Fuck Yeah Classical
For the love of all music that is classical. Remember, all music was once new.
Run by: macmankev and christielouwho
-
Post reblogged from orchestra21
The A-Train
Gary Kelley, 2009George Gershwin claimed that he conceived the ‘metropolitan madness’ of Rhapsody in Blue ‘on a train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang.’ That same raw rhythmic inspiration was at the heart of our recent period-orchestra rendition at the WCFSO with pianist Genadi Zagor. The image by Gary Kelley is one of a series commissioned for this concert and shown in a narrative video piece alongside the performance.
Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue with Genadi Zagor
WCFSO - February 2010Click the arrow on the right side of the audio player to download. If you are reading this somewhere other than my site, here’s the permalink for audio and commenting.
BEAUTIFUL performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. I know we’ve posted this a few times on the site, but since we’re a little low on content, how about some street cred to a fellow tumblr musician!
Jason Weinberger is the music director of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra in Iowa and resident conductor of the Louisville Orchestra. Instead of regurgitating his program biography, which is easily accessed on his blog, I’ll instead tell you why we think you’d love him.
Not only is he intensely involved in the musical field (and CLASSICAL music field), but he’s also a damn nice guy. He’s done tons of work with youth programs (most importantly for me at least, in Baltimore where adventurous and new youth programs are desperately needed). And he’s done collaborations with current musicians.
(and for anyone who cares, he’s from my hometown!)
Have fun!
</end of tiny little endorsement>
-
Audio post reblogged from Music. History.[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]This track has had 443 playsHáry János Suite: 6. Entrance of the Emperor and His Court by Kodály, Zoltán
“Háry János Suite: 6. Entrance of the Emperor and His Court” by Zoltán Kodály [1926] performed by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra [1975]
Random Music History Song of the Day
So many connections! Legendary conductor Eugene Ormandy was born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary. During part of his education at the National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music he studied under composer Zoltán Kodály, also a native of Hungary. After moving to the United States, Ormandy’s first significant exposure came when was asked to fill in for Arturo Toscanini in Philadelphia. That helped Ormandy land a full time position as head of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now the Minnesota Orchestra).
In 1934, while here in Minneapolis, Ormandy conducted the first recording of his former teacher’s best work, the Háry János Suite, a six movement orchestral suite extracted from Kodály’s 1926 folk opera of the same name. The conductor soon moved on to take the lead baton back in Philadelphia, where he remained for 44 years. Ormandy recorded the suite two more times with the Philadelphia Orchestra (for a total of three times, each roughly 20 years apart). This recording from 1975 was the last, made as Ormandy neared both his 76th birthday and the end of his tenure in Philadelphia.
This, the regal finale needs little explaining. Its title is quite explicit.
-
Audio post reblogged from "Cheer up sad world"[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]This track has had 411 playsSt Matthew Passion, BWV 244 - Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir Klagen by Johann Sebastian Bach
JS Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244) - 01 - Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir Klagen
Performed by the Munich Bach Chorus and Orchestra and conducted by Karl Richter
This is one of my favourite Bach pieces.
-
Audio post reblogged from Music. History.
“La Mer: 3. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea)” by Claude Debussy [1905] performed by Max Pommer and the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra [2003]
Last night I took my wonderful girlfriend to dinner and a show at Orchestra Hall. We saw the second performance of the The Minnesota Orchestra’s Inside the Classics series, Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” and La Mer. To share at least a portion of my music history outing, posted above is a different recording of the third and final movement of La Mer, descriptively titled “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea.”
Things I learned at the show: La Mer is notable historically for being the first music in the Western Classical tradition to eschew traditional melody lines in favor of sound layers. In other words, no single instrument carries the lead melody for more than a bar or two. At the same time, Debussy avoided cliched techniques of orchestrating themes related to water (i.e. rolling cello arpeggios). Despite the subtlety of each movement, finding one’s own imagery to match Debussy’s descriptors is not difficult.
Innovative composition and style with a perfect balance of subtlety and clarity - that combination is the genius of La Mer and why the piece remains a staple of symphonic music.
-
Audio post reblogged from Hello Amorous Congress-Stick
‘Love Game’ - Lady Gaga
This is what I focused in with my performance undergrad…contemporary and pop orchestral music!
I may/may not be incredibly turned on by this piece of mellifluous genuis work.
0_0
This is a bit of a change of pace for the site, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s Lady Gaga orchestral-style (which may or may not be a sexual position)!
-
My mother emailed me a link to the above performance, and wrote:
My very first favorite classical piece of music was Stravinsky’s Petrushka [which I heard when just a child], living in Mexico City at our house, #5 Prado Sur, DF. I did not know the composition was for a ballet. The 78s were hard heavy records, each one in a paper sleeve, and I was allowed to play them to my heart’s content when my parents were out for the evening (often five times a week). I dropped the razor sharp record player’s needle as gently as possible…
I must have felt a sense of dance through Stravinsky’s music. After all, I was taking ballet lessons at the time and made my own very thrilling cameo ballet debut on stage at the Bellas Artes Theatre, Mexico… Several months, later, I was stricken with typhoid. My parents were anxious, and the portable record player was moved to my bedside.
Before this email, I was unaware that my mother had ever had typhoid, had danced ballet, and had lived in Mexico City before she lived in Berlin. The lives they led before us! As Paul Simon said, “That was your mother / that was your father / before you was born, dude / when life was great. You are the burden / of my generation / I sure do love you / but let’s get that straight.”
I love finding personal connections to classical pieces, and this is not the exception.
-
Pictures at an Exhibition: X. La Grande Porte de Kiev by Modest Moussorgsky
USSR Symphony Orchestra
-
Audio post reblogged from accidental charm
Gustav Mahler - Adagio from Symphony No. 10 (unfinished) / Andante come prima
New York Philharmonic / Conductor Leonard Bernstein
