Classical Music Breakfast

Henryk Gorecki, 1933 - 2010

2010-11-17T21:10:00.005-05:00

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki passed away Friday at age 76. His Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is currently being played at http://www.weta.org/fm in his honor. The recording featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta under David Zinman made this work famous, and that is the version being played right now.

Reprise

2010-08-06T12:14:00.002-04:00

Tuning in to Classical WETA last night, I quickly recognized the music playing as Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 3. The more I listened, the more I was startled by evidence of fresh insights, passages that before didn't seem to serve a strong purpose but which now served as indispensable landmarks helping to propel the work forward to its end.

Because I stopped listening part of the way through the final movement, I had to wait until today to find out who the mystery conductor was. It turns out this 1990 recording was conducted by Andrew Litton (and played by the Royal Philharmonic). I consider it a nice coincidence that I should experience such an affirmation of the merits of two individuals I had so recently praised here.

Rachmaninov Triumphs in Exclusive Poll

2010-08-04T18:56:00.000-04:00

The August 2010 issue of BBC Music Magazine features a story on "The 20 Greatest Pianists Ever." While this sounds like just another marketing gimmick, the story itself is actually interesting. You get to see who many of today's top pianists consider their three favorite pianists from among those who left behind recordings, and this gives you an idea of who their influences or idols were. You also get a quick education on some of the terminology associated with pianistic virtues.

The winner of the poll, based on the collected opinions of "100 of today's finest players" was Sergei Rachmaninov, who also appears on the front cover.

Inspiring Suggestions

2010-08-03T18:21:00.001-04:00

"O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life have you left in our souls?" --Franz Schubert

A December Concert

2010-08-02T15:30:00.005-04:00

When Yuja Wang, Andrew Litton, and the NSO debuted Jennifer Higdon's Piano Concerto last December at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center, I was one of those seated in the chorister seats behind the stage. (The program also included a Rimsky-Korsakov suite from The Snow Maiden and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1 "Winter Dreams.") Even though there was nothing on the program I had been anxious to hear, this ended up being one of the best concert experiences of my life so far.

There was the experience of seeing Higdon herself walk onto the stage and address the crowd, only to find out that hers was a contemporary work I could enjoy. Then, there was the experience of watching (from over and behind the stage) Andrew Litton conduct my local orchestra, the National Symphony. I've heard them play a good number of times now, but I had never heard them sound as refined as they did that night. I wonder how many other lesser known works would be so easy to grasp and to enjoy under his baton?

This concert was also my introduction to pianist Yuja Wang, who it turns out is one of the most famous young pianists in the world today. The style of the Higdon concerto did not allow me to learn much about her playing beyond her considerable technique, but I've since listened to some of her recordings with Deutsche Grammophon and am particularly impressed with her playing of Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka. Incidentally, whether or not you're a fan of Stravinsky, I recommend this work.

In the past, my choice of concerts to attend was based almost entirely on the works being performed. Now, however, I've learned how rewarding it can be simply to experience the rich elements of the classical music culture of our day. Indeed, rather than being disappointed by a mediocre performance of a favorite work, it is sometimes better to experience something wholly new under the guidance of great and inspired artists. In the case of this December concert (the tickets for which were a surprise gift from my girlfriend), I couldn't have asked for a better early Christmas present.

Essential Stravinsky

2010-07-26T16:22:00.001-04:00

The Firebird Suite
Le Sacre du printemps ("The Rite of Spring")
Les noces ("The Wedding")
Petrushka
Symphony in Three Movements
Symphony of Psalms
The Rake's Progress (opera)

Essential Prokofiev

2010-07-26T15:55:00.000-04:00

Symphonies Nos. 1 "Classical" and 5
Piano Concerto No. 3
Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
Lieutenant Kije Suite
Romeo and Juliet
Peter and the Wolf
Piano Sonata No. 7

Essential Rachmaninov

2010-07-26T15:19:00.001-04:00

Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2, and 3
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Symphony No. 2
Preludes (Prelude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2; Ten Preludes, Op. 23; Thirteen Preludes, Op. 32)
Vespers

Essential Ravel

2010-07-26T14:05:00.001-04:00

Piano Concerto in G
Daphnis et Chloe
Bolero
La valse
Rapsodie espagnole ("Spanish Rhapsody")
String Quartet in F
Gaspard de la nuit ("Demons of the night", for piano)
Le Tombeau de Couperin ("Tombeau for Couperin", for piano)
Pavane pour une infante defunte ("Pavane for a dead infanta", for piano)

Essential Shostakovich

2010-07-23T17:00:00.000-04:00

Symphonies Nos. 1, 5, 7 "Leningrad", and 10
Cello Concerto No. 1
Piano Concerto No. 2
String Quartet No. 8
24 Preludes and Fugues
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)

Essential Liszt

2010-07-23T15:59:00.000-04:00

Faust Symphony
Les Preludes (for orchestra)
Piano Concerto No. 1
Annees de pelerinage ("Years of Pilgrimage", for piano)
Hungarian Rhapsodies
Piano Sonata in B Minor
Transcendental Etudes

Essential Mahler

2010-07-23T15:02:00.000-04:00

Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 "Resurrection", 4, 5, 8, and 9
Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth")
Kindertotenlieder (song cycle)

Reboot

2010-07-22T15:52:00.003-04:00

During November of last year, I began posting lists of essential works by some of the more prominent composers. The works I chose were those that appeared at least half the time in the references I consulted; they do not reflect a personal bias (except in the collection of references I chose to consult). In this way, I tried to filter out the "championing" of certain works by different publications while retaining those works which by consensus are important and notable.

I thought these lists would be useful to someone who is approaching certain composers for the first time. As for the accompanying images, I carefully selected ones I felt projected something of the musical essences of the composers they represent here.

In the weeks ahead, I'll continue on posting essential works for several more composers. After this, CMB will return to a style closer to that found in the posts from January through March of 2009.

Essential Debussy

2010-07-22T15:18:00.003-04:00

La Mer
Nocturnes (for orchestra)
Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun"
String Quartet in G minor
Children's Corner (for piano)
Images, Sets 1 and 2 (for piano)
Preludes, Books 1 and 2 (for piano)
Suite Bergamasque (for piano, includes "Clair de Lune")
Pelleas et Melisande (opera)

Life Energy

2010-01-25T21:57:00.000-05:00

Witty verbal inventions that spring to mind can seduce writers into inaccurately portraying their meanings or even losing sight of them altogether. The good artist, I would think, resists this kind of temptation over and over to produce work of integrity.

Of our experiences, it is the demonstration of life energy that inspires us and impresses upon us its vehicle. A work of art borne of patience, discipline, and strong, well-understood meanings retains the energy its creator poured into it and helps to extend the meaningfulness of its creator's existence beyond his or her physical departure from this world.

Essential Richard Strauss

2009-11-24T18:29:00.001-05:00

Don Quixote
Also Sprach Zarathustra ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra")
Don Juan
Ein Heldenleben ("A Hero's Life")
Eine Alpensinfonie ("An Alpine Symphony")
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche ("Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks")
Four Last Songs for Soprano and Orchestra
Der Rosenkavalier (opera)
Elektra (opera)
Salome (opera)

Essential Chopin

2009-11-23T21:07:00.000-05:00

Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
Piano Sonata No. 2 (includes "Funeral March")
Ballades
Etudes
Mazurkas
Nocturnes
Polonaises
Preludes
Waltzes

Essential Vivaldi

2009-11-23T09:22:00.000-05:00

Flute Concertos in D, RV428, Op.10 No.3, ("Il Gardellino") and F, RV433, Op. 10, No. 1 ("La Tempesta di mare")
L'estro armonico (twelve concertos)
Mandolin Concerto in C, RV425
The Four Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter)
Gloria in D

Essential Wagner

2009-11-23T08:30:00.001-05:00

Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung) (four-opera cycle)
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (opera)
Lohengrin (opera)
Parsifal (opera)
Tannhauser und der Sangerkrieg auf Wartburg (opera)
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Tristan und Isolde (opera)

Essential Mendelssohn

2009-11-23T07:55:00.000-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 3 "Scottish" and 4 "Italian"
Violin Concerto
A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture and Incidental Music
Hebrides Overture "Fingal's Cave"
Piano Trio No. 1
String Octet
Songs without Words, Books 1 through 8 (for piano)
Elijah

Essential Verdi

2009-11-22T21:41:00.000-05:00

Requiem Mass
Aida (opera)
Falstaff (opera)
Il trovatore (opera)
La traviata (opera)
Otello (opera)
Rigoletto (opera)
Un ballo in maschera (opera)

Essential Schumann

2009-11-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 1 "Spring", 3 "Rhenish", and 4
Piano Concerto in A Minor
Piano Quintet in E-flat
Carnaval (for piano)
Fantasy in C, Op. 17 (for piano)
Kinderszenen ("Scenes From Childhood") (for piano)
Kreisleriana (for piano)
Symphonic Etudes (for piano)
Dichterliebe

Essential Dvorak

2009-11-22T20:00:00.000-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 7, 8, and 9 "From the New World"
Cello Concerto in B Minor
Slavonic Dances (for orchestra)
Piano Trio No. 4 "Dumky"
String Quartet No. 12 "American"

Essential Handel

2009-11-22T12:52:00.000-05:00

Music for the Royal Fireworks
Water Music
Messiah
Julius Caesar in Egypt (opera)

Essential Tchaikovsky

2009-11-21T13:45:00.000-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, and 6 "Pathetique"
Piano Concerto No. 1
Violin Concerto in D
1812 Overture
Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
The Nutcracker
The Sleeping Beauty
Swan Lake
Eugene Onegin (opera)

Essential Haydn

2009-11-21T12:56:00.000-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 93, 94 "Surprise", 95, 96 "Miracle", 97, 98, 99, 100 "Military", 101 "Clock", 102, 103 "Drumroll", and 104 "London" ("London Symphonies")
Trumpet Concerto in E-flat
String Quartets Nos. 60, 61 "Fifths", 62 "Emperor", 63 "Sunrise", 64, 65 ("Erdody Quartets")
The Creation
Mass No. 11 in D Minor "Nelson Mass"

Essential Schubert

2009-11-17T23:37:00.002-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 8 "Unfinished" and 9 "The Great"
Piano Quintet in A, D. 667 ("The Trout Quintet")
String Quartet No. 14 "Death and the Maiden"
String Quintet in C, D. 956
Piano Sonatas Nos. 20 in A, D. 959 and 21 in B-flat, D. 960
Fantasia in C, D. 760 ("Wanderer Fantasy")
Die Schone Mullerin
Winterreise

Essential Brahms

2009-11-17T22:53:00.001-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4
Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
Violin Concerto
Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Clarinet Quintet
A German Requiem

Essential Bach

2009-11-16T23:35:00.002-05:00

Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
Orchestral Suites Nos. 1, 2, 3 (includes "Air"), and 4
Double Violin Concerto
Cello Suites Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
Violin Partita No. 2
Goldberg Variations
The Well-Tempered Clavier
Cantata No. 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" (includes "Sleepers, Awake")
Mass in B Minor
St. Matthew Passion

Essential Beethoven

2009-11-16T19:18:00.002-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 3 "Eroica", 5, 6 "Pastoral", 7, and 9 "Choral"
Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5 "Emperor"
Violin Concerto in D Major
String Quartets Nos. 7, 8, and 9 ("Razumovsky"), 13, 14, and 15
Piano Trio No. 7 "Archduke"
Violin Sonata No. 9 "Kreutzer"
Piano Sonatas Nos. 8 "Pathetique", 14 "Moonlight", 21 "Waldstein", 23 "Appassionata", 29 "Hammerklavier", and 32
Missa Solemnis
Fidelio (opera)

Essential Mozart

2009-11-16T09:27:00.003-05:00

Symphonies Nos. 38 "Prague", 39, 40, and 41 "Jupiter"
Piano Concertos Nos. 20, 21, 23, and 24
Clarinet Concerto
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra
Clarinet Quintet
String Quartet No. 19 "Dissonance"
String Quintet in G Minor, K. 516
Serenades Nos. 10 "Gran Partita" and No. 13 "Eine kleine Nachtmusik"
Requiem
Don Giovanni (opera)
The Magic Flute (opera)
The Marriage of Figaro (opera)

Antonin Dvorak

2009-10-30T10:07:00.000-04:00

According to a consensus I derived from data associated with the Penguin and Gramophone classical music recording guides, the Naxos and Deutsche Grammophon music catalogs, and the website Classical.Net, Antonin Dvorak's legacy currently ranks 9th among all classical music composers. This and the knowledge that his music is accessible lead me to the conclusion that the number of my friends and colleagues who have heard of him or are familiar with his music is disproportionately low. Perhaps this is because his name begins with the sequence of letters, D-V-. Well, here he is:

A concise introduction to Dvorak's unique musical style may be found in his Mazurek for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, Op. 49. A more familiar tune may be found in his Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 72 (not to be confused with his Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 46).

Communication (October 2009)

2009-10-09T16:59:00.001-04:00

"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music." --Gustav Mahler

"After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own." --Oscar Wilde

The Different Roles of Recordings

2009-09-21T16:36:00.001-04:00

Sometime last week, I turned on the radio and caught the final one and a half movements of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring soloist Krystian Zimerman and conductor Seiji Ozawa (Deutsche Grammophon 000185802). This recording is electric. Zimerman does things on the piano the likes of which I have not heard anywhere else, and both soloist and conductor display deep understanding and manage to teach even those who are already very familiar with it something new about the music. I actually own this recording on CD but hadn't heard it in years. While there are problems (such as a few places where the piano overpowers the orchestra) that keep it from being one of the definitive recordings of the work, this is a recording not to be missed by admirers.

