I just had a profound "musical" moment I'd like to share

[shadowknows69]

I like to write to music and I'm currently working on the first of what will be a regular column on here called "Stalking the Shadows"(tease, promote, tease). Well I kicked on Beethoven's Ninth for a change of pace, hadn't listened to any classical in a while, and I found my muse that was fueling my column stopped dead. I couldn't write another word. I just had to sit there and revel in the beauty of it. One would think that popular music would more interrupt my thought process with lyrics, and I'm sure it does, 'let's dance!', occasionally.

I think what I'm babbling about is, give the classics another or a first listen. There's a reason Ludwig was one of the greatest composers ever and that's because he came up with shit like that that is so overwhelmingly beautiful that it demands your complete attention. Hope I can get back on track or this will end up being the column. If there is a God surely his/her voice is music. As a wannabe musician for 25 years now hats off to the lot of you. You are truly touched by the divine within you.

Now back to the lovely Ninth by Ludwig Van, but no ultra violence I promise.
S

[LWolf]

1. That song never fails to strike a chord with me.

When I was in 6th grade, my school chorus performed it in L.A., along with a few hundred other schools, all gathered together for a holiday program. It was on tv. We practiced it from the first day of school until the big performance.

I am/was a 2nd soprano, and so was my best friend. We sang it after school on the way home, and on weekends. Given the opportunity to sing it, I'll still sing my "part."

And I still remember all the words. :hi:

[shadowknows69]

3. Old chorus boy here too

We never had to learn anything foreign luckily except we did Handel's "Messiah" one christmas. Probably not even allowed now. Which is too bad because whatever your religion it's an amazing work.

[LWolf]

6. I think that was the point.

I don't remember thinking about the 9th symphony as a religious hymn, but as a beautiful, and important piece of music. I sang the words, and appreciated the beauty and power of music as self expression and as prayer for those who would. I was taught to appreciate all faiths, and follow none but my own, lol.

The world's most beautiful music includes hymns from one faith or another, because they are an expression of what it means to be human.

[shadowknows69]

9. I meant "Messiah" specifically

kind of hard to get away from the religion in that one.

[LWolf]

11. It is, lol. n/t

[kineneb]

36. surprising fact about the Messiah

The original performance was in a concert hall in Dublin as a charity benefit. Here is the announcement of the first performance in 1742:

"For the Relief of the Prisoners in the several Gaols, and for the Support of Mercer's Hospital in Stephen's Street, and of the Charitable Infirmary on the Inns Quay, on Monday the 12th of April, will be performed at the Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Mr.Handel's new Grand Oratorio call'd the MESSIAH."

It was later used as a fundraiser for the Foundling Hospital in London; in his will, he left a score and parts to the Hospital so they could continue using it.

music history geek /off

[ironflange]

17. I've sung it several times

First tenor part. It's actually really hard for the chorus to sing, a real workout, mainly because so much of it lies so high. The Missa Solemnis is the same, only way more of it.

This doesn't mean I don't like them! Great music is almost always technically difficult.

[timtom]

19. It's also difficult

simply because there are too many notes, Majesty.

[ironflange]

23. If number of notes counts, then Bach's B Minor Mass should be worst of all

Oh, wait, it is. . .

[timtom]

55. I'm not sure if you picked up on the reference

to Amadeus. If you did, forgive me.

But I'd like to take this moment to share a profound musical experience of my own.

It was early 1970's in Berkeley, CA. I had taken a major hit of acid and my girlfriend put on the Unaccompanied Cello Suite with Pierre Fournier.

I was hearing the absolute quintessence of music, and it moved me to tears, as I reflected how my father was a musician and I'd never achieve the level of mastery as my father (a pianist) or Fournier and Bach was the demiurge of the Platonic ideal of music.

Came close (as did my punk-oriented son) as we watched an episode of SCTV with guest Eugene Fodor. His violin playing moved us close to tears.

