Gillian Whitehead is a composer from New Zealand.This composition is from her cd Shadows Crossing Water, for string quartet, oboe and piano.
Gillian Whitehead is a composer from New Zealand.This composition is from her cd Shadows Crossing Water, for string quartet, oboe and piano.
Last edited by walt; 07-08-2018 at 11:20 AM.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
Speaking of New Zealanders, Douglas Lilburn is one of my favorite composers.Originally Posted by walt
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
He was a wonderful composer.I got the 3 cd/dvd set of his Complete Electro-Acoustic Works works.Good stuff.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
I have precious little Classical in my collection, but I do like much of it. It's just lost out in the priority wars, but I'd like to redress some of the balance and upgrade my Classical section. To that end, I'd like to pick the brains of some of the serious Classical aficionados here and get some recommendations. Some of this might be peppered throughout the thread, but it's needle-in-a-haystack at this point. So, if some would be so kind, I'd like recs (preferably 3) for all of the following composers. Please be as specific to release as possible, and please consider both performance and sound quality along with the quality of the composition. Also, please stick to orchestral or chamber performances. I'm not looking for piano concertos. Lastly, please restrict suggestions to those that have been released on CD. Yeah, I know I'm narrowing choices quite a bit here. Apologies, and thanks for understanding. The composers of interest are:
J.S. Bach
Georg Telemann
Bela Bartok
Tchaikovsky
Benjamin Britten
Wolfgang Mozart
Niccolo Paganini
Ralph Vaughn Williams
Olivier Messiaen
John Dowland
Scarlatti
I freely admit that I don't know a great amount about these guys, so if their work doesn't fit the parameters I set out, my apologies.
Thanks in advance to any who wish to offer suggestions.
I can't help you with Bach because I prefer the organ and keyboard music. The only orchestral stuff I like are the masses because I love choral music. You can't go wrong with conductors John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Helmuth Rilling.
I guess you could try the Brandenberg Concertos? Neville Marriner is good for baroque music As is Gardiner, Trevor Pinnock, and Christopher Hogwood.
Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra/Music For Strings, Percussion & Celesta are repertoire staples. There is no shortage of good recordings. Antal Dorati, Boulez, Solti, Fritz Reiner for an old classic.
Cantata Profana/The Wooden Prince conducted by Boulez on the DG label is a great disc.
And if you want something really challenging get the string quartets. The Alban Berg Quartet 2 CD is a good bargain.
There are plenty of cheap boxes of Tchaikovsky symphonies. Ormandy or Muti, Pletnev.
Britten was mainly a vocal and opera composer. For a great non opera single disc try this the London recording.
https://www.amazon.com/Britten-Symph...cello+symphony
Messiaen-Quartet For The End Of Time w/ Richard Stoltzman
Turangalila Symphony-Royal Concertgebouw/Riccardo Chailly
Eclairs Sur L'Au Dela conducted by Myung-Whun Chung, or Simon Rattle
For Vaughan Williams I bought the Sir Adrian Boult box because it has everything you'll ever need by VW. But you might get better sound from the Haitink set. But honestly I'd rather listen to Sibelius symphonies. For other English symphonies I like Arnold Bax and Malcolm Arnold.
Last edited by StarThrower; 01-14-2019 at 12:58 PM.
For Messiaen I'd add La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. I've got a recording on Decca from the National Symphony Orchestra Washington / Antal Doráti which I enjoy. But I'm sure there's other good recordings as well.
I can only help you with the 20th century composers. Anything earlier than about 1920 does nothing for me. The vast majority of my classical tastes are mid 20th century up through contemporary periods.
Benjamin Britten:
4 Sea Interludes
String quartets #2 and #3
War Requiem
Messiaen:
Quartet for the end of time
Turangalila Symphony
Bartok:
Concerto for orchestra
Magnificent Mandarin
Music for strings, percussion and celesta
His entire cycle of string quartets
If you want any other recommendations of 20th century or contemporary pieces and composers, let me know.
And if there were a god, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell
Turangalila Symphony is a really interesting piece and features the Ondes Martenot. Perhaps the only "major" work (or at least the most famous) written with that instrument in mind?