***

Generally, it is best to listen first to one of the acknowledged "definitive recordings" of a work of classical music. This helps one grasp more quickly the music's basic meaning. Once one has reached a sufficient level of understanding, one then enjoys the luxury of being able to listen profitably to recordings that are not as consistently great from beginning to end. This is because, secure in our understanding, we may choose to overlook the parts that we feel are wrong and focus more on the parts that we feel are right, including parts that reveal something deep about the music that we hadn't noticed before.

We should not wonder, then, why artists continue to find the motivation to record classic works. There is always the opportunity to enrich listeners with some new insight.

Unpunished Rapture

2009-09-03T18:54:00.000-04:00

I have lived long enough to notice that, generally, for every high I experience there is a low that follows. Human beings, if they are to be happy, are forced into lives of moderation. Music, however, might be a relative exception to the rule. For, the high brought on by music is a spiritual one and is perhaps most associated physically with a state of tension. Now, the opponent process for a state of physical tension is one of relaxation, which is normally what I experience following a thrilling music performance.

I now quote:

If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. --Sydney Smith

Classical Music (cont.)

2009-09-03T18:18:00.000-04:00

I found a quote related to yesterday's post:

Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket. --Henri Rabaud

Classical Music

2009-09-02T15:27:00.001-04:00

I stumbled across a clip from Henze's opera Pollicino yesterday. The scene I watched was the one where Hänsel (from Hänsel und Gretel) conceives of his plan to find a way out of the woods. (In case you're curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AvaxvHU1Uo.)

Listening to the music, I thought again about how some composers (e.g. Henze) are accepted as part of the classical music tradition while others (e.g. John Williams) are not. It is a tricky thing, outlining rules for what should be considered classical music and what shouldn't be. Such a judgment is rightfully left to subjective analysis. I will say, however, that I think in most cases the community gets it right.

Some prefer the term "art music" to "classical music," but I think that the former term is broader and does not narrowly define what is commonly referred to as "classical music." For "classical music" is not just an elitist term; it represents a specific concept that many people value and would like to preserve. Classical music compositions are conceived of and are written down in Platonic form. They exist so that artists may take up the challenge time and time again of realizing the forms. It is not a particular performance and all of its details that are of primary interest to the classical music aficionado--it is the composition and the way in which that composition is enlightened by the performance.

My son, chosen and loved

2009-07-04T15:24:00.005-04:00

We live in a world where meaning is becoming lost beneath piles of distractions. As our technologies expand, things like a mother's loving advice to her son during a nature walk, expressed in terms of timeless wisdom, are being replaced by physical and emotional distances and electronic diversions. But we are still human, and in our souls will forever be a yearning for nourishment that occasionally, at least, fights through all of the distractions and requests meaningful activity.

"My son, chosen and loved, Let your mother share your wounds"

Thus begins Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, a timely source of catharsis for today's person. The initial critical response to this symphony was negative, and it focused on Gorecki's break from his previous, avant-garde style. How ultimately fitting.

Naxos Catalogue No. 8.550822

Magnum Opus

2009-06-29T08:36:00.006-04:00

The term "magnum opus" is reserved for an artist's greatest achievement. In some cases, the artist, the public, and critics all agree upon the work that is worthy of such distinction; in others, it takes over 200 years before a consensus begins to emerge, informed by the composer's place in the repertoire; and in yet other cases, there is no consensus, and there need not be one. If you, however, are looking for one great work to introduce you to a composer, then you couldn't do much better than to refer to this list, which I compiled based on scrupulous research.

I must give credit to the editors at http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best-classic-top10.html. Their classical music lists are well-informed, and I agreed with nearly all of their 39 choices for a composer's "top work."

Adams, John - Nixon in China
Albeniz, Isaac - Iberia
Albinoni, Tomaso Giovanni - Oboe Concerto in D Minor, Op. 9, No. 2
Bach, Carl Philippe Emanuel - 6 Hamburg Symphonies, Wq. 182
Bach, Johann Sebastian - Mass in B Minor
Balakirev, Mily Alexeyevich - Tamara
Barber, Samuel - Adagio for Strings
Bartok, Bela - Concerto for Orchestra
Bax, Arnold - Tintagel
Beach, Amy Marcy Cheney - Symphony in E Minor "Gaelic"
Beethoven, Ludwig von - Symphony No. 9 "Choral"
Bellini, Vincenzo - Norma
Berg, Alban - Violin Concerto "To the Memory of an Angel"
Berio, Luciano - Sequenza I for Flute solo
Berlioz, Hector - Symphonie Fantastique
Bernstein, Leonard - Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story"
Berwald, Franz Adolf - Symphony No. 3 "Singuliere"
Bizet, Georges - Carmen
Boccherini, Luigi - String Quintet in E Major, Op. 11, No. 5
Borodin, Alexander - Symphony No. 2
Boulez, Pierre - Le marteau sans maitre
Brahms, Johannes - Symphony No. 4
Britten, Benjamin - War Requiem
Bruch, Max - Violin Concerto No. 1
Bruckner, Anton - Symphony No. 7
Buxtehude, Dietrich - Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne for Organ in C Major, BuxWV137
Byrd, William - My Ladye Nevells Booke
Cage, John - Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
Carter, Elliott - String Quartet No. 2
Chabrier, Emmanuel - Espana
Chausson, Ernest - Poeme for Violin and Orchestra
Chopin, Frederic - Preludes, Op. 28
Copland, Aaron - Appalachian Spring
Corelli, Arcangelo - Concerti grossi, Op. 6
Couperin, Francois - Pieces de clavicin, Book 3, Ordre 13 in B Minor
Debussy, Claude - La Mer
Delibes, Leo - Lakme
Delius, Frederick - On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Donizetti, Gaetano - Lucia di Lammermoor
Dowland, John - Lachrimae
Dufay, Guillaume - Mass "Se La Face ay pale"
Dukas, Paul - The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Dvorak, Antonin - Symphony No. 9 "From the New World"
Elgar, Edward - Cello Concerto in E Minor
Enescu, George - Romanian Rhapsodies
Falla, Manuel de - El amor brujo
Faure, Gabriel - Requiem
Franck, Cesar Auguste - Violin Sonata in A Major
Gabrieli, Giovanni - In Ecclesiis
Gershwin, George - Rhapsody in Blue
Gesualdo, Carlo - Madrigals, Book VI
Gibbons, Orlando - First Set of Madrigals and Mottets
Glass, Philip - Einstein on the Beach
Glazunov, Alexander - Violin Concerto in A Minor
Glinka, Mikhail - Russlin and Ludmilla
Gluck, Christoph von - Orpheus and Eurydice
Gorecki, Henryk - Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"
Gounod, Charles Francois - Faust
Grainger, Percy - Lincolnshire Posy
Granados, Enrique - Goyescas
Grieg, Edvard - Piano Concerto in A Minor
Handel, George Frideric - Messiah
Haydn, Franz Joseph - The Creation
Hildegard of Bingen - Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum
Hindemith, Paul - Mathis der Maler (Symphony)
Holst, Gustav - The Planets
Hummel, Johann Nepomuk - Piano Concerto No. 2
Ives, Charles - Three Places in New England
Janacek, Leos - Glagolitic Mass
Josquin Desprez - Missa Pange Lingua
Kabalevsky, Dmitri - The Comedians, for small orchestra (suite)
Khachaturian, Aram - Gayane
Kodaly, Zoltan - Hary Janos Suite
Korngold, Erich - Violin Concerto in D Major
Kreisler, Fritz - Liebesleid
Lalo, Edouardo - Symphonie espagnole
Lassus, Orlande de - Penitential Psalms of David
Lehar, Franz - Die lustige Witwe
Leoncavallo, Ruggiero - I Pagliacci
Leonin - Viderunt Omnes
Ligeti, Gyorgy - Atmospheres
Liszt, Franz - Piano Sonata in B Minor
Lully, Jean-Baptiste - Atys
Machaut, Guillaume de - Messe de Nostre Dame
Mahler, Gustav - Symphony No. 5
Martinu, Bohuslav - Double Concerto for 2 String Orchestras, Piano & Timpani
Mascagni, Pietro - Cavalleria Rusticana
Massenet, Jules - Werther
Mendelssohn, Felix - Midsummer Night's Dream Incidental Music
Messiaen, Olivier - Quartet for the End of Time
Meyerbeer, Giacomo - Les Huguenots
Milhaud, Darius - La Creation du Monde
Monteverdi, Claudio - Vespro della Beata Vergine
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus - Don Giovanni
Mussorgsky, Modest - Pictures at an Exhibition
Nielsen, Carl - Symphony No. 5
Offenbach, Jacques - The Tales of Hoffman
Pachelbel, Johann - Canon and Gigue in D Major
Paganini, Nicolo - Caprices for Solo Violin
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da - Missa Papae Marcelli
Part, Arvo - Tabula Rasa
Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista - Stabat Mater
Perotin - Beata Viscera
Piazzolla, Astor - Tango Suite for Two Guitars
Poulenc, Francis - Flute Sonata
Prokofiev, Sergei - Symphony No. 5
Puccini, Giacomo - La Boheme
Purcell, Henry - Dido and Aeneas
Rachmaninov, Sergei - Piano Concerto No. 2
Rameau, Jean-Philippe - Castor et Pollux
Rautavaara, Einojuhani - Cantus Arcticus "Concerto for Birds and Orchestra"
Ravel, Maurice - Daphnis et Chloe
Reger, Max - Introduction and Passacaglia in D Minor
Respighi, Ottorino - Pines of Rome
Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai - Scheherazade
Rodrigo, Joaquin - Concierto de Aranjuez
Rossini, Gioachino - The Barber of Seville
Saint-Saens, Camille - Symphony No. 3 "Organ"
Sarasate, Pablo Martin de - Zigeunerweisen
Satie, Erik - 3 Gymnopedies
Scarlatti, Domenico - Sonata in E, K.380, L.23 "Cortege"
Schnittke, Alfred - Concerto Grosso No. 1
Schoenberg, Arnold - Verklarte Nacht
Schubert, Franz - Winterreise
Schumann, Clara Josephine - Trio for Piano and Strings in G Minor
Schumann, Robert - Piano Concerto in A Minor
Schutz, Heinrich - Symphoniae Sacrae III, Op. 12
Scriabin, Alexander - Piano Sonata No. 5
Shostakovich, Dmitri - Symphony No. 10
Sibelius, Jean - Symphony No. 2
Smetana, Bedrich - Ma Vlast
Stockhausen, Karlheinz - Kontakte
Strauss, Johann, Jr. - The Blue Danube Waltz
Strauss, Richard - Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
Stravinsky, Igor - The Rite of Spring
Tallis, Thomas - Spem in alium
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich - Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique"
Telemann, Georg Philipp - Overture-Suite for Recorder, Strings and Basso Continuo in A Minor, TV 55 no a 2
Tippett, Michael - A Child of Our Time
Vaughan Williams, Ralph - Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
Verdi, Giuseppe - Otello
Victoria, Tomas Luis de - O Magnum Mysterium
Villa-Lobos, Heitor - Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5
Vivaldi, Antonio - Four Seasons
Wagner, Richard - Tristan und Isolde
Walton, William - Symphony No. 1
Weber, Carl Maria von - Der Freischutz
Webern, Anton - Five Movements for String Quartet
Wieniawski, Henryk - Violin Concerto No. 2
Wolf, Hugo - Morike Lieder

I welcome comments challenging the works I've decided to include here.

Johann Pachelbel

2009-06-19T17:43:00.000-04:00

When Johann Pachelbel was 25 years old (in the year 1678), he began working as an organist at a Protestant church in Erfurt, Germany, called Predigerkirche ("Preacher's Church"). He remained there for 12 years. During this time, he composed his now-famous Canon in D.

Predigerkirche's official website has many photos ("Bilder") of the church that you can view here. Seeing the beauty of the architecture and of the organ, it is not hard to imagine how Pachelbel was inspired to compose music of such elegance and optimism. I like to think of the Canon in D as a timeless artifact containing something of the essence of the church and of Pachelbel's experiences working there.

Vivaldi's Tour

2009-06-12T17:19:00.001-04:00

The Baroque era is the earliest period of classical music from which music is still widely listened to and performed today (although there definitely remains interest in Renaissance as well as earlier music). Most of the famous Baroque composers all lived around the same time. Below is a time line showing when they lived.

All of these composers passed away before the United States of America was born. And during their lives, people still got around either on foot or on horses or by small boat. I wonder which Vivaldi would be more surprised to discover were he to tour the world of the 21st century: (1) the modern system of ground transportation, or (2) his music being rated and discussed on youtube. I imagine the latter would be the more amazing discovery.

Here is one of my favorite works by Vivaldi. I particularly like the third movement (2:45 - 4:35). (I might not have discovered this and many other works without the Internet.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9ZqcpMRLis

Zipf's Law

2009-06-12T11:51:00.000-04:00

In response to a comment I received for the post "What's on the Radio?, Part 2," yes, the data is largely Zipfian.

Zipf's Law is an empirical law that states that given some collection of natural language utterances, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its frequency rank. This means that in a body of text such as all the words contained in this blog, the most frequent word ("the") should appear about twice as often as the second most frequent word; the second most frequent word should appear about twice as often as the fourth most frequent word; and so on.

Something that has intrigued statisticians for decades is the fact that many types of data besides natural language data also can be well approximated by Zipfian distributions. The test to see if some data is Zipfian is to plot the logarithm of the frequency by the logarithm of the rank. If the resulting data points tend to fall along a straight line, then the data is Zipfian.

In this case, which is only analogous to the natural language domain, frequency of words is replaced by airtime of composers. We see in the scatter plot above that the data is in fact Zipfian for a large range of values.

Perahia's Schubert

2009-06-11T21:08:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite works for solo piano is Schubert's Impromptu in G flat major, Op. 90, No. 3. I listened to several different versions on youtube before I discovered this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qDzTcVpYB0

The performer is Murray Perahia, and his interpretation is dynamic but disciplined. When I listen I hear the music and not the performance. This work, performed in such a lovely way, is a good example of the beauty of early Romanticism in music. The strength and diversity of emotions it evokes surpasses that of most of the music that came before it.

