.

I'm no good on symphonies.

[Bryn]

... I'm no good on symphonies.

What, not even the Simple, Spring or Cello Symphonies?

[Mary Chambers]

What, not even the Simple, Spring or Cello Symphonies?

Up to a point

[gurnemanz]

Probably more of a fanatical obsession than a true expertise, I can only really lay claim to Lieder. I came to them while studying German in the late 60s. One of our lecturers played us recordings during his lectures on romantic poets and I have ever since found the poetry and the songs to be inseparable. I have recently acquired a book he wrote: German Song and Its Poetry.

[Tevot]

Up to a point

Same with me and John Cage. I can confidently recall and mime 4' 33.

I reckon I could hold my own in conversations about Mahler, Shostakovich and Britten.

And then - there is Cabaret Voltaire....

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Padraig]

Well, mine has to be the recordings of Dame Nellie Melba and several other Aussies (and some Kiwis) of hers and the following generation.

Not, I think, that you'd get that from my posts here.

Maybe not, verismissimo, but, was it not you who engaged in a discussion (on the old MBs?) about singers of an earlier era? At that time I was looking for information about Harry Plunket Greene's recording of Der Leiermann, and was it not you who put me in touch with a 2CD set, Lieder on Record 1898-1952, which included it? I associate you with that CD set anyway, but I may be blaming you in the wrong.

I don't have a specialist subject.