[LWolf]

53. I wonder how it really sounded,

with a massive crowd of 11 yos singing it? We thought it was wonderful, of course! ;)

[TheDoorbellRang]

2. Beethoven was THE master. No argument here

Bit of a curmudgeon, but that boy could compose. It's always impressed me that he wrote the Ninth when he was stone deaf.

[alfredo]

4. The Leonard Bernstein Ny Philharmonic version is my favorite

because the vocalist seemed to let it all hang out.

[goodgd_yall]

42. I have a favorite version from Germany

The orchestra and chorus is German, and I have to say I really do like the German chorus. I get the feeling that the true spirit of the piece is really captured by the singers (particularly the baritones).

I've never listened to Bernstein's version. I'll see if I can find it at the library.

[alfredo]

54. Was there one that used the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

[Lucinda]

5. I've been on a swing kick lately.

It's amazingly bizarre to watch the thread "tennis matches" when Swing, Swing, Swing is playing.
I'm a blue and jazz girl normally...but good classical is awesome. And good luck with the writing. I need to get back to mine.

[Lobster Martini]

7. This post made me dig out a recording of Beethoven piano sonatas...

I am currently a few minutes into Sonata No. 9 in E major, Op. 14 No. 1. I remember the first time I heard this record; I don't recall the last time I played it. Not half bad, to say the least.

[shadowknows69]

8. I'm having an eclectic listening evening

we've moved to Lowell George and company now. A Little Feat never hurt nobody.

"If you'll be my dixie chicken...."

[Colorado Progressive]

10. Funny. Lately all I have listened to is Bach and the 3 tenors.

Well, and Dead Can Dance, but I never stopped listening to them. I was beginning to wonder if I was getting old....and (gasp) not hip anymore.

[Ferretherder]

12. Lovely stuff.

I like the Ninth and seem to remember liking 'Eroica', as well. Have to say my favorite German composers, however, are Johann Sebastian B. and Richard 'Porter' Wagner.

Also like me some 'Ruskies' - mainly Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov(sp?)

[Swamp Rat]

13. "Scheherazade"

:thumbsup:

[Swamp Rat]

14. I turned away from "classical" music after so many years of formal study.

Then I spent the next few years playing Latin and Brazilian music, but lately I have I find myself wanting to listen to Renaissance (and early Baroque) music again. Right now I am listening to "Canzon in Double Echo" by Gabrieli played by the Canadian Brass. I just got back from band practice (Brazilian percussion - samba), so now I need to balance that with some fugal antiphonal music. :D

[Ferretherder]

15. I hate to admit it, brother, but...

...I have NEVER listened to R.- K.'s masterpiece - and I know I am the POORER for it. Please forgive my ignorant ass.

[Swamp Rat]

16. I believe you will love it.

He was one of the very best at orchestration.

His opera "Le Coq d'Or" is rather interesting too.

[kineneb]

32. Medieval and Renaissance music are my favorites

I love Beethoven, too. But for playing, on period instruments (which I used to do), the early music is wonderful. Great Capella masses, too. My academic area is music history, specializing in the instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

For your listening pleasure, may I suggest getting copies of the recordings of Gabrieli multi-choir pieces, done in the 1960s; I have the LPs, but they may be available now on CD. The pieces were actually recorded in San Marco, in Venice. The performers are: E. Power Biggs on organ, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Texas Boys Choir of Fort Worth, the Edward Tarr Brass Ensemble, conducted by Vittorio Negri. The album titles are: "The Glory of Gabrieli" and "The Glory of Venice". They are not totally "authentic" by modern standards, but they are the only Gabrieli recordings done in the building for which they were intended. The acoustics are incredible, there is a really long decay time after the pieces are finished.

I have a large collection of LPs and CDs of early music, as well as many (lost count) of actual instruments which I built while being an instrument builder's assistant. My studio also has a good ol' upright piano, a virginals (harpsichord) and a "small" pipe organ (3 ranks of pipes, double manual, full pedalboard). Some day when my life reassembles itself, I will get back to playing more. Right now I have been doing oil painting and working on getting my woodshop put together.

