Music you've known about but never heard until recently

[cloughie]

Seek and discover. Some of us are polite enough to respond to questions posed here, whether strictly 'on topic' or otherwise.

...and there was I thinking it was just a haven for the grumpy !

[Panjandrum]

To my shame, Beethoven's String trios. The Op.9 set are magnificent! Why are these works not as often performed as the Op.18 quartets? Hang on, I think I can answer that; they're for three rather than four players. So many foretastes of the later quartets in these works. The Presto from Op.9 No.1 is an absolute blast; one of the most exciting pieces I've heard in a long time.

[3rd Viennese School]

Stravinsky Serial works are also Neo-classical! He started using serialism gradually. At first he sticks 12/16 note rows in the middle of a work (Septet, cantata etc.)

Then in Canticrum Sacrum only mvt 3 is serial (this is the gateway to his serial works). Then in Agon its a mixture of tonal and serial, starting tonal and ending tonal like Canticrum sacrum.

Then from Movements its only serial music and the works get more and more concentrated.

He mainly studied Webern , not Schoenberg.


Not that this has got anything to do with me. I learnt about this a decade ago!

3VS

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

He mainly studied Webern , not Schoenberg.

Don't you believe it!
Even after Arnie's death and his own adoption of Serial techniques, Igor couldn't bring himself to admit the "influence" of his only rival in 20thC Music, preferring to pretend to everybody that it was Webern who'd had the greatest impact on his new works. But the manipulation of hexachords is Schoenberg's late manner (Webern's almost exclusive use of the chromatic hexachord limits this sort of "manipulation") that Stravinsky learnt from Craft, Babbitt, Krenek and others - before he went on (in the Movements) to adapt in his own unique, astonishing, brilliant way.

I'd recommend anyone who "knows of" Stravinsky's last works but who hasn't heard any of them to give them a listen or forty: the Requiem Canticles first (his last full-scale composition: the 80+ -year-old composer still discovering/creating completely new things to do with sound!) probably the "easiest" way in.

[3rd Viennese School]

Requiem Canticles definetly one of this best serial works. 15 minutes long- and only in 9 mvts! There must be loads of Stravinsky fans out there that haven't heard this one.

The bells ending makes one's hair stand up on end!

3VS

[Sir Velo]

Wolf Penthesilea

I defy anyone to hear this blind and correctly guess the composer. Strong overtones of Berlioz with hints of Rossini and Bizet thrown into the mix. Anyone who associates Wolf with bleak and dour teutonic lieder is in for quite a surprise: not for the easily offended!

[Barbirollians]

Im Sommerwind - would never have guessed it was by old Anton W. Lovely piece .

[Beef Oven!]

Wolf Penthesilea

I defy anyone to hear this blind and correctly guess the composer. Strong overtones of Berlioz with hints of Rossini and Bizet thrown into the mix. Anyone who associates Wolf with bleak and dour teutonic lieder is in for quite a surprise: not for the easily offended!

I have this recording, the CD includes some Pfitzner and Strauss orchestral works too.

[Serial_Apologist]

Im Sommerwind - would never have guessed it was by old Anton W. Lovely piece .

Indeed - from the opening one might mistake the piece for something by Delius! But from its frequency of broadcast on Radio 3 there days (along with the sub-Wagnerian "Langsamer Satz" for string quartet from the same early period) one might be led to imagine that this was characteristic of Webern's output as a whole.