Recommend me some classical music

My copy of In 27 Pieces arrived today. It sure is spectacular. Here's a fun short explaining the album and concept.

So, recently I've been really getting into classical music a lot. I think this is helped by i've started learning the horn and i'm searching around listening to bits and pieces.
Now, to listen to everything recommended in this thread, see ye in a few days:) Also, i've just joined the library here, and they have a massive classical music collection. squeee. Not just CD's, but books and scores too.

Some of my more recent favourites:

I got the score for this from the library and read along as I listened!

This thread is severely lacking of Prokofiev (although he was mentioned on pages 1 & 2). Probably my favorite composer, tied with Beethoven.
One of my favorites is the Opera "The Love for Three Oranges."

But I also adore Alexander Nexsky:

"Love for Three Oranges" is high up on my list too.

I was just thinking about one of my favorite composers today, Silvius Leopold Weiss. This is one of my favorites by him.

Eleima wrote:

This thread is severely lacking of Prokofiev...

That Nevsky is awesome! Here's my favorite Prokofiev symphony in a good live performance by Rotterdam Phil and Philadelphia's current conductor.

And I love me some Scythian Suite...

I bought tickets for three performances of Cappella Romana here in Portland.

The Fall of Constantinople

Which should be something like this:

Echoes of the Renaissance

Should be something like this:

Good Friday in Medieval Jerusalem

I'm so frickin, frickin excited to see these performances.

I wanted to get season tickets to Portland Piano International, but they were expensive and I don't really like the way they market the performances pushing you go buy a full season as the only reasonable option. It's not friendly to people on a budget. It really pisses me off as an amateur pianist who isn't wealthy. I know 1/2-3/4 of the people going to those performances can't play a piano.

I am utterly in love with this at the moment.

I thought about making another thread, but figured i'd ask here.

I re-watched White Nights again the other night, and would like some recommendations on some other similar options from the soundtrack. In particular:

Fastidious Horses

Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582

dibs wrote:

I am utterly in love with this at the moment.

(Britten Phantasy Quartet)

What a cool piece! Written at age 19... wow. I'm a big fan of Britten and Walton (and Vaughan Williams for that matter).

Edit: And holy crap, that's a huge Russian band on a small stage...

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I bought tickets for three performances of Cappella Romana here in Portland.

Let us know how it is! A couple of my music school friends are involved in that group as either performers or leadership staff--I've never made it to one of their concerts, but it seems like very cool repertoire.

Podunk wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I bought tickets for three performances of Cappella Romana here in Portland.

Let us know how it is! A couple of my music school friends are involved in that group as either performers or leadership staff--I've never made it to one of their concerts, but it seems like very cool repertoire.

Will do! The first one is tomorrow!

It was great, weird, and completely unlike anything I've experienced. The chord progressions are all wacky and the embellishments have a weird tonality to them.

I just found that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has a huge archive of live performances available free to download. Awesome!

So lieder have always been just about my favorite. A friend linked NPR's piece on Schubert's classic "Gretchen am Spinnrade." I thought it was really nice. But in particular the performances they picked are wonderful. Schwarzkopf's classic interpretation is included, as well as Marie McLaughlin's recording for the Hyperion cycle. And it was so nice to have Renee Fleming's performance as accompanied by Christoph Eschenbach. He and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau performed my favorite version of Schumann's Eichendorff Liedenkreis and Dichterliebe.

If it doesn't come through, start at 7:08 for "Gretchen am Spinnrade."

The friend who linked the article is named Gretchen, and she taught me to spin wool.

Here's Fischer-Dieskau and Eschenbach performing "Mondnacht":

OK, I can't help myself. Here's Schumann's "In der Fremde," with Fischer-Dieskau and Eschenbach. I remember when I was homesick, I listened to it an awful lot. It's a big reason the part of my German vocabulary that's easiest for me to remember has to do with words like Waldeinsamkeit.

Hey all, I threw together a Spooky Halloween-themed playlist of music from my company's catalog - thought you may get a kick out of it:
http://open.spotify.com/user/bridger...

I hope i run into the funeral march somewhere here (i love it!).

you ever listened to The Book of the Hanging Gardens tangle?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-9...

dibs wrote:

I hope i run into the funeral march somewhere here (i love it!).

you ever listened to The Book of the Hanging Gardens tangle?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-9...

Ooh, no - Schoenberg is hit or miss for me, but sometimes his hits hit really well - I love Verklaerte Nacht in particular.