What's on the Radio?, Part 2

2009-06-11T14:38:00.021-04:00

The above chart shows the percentage of total airtime on Classical WETA dedicated to composers 1 through N (for N = 1..50), for the year 2009 (ending on June 10th), where each composer is ranked according to the airtime dedicated to his or her music as per the previous post.

This chart shows that the top 4 composers (Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, and Bach) account for over 25% of all airtime. Furthermore, the top 11 composers account for 50% of all airtime, and the top 50 composers account for 80% of all airtime.

The chart below is the same as the one above, but with N ranging fully from 1 to 368.

What's on the Radio?

2009-06-10T20:43:00.011-04:00

I wanted to know what kind of music is played on Washington D.C.'s classical music radio station, Classical WETA 90.9 FM. And now, 600 lines of Java (computer) code and two days later, I have the answer.

Classical WETA began publishing online its daily playlists during November of 2008. Using this web resource, I wrote some code that creates a database of sorts filled with information about all the music aired from January 1, 2009, to today, June 10, 2009 (this range spans 161 days). Once I had the database, I wrote some more code that computes some basic statistics. I also did some data management so that the results are pretty accurate.

Below are the results. The first number after a composer's name is the total airtime for that composer, rounded to the nearest hour. The number in parentheses is the number of times that composer came on the radio. From this, we can see that Classical WETA favors older composers and airs very little music by some famous modern composers (see Prokofiev, Bartók, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky, for examples). Also, it always seemed like Telemann came on quite often, and these results confirm my suspicion.

Edit: After seeing the list below, a friend pointed out to me that if you tune in at a random time, there is about a 50% chance you will hear music by someone in the top 10 of the list (Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Bach, Dvorák, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Handel).

Composer Total Airtimes on Classical WETA 90.9 FM for the Year 2009:

1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 313 hours (890 selections)
2. Ludwig van Beethoven, 254 hours (625 selections)
3. Joseph Haydn, 236 hours (683 selections)
4. Johann Sebastian Bach, 213 hours (810 selections)
5. Antonin Dvorák, 158 hours (409 selections)
6. Felix Mendelssohn, 151 hours (481 selections)
7. Johannes Brahms, 140 hours (316 selections)
8. Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 137 hours (329 selections)
9. Franz Schubert, 108 hours (275 selections)
10. George Frideric Handel, 101 hours (407 selections)
11. Georg Philipp Telemann, 99 hours (407 selections)
12. Antonio Vivaldi, 98 hours (487 selections)
13. Frédéric Chopin, 89 hours (351 selections)
14. Robert Schumann, 81 hours (204 selections)
15. Sergei Rachmaninoff, 70 hours (155 selections)
16. Camille Saint-Saëns, 57 hours (181 selections)
17. Richard Wagner, 48 hours (126 selections)
18. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, 45 hours (136 selections)
19. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, 40 hours (159 selections)
20. Louis Spohr, 33 hours (96 selections)
21. Johann Strauss, Jr., 33 hours (172 selections)
22. Carl Maria von Weber, 31 hours (139 selections)
23. Gioacchino Rossini, 29 hours (158 selections)
24. Johann Nepomuk Hummel, 28 hours (95 selections)
25. Edvard Grieg, 27 hours (96 selections)
26. Georges Bizet, 26 hours (89 selections)
27. Johann Christian Bach, 26 hours (120 selections)
28. Gabriel Fauré, 25 hours (86 selections)
29. Max Bruch, 25 hours (58 selections)
30. Alexander Glazunov, 24 hours (82 selections)
31. Hector Berlioz, 21 hours (58 selections)
32. Ottorino Respighi, 21 hours (45 selections)
33. Claude Debussy, 19 hours (84 selections)
34. Michael Haydn, 19 hours (63 selections)
35. Maurice Ravel, 19 hours (74 selections)
36. Giuseppe Verdi, 18 hours (35 selections)
37. Luigi Boccherini, 17 hours (69 selections)
38. Domenico Scarlatti, 17 hours (100 selections)
39. Giacomo Puccini, 16 hours (28 selections)
40. Carl Stamitz, 16 hours (58 selections)
41. John Field, 15 hours (33 selections)
42. Franz Liszt, 15 hours (54 selections)
43. Johann David Heinichen, 14 hours (66 selections)
44. Franz Danzi, 14 hours (43 selections)
45. Bedrich Smetana, 14 hours (61 selections)
46. Jean Sibelius, 13 hours (51 selections)
47. Nicolò Paganini, 13 hours (39 selections)
48. Léo Delibes, 13 hours (38 selections)
49. Aram Khachaturian, 12 hours (44 selections)
50. Jacques Offenbach, 12 hours (56 selections)
51. Vasily Sergeyevich Kalinnikov, 12 hours (19 selections)
52. Johan Halvorsen, 11 hours (51 selections)
53. Henryk Wieniawski, 11 hours (51 selections)
54. Jean-Philippe Rameau, 11 hours (36 selections)
55. Giuseppe Torelli, 11 hours (77 selections)
56. Modest Mussorgsky, 10 hours (25 selections)
57. Johan Helmich Roman, 10 hours (42 selections)
58. Edouard Lalo, 10 hours (21 selections)
59. Antonio Bazzini, 10 hours (52 selections)
60. Richard Strauss, 10 hours (31 selections)
61. Johann Baptist Georg Neruda, 10 hours (44 selections)
62. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 10 hours (41 selections)
63. William Boyce, 9 hours (51 selections)
64. Franz von Suppé, 9 hours (56 selections)
65. Gaetano Donizetti, 9 hours (4 selections)
66. Alexander Borodin, 8 hours (38 selections)
67. Mauro Giuliani, 8 hours (23 selections)
68. Bernhard Henrik Crusell, 8 hours (22 selections)
69. Tomaso Albinoni, 8 hours (32 selections)
70. Mikhail Glinka, 8 hours (43 selections)
71. Silvius Leopold Weiss, 8 hours (35 selections)
72. Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, 8 hours (31 selections)
73. Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, 8 hours (35 selections)
74. Frederick the Great of Prussia, 8 hours (33 selections)
75. Fritz Kreisler, 8 hours (49 selections)
76. Arthur Foote, 8 hours (15 selections)
77. Carl Friedrich Abel, 7 hours (35 selections)
78. Giovanni Gabrieli, 7 hours (43 selections)
79. Leos Janácek, 7 hours (23 selections)
80. Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello, 7 hours (39 selections)
81. Chevalier de Saint-Georges, 7 hours (23 selections)
82. Francois-Adrien Boieldieu, 7 hours (23 selections)
83. Sir Arthur Sullivan, 7 hours (36 selections)
84. Johann Wilhelm Wilms, 7 hours (14 selections)
85. Jean-Féry Rebel, 7 hours (31 selections)
86. Pablo de Sarasate, 7 hours (34 selections)
87. Francesco Maria Veracini, 6 hours (24 selections)
88. Charles Avison, 6 hours (30 selections)
89. Giuseppe Tartini, 6 hours (26 selections)
90. Percy Aldridge Grainger, 6 hours (35 selections)
91. John Marsh, 6 hours (28 selections)
92. Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, 6 hours (31 selections)
93. Pierre Rode, 6 hours (22 selections)
94. Sergei Prokofiev, 6 hours (22 selections)
95. Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 6 hours (18 selections)
96. Henry Purcell, 6 hours (28 selections)
97. Emmanuel Chabrier, 6 hours (33 selections)
98. Etienne-Nicolas Mehul, 6 hours (19 selections)
99. Alexander Nikolayevitch Scriabin, 6 hours (16 selections)
100. Ferdinando Carulli, 6 hours (20 selections)
101. Sir Edward Elgar, 5 hours (19 selections)
102. Charles Gounod, 5 hours (22 selections)
103. Antonio Salieri, 5 hours (25 selections)
104. Franz Clement, 5 hours (10 selections)
105. John Knowles Paine, 5 hours (17 selections)
106. Peter von Winter, 5 hours (15 selections)
107. Gustav Mahler, 5 hours (8 selections)
108. Christian Cannabich, 5 hours (23 selections)
109. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, 5 hours (19 selections)
110. Leonardo Leo, 5 hours (20 selections)
111. Dmitri Kabalevsky, 5 hours (22 selections)
112. Leopold Mozart, 5 hours (25 selections)
113. Thomas Augustine Arne, 5 hours (24 selections)
114. Benjamin Godard, 5 hours (14 selections)
115. Johann Christoph Bach, 5 hours (21 selections)
116. Domenico Cimarosa, 5 hours (17 selections)
117. Francois Couperin, 4 hours (25 selections)
118. Emil Waldteufel, 4 hours (25 selections)
119. Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville, 4 hours (28 selections)
120. Charles-Auguste de Bériot, 4 hours (11 selections)
121. Ernö von Dohnányi, 4 hours (11 selections)
122. Edward MacDowell, 4 hours (11 selections)
123. Franz Anton Hoffmeister, 4 hours (14 selections)
124. Christoph Willibald Gluck, 4 hours (13 selections)
125. Francois Devienne, 4 hours (14 selections)
126. Franz Krommer, 4 hours (13 selections)
127. Johann Pachelbel, 4 hours (18 selections)
128. Vincenzo Bellini, 4 hours (6 selections)
129. William Grant Still, 4 hours (14 selections)
130. Muzio Clementi, 4 hours (12 selections)
131. Francesco Ciléa, 3 hours (1 selections)
132. George Gershwin, 3 hours (14 selections)
133. John Adams, 3 hours (1 selections)
134. Josef Myslivecek, 3 hours (17 selections)
135. John Playford, 3 hours (21 selections)
136. Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, 3 hours (8 selections)
137. Nicholas Maw, 3 hours (1 selections)
138. Graf Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer, 3 hours (15 selections)
139. Dmitri Shostakovich, 3 hours (20 selections)
140. Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, 3 hours (18 selections)
141. Traditional, 3 hours (15 selections)
142. Benjamin Britten, 3 hours (13 selections)
143. Luys de Narvaez, 3 hours (13 selections)
144. Samuel Wesley, 3 hours (14 selections)
145. Johann Friedrich Fasch, 3 hours (11 selections)
146. César Franck, 3 hours (7 selections)
147. Georges Enescu, 3 hours (12 selections)
148. James Hook, 3 hours (10 selections)
149. Sir Edward German, 3 hours (11 selections)
150. Carl Nielsen, 3 hours (12 selections)
151. Antonio Rosetti, 3 hours (9 selections)
152. Anton Bruckner, 3 hours (4 selections)
153. Karl Goldmark, 2 hours (12 selections)
154. Gabriel Pierne, 2 hours (12 selections)
155. Elias Parish Alvars, 2 hours (5 selections)
156. Joseph Fiala, 2 hours (8 selections)
157. Marc-Antoine Charpentier, 2 hours (15 selections)
158. Domenico Caudioso, 2 hours (9 selections)
159. Georg Caspar Schurmann, 2 hours (6 selections)
160. Archduke Rudolf of Austria, 2 hours (8 selections)
161. Jan Zach, 2 hours (8 selections)
162. Carl Michael Ziehrer, 2 hours (8 selections)
163. Mily Balakirev, 2 hours (12 selections)
164. Robert Ballard, 2 hours (7 selections)
165. Franz Lehar, 2 hours (10 selections)
166. Renaissance Music, 2 hours (10 selections)
167. Adriano Banchieri, 2 hours (7 selections)
168. Ludwig August Lebrun, 2 hours (8 selections)
169. Victor Herbert, 2 hours (8 selections)
170. Adolphe Adam, 2 hours (14 selections)
171. Giovanni Bottesini, 2 hours (10 selections)
172. Thomas Linley, 2 hours (7 selections)
173. Leonard Bernstein, 2 hours (14 selections)
174. George Chadwick, 2 hours (7 selections)
175. Josef Strauss, 2 hours (12 selections)
176. Friedrich von Flotow, 2 hours (6 selections)
177. Nicola Fiorenza, 2 hours (9 selections)
178. Gasparo Spontini, 2 hours (12 selections)
179. Samuel Barber, 2 hours (9 selections)
180. Salomon Jadassohn, 2 hours (6 selections)
181. Franz Lachner, 2 hours (6 selections)
182. Vincent d' Indy, 2 hours (4 selections)
183. Schubert/Liszt, 2 hours (12 selections)
184. Bach/Busoni, 2 hours (5 selections)
185. Agustin Barrios Mangore, 2 hours (4 selections)
186. Ignaz Paderewski, 2 hours (5 selections)
187. Johann Martini, 2 hours (5 selections)
188. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, 2 hours (9 selections)
189. Gottfried Finger, 2 hours (4 selections)
190. John Stanley, 2 hours (6 selections)
191. Nicola Porpora, 2 hours (5 selections)
192. Clara Wieck Schumann, 2 hours (4 selections)
193. Marin Marais, 2 hours (11 selections)
194. Traditional Irish, 2 hours (4 selections)
195. Giovanni Paisiello, 2 hours (3 selections)
196. Cecile Chaminade, 2 hours (9 selections)
197. Hugo Alfvén, 2 hours (9 selections)
198. Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, 2 hours (5 selections)
199. Louis Ganne, 1 hours (10 selections)
200. Anton Stamitz, 1 hours (5 selections)
201. Baldassare Galuppi, 1 hours (7 selections)
202. Claudio Monteverdi, 1 hours (9 selections)
203. Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, 1 hours (4 selections)
204. Franz Benda, 1 hours (5 selections)
205. Johann Christian Schieferdecker, 1 hours (7 selections)
206. Kalervo Tuukkanen, 1 hours (11 selections)
207. Jean-Joseph Mouret, 1 hours (3 selections)
208. Johann Strauss, Sr., 1 hours (8 selections)
209. Franz Berwald, 1 hours (8 selections)
210. Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, 1 hours (3 selections)
211. James Brooks, 1 hours (5 selections)
212. Joseph Lanner, 1 hours (7 selections)
213. Rudolf Friml, 1 hours (7 selections)
214. Zoltan Kodaly, 1 hours (4 selections)
215. Albert Franz Doppler, 1 hours (6 selections)
216. Ferdinand David, 1 hours (6 selections)
217. Max Reger, 1 hours (6 selections)
218. Anton Rubinstein, 1 hours (7 selections)
219. William Byrd, 1 hours (6 selections)
220. Alessandro Marcello, 1 hours (5 selections)
221. François Rebel and François Francoeur, 1 hours (1 selections)
222. Jacques de Saint-Luc, 1 hours (5 selections)
223. Manuel de Falla, 1 hours (9 selections)
224. Padre Antonio Soler, 1 hours (8 selections)
225. Richard Addinsell, 1 hours (6 selections)
226. David Diamond, 1 hours (5 selections)
227. Engelbert Humperdinck, 1 hours (6 selections)
228. Felix Draeseke, 1 hours (4 selections)
229. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 1 hours (5 selections)
230. Jean-Baptiste Arban, 1 hours (7 selections)
231. Johann Joachim Quantz, 1 hours (4 selections)
232. Enrique Granados, 1 hours (7 selections)
233. Franz Ignaz Beck, 1 hours (6 selections)
234. Tylman Susato, 1 hours (7 selections)
235. Heinrich Marschner, 1 hours (6 selections)
236. Ernest Bloch, 1 hours (5 selections)
237. Iosif Ivanovici, 1 hours (7 selections)
238. John Dowland, 1 hours (5 selections)
239. John Mahon, 1 hours (4 selections)
240. Jules Massenet, 1 hours (6 selections)
241. Otto Nicolai, 1 hours (6 selections)
242. Thomas Morley, 1 hours (8 selections)
243. Johan Wagenaar, 1 hours (5 selections)
244. Michele Mascitti, 1 hours (7 selections)
245. Nikolai Medtner, 1 hours (3 selections)
246. Joseph Joachim, 1 hours (1 selections)
247. Albert Roussel, 1 hours (3 selections)
248. Eric Satie, 1 hours (6 selections)
249. Strauss Family, 1 hours (4 selections)
250. Daniel Bacheler, 1 hours (5 selections)
251. Francesco Xaverio Geminiani, 1 hours (5 selections)
252. Filippo Gragnani, 1 hours (3 selections)
253. Gabriel Diaz, 1 hours (5 selections)
254. John Alden Carpenter, 1 hours (4 selections)
255. Georg Matthias Monn, 1 hours (2 selections)
256. John Harbison, 1 hours (2 selections)
257. Hermann Bellstedt, 1 hours (4 selections)
258. Arcangelo Corelli, 1 hours (4 selections)
259. Igor Stravinsky, 1 hours (6 selections)
260. Joseph Rheinberger, 1 hours (1 selections)
261. Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, 1 hours (6 selections)
262. Francois Borne, 1 hours (3 selections)
263. Scott Joplin, 1 hours (4 selections)
264. Francis Poulenc, 1 hours (3 selections)
265. Josef Rheinberger, 1 hours (3 selections)
266. Joseph Canteloube, 1 hours (4 selections)
267. Anton Arensky, 1 hours (1 selections)
268. Eduard Strauss, 1 hours (4 selections)
269. Hans Sitt, 1 hours (4 selections)
270. Georg Christoph Wagenseil, 1 hours (3 selections)
271. Wilhelm Stenhammar, 1 hours (4 selections)
272. Alban Berg, 1 hours (1 selections)
273. André Previn, 1 hours (1 selections)
274. Charles Tomlinson Griffes, 1 hours (2 selections)
275. Thomas Shaw, 1 hours (2 selections)
276. Ambroise Thomas, 1 hours (3 selections)
277. Henry Charles Litolff, 1 hours (3 selections)
278. Jeno Hubay, 1 hours (4 selections)
279. Arnold Schoenberg, 0 hours (1 selections)
280. Bach/Rachmaninoff, 0 hours (3 selections)
281. Libby Larsen, 0 hours (1 selections)
282. Reinhold Glière, 0 hours (4 selections)
283. Aaron Copland, 0 hours (3 selections)
284. Claude Gervaise, 0 hours (3 selections)
285. Frederick Delius, 0 hours (1 selections)
286. Gerald Finzi, 0 hours (1 selections)
287. Kosaku Yamada, 0 hours (1 selections)
288. Malcolm Arnold, 0 hours (3 selections)
289. Eugène Ysaÿe, 0 hours (2 selections)
290. John Ireland, 0 hours (1 selections)
291. Anonymous, 0 hours (3 selections)
292. Kevin Puts, 0 hours (1 selections)
293. Thomas Tallis, 0 hours (1 selections)
294. Albert Zabel, 0 hours (2 selections)
295. Horatio Parker, 0 hours (2 selections)
296. Miklos Rozsa, 0 hours (2 selections)
297. Pietro Locatelli, 0 hours (1 selections)
298. Astor Piazzolla, 0 hours (1 selections)
299. Johann Peter Salomon, 0 hours (2 selections)
300. Toru Takemitsu, 0 hours (1 selections)
301. Cesar Cui, 0 hours (3 selections)
302. Hans Neusidler, 0 hours (2 selections)
303. Roy Harris, 0 hours (1 selections)
304. Arno Babadjanian, 0 hours (1 selections)
305. Béla Bartók, 0 hours (2 selections)
306. Ernest Chausson, 0 hours (1 selections)
307. Gustav Holst, 0 hours (2 selections)
308. Niels Wilhelm Gade, 0 hours (2 selections)
309. Frank Martin, 0 hours (1 selections)
310. Ferde Grofé, 0 hours (2 selections)
311. Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, 0 hours (1 selections)
312. Virgil Thomson, 0 hours (2 selections)
313. William Bolcom, 0 hours (1 selections)
314. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, 0 hours (1 selections)
315. Johann III Strauss, 0 hours (2 selections)
316. Jean-Baptiste Lully, 0 hours (2 selections)
317. Moritz Moszkowski, 0 hours (2 selections)
318. Somei Satoh, 0 hours (1 selections)
319. Gordon Jacob, 0 hours (1 selections)
320. György Sándor Ligeti, 0 hours (1 selections)
321. Rossini/Britten, 0 hours (1 selections)
322. Benedetto Marcello, 0 hours (1 selections)
323. Bright Sheng, 0 hours (1 selections)
324. Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, 0 hours (1 selections)
325. Howard Hanson, 0 hours (1 selections)
326. Lars-Erik Larsson, 0 hours (1 selections)
327. Paul Dukas, 0 hours (1 selections)
328. Saro/Bruell, 0 hours (2 selections)
329. Stanley Myers, 0 hours (1 selections)
330. Alonso Mudarra, 0 hours (1 selections)
331. Alphonse Hasselmans, 0 hours (1 selections)
332. Amy Beach, 0 hours (1 selections)
333. Graeme Koehne, 0 hours (1 selections)
334. Harold Shapero, 0 hours (1 selections)
335. Irving Fine, 0 hours (1 selections)
336. Johannes Ockeghem, 0 hours (1 selections)
337. Maria-Theresia von Paradis, 0 hours (1 selections)
338. Amilcare Ponchielli, 0 hours (1 selections)
339. Giles Franaby, 0 hours (1 selections)
340. Hamilton Harty, 0 hours (1 selections)
341. Henri Herz, 0 hours (1 selections)
342. Jan Dismas Zelenka, 0 hours (2 selections)
343. Pietro Mascagni, 0 hours (1 selections)
344. Schubert/Prokofiev, 0 hours (1 selections)
345. Strauss/Schulz-Evler, 0 hours (1 selections)
346. Adolph Martin Foerster, 0 hours (1 selections)
347. Andrea Gabrieli, 0 hours (1 selections)
348. Arthur Frackenpohl, 0 hours (1 selections)
349. Louis Joseph Herold, 0 hours (1 selections)
350. Michigo Miyagi, 0 hours (1 selections)
351. Erich Wolfgang Korngold, 0 hours (1 selections)
352. Henry Kimball Hadley, 0 hours (1 selections)
353. Hugo Wolf, 0 hours (1 selections)
354. Josef Fiala, 0 hours (1 selections)
355. Juventino Rosas, 0 hours (1 selections)
356. Karol Kurpinski, 0 hours (1 selections)
357. Emil von Reznicek, 0 hours (1 selections)
358. John Philip Sousa, 0 hours (1 selections)
359. Pietro Lappi, 0 hours (1 selections)
360. Ron Nelson, 0 hours (1 selections)
361. Samuel Scheidt, 0 hours (1 selections)
362. Schubert/Rachmaninoff, 0 hours (1 selections)
363. Alessandro Stradella, 0 hours (1 selections)
364. Johann Jr & Josef Strauss, 0 hours (1 selections)
365. Marcel Tournier, 0 hours (1 selections)
366. Rachmaninoff (arr. Kreisler), 0 hours (1 selections)
367. Vivian Fung, 0 hours (1 selections)
368. Francis Lopez, 0 hours (1 selections)

