Listening Project
Sun, Feb 3 2013, 9:57PM
#2
RE: Listening Project
10-02: Sergey Taneyev - Symphony in c-minor (bazza)
17-02: W.A. Mozart - Mozart's Fantasia in D minor (K397) in three versions (c hris)
24-02: Johannes Brahms - Rinaldo (bazza)
03-03: Schubert - Symphny no. 10 (50 mill)
10-03: Schumann - Humoresque (Naupilus)
Didn't someone suggest something by Birtwistle a few weeks ago?
Sun, Feb 3 2013, 10:05PM
#3
RE: Listening project
Normally I'm about the last to get to "this week's piece" but I decided to brave Haas' In Vain tonight!
I have to concede I found this a difficult piece. The instruments conjure some astoundingly weird and wonderful effects over a long timespan. Things get louder and more aggressive just before the 24th minute is up, at which point I thought it was going to turn into rock music but it didn't and the creepy scene painting returned to haunt me. The sound effects in this piece are amazing but I found myself asking is it actually music? Classical music?
A gong starts crashing at 51.45 and you wonder where on earth it will all lead. It becomes frighteningly scary and ugly for a while and then dissipates into spooky calm again. The "coda" of endlessly descending notes made me feel as if I was falling through space. Scary.
In fairness you need better sound reproduction than You Tube on an old lap top to do this music justice. I hope some of you guys found this more enjoyable than me, even though I can appreciate the skill that has gone into writing it. Glad to have heard it and it has certainly left an impression.
Sorry not to be more positive brumas. I enjoyed the first Scelsi CD better this morning!
Graham
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 3:44AM
#4
RE: Listening Project
You said it, eventually, Graham: "...but I found myself asking is it actually music? Classical music?".
I could add that this "masterwork" of any kind of sound effects was composed, apparently (according to Ross), in 1999. So, technically, it is one of the "milestones" of 20th century and, alas, not the 21th. What a miss and...loss!
Parla
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 12:40PM
#5
RE: Listening project
Normally I'm about the last to get to "this week's piece" but I decided to brave Haas' In Vain tonight!
I have to concede I found this a difficult piece. The instruments conjure some astoundingly weird and wonderful effects over a long timespan. Things get louder and more aggressive just before the 24th minute is up, at which point I thought it was going to turn into rock music but it didn't and the creepy scene painting returned to haunt me. The sound effects in this piece are amazing but I found myself asking is it actually music? Classical music?
A gong starts crashing at 51.45 and you wonder where on earth it will all lead. It becomes frighteningly scary and ugly for a while and then dissipates into spooky calm again. The "coda" of endlessly descending notes made me feel as if I was falling through space. Scary.
In fairness you need better sound reproduction than You Tube on an old lap top to do this music justice. I hope some of you guys found this more enjoyable than me, even though I can appreciate the skill that has gone into writing it. Glad to have heard it and it has certainly left an impression.
Sorry not to be more positive brumas. I enjoyed the first Scelsi CD better this morning!
Graham
Graham, no need to apologise! I agree it is not quite easy listening. On top of that, this is a piece where a live performance would really add to the experience: parts of the piece are to be performed in complete darkness, for the audience as well as the orchestra. With a recording of course you lose this synesthetic part of the experience. Nevertheless, to me, this is some of the most astounding music to be written in the last 50 years. It completely turns it back on the post-war avant garde and does something that is both completely new and very old, almost primordial...
And Parla: the Ross essay states it was written in the wake of the rise of the far right in Austria in 1999, the piece was released in 2000 though...
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 1:34PM
#6
RE: Listening Project RE: Listening Project
10-02: Sergey Taneyev - Symphony in c-minor (bazza)
17-02: W.A. Mozart - Mozart's Fantasia in D minor (K397) in three versions (c hris)
24-02: Johannes Brahms - Rinaldo (bazza)
03-03: Schubert - Symphny no. 10 (50 mill)
10-03: Schumann - Humoresque (Naupilus)
Didn't someone suggest something by Birtwistle a few weeks ago?
Ah, yes, you're right!
10-02: Sergey Taneyev - Symphony in c-minor (bazza)
17-02: W.A. Mozart - Mozart's Fantasia in D minor (K397) in three versions (c hris)
24-02: Johannes Brahms - Rinaldo (bazza)
03-03: Schubert - Symphny no. 10 (50 mill)
10-03: Schumann - Humoresque (Naupilus)
17-03: Harrison Birtwistle The Tree of Strings (Peter Street)
24-03: Olivier Messiaen - Apparition de l'Église éternelle (Brumas)
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 1:45PM
#7
RE: Listening Project
Hi Bazza!
I think looking back at your comments on the Krauss Symphony, that you are right. You've obviously grasped the form.
I think I might be wrong in saying yesterday that the slow introduction is treated as the first subject and that the first subject (start of Allegro part of dourse) is therefore the second subject. I now think (having listened to this movement 4 times at least!) that everything stems from the slow introduction. The ideas stated there are embellished and speeded up in the Allegro. Yes I hear the hint of a second subject you mention in those three places, and I've just noticed other repetitions such as the staccato chords at 3.25 ish which come back with a vengeance at 6.23 ish. Thus I think you are right that it is possibly through composed, and he seems to develop little fragments and motifs continuously from the opening.
Yes I also heard the link back to the start of the 2nd movement at 4.02 in the Andante.
I don't think at the moment I can grasp it any more Bazza without a score to look at!
