Messages

After repeated hearings I remain underwhelmed, it is beautifully played and pretty from moment to moment but didn't leave me with a great need to continue the effort or begging for more. Oh, well, not the first time...I remember anxiously awaiting the Urspruch, then wondering if he would ever reach the end of the first movement.

I don't think Alfred's focus was composition as much as pianist, but he was also a strong supporter of his wife's composition work, as well as her work on her unique piano method. St. Saens told Marie that if she were a man her scores would  be on podiums all over Europe, and to me her music suggests exactly that. The white male good old boys club is not a new thing, obviously, and isn't now or ever has been just or concerned about the damage it inflicts on any person of the opposite gender or darker skin tone that isn't included.

I appreciate very much the links, especially the one to Turku Phil site and the video. I wasn't ready to watch it carefully, but listened to the whole thing just for the music, which I thought was beautiful. I have no other "erudite" response than that. Don't care if it is a masterpiece or not, anyone can decide that for themselves. Anyway, thanks again to Jani.

No, he can't write, boring and quite beneath him, he has his staff do it for him.

Besides all which, they are both wonderful listening experiences.

French: two beautiful ones--"Il est né, le divin enfant" and "Un flambeau, Jeanette, Isabelle" (Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwGm2vtYB_Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7r8o477iT4

The biography I read of Brahms of course reinforced what I already knew of his genius, but it was sad that he was kind of mean to those who didn't reach his standards. Of course poor Bruckner tried and tried, but maybe his obsequity was offputting along with his "Wagnerism". Brahms despised Herzogenberg's music (some of which is pretty to me) and put up with him in his social circle because he liked his wife Elisabet, some said it was jealousy that he didn't marry her instead, but he eventually said "Herzogenberg is able to do more than any of the others." (wiki) I felt sorry for
Joachim, too, who seemed to have to "earn" his approval from Brahms, none of which has anything to do with Hans Rott, I wish I could read not only the new novel but also the German biographies, such a sad story, and then there were Hugo Wolf, and even Robert Schumann himself who spent their last days in mental hell, and back then the "treatments" were non-existent or more than hellish themselves. And I would like to kick Hanslick in the seat of his pants, or other nether regions.

Admittedly I lack of musical sophistication--and have never felt the least unhappy about listening to anything Schumann wrote. Ignorance is bliss? Or is it bliss to hear the magnificent sounds that came from a tortured soul and be happy with them and deeply touched by them? Nor have I heard a reorchestration of Chopin's piano concertos that has meant anything more to me than the originals. I tend to listen to music that makes me feel good, not to that which is "perfect" by some impossible standard. Was it Boulez who thought he was the only one to write music perfectly (and Dutilleux was a reactionary hack)? and rarely does his music make me happy, while much of Dutilleux's does.

http://classic-online.ru/ru/composer/Butsko/2379

Large amount of his music at address above, unless you prefer not to go to Russia. Don't think I have had any problems.

I agree BerlinExpat, sometimes I wonder  whether some people only listen to music to find out what "influences" they can find so thay can then eruditely explain it to those of us who are so obtuse all we can do is listen in order to enjoy (or not) what we hear. It is almost as useful to analyze birdsong (first music?) and be able to say, "Oh, that Liszt, that Jaëll--all they did was copy the yellow-brown red-crested boobyhatch's second mating cry that occurs only in June on the south coast of Lower Slobovia--terribly derivative!" In one single cliché one can thus take care of Messiaen as well, not that we should listen to such modern stuff. AAAArRRRgggHHH.

Agree with Alan on Verbitsky, nice overtures if you haven't heard a really good one before. J

The new book/3 CD Jaëll release (which was mentioned here earlier, I think--from Palazetto Bru Zane) includes several of her piano works, and waltzes for piano 4 hands, excerpts of her Dante works that I enjoyed a lot. Jim

Karl Klindworth apparently mostly wrote piano pieces--doesn't look like any orchestral stuff except for his arrangement for piano and orchestra of Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano Op. 39, recorded by Naxos. Since I love the piece as a piano tour-de-force, I also enjoyed the orchestral version a lot. My not having any way to judge its "quality", nor really caring, I just went with knowing what I like.
Interesting thread. Thanks, Jim

I wonder if this is going to offer a re-listen? Has anyone been there before? And echo thanks to Adriano LOTS of things.

http://www.br.de/mediathek/video/event-livestream/1-eventlivestream-154.html