What are you listening to now?

[Peter]

Thank you for at least trying to listen and thank you for replying, Peter, . I personally enjoy his music and respect him and his music very much. For me, some of it is pleasant while some of it is serious to listen to. I don't know if he is one of the best of our time, but a lot of people say he is. I feel that there is musicality/form in his music. He uses good melodies, repeats themes, focuses on structure, harmony, etc. I don't know, maybe you should try listening to some of his orchestrated pieces, with a live orchestra??? Maybe his opera scene, "Maria and Draco"? The orchestra in Tokyo is very supportive of his work, he has had American orchestra's perform his pieces. I feel that he is a good deal better than Jeremy Soule. Even Jeremy, once joined the company he worked for, Jeremy still hopes to score one of his series of games! I hope that you find his orchestrated pieces to be better, .

Here is the link to his orchestral music, in case you want to check it out, http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=tour+de+japon .

Best Regards,
Preston

Hi Preston - I can understand the appeal of such music (out of the John Williams mould), but this pandering to popular culture just isn't me. It probably sounds terribly pompous, but if I want to listen to good melodic music there are a whole host of composers from the 18th and 19th centuries who have done it so much better. I don't actually hear anything new or individual in this work in the way that we can easily identify the personal qualities of Bach, Beethoven or Wagner - that to me is the mark of a great creator - his own personal voice that sounds like no other.

[DavidO]

No comments anyone? Uematsu is considered by many to be one of the top ranking musicians of our time. I would really like to hear what y'all think of the music.

Sounded sort of ordinary to me, all in all. Very run-of-the-mill contemporary, even a little Muzakish -- "smooth jazz" in the Dave Koz manner. Also rather ordinary is Wang's "Sun Flowers," but that has the advantage of being vivace! If you're going to be ordinary, do it quickly, I always say.


Here's Yundi Li performing "Sun Flowers" in concert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuzG_dckk7Q


Here's the score in PDF:

http://www.gangqinpu.com//pu/2006/20...3294811591.pdf

[Preston]

Sounded sort of ordinary to me, all in all. Very run-of-the-mill contemporary, even a little Muzakish -- "smooth jazz" in the Dave Koz manner. Also rather ordinary is Wang's "Sun Flowers," but that has the advantage of being vivace! If you're going to be ordinary, do it quickly, I always say.


Here's Yundi Li performing "Sun Flowers" in concert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuzG_dckk7Q


Here's the score in PDF:

http://www.gangqinpu.com//pu/2006/20...3294811591.pdf

Thank you for taking the time to listen and for the comment David. He usually doesn't use strictly the orchestra (those videos were of an orchestra playing his music that had been orchestrated), but uses a lot of exotic instruments with the orchestra. His earlier works may not sound as contemporary.

By no means am I saying that he is a Beethoven or Bach though, !

[Peter]

Britten's moving War Requiem written for the opening of the new Coventry cathedral in 1962 (the original having been destroyed in the war). Excellent recording of Britten himself conducting with first class soloists - Peter Pears, Galina Vishnevskaya (wife of Rostropovich) and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

[DavidO]

Britten's moving War Requiem written for the opening of the new Coventry cathedral in 1962 (the original having been destroyed in the war). Excellent recording of Britten himself conducting with first class soloists - Peter Pears, Galina Vishnevskaya (wife of Rostropovich) and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

I love the War Requiem, but I'm not familiar with that recording. Will check it out.

Right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying my new CD of the Missa -- Gardiner & English Baroque Soloists. I love this so much more than my Klemperor recording, I can't tell you. I never thought it would happen, but I do believe I'm becoming a fast advocate of the "early instruments" movement -- or at least of Gardiner's recordings. This Missa is astonishingly clear & vibrant & it bowls me over. I can finally hear what I want to hear in the Et vitam venturi & elsewhere! Next purchase: the Gardiner recordings of all 9 symphonies & the Bach B Minor.

[Michael]

I love the War Requiem, but I'm not familiar with that recording. Will check it out.

Right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying my new CD of the Missa -- Gardiner & English Baroque Soloists. I love this so much more than my Klemperor recording, I can't tell you. I never thought it would happen, but I do believe I'm becoming a fast advocate of the "early instruments" movement -- or at least of Gardiner's recordings. This Missa is astonishingly clear & vibrant & it bowls me over. I can finally hear what I want to hear in the Et vitam venturi & elsewhere! Next purchase: the Gardiner recordings of all 9 symphonies & the Bach B Minor.

Gardiner's recording of the earlier Beethoven mass is just as good, although I don't know if it is still available as a single CD.

[Joy]

Today is Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 with violinist Gil Shaham and conductor David Zinman along with the Aspen Chamber Symphony.

[AlexOv]

The last piano sonata: what a knockout!