Anything earlier than about 1920 does nothing for you? Not even Bach, possibly the greatest composer of all time? You have no idea what you're missing!
Featuring the amazing Sarah Chang:
Scarlatti is mainly known for his harpsichord sonatas. He wrote 555 which are actually all in one box set. I don't know anything about Dowland or Telemann. Mozart? A single CD of late symphonies would suffice. There's a good one by George Szell that I have. The requiem is a good piece too. Daniel Barenboim's 1969 recording or Neville Marriner.
I happen to think Messiaen's organ music is awesome! The Oliver Latry set on DG is the logical choice. Jennifer Bate is great too, but the CDs are out of print.
The Sibelius concerto is a beauty! I have Hilary Hahn's CD. But Sarah Chang is brilliant! Probably the most gifted violinist alive.
She was playing professional pieces at age five.
^^^
Yes indeed! She is such a masterful musician tackling technically difficult pieces and making them look effortless. It makes me want gather up all my instruments, put them in a pile, light them on fire and chug a bottle of scotch...almost.
Last edited by Buddhabreath; 01-14-2019 at 04:05 PM.
I have a soft spot for Bartok's 2 Orchestral Suites. They were written at the tail end of the romantic era, so they're not as challenging as his later modern era works. They are however more interesting than most things written in the same time frame.
Malcolm Arnold conducted the original 1969 performance of Deep Purple's Concerto for Group and Orchestra.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Thanks for the replies thus far, guys. I am taking notes and will investigate.
Interesting. Unless I'm really confusing things, I have a CD of his music played on Classical Guitar.
Yeah, there are guitar transcriptions. In fact I bought a cheap 5 disc set on Brilliant Classics label and each CD features Scarlatti sonatas performed on a different instrument.
Some original titles of classical works get mistranslated into English or at least misunderstood, for example, one of my favourite pieces Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 is also known as the Pathétique Symphony, and that was a mistranslation from Russian to French. He called his 6th "The Passionate Symphony" and used the Russian word, Патетическая (Pateticheskaya), which means "passionate" or "emotional", that was then mistranslated into French as pathétique, which means "solemn" or "emotive". And English readers in turn often mistranslate that and think it means pathetic.
Another one is Chopin's Minute Waltz, which has nothing to do with minute as in 60 seconds but rather the alternative meaning of minute (my newt) meaning very small, the publisher who gave it that English nickname meant it in the sense of miniature waltz. The proper French name of it translated means "The Little Dog Waltz" Despite this knowledge though BBC Radio has used it as the theme tune for Just A Minute since that radio programme started in the late 60s.
With the exception of some symphonies by Beethoven (3,5,6,7) Tchaikovsky (5,6) and all four by Brahms, and some works by Wagner, I listen almost exclusviely to 20th century (and very late 19th c) classical music, mostly British, Russian and Swedish but other nationals do creep in.
Right now I'm listening to Hungarian composer, Laszlo Lajtha (1892-1963). He's become a favorite symphony and orchestral composer of mine over the past few years. His orchestral works have been re-issued on Naxos.
Same here, but I would add 20th Century, non-opera Italians Respighi, Casella, Pizzetti, Rota, and Malipiero. I would also expand Swedish to all of Scandinavia.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
I've been on a Mahler kick listening to various recordings of No.6. Bernstein on DG, Boulez DG, Gielen on Hanssler. These are all sounding good with excellent sonics.
Working my way through this thread from the beginning...So far, I especially liked the videos that were posted for Melchior Neusidler & Gabriel Pierne, and have ordered some discs of both men's work. Thanks to the posters.
It's hard to say a definitive recording, and I'm apt to pick up something that just looks interesting. But I could recommend:
Canadian Brass: Bach: Art of the Fugue
Telemann Double & Triple Concertos, The Academy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood--most of the Hogwood stuff is good.
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Greesleeves/Tallis Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis, The Lark Ascending/ The New Queen's Hall Orchestra/ Wordsworth on the Argo label
This guy below has a lot of suggestions.
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