Originally posted by Zauberfloete
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I can take parts of Brahms' piano concertos (esp. No.1) but I do find Brahms a most annoyingly restrained orchestral composer, and thus can't bare the symphonies. The opening of No.1 promises so much, but it's all downhill after those opening timpani thumps. They sound more at home transposed into Henze's Tristan.
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I have loved Shostakovich 4 since it first surfaced in the early 60s. I don't think I shall ever make logical sense of that extraordinary finale with its circus tunes, but it adds up emotionally. Before a recent Barbican performance (BBCSO/Saraste, which was re-broadcast a few days ago) there was a pre-concert talk in which a Russian musicologist (whose name escapes me) told us that this was in effect Shostakovich's first 'real' symphony: the first was a kind of graduation exercise while Nos 2 and 3 were written to order.
Hearing it live (it's scored for a Rite of Spring sized orchestra) one realises just how many noisy climaxes there are in the first movement. What a piano duet realisation could reveal, I cannot possibly imagine.
As for other pieces, I have never cared to listen to Tallis's Spem in alium, though I got a certain amount of pleasure from singing it a couple of times.Comment
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Not enough naked emotion...?Originally posted by Boilk View Post
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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If you'd read the last part of my post, you'd see that I mentioned loving Brahms's orchestral works but not his clarinet sonatas or clarinet quintet. In fact, they are the only compositions in his output with which I'm familiar which do nothing for me at all.Originally posted by Caliban View PostOi oi oi !!!
It'll be a very unwieldy thread if we widen it to 'composers I can't stand' ... that's not the point! (Though while we're talking, how CAN you say that about Sibelius...??!
Though I might agree heartily about Delius )
The point of this thread is when there's a composer most of whose stuff you love, but then there's one piece which others rave about which you can't 'get'...
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Indeed - naturally, I had read the last part of your post. The reason I omitted that paragraph from the quote preceding my comment was that your Brahms remarks were very much on threadOriginally posted by Zauberfloete View Post
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Never got Shost 4, Caliban.
Will try again over the weekend.
Rozhdestvensky/USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra set bought in Moscow for next to nothing in the last days of the Soviet Empire.Comment
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No snoozle at all Cali - couldn't sleep with that storm onOriginally posted by Caliban View Post
Way past your habitual bedtime, ammy - big old snooze this arvo, to be eagle-eyed like that at knocking-on half eleven?
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Originally posted by verismissimo View Post
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Did you listen to Shostakovich 4 to blot out the tempest without, ammy? (he said, remaining scrupulously on-thread!Originally posted by amateur51 View PostNo snoozle at all Cali - couldn't sleep with that storm on)
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Oddly enough I did listen to it but not to envelope the storm without but rather to engage with the storm withinOriginally posted by Caliban View PostDid you listen to Shostakovich 4 to blot out the tempest without, ammy? (he said, remaining scrupulously on-thread!)
HighlandDougie is right about the performance recorded by Raiskin and his German forces - and it is a download bargain
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FFOriginally posted by Ferretfancy View Post
Which of the Rozhdestvensky recordings? There appear to be at least 3 in circulation (live with the Philharmonia from the 1962 Edinburgh festival; with the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra; and with the Bolshoi Orchestra). Very happy to try all three but any steer you can give would be most welcome.
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I've only seen this youtube extract
from this DVD
but I think it may be worth getting if the symphony still eludes you (and even if it doesn't)
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Amazing! They'd better not put the price up by the time I get home!Originally posted by amateur51 View PostOddly enough I did listen to it but not to envelope the storm without but rather to engage with the storm within
HighlandDougie is right about the performance recorded by Raiskin and his German forces - and it is a download bargain
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dmitri-Shost...m_cd_album_lnk
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Shostakovich 4 is good!!
Do some people not like it because its loud/ modern/ exploratory?
It is a young man's work. He was exploring and enjoying modern western music (Stravinsky/ Prokofiev etc.) and then he discovered Mahler. As Shostakovich allegedly said "My discovery in Mahler has pushed the other composers into the background"
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