A New Mythology

2009-06-02T17:09:00.000-04:00

To me, the closest thing we have to the ancient Greeks' mythological heroes in our current culture is the classical music composers. More than great scientists, more than great painters or writers, the lives and works of the great composers is the stuff of legend. We often hear of the "trinity" of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. We see images of Debussy riding the waves of the sea. We hear accounts of Rachmaninov's towering height and large hands, of Liszt's virtuosity at the keyboard, of Elgar's mustache.

There simply is not the same degree of general interest in someone like Howard Florey, who played a key part in the discovery of penicillin, as there is in Ludwig van Beethoven. Granted, some writers such as Shakespeare and Austen are quite revered, but how can they compete with Beethoven for mythological status when the very concept represented by Beethoven's name is grounded partly in his musical setting of Ode To Joy?

While the lives and personalities of the great composers of classical music might become increasingly mythicized in the future, we can rest easy knowing that their works will be left intact.

Rejoice, O Virgin

2009-05-30T10:46:00.011-04:00

I would like to share this performance of Rachmaninov's Bogoroditse Devo (Rejoice, O Virgin), from Vespers. I sang this song with a large choir over 10 years ago, and I can still remember the goosebumps... If you have sung it, you probably know what I mean. It has a unique power for performers.

The Melbourne University Choral Society (MUCS):

The Triple Concerto

2009-05-18T18:39:00.004-04:00

Beethoven's Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C Major (the "Triple Concerto") does not, to my mind, evoke images of Spring, of celebrations, or of anything else, for that matter. Rather, it is a witty, inventive musical world that does not seem to strive at any connection with the actual world. Its purpose is to surprise, delight, and entertain. Some would think that this type of music is the province of pop artists, but I would say it depends on what you're looking for. It is true that pop music offers different types of interesting "sounds" that are achieved using various instruments (including the human voice) and methods of audio processing, but when it comes to the delights we experience purely from the internal logic of a piece of music, classical music excels--the Triple Concerto being a fine example.

Jute Weaving

2009-05-11T15:19:00.003-04:00

Here is just one of many possible jute weaving patterns, the "plain weave." The question I'd like to ask is: How much of this image would you have to see before you "understood" that the strands of jute formed a plain weave pattern?

First, suppose you were given the following images that were cut out from the larger, original image (and magnified):

Based on these, you would be unable to understand much about the original image as a whole. In fact, even if you were given hundreds of images like these, you would face the same difficulty.

Now, suppose you were given the following images:

Seeking a parsimonious explanation, you might indeed be inclined to suspect a plain weave pattern based on this pair of images. Furthermore, the more images like these you saw, your confidence in your plain weave guess would increase.

Now, suppose you were given the following image:

At this point, it is undeniable that at least part of the image exhibits a plain weave pattern. You might even say it is likely that the plain weave pattern continues for some distance beyond the borders of this image.

Finally, if you were able to see the entire image (the image located at the top of this post), then of course there would be no question that the image contains a plain weave pattern (assuming you trust your senses).

Listening to classical music can be like trying to surmise a jute weaving pattern given sets of increasingly informative images representing but pieces of the entire pattern. The first time you listen to a work, even if you pay close attention, your brain might only reward you with a bunch of small images like the ones included in the first pair above. Upon subsequent listens, your brain might start giving you a few images like the ones in the second pair. Eventually, you arrive finally at an understanding of the work as a whole. This can require great effort, particularly if your brain is not as yet trained to start feeding you broader images of the work during the first one or two listens. However, having put in the effort, the reward at the end is a deep understanding of the work's form. Having gained this understanding, you also will have experienced the work's meaning and the emotions that come along with that meaning, just as you can look on at the plain weave pattern and marvel at its more subjective qualities, which include its beautiful simplicity and its technological practicality.

In general, the forms and associated meanings to be discovered in works of classical music are relatively intricate and complex and therefore can be difficult to uncover. However, because complex forms are often useful in communicating important, sophisticated, and sometimes subtle ideas, classical music occupies an important place in the music world. Fortunately, the journey toward uncovering a work's form and meaning can be a rewarding one, similar to how some of the smaller images extracted from the larger image of the plain weave pattern can themselves be interesting to observe.

The Best-Kept Secret of the IRS

2009-04-22T15:31:00.000-04:00

When you phone the IRS, they first put you on hold for about 10-15 minutes. Then, you talk to someone who transfers you to the appropriate office, and you go back on hold for another 5-10 minutes (this might happen more than once). So, what do you get to listen to while waiting? Well, I made two phone calls during April, and both times the playlist was as follows:

1) Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite
2) The first movement (Allegro) from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Repeat.

I have to give the IRS credit, as I can't think of any other tunes I'd rather listen to while on hold for so long. (Also, I should mention that both times they answered my questions fully and professionally.)