(Are there any precedents in Papa...oops! in he who wrote 104, for a slow introduction to be used to state the themes? Chris you've put I don't think the unmentionable pair ever re-introduced their introductory music in such a way on page 18. Perhaps Krauss might be quite an original symphonist then in some ways...)
Mark
Onto Haas then! Already some interesting comments...
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 2:31PM
#8
RE: Listening Project
I don't think at the moment I can grasp it any more Bazza without a score to look at!
Sadly nothing on IMSLP. :(
The tonal scheme of the slow intro is as follows: Cm (chromatic); E flat (from 1:48); C minor again (2:10); ending on the dominant (chord of G major) in prep for the allegro which begins at 2:52.
Haydn's slow intros from around the same time (early 1780s) are much shorter (less than 90secs in such works as No.75 and Nos. 84-86) and always in major keys. However looking at the much later No.104 (1795) we do find something comparable. A long, slow intro in D minor, moving to F major at the halfway point before returning to the dominant (A7 chord) via D minor. And yet the dotted rhythm that characterises Haydn's magnificent intro has no obvious relationship to the music that follows, nor do I remember reading in Tovey of a connection between any of his slow intros and the main body of the allegro. In the case of No.104, the dotted rhythm seems almost a throwback to the slow introduction to the French overture of bach's day. I am less au fait with Mozart's symphonies but I cannot recall any pre-1783 slow introductions - and none in a minor key.
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 2:33PM
#9
RE: Listening Project RE: Listening Project
17-03: Harrison Birtwistle The Tree of Strings (Peter Street)
Ah yes, that's the one. However it might be a no-no as I cannot find it on YouTube. Perhaps Peter would like to suggest something else. Or else upload the piece onto YouTube himself. :)
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 4:13PM
#10
RE: Listening Project
Brumas, the "piece" was written in 1999 and that counts, but even if it was released in 2000, the 21st century starts (technically) from 2001! So, still it can be squeezed among the other masterpieces of the last century.
Anyway, vanitas vanitatum (Schumann managed to create a miniature masterpiece in less than three minutes and with only two instruments! Unfortunately, we go backwards to the "primordial"...).
Parla
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 5:18PM
#11
RE: Listening Project
Hi Mark, Bazza,
I thought the weekend would be quiet but, my goodness, not at all!
It seems that all our analyses of the Kraus converge. In particular, the incorporation of themes or fragments of the thematic material from the introduction into the development is even more elaborate than I had first thought. Fascinating. Bazza, I too had a long look through the internet for a score, but no luck!
Whilst many of Haydn's syumphonies, and some of Mozart's do contain quite long slow introductions (but as you say, mostly the later ones), I cannot recall any that weave that material into the development in the way that Kraus does. Unusually, in No.103 Haydn brings the 'Drum Roll' section back at the very end of the movement, but that's something quite different. Of course, with 100+ symphonies, it is possible that there is something somewhere! Of course, I've not generally listened to Haydn symphonies with this particularly in mind! Perhaps another approach would be; is the same treatment to be found in any of Kraus's other symphonies?
Anyway on to the next challenge, and already there is a considerable divergence of opinion. Sounds challenging! I don't think the family will enjoy this one - time for the headphones!
Lots of good stuff coming up ahead too. Interesting listening.
Chris
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 5:20PM
#12
RE: Listening Project
Bazza, what is the surprising (or extraordinary) thing for a Symphony, written in a minor key (even if it was written in 1783 and had a slow introduction) to start in a minor key (actually the home key)?
In any case, Haydn, in his prolific output, tried some extraordinary things and use of keys:
a) in his No.34 (in d minor), he uses a whole slow movement, which is as long as almost the rest of the movements.
b) in his 49 (1768), he uses the same audacious key of f minor throughout the Symphony, in a slow- fast- slow (a moderate minuet)- fast structure.
c) in his most famous case of his 49 ("The Farewell" of 1772), composed in the almost incredible key of f sharp minor, he ends the work with practically a second slow movement, in a perfect pianissimo!
However, originality is not the feature that counts that much. The actual music and its form (see development and structure) count most of all.
Parla
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 5:30PM
#13
RE: Listening Project
Tree of Strings certainly not on YouTube: probably too recent. Pity. Peter, Earth Dances is (are) to be found there though. That's a fabulous piece How about that?
Chris
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 5:44PM
#14
RE: Listening Project
Bazza/ Chris thanks for that on Franz Joseph H...amazing!
Parla I think you've misunderstood Bazza. It's not the fact that a minor key symphony begins in a minor key we are talking about, it's the fact that the long slow intro is used to state the material in simplified form which is then developed in the allegro that is a distinctive and unusual feature of this Kraus Symphony.
No. 49 of the father of the symphony's vast oeuvre La Passione is a brilliant, brooding and intense work! And Parla you've accidentally put 49 twice.
Mark
Mon, Feb 4 2013, 6:01PM
#15
RE: Listening Project
...is the same treatment to be found in any of Kraus's other symphonies?
Chris, There are a couple of earlier C major symphonies and a later one in F with slow intros which I'll need to revisit. None of these works are as good as that we have been discussing though.
Lots of good stuff coming up ahead too.
Just seen that Taneyev is programmed for Sunday. I'll be away next week so if you lot want to re-jig the list then you have my blessing.
Hi Bazza!
I'll have to have another listen and get back to you in the next couple of days. This is obviously a work which repays repeated listenings...
Mark