I have been listening again to this fantastic piece. I have loved it for decades now and every now and then I listen to it several times over several days. Always there is something new to hear that I haven't noticed before. I know some people who contribute to this site are all for the Hammerklavier, and I have heard that one several times by different pianists, but the melodies (the hundreds of them?) and mood changes in all the variations of the simple themes of Opus 111 always leave me breathless and with tears in my eyes. Sublime, triuimphant... words almost fail me.... Better to let the music speak for itself, so if you don't know this piece already, get a copy and listen, in a peaceful spot, several times until you do know it. It may take a few times, especially for the first movement, which includes some chordal melodies that could only be described as discordant (G and Aflat played together and later Fsharp and G). Presaging jazz? Don't know but they work and sound beautiful to me.

The CD I have is by Rudolf Buchbinder who, fortunately for us, did not follow the trade indicated by his surname. Others may rave about Schnabel and other giants of the past, but this is fine by me. Opus 109 and 110 (another two neglected gems) are also on the disk.

I left the CD in the player last night and returned from work to find my young daughter listening to it. Wow! I never expected that! And she has been humming the theme of the first movement for hours now, on and off. Get 'em while they are young, I say.

As I reminded her, the man who wrote this, could not hear a single note of it... This fact still amazes me and when I hear some modern rockbands and people like Bob Dylan extolled as prolific composers, I laugh quietly to myself: they still have nothing on Ludwig. He composed thousands of variations on hundreds of melodies and did so much of that as a completely deaf man. At least my daughter won't have just the Moonlight to go by, as so many others seem to. If you have ever put "Beethoven" into the search engine of any of the popular file sharing websites, you will quickly see that for most of the internet world, Fur Elise and the Moonlight are just about all that they know of our hero, who apparently also wrote Ave Maria! Well, that's the way it was put in the file name.

Does anyone else out there love Opus 111 as much as I do?

[Michael]

I first heard Opus 111 about 35 years ago on a vinyl recording by Alfred Brendel. I was quite new to Beethoven and I remember not liking this work very much - I thought the first movement was a poor re-working of the "Appassionata". In fact, I didn't much care for the late piano sonatas as a whole until they grew on me (very slowly) over the years. It is an interesting experiment to listen to Opus 2, No. 1 and then put on Opus 111.
Did any composer ever travel so far in so few years?

[Peter]

As I reminded her, the man who wrote this, could not hear a single note of it... This fact still amazes me and when I hear some modern rockbands and people like Bob Dylan extolled as prolific composers, I laugh quietly to myself: they still have nothing on Ludwig. He composed thousands of variations on hundreds of melodies and did so much of that as a completely deaf man. At least my daughter won't have just the Moonlight to go by, as so many others seem to. If you have ever put "Beethoven" into the search engine of any of the popular file sharing websites, you will quickly see that for most of the internet world, Fur Elise and the Moonlight are just about all that they know of our hero, who apparently also wrote Ave Maria! Well, that's the way it was put in the file name.

Does anyone else out there love Opus 111 as much as I do?

Absolutely - a terrfic piece but so many performances fail to convey the ethereal last movement. I heard Paul Lewis live a few weeks ago and he left us firmly in our seats on earth - we should have been transported to another world and a far better one at that!

[Peter]

Listening to Razumovsky no.1 on my new Sennheiser cordless headphones - wonderful sound - anyone else use these?

[Preston]

Listening to Razumovsky no.1 on my new Sennheiser cordless headphones - wonderful sound - anyone else use these?

Ah, Peter you decided to go with the cordless, glad they worked out for you.

[Michael]

Listening to Razumovsky no.1 on my new Sennheiser cordless headphones - wonderful sound - anyone else use these?

I use Sennheisers but just ordinary ones. I believe the new cordless ones are fantastic. How far can you roam without the signal breaking up?

[Peter]

I use Sennheisers but just ordinary ones. I believe the new cordless ones are fantastic. How far can you roam without the signal breaking up?

I have Sennheiser 140 and in theory you can go 150m. I've tried about 100m from the source which is as far as I can go (without looking mad walking down the street in them!) and the reception is very good - I would say though that walking about causes interference and they are best when stationery which again suits me as I have no need to listen to music whilst jogging round the garden or digging up dandelions - I've yet to try them in the bath and of course Handel's Water music is a must for that!

[Michael]

I have been listening to the Diabelli variations for the past week. I consider it the single most difficult work B ever wrote and I always have trouble in listening to it in full. In fact, I read somewhere that the best method of coming to terms with it is to regard it as a set of bagatelles and not to worry too much about perceiving how the tune is varied because the main theme is so basic it takes care of itself.
So I have it on in the car, on my portable CD player, on my computer as I write. I'll either conquer it or become so sick of it I'll never play it again (unlikely). In fact, this extreme exposure is starting to pay dividends already.
I have four or five different versions but my favourite will always be Stephen Kovacevich.
Alfred Brendel calls it the greatest piano work ever written. A friend of mine bought a recording of it some years ago. He is not a great Beethoven fan but he felt like making a start somewhere. However, I told him the "Diabelli Variations" was not the ideal work to start off with and he did say that he had trouble finding a "tune" in it. I am gradually coming to the conclusion that it is the sheer multiplicity of tunes that makes it so daunting.
Beethoven is supposed to have sneered at Diabelli's tune when he first heard it. I wonder was he annoyed at the fact that the opening phrase of his Eighth Symphony appears in the bass?