Sophistication

2009-04-13T14:04:00.001-04:00

I am currently reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated from the Russian by Pevear & Volokhonsky. It is my third attempt, and this time I suspect I will finish it. I can say only now with certainty that I did not fully appreciate the novel the first two times around. It took faith in critics and in friends, multiple friends, to keep me interested enough to return to it a third time. For whatever reason, I am now prepared to notice the genius of the text. I wonder which of my life experiences in the last couple of years prepared me for this novel?

I write this here because the same thing happens in classical music and, I believe, in any art. As we gain life experience, we tend to understand and appreciate more works of art. And we tend to understand works we enjoyed before in more profound ways. (The great artist is always waiting for everyone else to catch up.)

I imagine there are people who have experienced the essences of much of what is commonly available to all humans possessing the requisite amount of intellect. This is what is meant by the term "sophisticated." Life for these people must be extraordinary, for they get to enjoy the works of geniuses from far away in time and in space. Goethe was probably one such person, and he wrote about the idea:

"And I want to savor in my inner self whatever's the lot of all mankind, to grasp the highest and deepest with my mind, to heap man's wells and woes on my bosom..." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (from Faust)

The Written Word

2009-04-10T13:53:00.001-04:00

Another way of measuring composers' legacies is to see how much has been written about them. You could imagine taking every book ever written and then tallying up for each composer how many pages discuss that composer in some way. I did a study based on this idea, only I used just four books, each of which contains many sections where each section is devoted to a particular composer. The books I used all rank highly on amazon.com in terms of relevancy for the query, "classical music." They are:

The Rough Guide to Classical Music, by Staines et al.
The Essential Canon of Classical Music, by David Dubal
Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion, by Alexander Morin
The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection: The 350 Essential Works, by Ted Libbey

These books cover 534 different composers. It turns out that Beethoven has the highest page count total with 133 pages between the four books. Here are the results, where the numbers following the names are page totals, summed up over all four books (in the case of a tie, I somewhat arbitrarily favored less recent composers):

Classical Music Composers

1. Beethoven 133
2. Mozart 125
3. Bach 104
4. Tchaikovsky 77
5. Handel 69
6. Brahms 65
7. Schubert 63
8. Strauss 60
9. Mahler 59
10. Schumann 52
11. Haydn 51
12. Stravinsky 45
13. Prokofiev 43
14. Wagner 41
15. Debussy 41
16. Chopin 39
17. Dvorak 38
18. Liszt 37
19. Verdi 37
20. Ravel 36
21. Mendelssohn 34
22. Shostakovich 34
23. Rachmaninov 33
24. Sibelius 33
25. Bartok 32
26. Britten 31
27. Elgar 30
28. Monteverdi 28
29. Schoenberg 25
30. Vivaldi 24
31. Berlioz 24
32. Janacek 24
33. Berg 24
34. Copland 24
35. Bruckner 23
36. Vaughan Williams 23
37. Puccini 22
38. Gershwin 22
39. Hindemith 22
40. Mussorgsky 21
41. Grieg 21
42. Donizetti 20
43. Nielsen 20
44. Franck 19
45. Rimsky-Korsakov 19
46. Saint-Saens 19
47. Faure 19
48. Weber 18
49. Rossini 18
50. Poulenc 17
51. Paganini 16
52. Bizet 16
53. Smetana 16
54. Scriabin 16
55. Schutz 15
56. Bellini 15
57. Borodin 15
58. Purcell 14
59. Offenbach 14
60. Falla 14
61. Barber 14
62. Gounod 13
63. Strauss II 13
64. Ives 13
65. Scarlatti 12
66. Wolf 12
67. Martinu 12
68. Villa-Lobos 12
69. Gluck 11
70. Bruch 11
71. Delius 11
72. Korngold 11
73. Respighi 10
74. Webern 10
75. Walton 10
76. Bernstein 10
77. Messiaen 10
78. Schnittke 10
79. Stockhausen 10
80. Gesualdo 9
81. Massenet 9
82. Leoncavallo 9
83. Holst 9
84. Bax 9
85. Grainger 9
86. Kodaly 9
87. Cage 9
88. Tippett 9
89. Carter 9
90. Boulez 9
91. Tallis 8
92. Rameau 8
93. Boccherini 8
94. Glazunov 8
95. Szymanowski 8
96. Zemlinsky 8
97. Mascagni 8
98. Honegger 8
99. Milhaud 8
100. Rodrigo 8
101. Ligeti 8
102. Glass 8
103. Palestrina 7
104. Byrd 7
105. Tartini 7
106. Hummel 7
107. Chabrier 7
108. Granados 7
109. Reger 7
110. Busoni 7
111. Lehar 7
112. Weill 7
113. Martin 7
114. Khachaturian 7
115. Orff 7
116. Lutoslawski 7
117. Takemitsu 7
118. Henze 7
119. Penderecki 7
120. Adams 7
121. Josquin Deprez 6
122. Lassus 6
123. Dowland 6
124. Lully 6
125. Charpentier 6
126. Buxtehude 6
127. Couperin 6
128. Pergolesi 6
129. Telemann 6
130. Bach, C.P.E. 6
131. Clementi 6
132. Cherubini 6
133. Glinka 6
134. Delibes 6
135. Sullivan 6
136. Satie 6
137. Dukas 6
138. Enescu 6
139. Bloch 6
140. Berio 6
141. Arnold 6
142. Davies 6
143. Part 6
144. Reich 6
145. Hildegard of Bingen 5
146. Machaut 5
147. Dufay 5
148. Ockeghem 5
149. Victoria 5
150. Gabrieli 5
151. Corelli 5
152. Scarlatti, A. 5
153. Albinoni 5
154. Strauss I 5
155. Meyerbeer 5
156. Berwald 5
157. Albeniz 5
158. Humperdinck 5
159. Duparc 5
160. Suk 5
161. Hartmann, K.A. 5
162. Varese 5
163. Gerhard 5
164. Durufle 5
165. Nono 5
166. Harrison 5
167. Kurtag 5
168. Rautavaara 5
169. Gubaidulina 5
170. Gorecki 5
171. Rihm 5

172 – 534. Others (1 – 4 pages each)

535+. Those who did not appear in any of the books

The Months Ahead

2009-03-31T20:04:00.000-04:00

I hope you have been enjoying Classical Music Breakfast. As for me, I enjoy sharing with others the significance of classical music in our lives. Over the next three months, however, I will be embarking on a new, more ambitious project that will require some of the time I previously spent here. Therefore, from now until the end of June, I plan to post occasionally, but certainly not every day. Take care, and merry listening!

The Purpose

2009-03-31T19:45:00.001-04:00

Whether I'm driving home after a long day at work, feeling depressed over life's seemingly dwindling possibilities, or witnessing something ugly in the world, I'm always grateful that there is music. It is the most reliable and efficient means of lifting myself up after feeling down. Classical music, in particular, tends to inspire me more than any other kind. It reminds me of the very best moments I've ever experienced. It reminds me of what is possible and why I should keep trying.

Recently, I was posed the question: What is the purpose of listening to classical music? My answer: I listen to classical music as a way of asking my soul to be mindful of the best in existence and to guide me accordingly.

Television

2009-03-27T01:28:00.000-04:00

Maryland Public Television (MPT) aired an all-Gershwin concert tonight. An American in Paris, the Cuban Overture, and Rhapsody in Blue were all performed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, under the conducting of Giancarlo Guerrero. The performances, in my opinion, were average, but, still, it was nice to see a classical music performance on cable TV.

It is unfortunate that there are so few cable television stations dedicated to the fine arts. I have noticed that public networks, particularly not-for-profit ones such as MPT, are more likely than others to air fine arts programs, evidently because such broadcasting is not very profitable.

Hopefully, the Internet will not end up like cable television. There are already a good number of classical music radio stations available on the Internet, and I have high hopes for Internet television.

Modern Culture

2009-03-24T23:05:00.000-04:00

On this same day in 1721, some two hundred and eighty-eight years ago, Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated his completed Brandenburg Concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt. The dedication (which Bach wrote in French) is not so much a reflection of Bach's character as it is a reflection of the time period, when such dedications were the norm . In the first sentence alone, Bach manages to squeeze in no fewer than nine "Your Highnesses." It began thus:

"As I had, a couple of years ago, the happiness of appearing before Your Royal Highness, on your orders, and that I noticed then that Your Highness took some pleasure in the little talents that Heaven has given me for Music, and that in taking leave of Your Royal Highness you were willing to do me the honor of commanding me to send you some pieces of my Composition: I have therefore according to your gracious orders, taken the liberty of offering my very humble duties to Your Royal Highness, with the present Concertos, which I have adapted for several instruments [...]"

The margrave did not have the proper ensemble for performing the concertos, and so they were hardly performed for decades, if at all. It is not until 1835, a full century after their composition, when there is finally a record of a public performance of a Brandenburg Concerto.

In contrast, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 last Sunday in Berkeley, California. This coming Sunday, the Academy of Ancient Music will perform all six concertos in Morrow, Georgia.

Communication

2009-03-23T23:36:00.000-04:00

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." --Aldous Huxley

The Source

2009-03-20T23:59:00.008-04:00

Spring is here, so it seems like an appropriate time to honor Vivaldi's Spring from The Four Seasons and to point out that it consists of more than just the one part you always hear in the movies. For example, did you know that a segment of Spring is played in a minor key?

It can be surprising the first time you listen to a full work of which only a small piece appears in popular culture. Usually, the familiar tune is far less integral to the score than you expect it to be. It can be challenging to try to gain an appreciation for the work given this bias.

Other examples of works misrepresented in popular culture include Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet overture, Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra, and, sadly, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

The Last Day of Winter

2009-03-19T19:20:00.001-04:00

Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 came on the radio today. I've listened to this symphony many times now, and it is one of my favorites. Much like the Nutcracker, it contains as many memorable melodies as you are likely to find in a single work. One particularly dear moment is when the melancholy opening theme of the second movement is replaced, almost out of nowhere, by a hopeful melody. Later, the same movement's opening theme is repeated, only this time it soars and beckons your soul to dance.

Virtuoso Composers

2009-03-18T23:06:00.000-04:00

Rachmaninov's piano music is known for its virtuosity. Here are the first eight bars of his Piano Concerto No. 2.

The music begins in the key of F Minor, but by the end of bar 8, the full transition to the movement's true key of C Minor is now all but complete. From here, the music lashes out in C Minor like the onset of a storm. This is an effective way to establish the tonic because even before hearing the C Minor triad for the first time, the listener suspensefully anticipates it for a full bar.

Rachmaninov, besides being a composer, was one of the greatest piano virtuosos of his time. Other composers who were virtuosos at the keyboard include J.S. Bach and Franz Liszt. It seems obvious that being a virtuoso on an instrument would be an advantage for a composer. This is based on the idea that a greater mastery of an instrument makes it easier to explore the full expressive range of the instrument, thus expanding the composer's compositional palette.

As Liszt put it, "Virtuosity is not an outgrowth, but an indispensable element of music.

Richard Wagner, however, warns us that, "The real dignity of the virtuoso rests solely on the dignity he is able to preserve for creative art; if he trifles and toys with this, he casts his honor away. He is the intermediary of the artistic idea."

Having a composer's ear for music, Rachmaninov probably would have been the type of virtuoso of whom Wagner approved. Hence, virtuosity and composition truly go hand in hand.

A Lost Art

2009-03-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

Of Opera America's 20 most performed operas in North America, only one premiered after the onset of modernism in classical music, and that was Puccini's final opera, Turandot (1926). Of the same 20, the opera with the second most recent premiere is Puccini's Madama Butterfly, which happens to be the #1 most performed opera in North America. It premiered in 1904.

Opera was once known for its songs and its soaring melodies. Turandot features the famous tenor aria Nessun Dorma. Before that, there were Dvorak's enchanting Song to the Moon from Rusalka (1901) and Bizet's lively Habanera from Carmen (1875). Back then, opera was virtually synomynous with powerful, melodious arias. In fact, opera began that way. So, I must ask the question: Is Berg's opera Wozzeck really an opera? Being that it lacks opera's quintessential property, should not we have invented a new term for such a work? I do not mean to deprive Wozzeck of value; I am simply stating that it seems counter to definition to call it an opera. And if this is the case, then how many operas have truly been composed since Turandot? Thus, Opera America's list does not surprise me.

Nowhere did the modern trends of atonality, serialism, and minimalism have more of an effect than on opera, which, by its nature, lends itself to the expression of beautiful melodies by human voices, the most natural of all solo instruments.

Pictures at an Exhibition

2009-03-16T17:28:00.001-04:00

Pictures at an Exhibition, composed by Modest Mussorgsky in 1874, is the rare work of music where the individual musical ideas are not terribly impressive on their own but the work as a whole, by virtue of its conceptual foundation and subsequent construction, is ingenious. While perhaps not perfectly entertained throughout, when finished listening, one is left with the idea that any changes to the score would reduce it.

I wish not to ruin the surprise for anyone who might decide to listen to this work, because the journey of hearing it for the first time is not something I would want you to miss. Therefore, I will refrain from giving my account of that journey, the account that I gathered from my first listen and that I later confirmed to be accurate. The work's title is the only hint you will need.

Finally, this is an example of music one must listen to from start to finish and with no interruptions, lest its meaning be lost. It is program music, as opposed to absolute music, meaning that the music is supposed to evoke a particular sequence of events or personal experiences. The wonder is that the music's program is both powerful and unmistakable.

You can listen to the full work at naxos.com, Catalogue No. 8.550044. This CD contains the original piano version, which I recommend listening to first. There is also a popular version arranged for orchestra by Maurice Ravel.

The Symphonists

2009-03-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

Based on CDs and other media containing symphonies at ArkivMusic.com, I have identified the symphonists from among all classical music composers.