[Swamp Rat]

37. Really??

Cool! I played vihuela music (Narváez, Milan, Mudarra) for years on a classical guitar because I could not afford the original instrument. I finally found some in Barcelona that were cheaper but it was still out of my league price-wise. I also spent a couple of years transcribing white mens ural notation into modern notation (a lot of Josquin, DuFay, etc.), but dabbled in the older stuff like Machaut.

As for San Marco basilica, I spent a week there listening to Manteverdi, Gabrieli, et al It was AMAZING to hear the split choirs in the original setting the composers had in mind.

I only WISH I had a wood shop! I'd love to build my own lute and vihuela, and maybe a hurdy gurdy. :D

[kineneb]

45. have a medieval lute

that I copied from the Memling angel painting in Antwerp. (5 courses, designed to be played with a plectrum.) I was going to write my Master's thesis on the instruments in that painting, but life got in the way. Hubby and I visited Antwerp in 2002, and I got to study the painting up close. After we returned, I built the tromba marina following the painting. My collection has a vielle, rebec, psaltery, plus more...

I had to put time in on the woodshop recently, because I am building a monochord for a workshop. We have a group in our county that is trying to enhance what is presented in the schools by offering additional science and arts experiences. I have to finish the monochord soon because I will be teaching, to groups of 4th-6th graders, an introduction to the origins of Western music, entitled "Music of the Spheres", as we will be at the local planetarium. The class will have an example of the Guidonian hand, examples of how music writing evolved, and I will try to teach them "Sumer is a commin in". I hope it works.

Machaut is also one of my favorites. I wrote a term paper as an undergrad on his Mass.

yes, I really am a music history geek...

[Swamp Rat]

52. After singing "Sumer Is Icumen In" my first 1st year as an undergrad I was hooked on early music!

:)

Good luck with the class. That's a great age group for teaching music.

I thought I was a music history geek, but by the time I got to my dissertation (musicology - I was doing research on a late 16th C mass in Cataluña) I could not take staring at microfiche of neumes any longer. :D I decided I would go back to performing and learning other styles of music. One of these days I'll get back to playing early music, but right now I am developing my Brazilian percussion ensemble in preparation for next Mardi Gras. Oba! :bounce:

[MilesColtrane]

33. Are you hip to the Assad brothers?

Here they are playing two movements from Astor Piazolla's "Tango Suite".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PChkxDbFuUw&mode=related&search=

They play a lot of the great, underrated South American classical composers and pull it off with the kind of empathy reserved for twins.

[Swamp Rat]

38. Oh yes. I even met them when I performed in a master class.

I have most of their CDs. When I lived in Brazil I wanted to meet them but they were abroad most of that year. I really dig the Brazilian pieces (Garoto, Gismonti, Villa-Lobos, etc.), but Sergio is also a great composer. Their Scarlatti/Rameau album is great too, if you like early Baroque piano music adapted for guitar duet..... well, actually, they are like four hands and one mind. :D

[MilesColtrane]

39. Yes.

Hard wired at the brain stems. It's an uncanny level of sympathy that you rarely hear unless you listen to classical Indian music.

[Swamp Rat]

41. Or Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

:D

Your screen name belies an affinity for jazz. You like Chôro music? Pixinginha? Hermeto Pascual :D

[MilesColtrane]

44. I am a student and novice.

I had the privilege of working with a keyboard player who turned me on to Hermeto and recorded an album with Hugo Fattoruso.

What I came away with? Some of the greatest musicians alive can "get the point across" regardless of what their chosen instruments are.

[G_j]

18. good thoughts

we all need to relax and merge with 'beauty' from time to time, as one way to remember why we actually deeply care for this world. As a musician, I often find that in music, and of course, in many other places also.

so here is a musical offering from myself:
:-)
www.myspace.com/ashevillebill

[janx]

20. Emporer Concerto. Nothing like it.

Science, writing, music, art--it's all one and the same. I've written stories while listening to music for many years.

Cheers! :toast:

[bbernardini]

21. It was all wedding band music for me this evening. (On edit: mostly.)

Yes, a lovely Sunday playing another wedding. Jazz during the cocktail hour, the usual fun dinner and dance stuff after that. Post-gig listening was the two most recent installments of Harry Shearer's "Le Show."