Edit: Oh, we've put out Sarah Rothenberg (the pianist) on a number of our discs, too!

Is the opening of this not the most epic (I really want to bang it out on the timps!).

Simone Dinnerstein is my new favorite pianist. I got to see her play a couple weeks ago and also was able to attend a masterclass she gave. I have attended quite a few Portland Piano performances at this point, and I have never been inclined to go buy the artist's work afterward until now. I went and bought all four of her main CD's on Amazon once I had some extra money.

Here's what she played:
Nico Muhly: You Can’t Get There From Here
J. S. Bach: 15 Two-part Inventions (BWV 772-786)
George Crumb: A Little Suite for Christmas
Schubert: Impromptus, D. 899
Encore: J. S. Bach: French Suite No. 5 in G Major, Courante

The Nico Muhly piece (which was composed for her) was my favorite, but the Bach Inventions were where you can really tell how ridiculously good she is. They're not really intended as performance pieces. They're more studies in playing and composing two-part harmony on the keyboard. She somehow manages to sing perfectly with her left and right hand, and I've never heard anything quite like it.

The best way to explain it is to listen.

So, that's expertly played, but the left hand doesn't sing like her version. The Schiff version is normally how you would be taught to play baroque music on the keyboard, so Simone Dinnerstein is definitely doing something quite different by choice.

Here's another good one:

This is my favorite piece from the album at the moment.

I continue to be amazed by how ridiculously, ridiculously good Simone Dinnerstein is. I kind of hate her for it. Her Schubert Impromptus are crazy good.

Unfortunately, that's the only version on YouTube, but you get the idea.

Here's another version that's good but nowhere near as skilled:

Simone Dinnerstein knows how to perfectly hit the singing notes just behind the beat so it sounds a bit like a vocalist (It takes a little bit to get the note out of a human voice). She really can sing on the piano.

Her Inventio VIII seemed to be a bit rushed.

PRG013 wrote:

Her Inventio VIII seemed to be a bit rushed.

That's a pretty famous one, and she does play it more quickly than normal. That was probably the only one I fully recognized when I saw her play live. I actually like that one a lot that way because it's still perfectly timed at that pace and the ending is wonderfully soft and resolved after the blistering pace. She's so restrained most of the time with pacing, it's kind of nice when she lets off the brakes once in awhile.

Totally can't argue with preferring that at a slower pace, though. I think it works well within the context of how she plays the rest of them.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I continue to be amazed by how ridiculously, ridiculously good Simone Dinnerstein is.

Yeah, I haven't heard anything from her until you mentioned her here, but now I'm definitely a fan. Thanks for sharing!

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

My copy of In 27 Pieces arrived today. It sure is spectacular. Here's a fun short explaining the album and concept.

I just been listening to her playing Mendelssohn and it is lurvely. Might pick this up as a result!

Also, i just discovered this (luckily discovered by everyone else decades ago).

And i've been listening to a lot of horn to get good sounds in my ear to help with learning, this is my favourite concerto so far (stick around for the vocal part at the end of the slow movement):

Edging into the Brain Mozart recordings next, they sounded great on first listen.

Can anyone recommend a recording/youtube of the Goldberg variations? The Gould one all over YT is the one with him humming^^

Also, i've been listning to the BBC4 podcast Soul Music and it has introduced to to lads of new music, so great! About half are classical, but all of them are a good listen.

Edit: just noticed both vids I posted are the scores, i enjoy reading along sometimes!

dibs wrote:

Can anyone recommend a recording/youtube of the Goldberg variations? The Gould one all over YT is the one with him humming^^

The early Gould one is the most fun place to start. I would recommend watching the Glenn Gould documentary on Netflix to fully gain an appreciation for Glenn Gould. It's a really fun watch, and I learned a lot. Gould also re-recorded the Goldberg Variations later in life, so that's something you could check out.

Definitely check out the Simone Dinnerstein Goldberg Variations. I was raving about her a few posts up but didn't mention that recording. It's very, very good. I think the Inventions and Sinfonias are a bit more interesting because the Goldberg Variations are recorded by a lot of people.

Here's the Aria.

There might be some others of the set on YouTube, but they've managed to keep them off of there pretty well. Don't judge it by just that one piece, though. You kinda have to listen to the whole set of variations first which means you'll have to buy it. It's worth the money.

Edit: I take that bit about judging back. Listening to it now. You CAN judge how good the whole performance will be based on the playing of that aria.

Great, thanks:) Lost in Nielsen's 5th at the moment so i shall listen later!