The Master

Beethoven (846)

The Major Symphonists

Mahler (540)
Mozart (540)
Bruckner (420)
Haydn (412)
Brahms (390)
Tchaikovsky (368)
Shostakovich (344)
Dvorak (290)
Schubert (284)

Other Symphonists

Sibelius (158)
Schumann (124)
Prokofiev (124)
Mendelssohn (118)
Vaughan Williams (100)
Nielsen (84)
Berlioz (75)
Rachmaninov (51)

Minor Symphonists

Saint-Saens (31)
Franck (31)
Elgar (30)
Stravinsky (24)
Ives (24)
Britten (21)
Hindemith (20)
Honegger (20)
Bernstein (15)
Rimsky-Korsakov (12)

Lists No More

2009-03-13T14:23:00.002-04:00

Following the sage advice of a friend, I have turned the lists appearing on this blog into distributions. Please feel free to revisit old posts containing lists, for they now contain information you might find interesting. For example, in Deutsche Grammophon, I no longer merely rank composers according to number of CDs - I now actually provide the number of CDs in the catalog for each composer.

The affected posts are, in reverse chronological order, Deutsche Grammophon; Conductors; Geography (cont.); Composers, Revisited; Classical WETA, Part 2; Classical WETA; and Composers.

Note: This post is primarily for subscribers who would not otherwise see this message at the blogspot webpage.

The Symphony

2009-03-12T19:40:00.007-04:00

A symphony is a long, complex musical composition for orchestra or similarly capable ensemble that does not feature a soloist and that follows a certain rough structural outline. Having no soloist distinguishes the symphony from the concerto, and having a certain kind of structure distinguishes the symphony from the symphonic poem or suite.

Most commonly, a symphony is written as four movements, with the first movement being in sonata form. Sonata form consists of an optional introduction, followed by an exposition of thematic material, followed by a developmental section during which the previously introduced themes are expanded upon, followed by a recapitulation of the thematic material, followed by an optional coda.

It could be argued that the symphony is the quintessential form of classical music. At minimum, it is one of the most important. Composers have used various other forms to produce interesting and complex music, but the symphony has proven to be a particularly good one. Why this is the case is a subject for scholars, but three centuries of music has left us with no doubt.

There might yet be undiscovered forms of music that offer composers the same kind of expressive power as that of the symphony, but, lacking those forms, Bruckner was still able to create his Eighth, Dvorak his Ninth, Mozart his 41st, and Beethoven his Fifth. Given that these, some of the greatest works of music known to the world, were written as symphonies, we should be careful not to view established forms as being generally restrictive to the creative mind. Indeed, providing a composer with an effective high-level structure to follow reduces the problem of composing to a more manageable size; approaching the composition of a symphony, the composer has a head start on figuring out either how to tell a certain story or how to effect a certain emotion. The alternative approach of devising an entirely new form for each composition does not seem promising if the composer's ambitions lie above simply creating new musical forms.

So, let us celebrate the symphony. And, let us also tip our hats to Joseph Haydn, the first master of the form.

Deutsche Grammophon

2009-03-11T23:59:00.004-04:00

In my rankings of composers' legacies based on number of recordings at ArkivMusic.com, there was a serious flaw I noticed almost right away. That is, a composer who composed a famous song (such as Rachmaninov's Vocalise, Schubert's Ave Maria, Gounod's Ave Maria, and many composers' opera arias) would have an inflated total due to the multitude of compilation albums including only that one song by that composer; this, while many CDs contain over an hour of music by a single composer.

Deutsche Grammophon is one of the largest classical music record labels in the world. Also, they do not release many compilation CDs that would tend to give the previously described advantage to minor opera composers and other composers of "hit songs." The following list ranks composers' legacies, as determined by number of CDs in the current Deutsche Grammophon catalog. This list corrects a few errors from before but also surely has some of its own.

Mozart 310
Beethoven 261
Bach 170
Brahms 116
Schubert 106
Tchaikovsky 82
Handel 79
Mahler 72
Schumann 69
Verdi 69
Wagner 67
Strauss 66
Haydn 63
Chopin 62
Vivaldi 42
Dvorak 41
Ravel 41
Stravinsky 41
Mendelssohn 38
Bruckner 36
Prokofiev 35
Debussy 34
Liszt 32
Shostakovich 31
Puccini 28
Sibelius 28
Rachmaninov 27
Bartok 26
Rossini 25
Berlioz 23
Grieg 20
Strauss II 18
Messiaen 17
Saint-Saens 17
Bizet 16
Berg 15
Smetana 15
Mussorgsky 14
Paganini 14
Schoenberg 14
Monteverdi 13
Purcell 13
Bernstein 12
Elgar 12
Henze 12
Orff 12
Donizetti 11
Telemann 11
Webern 11
Boulez 10

Bruckner's Symphonies

2009-03-10T10:17:00.000-04:00

Nearing the end of a self-devised exploratory project, I have finally encountered the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. Perhaps they were the last great surprise awaiting me in mainstream classical music.

In my view, Bruckner, and not Brahms or Mahler, is the symphonic successor to Beethoven. If you like the grand scope, the mature sound, and the serious, urgent tone of Beethoven's later symphonies, consider listening to Bruckner's Seventh and Eighth, if you have not already.

Classical Kings

2009-03-06T18:06:00.000-05:00

Just for fun, I decided to invent a fictional line of "Classical Kings," composer kings of the classical music world throughout history. For this, I used the rankings of legacies from my post Composers, Revisited. For each year, the composer who is highest on the rankings and who was alive and at least 18 years old is considered the king for that year. (A little computer program made this task a lot easier...)

Over a period of 300 years, the classical music world has seen 20 kings. Johann Sebastian Bach, who "ruled" for 48 years, is the King of Kings!

1677: Purcell -------------------
1696: Vivaldi -------
1703: Bach ------------------------------------------------
1751: Handel ---------
1760: Haydn --------------
1774: Mozart ------------------
1792: Beethoven ------------------------------------
1828: Schubert -
1829: Schumann --
1831: Verdi --------------------
1851: Brahms -----------------------------------------------
1898: Verdi ----
1902: Debussy -----------------
1919: Puccini ------
1925: Ravel -------------
1938: Rachmaninov ------
1944: Strauss ------
1950: Prokofiev ----
1954: Shostakovich ----------------------
1976: Britten -

Conductors

2009-03-06T12:42:00.001-05:00

A conductor does more than just keep the beat and cue entrances. Given a composition, the conductor shapes the music according to a unique vision and lends an interpretation to the work. A large part of a conductor's work takes place during rehearsals and even prior to rehearsals, when the conductor researches the composition. Thus, when you attend a performance or listen to a recording, the conductor is a critical part of the music making, as are the composer, ensemble, and individual performers.

Just as I have done for composers and ensembles, I have done now for conductors. The following list ranks conductors based on number of recordings available at the website ArkivMusic.com. Curiously, the number of conductors meeting the criterion for inclusion in the list (having a number of recordings that is at least one tenth of the #1 conductor's total) was 102, which is almost exactly double the number of composers appearing on the composers list (50) and only slightly more than double the number of ensembles appearing on the ensembles list (46). Could this be because there have been about two generations of conductors since classical music recording became widespread?

Conductors' legacies, as measured by number of recordings appearing at ArkivMusic.com:

Karajan, Herbert von (924)
Marriner, Sir Neville (585)
Bernstein, Leonard (469)
Abbado, Claudio (408)
Solti, Sir Georg (373)
Ormandy, Eugene (372)
Davis, Sir Colin (358)
Mackerras, Sir Charles (335)
Levine, James (334)
Böhm, Karl (334)
Mehta, Zubin (323)
Järvi, Neeme (315)
Hickox, Richard (299)
Previn, André (272)
Muti, Riccardo (271)
Maazel, Lorin (266)
Giulini, Carlo Maria (260)
Bonynge, Richard (256)
Haitink, Bernard (255)
Ozawa, Seiji (248)
Gardiner, John Eliot (241)
Barenboim, Daniel (238)
Barbirolli, Sir John (235)
Masur, Kurt (227)
Rilling, Helmuth (215)
Furtwängler, Wilhelm (212)
Szell, George (209)
Rattle, Simon (202)
Dutoit, Charles (201)
Kubelik, Rafael (200)
Chailly, Riccardo (197)
Schwarz, Gerard (197)
Serafin, Tullio (196)
Doráti, Antal (193)
Stokowski, Leopold (192)
Harnoncourt, Nikolaus (189)
Boult, Sir Adrian (186)
Gavazzeni, Gianandrea (186)
Hogwood, Christopher (179)
Klemperer, Otto (178)
Slatkin, Leonard (177)
Beecham, Sir Thomas (176)
Sawallisch, Wolfgang (171)
Leinsdorf, Erich (169)
Boulez, Pierre (164)
Pretre, Georges (163)
Wordsworth, Barry (161)
Toscanini, Arturo (160)
Walter, Bruno (158)
Leppard, Raymond (156)
Reiner, Fritz (153)
Zinman, David (152)
Ashkenazy, Vladimir (151)
Handley, Vernon (149)
Sargent, Sir Malcolm (148)
Sinopoli, Giuseppe (144)
Wit, Antoni (142)
Thomas, Michael Tilson (141)
Norrington, Roger (133)
Fiedler, Arthur (130)
Munch, Charles (130)
Lopez-Cobos, Jesús (129)
Halász, Michael (129)
Wildner, Johannes (129)
Cleobury, Stephen (125)
Davis, Sir Andrew (123)
Kunzel, Erich (122)
Shaw, Robert (119)
Segerstam, Leif (117)
Rozhdestvensky, Gennadi (115)
Gergiev, Valery (114)
Molinari-Pradelli, Francesco (113)
Jansons, Mariss (111)
de Fabritiis, Oliviero (111)
Votto, Antonio (110)
Gunzenhauser, Stephen (109)
Pinnock, Trevor (109)
Kempe, Rudolf (109)
Jochum, Eugen (107)
Plasson, Michel (107)
Willcocks, Sir David (107)
Herreweghe, Philippe (106)
Knappertsbusch, Hans (106)
Christophers, Harry (104)
Litton, Andrew (103)
Gardelli, Lamberto (103)
Kondrashin, Kiril (103)
Nagano, Kent (103)
Svetlanov, Yevgeny (103)
Leaper, Adrian (100)
Tate, Jeffrey (100)
Kegel, Herbert (99)
Lenard, Ondrej (98)
Pritchard, John (97)
Vänskä, Osmo (96)
Cluytens, Andre (96)
Schippers, Thomas (96)
Blomstedt, Herbert (95)
Dohnányi, Christoph von (95)
Erede, Alberto (95)
Järvi, Paavo (94)
Pesek, Libor (93)

Geography (cont.)

2009-03-05T16:50:00.007-05:00

Now that we've seen where the music came from, I thought I'd take a look at where the recordings came from. Using a system similar to that used for the posts Composers and Composers, Revisited, I arrived at the following list of ensembles, ranked by number of recordings at the website ArkivMusic.com. From this, London is officially the classical music recording capital of the world. Other major countries besides England that have produced classical music recordings include Germany, USA, Austria, and Italy.

Ensembles' legacies, as measured by number of recordings appearing at ArkivMusic.com:

London Symphony Orchestra (1,834)
Philharmonia Orchestra (incl. New Philharmonia Orchestra) (1,816)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1,378)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (1,220)
London Philharmonic Orchestra (1,051)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (923)
English Chamber Orchestra (806)
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (670)
Milan Teatro alla Scala Orchestra (625)
New York Philharmonic (538)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (500)
Philadelphia Orchestra (489)
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (456)
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (447)
Milan Teatro alla Scala Chorus (443)
Vienna State Opera Chorus (414)
Boston Symphony Orchestra (399)
Royal Opera House Covent Garden Orchestra (388)
BBC Symphony Orchestra (365)
Dresden Staatskapelle (360)
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (356)
Cleveland Orchestra (316)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (295)
Vienna Symphony Orchestra (286)
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (266)
National Philharmonic Orchestra (256)
Bavarian Radio Chorus (252)
Capella Istropolitana (250)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra (239)
Berlin State Opera Orchestra (233)
Royal Opera House Covent Garden Chorus (231)
Vienna State Opera Orchestra (231)
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (213)
Rome Opera House Orchestra (209)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (206)
King's College Choir, Cambridge (202)
Cologne West German Radio Symphony Orchestra (200)
Bayreuth Festival Orchestra (193)
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (192)
Suisse Romande Orchestra (191)
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (190)
London Symphony Chorus (187)
NBC Symphony Orchestra (187)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (186)
Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra (186)
Florence Maggio Musicale Orchestra (184)

Edit: Due to oversights, I have added six ensembles to the list since the original post, and the list is now complete.

Geography

2009-03-04T16:39:00.002-05:00

As a result of the list from the previous post, it seems safe to say that there are six major countries associated with the classical music tradition. These are Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, and England. I will now list the top 5 composers for each country, and you can think about which list comes closest to your musical tastes (for me it's very close, but I'd have to go with Russia). One final note: I assigned composers to countries based on Merriam Webster dictionary entries. Sometimes, a composer is by consensus associated with one country even though he was born in another. An example is Handel, who was born in Germany but is considered an English composer.

Germany:

Bach
Beethoven
Brahms
Schumann
Mendelssohn

France:

Debussy
Ravel
Bizet
Saint-Saens
Gounod

Italy:

Verdi
Puccini
Vivaldi
Rossini
Donizetti

Austria:

Mozart
Schubert
Haydn
Mahler
Strauss II

Russia:

Tchaikovsky
Rachmaninov
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Rimsky-Korsakov

England:

Handel
Elgar
Britten
Vaughan Williams
Purcell

Composers, Revisited

2009-03-03T16:20:00.001-05:00

If you listen to a piece on Classical WETA and want to buy the recording, you can do so by clicking on the provided link on the playlist. The link takes you to the website ArkivMusic.com. Here you will find Naxos recordings as well as recordings from many other (both major and minor) classical music labels. The website contains an impressive number of recordings - close to 10 times what Naxos alone offers, including recordings by famous artists.