On edit: Forgot that on the way to the gig, I listened to a CD I got in the mail from the Kimmel Center (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra), highlighting three artists that are going to be appearing as part of their "Fresh Ink" series of new music. Ethel, So Percussion, and Phil Kline. I've seen Ethel there before, opening for Todd Rundgren and Joe Jackson. So Percussion seems quite interesting, and Kline is a composer whose evening at the Kimmel will feature two song cycles, "Zippo Songs" and "Fear and Loathing." The former sets poems written by GIs in Vietnam on their Zippo lighters. The latter, obviously, is text written by Hunter S. Thompson, primarily from the "Fear and Loathing" books.

[IDemo]

22. Does this qualify?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8&mode=related&search=

[Swamp Rat]

27. No

Pachelbel's Canon is truly awful, even played the original way. This makes it much worse. If Pachelbel was still alive I would shoot him. :D

[opiate69]

28. Hehe.. how about this?

Uli Roth - Venga la Primavera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmDTO3XUGZ4

[Swamp Rat]

29. ACK!!!

OMG! That is so goddamn corny and UNMUSICAL!!! .... really really really BAD! :D

Vivaldi just rolled over and puked. :puke:

[MilesColtrane]

35. It's not his fault.

Just as you can't hate Jobim's "Girl From Ipanema" even though it's over requested and you've played it a million times with lame musicans who can't find the core of it.

It's not the tune's or the composer's fault.

But, fucking "Mustang Sally"? I'm right there with you brother. ;-)

[Swamp Rat]

40. No, I REALLY don't like Pachelbel's "Canon!"

x( I can't take it!!! It's music for the psych ward. I can take having to play "Garota de Ipanema" a lot, but I cannot stand THAT PARTICULAR "Canon in D." In this case, I would say it is not the fault of the Key of D. :D

Are you familiar with Rafael Rabello? Check out his version of Garota de Ipanema:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJHk1AYGIpc

[Bluebear]

46. D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/

D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/
D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/D A Bm F#m G D G A/..........

[goodgd_yall]

48. LOL! n/t

[Swamp Rat]

49. Yes, it makes me insane in the membrane.

I normally like that key too. :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[goodgd_yall]

47. Charming n/t

[Ilsa]

24. It is always a favorite at symphonies. Tickets sell out

to folks who rarely go. They do the same for a few other pieces, like Pines of Rome by Respighi, Aaron Copeland's works, etc.

[MasonJar]

25. I love classical music; the sheer beauty is ___________. Well, there

is no word worthy enough to describe the ecstasy. If you have not listened to Pavorotti sing La Boheme lately, do yourself an enormous favor and turn it on.

[Cabcere]

26. "If there is a God surely his/her voice is music."

I've felt that way for years. :hi: Thanks for the lovely post - very thought-provoking!

[WillyT]

30. I've Always Loved His Seventh Symphony, Especially...

The Allegretto (2nd Movement)

Dark and brooding. Perfect for the last 7 years, no?

:shrug:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. I used to volunteer for a classical music station in Portland, and

after 9/11, its ratings went way up.

People actually phoned in and said they needed something with beauty and depth instead of what is on 99% of other stations.

As a choir geek, I love Renaissance music, Bach, the English composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and just about anything Russian.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. It's pretty hard not to have a profound moment with Beethoven's 9th.

If I had to choose, I'd pick it as the greatest piece of music ever written.

[Bluebear]

43. Eric Whitacre music . . . . sublime

Eric Whitacre: Water Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYMvrfzswrY


Eric Whitacre: Cloudburt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw9KiBizcIU

Eric Whitacre: October

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBg_N8SPZDc

[Swamp Rat]

50. Those kids are damn good!

It's not easy singing what they did, suspensions on major or minor 2nds, etc. "Cloudburst" was fantastic.

[Trillo]

51. There's a reason they called him "deaf".

His music tends to be dramatic and loud. Very loud. (but pre-electronic amplifier "loud")