It occurred to me that ArkivMusic might serve as a better source of data for a list of composers ranked by number of recordings in a large classical music catalog (see Composers). It turns out my intuition was correct. The following list of rankings seems far more accurate as a measure of composers' legacies. Grieg and Strauss II, to give only two examples, are closer to where I believe they should be on the list.

As before, I chose to include a composer only if that composer's number of recordings was within one order of magnitude of the #1 composer's total. This time, that approach left exactly 50 composers. (Sorry Bruckner, but someone had to be #51.) So, without further ado...

Composers' legacies, as measured by number of recordings appearing at ArkivMusic.com:

Mozart 6,168
Bach 5,519
Beethoven 4,606
Brahms 3,184
Schubert 3,137
Verdi 3,054
Tchaikovsky 2,793
Handel 2,370
Schumann 2,170
Mendelssohn 2,116
Wagner 2,052
Debussy 1,975
Chopin 1,944
Puccini 1,923
Haydn 1,796
Liszt 1,750
Vivaldi 1,686
Dvorak 1,612
Ravel 1,587
Rossini 1,579
Rachmaninov 1,511
Strauss 1,506
Bizet 1,398
Saint-Saens 1,323
Donizetti 1,273
Prokofiev 1,199
Gounod 1,173
Shostakovich 1,140
Faure 1,131
Massenet 1,108
Grieg 1,025
Mahler 984
Elgar 917
Stravinsky 878
Strauss II 850
Berlioz 764
Bellini 742
Britten 740
Sibelius 740
Vaughan Williams 734
Rimsky-Korsakov 732
Franck 730
Mussorgsky 707
Gershwin 701
Bartok 693
Weber 675
Telemann 666
Purcell 666
Leoncavallo 629
Mascagni 627

Relief

2009-03-02T23:59:00.004-05:00

Just as the sun is better appreciated when seen through clouds, experiencing joy is always better appreciated directly following a period of sadness.

There are moments in music when emotion shifts on a dime. A skilled composer can make such a moment quite dramatic. For an example, we may turn again to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, the transition from the third to the fourth movement.

Amy Beach and the Boundary Composers

2009-02-27T19:05:00.006-05:00

Amy Beach was an American composer from New Hampshire who lived between 1867 and 1944. I think her Piano Concerto in C sharp minor is outstanding, and she is quickly becoming one of my favorite composers.

I noticed that many of my favorite composers fall on the boundaries between the different periods of classical music (examples of boundaries are Late Classical/Early Romantic and Late Romantic/Early Modern). Is this just a coincidence?

Well, perhaps not. Those who come at the end of a period achieve an unsurpassed level of refinement in style for that period while taking adventurous steps forward in anticipation of the next. Those who come at the beginning of a period define the spirit of that period while benefiting from the refinement of the one that came before. Incidentally, one thing all boundary composers have in common is that they can at times be difficult to classify by period.

We should appreciate Beethoven and Debussy as innovators and also Mozart and Rachmaninov, who each composed some of the greatest swan songs for periods of classical music.

Edit: I was overly enthusiastic in my estimation of Amy Beach's piano concerto. It is a fun piece of music, but after further listening I would not call it "outstanding."

Where It All Began

2009-02-26T19:33:00.000-05:00

A little past noon today, I turned on the radio and caught the last movement of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2, performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. The music warmed my heart in a familiar way and interrupted the routine of my life.

I was introduced to Rachmaninov about eight years ago. If it were not for his Piano Concerto No. 2, Classical Music Breakfast probably would not exist. It was one night all of those years ago when, after listening to that concerto, I realized I had finally found confirmation that life could be as interesting as I had always thought it could be.

Over the next couple of years, I listened to Rachmaninov's music on a near daily basis, with a special emphasis on the piano concertos. Finally, I reached a point where I felt I had discovered in many of his works just about all I could possibly discover, and I noticed that I would get more from the music if I gave myself regular, lengthy breaks to help loosen my familiarity with it.

It was then that I started seriously exploring other composers, and I was able to gain an appreciation for Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Saint-Saens, Elgar, Debussy, and others. For the most part, I now limit myself to chance encounters (such as today's) with Rachmaninov's music, and it is always interesting to hear his music on the radio or at the occasional concert.

Classicism

2009-02-25T23:57:00.005-05:00

I listened to Haydn's Symphony No. 83, nicknamed The Hen, on Classical WETA today. It is so nicknamed because of a recurring theme in the first movement that brings to mind the image of a hen walking, its head bobbing back and forth. The symphony was great fun to listen to.

Haydn and Mozart composed around the same time, and their styles were similar. They are often referred to as members of the Classical Period of classical music. Given the name of the period, this would mean that they adhered to universal musical standards to an even greater degree than did composers associated with other periods, and I would say this is true. The main criticism of Classical Period composers is that they did not take many risks, meaning there were certain interesting forms of music that were off limits to them. Still, their music's beauty is something to behold.

When first exposed to classicism in art, I believe it is natural to experience awe, as was the case when, as a child, I first saw pictures of Michelangelo's David. Having grown accustomed to it, though, we tend to tire of it and seek out new forms. But still later, having seen what there is to see, we tend to arrive finally at a new, profound appreciation for classicism. This coming full circle is the experience I and others have had with the music of Haydn and Mozart.

Tragedy

2009-02-24T22:54:00.000-05:00

Some of the greatest composers in history accomplished what they did despite dying at a young age. Mozart passed away at 35. Imagine what would have come after The Magic Flute, Piano Concerto No. 27, the Clarinet Concerto, and the unfinished Requiem, all of which were composed during the final year of his life.

And then consider Schubert, who lived to be only 31. What would have followed Winterreise, the String Quintet, and his Symphony No. 9?

Then there is Mendelssohn, who died at 38, and Chopin, 39.

The tragedies are ours, however, for these men lived full lives.

Identity

2009-02-23T17:35:00.009-05:00

If I'm trying to refer to a work of music you've heard and you're unaware of the work's title, then how do I go about it? Do I give a theoretical account of the work, citing the harmonically rich opening, the rapidly changing textures, and the key change to B-flat major in bar 70? No, not unless we're playing a trivia game. Rather, I provide you with an actual sound from the music. Do I voice a percussive timpani part from the final movement? No, I am much more likely to sing some notes for you. OK, then do I sing the part of the cello line that oscillates back and forth between B-flat and A for 30 seconds? Again, no. I am much more likely to sing something melodic. Further, I would choose what I deem to be the most distinctive and memorable melody from the entire work.

For this reason, while melody might not always be the most interesting aspect of a work of music, I would say it is usually the soul of the work, the aspect you associate with the work's identity. I believe this is a result of how our minds work.

Indeed, what would I do if I had to refer to a work of atonal serialism without being able to use the work's title? If I were to attempt to sing it aloud, it would make for one interesting scene. My only recourse would be to offer up some well-known piece of trivia related to the work. In my mind, then, I have represented the work not using melody or anything else musical but rather using words.

And indeed, what would I do if I had to refer to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony without using the work's title? Why, I would hum Ode to Joy, of course. And what beautiful, evocative music Beethoven makes when he takes that melody and lets us hear it in different contexts, on different instruments.

Words of Wisdom

2009-02-20T20:22:00.001-05:00

"Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind." --Johannes Brahms

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." --Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Timelessness

2009-02-19T21:52:00.001-05:00

This is George Frideric Handel, composer of Messiah. His style of grooming is no longer fashionable, but his music still is.

Twilight

2009-02-18T19:14:00.000-05:00

Here is an experience I've had a few times:

I am at a concert, and a moving performance is about to come to an end. I suddenly feel sad. The sun is descending on another world, a world I had only one chance to experience, and soon all will be dark. At the same time, it is the end of the performance I've been waiting to hear. Now, the moment arrives, and I feel sadness and joy at the same time.

I believe that all of the most touching experiences in life are tinged with sadness. Something happens when joy and sadness are combined; the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. The closest name I can think of to describe this combined emotion is "the feeling of being human."

The Nature of the Medium

2009-02-17T18:44:00.001-05:00

This is the world we live in, one filled with dirt and cracks that give a unique character to every old building we look at, no matter how much alike they may be in design. What a joy it is to consider that renditions of music compositions are like old buildings and that each has its own unique character.

Now, that's what I call diplomacy!

2009-02-16T21:55:00.002-05:00

During her final trip to the United Kingdom as US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, a classically trained pianist, performed music by Johannes Brahms for the Queen, at Buckingham Palace.

Over the years, Rice has shown a special appreciation for Brahms, several times complimenting him during interviews. She seems to prefer earlier German and Austrian composers like Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms, who to her are more restrained emotionally and have more structure to their music.

Prudence

2009-02-13T18:47:00.011-05:00

Even when a work or some aspect of a work has a universal meaning, the meaning can be elusive. It is always pleasing and sometimes of great importance to grasp something that is elusive, and so elusiveness is one of the many things for us to value in works of art. But, it, of course, is not the only thing, and I would say it is not the most important.

I believe we have a tendency to overvalue a work in proportion to the elusiveness of the work's meaning. Overvaluing can mean elevating a work from mediocre to good, from good to better, etc. Now, this kind of overvaluing happens for a few different reasons. Imagine yourself in the position of someone who has just managed to lift the (elusive) meaning from an obscure symphony (to get an idea of what I mean by the meaning of a symphony, see Gate to the Mountains and Moments). First, you might be concerned that others will not understand the work and so you promote it so that it will not be forgotten or underappreciated. Second, it would be a shame if you grasped something elusive and no one believed that you did. So, to make sure everyone is aware, you might say how outstanding the work is. This is not as bad as seeing the naked Emperor's new clothes, for the Emperor is wearing clothes in this case, only they are not as interesting as you let on. Finally, you might have a societal motivation for overvaluing the work, for by doing so, you might gain admittance into an exclusive club of sorts that prides itself on understanding the work whereas others do not.

It seems that newer works are more prone to being overvalued for their elusiveness, simply because they tend to depart more from familiar, established norms and hence tend to have more elusive meanings. (What once might have been just as elusive about older works is now more familiar and easier to grasp, for the world has had time to absorb it.) Whether initially overvalued or undervalued, as a work's debut recedes into the past, opinions on the work tend to grow more measured and sober. This is one good reason why the test of time is a good measuring tool for works of art. (The main danger I see in using the test of time is that the present generation might lose sight of the historical context in which a particular work appeared. However, the more timeless a work, the less of a concern this is.)

I believe that any loss of truth and honesty in art is regrettable, such is the importance of art. Let us then be prudent when offering our views. If a work's meaning is elusive, it is fine to say so, and people should appreciate that fact. But, as I have described, elusive is not the same as outstanding or great.

A Cup of Coffee

2009-02-12T16:08:00.002-05:00

Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht! (Be still, stop chattering!), is a secular cantata composed by Bach between 1732 and 1734. It is also known as The Coffee Cantata. You will sometimes see it performed today in the style of a miniature comic opera.

The story revolves around a father and his daughter. The father, Schlendrian (which literally means Stick in the Mud), urges his daughter Lieschen to give up coffee. The daughter refuses and sings lovingly of her coffee. Next, the father starts issuing ultimatums, but none of these work until he threatens to withhold marriage. While the father is out looking for a husband, the daughter secretly tells potential suitors that she insists upon having her coffee, as a condition for marriage. In the end, the father comes around, and all proclaim that coffee drinking is natural to humans just as catching mice is natural to cats.

What determines whether a habit is good or bad? Well, we humans are all creatures of habit, and what ultimately determines whether one's collection of habits is good or bad is the degree to which those habits, together, promote the individual's well being. Now, for humans, being well is not as simple as just being physically healthy. A single term that captures the full meaning of "being well" in this context is the classical Greek word eudaimonia, which is best translated as "human flourishing." Aristotle discusses at length the concept of eudaimonia in his Nicomachean Ethics.

But, how can one flourish as a human if life is meaningless? To this I say: I highly doubt that anyone's life is meaningless, for it seems that each person has either openly or secretly identified, either consciously or unconsciously, a God that rules over his or her life. Thus, achieving human flourishing depends upon one's submission to the will of his or her God. It is this submission that allows one to deem habits either good or bad for oneself.

As for me, I have gone on and off coffee at various times in my life. Fortunately, for those times when I felt I would be better off not drinking it, it has proven to be not as difficult to quit as Lieschen would lead you to believe. This, together with its other virtues, makes coffee a wonderful drink, indeed.

Classical WETA, Part 2

2009-02-11T16:17:00.002-05:00

In my last post, I talked about the Classical Countdown on Classical WETA. Let us now compare results from year to year. I made the following list the same way I made the last one (see the previous post), only I used the older 2007 Classical Countdown results as opposed to the 2008 results.

Beethoven 612
Tchaikovsky 387
Bach 366
Mozart 344
Rachmaninov 285
Dvorak 215
Vaughan Williams 141
Wagner 101
Brahms 97
Copland 93
Rimsky-Korsakov 88
Vivaldi 86
Gershwin 83
Saint-Saens 82
Pachelbel 79
Mussorgsky 77
Handel 77
Barber 76
Grieg 68
Bruch 65
Mahler 64

Membership in the top six, therefore, has not changed at all from 2007 to 2008. Below that point, there are significant changes. This is not surprising since the point totals are smaller the farther down the list you go. Beethoven, once again, achieved the number one ranking with ease.

Classical WETA

2009-02-10T18:51:00.003-05:00

The Washington, D.C., area's classical music station is Classical WETA 90.9 FM. It is a wonderful radio station and is another good way to explore classical music. At www.weta.org, they publish the station's playlist every day so that you can plan ahead and also so that you have a record of what recordings were aired when. For example, today's playlist shows that the Philips 422.328 recording of Bach's Trio Sonata in D Minor (BWV 527) will air at 11:48pm. Both locals and non-locals alike should feel free to listen (if you're up that late), using the website's free Listen Live feature.

Every year, Classical WETA listeners vote for their 90 favorite pieces from the last 400 years or so in the Classical Countdown. It appears that operas are not counted, although some suites from operas (and ballets) are. The results are published at weta.org. You can view the most recent results here: http://www.weta.org/fm/features/classicalcountdown/vote

I was not content with this list, so I decided to go a step further and determine who are the Washington, D.C., area's favorite composers, roughly speaking. To do this, I used a simple approach. If a composer's work appeared at place n on the countdown, then that composer earned 91-n points. Thus, a composer would earn 91-1=90 points for the #1 ranked piece, and 91-90=1 point for the #90 ranked piece. A total of 19 composers ended up with point totals within one order of magnitude of Beethoven's point total (Beethoven won easily). Here is the resulting rankings list of composers (you can compare this list to the list from Composers, January 2009):

Beethoven 732
Bach 388
Tchaikovsky 299
Rachmaninov 298
Mozart 211
Dvorak 206
Brahms 193
Grieg 119
Mendelssohn 119
Handel 100
Mahler 97
Vaughan Williams 90
Rimsky-Korsakov 86
Saint-Saens 82
Vivaldi 81
Chopin 80
Smetana 80
Mussorgsky 74
Gershwin 74

A Perfect Pairing

2009-02-09T20:48:00.002-05:00

I was driving home the other night when John Alden Carpenter's Adventures in a Perambulator came on the radio. There are those moments in life when music is matched perfectly with environment, creating a magical music listening experience, and this was one of them. The impressionism of the music allowed my mind to drift just the right amount, and I was lead on a journey through some of the best areas of my subconscious, aided by the images moving past me.

Concert of Note

2009-02-06T11:05:00.003-05:00

On March 26 of this year, Yuri Temirkanov returns to Maryland to conduct Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony (and Brahms's Violin Concerto). There are also performances on March 27, 28, and 29. The first performance will be held at Strathmore Music Hall in North Bethesda. The remaining performances will be held at Joseph Meyer Symphony Hall in Baltimore.

In 2007, I saw Temirkanov conduct Prokofiev's Fifth with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in Washington, D.C. I would call it one of the best music listening experiences of my life. Temirkanov's nobility is something to behold, and his rapport with the orchestra, whether it be the St. Petersburg Philharmonic or the Baltimore Symphony, is evident with every note. (Temirkanov was Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony from 2000 until 2006, during which time I saw him conduct several times. It will be nice to see him conduct them again.)

I have written about this symphony before (see The Love for Three Oranges). I can not imagine another conductor drawing out the meaning of this work any more than Temirkanov does. If you are a fan of the work, then this performance is not to be missed.

Benefit of the Doubt

2009-02-05T10:23:00.003-05:00

I will admit that until recently, my appreciation for Johannes Brahms was limited. I had enjoyed singing the tenor part in many of his Liebeslieder Waltzes (Love song waltzes) and listening to his symphonies, but I would not have thought of him as being anywhere near the level of Mozart or Beethoven. That is, until I listened to his Clarinet Quintet recently. It was then that I heard with my own ears what the more experienced critics had been hearing. From now on, I will give Brahms the benefit of the doubt, and by doing so, I am sure I will discover some great music.

Once you catch a glimpse of a composer's genius, the composer gains your trust. From then on, you know there is a profound substance to that composer's work. We can never bypass this process of discovery, lest we find ourselves in the Emperor's Court.

I am sure all of the Brahms lovers out there wish they could relive what I am just now experiencing.

Moments

2009-02-04T21:38:00.009-05:00

Classical music works are full of moments. A moment can be anything from a certain sound that evokes an image in your mind to a convergence of multiple threads of development that finally declare the theme of a work in full force. It can be the reappearance of the main melody of Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, midway through the piece, or the first time the left hand begins to play arpeggios during Debussy's Clair de Lune, or the haunting melody that begins Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3, or the fugato near the end of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, or the first three notes of the finale of Beethoven's Fifth.

Why do these moments affect us the way they do? Because composers prepare you for them (in the case of a beginning, it, too, bears some relation to the rest of the piece and is better appreciated during subsequent listens). By the time a certain moment arrives, you subconsciously perceive its significance, which is usually more than onefold. That is, a single moment can play many roles all at once.

Imagine a moment in a movie where a man walks slowly toward a house to open a door. When he reaches the door, it is the completion of his walking. You notice the gentle way he reaches for the doorknob and also the complex emotion his face shows while doing so. The door is the one he placed there himself when he built the house 20 years earlier. Now, the sun peeks out from behind a cloud and shines light on his face, revealing scars. You notice consciously for the first time that he is carrying a small package, even though he was carrying it the whole walk up to the house. The door opens onto a familiar room - it is the room from the dreams he had been having. Standing on the other side of the door are his wife and children. He has not seen them for four years, during which time he was away at war. He extends his hand, package inside, to his wife, and she grabs hold of him, forcing the package to fall to the floor.

Novelists, screenwriters, and film directors like to create moments like this in their stories, and so do composers. In this movie moment, there are many points of significance, but you would not consciously enumerate each one while watching. Rather, you would simply feel all of the significance, perhaps somewhere in your chest. You would be aware of all the things going on in that scene on a subconscious level. The same type of thing happens while listening to classical music, only everything is more abstract, having the effect of invoking your imagination. Along with all of this, there is also the mathematical aspect of classical music that helps make the music sound good and can help create some moments that satisfy your mind's craving for sense and order.

Now, many moments can be experienced only in proper context. Consider a dramatic movie. You cannot just watch one 2-minute scene and expect it to have the same emotional impact as it would have had had you watched the whole movie, especially if you are not already familiar with the story. Likewise, when listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the triumph you feel at the opening of the last movement depends on your having experienced the previous three movements. This is why it is often recommended that you listen to a work the way the composer intended it to be listened to.

A concluding remark: There is a philosophy in art that says that a work should have only one main theme; otherwise, the work should be divided into multiple works. Thus, every part of a work should have some relevant and necessary relationship with the main theme. Sometimes, there is a single moment in such a work that expresses the work's theme forcefully, revealing the meaning of all of the moments that came before. An example is during the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony when the chorus sings Ode to Joy. In my opinion, this kind of moment is one of the most amazing things to experience in art.

Reverence

2009-02-03T19:26:00.000-05:00

The word reverence means "a feeling of deep respect mixed with awe." It is a very human word. Various composers throughout history each have been motivated by reverence for something, whether that something be God, nature, or maybe unrequited love, and they have sought to capture this feeling in their music.

Bach's Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major (BWV 1068) is full of reverence, and as always with Bach, the scope of the work is as large as the universe. Air expresses a serious respect for existence and for human beings in particular and projects for all to experience a peaceful world in which you will find only the best of human nature.

Liberal Rewards

2009-02-02T23:01:00.000-05:00

The average duration of a track of classical music is around 8:26 (8 minutes and 26 seconds), based on the website www.naxos.com/workman, which features a reasonably good representative sampling of classical music. Compare this to the average duration of a pop song, which is around 3:43, based on my own digital collection. On average, then, classical music tracks are more than twice as long as pop music tracks.

That is point one. Here is point two:

In The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection, Mstislav Rostropovich, the famous cellist and conductor, provides an illuminating introduction, titled "On Listening to Music." In it, he brings up the point that getting distracted while listening to classical music is akin to reading a novel and skipping over pages.

So, not only are classical music works long, but you have to pay close attention to them, too. For these reasons, it is not surprising that newcomers to classical music may feel intimidated. What is worse, in my experience, many people innocently approach classical music the way they would approach pop music (after all, it's all music, right?), whereas an approach more like the one people use for watching movies or for reading novels is in fact appropriate.

Listening to classical music requires effort on the part of the listener, there is no doubt. Granted, sitting quietly in a room for half an hour listening intently to music might feel less natural than sitting quietly in a room watching a movie. But, for those who enjoy classical music, they have learned that all of their effort is liberally rewarded.

Einojuhani Rautavaara

2009-01-30T20:28:00.005-05:00

Not a household name, his. Einojuhani Rautavaara is still living, rare for composers discussed here on this blog, and he is 80 years old.

In 1972, Rautavaara composed Cantus Arcticus, a concerto for birds and orchestra. The work features tape recordings of birdsong. When I first listened to Cantus Arcticus, I was almost convinced I would not like it very much based on the first couple of minutes. I kept listening, however, and I was rewarded with what turned out to be a beautiful tribute to birds and to nature.

Exploring contemporary classical music can be challenging for many reasons. For one, there is less of a consensus as to what the important works or composers are, so the field to consider is large. This is partly due to the fact that newer works are borne of vastly differing artistic philosophies, leading critics to employ different sets of criteria for determining notable works. Still, now and then you will find a gem, and that gem is likely to be very distinct from what you previously enjoyed listening to and might even give you a fresh perspective on music.

Germany

2009-01-29T16:25:00.002-05:00

This graph shows the number of composers from the list of 51 (see Composers) for each country represented. Composers ranked 1-10 are separated from composers ranked 11-51.

Edit: There are errors in the graph due to the fact that (1) Richard Strauss (ranked #34) was German and not Austrian and (2) Handel (ranked #9) is by consensus an English composer, even though he was born in Germany. The corrected totals are as follows:

Country Total (Top 10)
Germany 10 (4)
France 9 (0)
Russia 8 (1)
Austria 6 (3)
Italy 5 (1)
England 4 (1)
Hungary 2 (0)
etc.

Experts

2009-01-28T20:20:00.001-05:00

"It just came to me out of thin air," or "It was dictated to me by God." We all have heard quotes like these, spoken by writers, music composers, and others.

Experts thrive by transcribing the complex creations of their subconscious minds, a phenomenon dealing with the brain and about which we presently have little understanding.

An expert chess player rapidly chooses great chess moves in tough board situations due to this phenomenon (only the chess player is less likely to attribute this skill to God). How this comes about is that the chess player, over the course of a lifetime, sees so many chess moves that the player is literally trained only to consider good moves, ones that satisfy the demands of the current situation.

For a composer, the task is not to choose the best sequence of moves but rather to compose a melody that acheives a certain emotion, or to create a variation of a theme to serve as a bridge to the next musical idea, to name a couple of examples. Of course, the shadings of the composer's own inner self, which is a product of much more that just music, find their way into the composer's creations, too.

And so it is that Mozart, who is the archetypal child prodigy, achieved what he did. Surely, he lived and breathed music from the time he was born.

Said Mozart, "Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream."

Meaningful Opera

2009-01-27T19:51:00.002-05:00

In Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, which is based on the novel in verse of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin, the title character is bored with life. With no real goals or desires to serve, Onegin is not, in reality, the romantic hero Tatyana presumes him to be based on appearances. He lives his life whimsically, free from all of the careful consideration that accompanies a moral life that is dedicated to some purpose. While living in this manner, Onegin gets swept up with the leaves and ends up doing two things he will later regret: (1) He rejects Tatyana, and (2) He kills his friend Lensky in a duel (Proof once again that idle hands are the devil's tools).

Only when it is too late does Onegin learn what all learn eventually - that there is meaning to life. The meaning that he once did not seek was later measured by his guilt. In the end, Tatyana is genuinely moved by the changed Onegin, but she is now married and remains faithful to her husband.

In opera, the focus is on the story, which is told with both words and music. We care about the characters just as we do in novels and movies. An opera's story is typically very melodramatic, but the music justifies this. That is, the music provides the back story. For example, we do not need any more details of Onegin's life to appreciate the opera Eugene Onegin's story, because the way Onegin sings when he sees the married Tatyana tells us all we need to know about Onegin. Such is the power of music, as composed by a master composer such as Tchaikovsky and as performed by a master performer (such as Dmitri Hvorostovsky).

Opera is a unique way of being told a story.

Danse Macabre

2009-01-26T21:00:00.001-05:00

In 1874, Camille Saint-Saens arranged a tone poem version of his composition Danse Macabre, which had debuted two years earlier as an art song for voice and piano. It is the orchestral tone poem version that is the most popular today.

Death plays this Dance of Death on his fiddle and conjures the dead from their graves to perform a grotesque waltz. Death takes delight in the fact that people from all classes and walks of life arrive ultimately at a common end.

It is hard to imagine a more downcast theme. Still, while perfectly capturing the gruesome spirit of the poem on which it is based, Danse Macabre manages to be beautiful music. It seems there are competing philosophies for translating ugliness into music. On the one hand, we convey ugliness with ugly sounds. On the other hand, we turn to Mozart, who said, "Music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music."

In the case of Danse Macabre, I would think it is precisely the music's beauty that allows it to portray the poem so accurately.

1875

2009-01-23T15:12:00.001-05:00

I made this chart using data I produced using a simple computer program. It shows how many of the composers from my list of 51 (see Composers) were living during each year, from 1678 to 1976.

The single highest total for any year was 28, in 1875. If you were alive in 1875, you could have met the following people:

Tchaikovsky
Brahms
Verdi
Grieg
Debussy
Liszt
Dvorak
Sibelius
Puccini
Wagner
Strauss II
Rachmaninov
Bizet
Ravel
Saint-Saens
Rimsky-Korsakov
Elgar
Strauss
Massenet
Faure
Mahler
Gounod
Nielsen
Glazunov
Mussorgsky
Bruckner
Vaughan Williams
Offenbach

During 1875, the world saw the premieres of Bizet's Carmen (in Paris) and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 (in Boston). Bizet died later that year, a few months after Carmen's premiere.

Inside the Sun's Painting

2009-01-22T18:00:00.004-05:00

Today, I listened to Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 5 "Spring" in F Major, played by Henryk Szeryng (violin) and Arthur Rubinstein (piano). I said before how classical music can take us to other worlds. When it takes you to a distant world to which you have been before and long to return to in real life, this is called nostalgia.

In the midst of a cold winter, the dancing melodies of the sonata's first movement remind me of everything I miss about green landscapes, warm scents, outdoor smiles, and glasses of chilled white wine.