What classical music did you listen to today?

[rojo]

Ibert is neat....

Yes, he is.

Sybarite- What course is that?

Debussy - Selections from Children`s Corner. Which are not pieces for children to play. Unless they are advanced for their age, I think.

[Krummhorn]

Haydn - String Quartets, Op 2 ... on internet radio

[Sybarite]

... Sybarite- What course is that?...

Hi Rojo,

I'm doing an Introduction to the humanities with the Open University.

In the long term I want to do a history degree, but as someone who finished my formal education a number of years ago, I can't start an humanities degree without doing this introduction.

I started almost a month ago and the first few weeks have been pretty much a refresher course, with a week each looking at art history, literature (the sonnet) and music (it's philosophy now). I did English, art and music for 'A' level at school, so a great deal of this feels very familiar indeed.

The Vaughan Williams piece was, in effect, a quarter of this month's assignment.

[Ouled Nails]

Vaughan William's setting of GD Rossetti's sonnet Silent Noon for piano and tenor – listening to until it's coming out of every pore, in order to write 300 words about it for a course I'm doing.

Will you share with us?

[rojo]

That sounds great, Sybarite! Keep us posted on your progress. And I agree with ON; feel free to share whatever you like.

How long is the introduction course?

[Gary Blanchard]

I am listening to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra performing Philip Glass' Symphonies #2 & 3. Before that I was listening to the Glass CD, Solo Piano.

This weekend, I am planning to watch a DVD of Aida.

[Sybarite]

Will you share with us?

That sounds great, Sybarite! Keep us posted on your progress. And I agree with ON; feel free to share whatever you like.

How long is the introduction course?

Your interest is very kind. The course lasts until the autumn and covers all aspects of the humanities (just been doing some introductory philosophy and am now moving onto studying the Rome Colosseum and the role of the games in Roman society.

Anyway, I've now completed the written piece that I mentioned (four very short essays of 300 words each), so here is the piece on the Vaughan Williams.

In his setting of Rossetti's Silent Noon, Vaughan Williams uses the music to echo and subtlely play with the structure of the sonnet.

The piece opens with a simple, gently rhythmical piano motif on piano, which continues when the tenor takes up the same melody.

The third line sees the composer take full account of Rossetti's enjambement, with the first four words sung to long, single notes that give a sense of conclusion before the remainder of the line is carried, via a rising melody, into the next, which itself ends with a strong, high note. The rising nature of the melody and the increase in volume from voice and piano matches the "billowing skies".

After a piano interlude, the voice begins a new theme. Again, the piano underpins this. This section concludes quietly, reflecting the poet's "visible silence".

On the ninth and 10th lines, the composer recognises Rossetti's turn by allowing the voice to be unaccompanied for much of the very simple melodic line, with the change to a minor key on "blue" reflecting the delicacy of the poet's image.

However, instead of musically starting the final quatrain on the 11th line, Vaughan Williams sets that as a stand-alone, again with the singer largely unaccompanied.

He returns to the major key for the recapitulation of the opening theme. Here, Vaughan Williams effectively turns the last three lines of the sonnet into a concluding quatrain by adding a fourth – 15th – line, giving the tenor a long, high note for 'song' and then repeating this and ending with the piano alone once more, with the theme falling rather than rising, mirroring the opening motif.

The texture is simple throughout, with the timbre of piano and voice matching each other and echoing Rossetti's theme of lovers spending time quietly together.

[Ouled Nails]

A very eloquent short analysis, Sybarite. It took me far too long to more readily appreciate the art of judiciously coupling music with poetry or prose. Not every composer is/was capable of the amount of, what should I call it?, self-effacement required so that one's music truly serves the purpose of enhancing but not of dominating the poet's work. The fact that melodies are often found very early in a composer's opus, as part of one's apprenticeship or "student" years, can be an issue. But a number of melodies composed by mature composers, such as in the case of Poulenc or Ravel, remarkably illustrate the meaning of artistic convergence.

[Krummhorn]

All this week, honoring the birth of JS Bach (March 21, 1685), I've been listening to his organ works on internet radio or from other webs.

[Bassoonist]

I've been listening to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 a lot today. It's kind of my new obsession. I absolutely love the piano in the piece. I don't know the performer, but I just love the piece!

I also have listened to a little of Vivaldi's Summer, which is one of my favorite pieces as well.

[Manuel]

Shostakovich: 5th symphony (and a bit of the 7th)
Pettersson: 8th symphony
Arensky: piano trios
Debussy and Ravel: string quartets (by the awsome Quartetto Italiano)
Brahms: violin concerto (Menuhin/Boult, live)
Busoni: Fantasia contrappuntistica
Beethoven: some early string quartets
A bit of Bax symphonies.

[Ouled Nails]

Ernest Chausson, Le Roi Arthus, Theresa Zylis-Gara, Gino Quilico, Gosta Winbergh, Armin Jordan, conducting the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique et Choeurs de Radio France. Erato.

[Manuel]

Ernest Chausson, Le Roi Arthus, Theresa Zylis-Gara, Gino Quilico, Gosta Winbergh, Armin Jordan, conducting the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique et Choeurs de Radio France. Erato.

Is it good? The only version I have is:

Genievre ...... Susan Bullock (soprano)
Arthus ...... Andrew Schroeder (baritone)
Lancelot ...... Simon O'Neill (tenor)
Merlin ...... Francois Le Roux (baritone)
Mordred ...... Daniel Okulitch (baritone)
Lyonnel ...... Garrett Sorenson (tenor)
Allan ...... Sir Donald McIntyre (bass-baritone)
Apollo Voices
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Leon Botstein (conductor)

Recorded live.

Today I've heard:
Wagner: Die Meistersinger (Thielemann, Bayreuth 2000)
Tannhausser overture (Mengelberg)
Lehar: The merry Widow (Domingo, Von Stade, MET)

Not a lot... really...

[Ouled Nails]

I don't really have a basis for comparison, Manuel That's the only version I own. The opera itself is very good (the old story of Arthur-Lancelot-Genevieve-Merlin and Excalibur) and the singers have no difficulty with proper French diction, which is an issue when I listen to French operas. As you probably known, Chausson's approach is far closer to Wagner's than to the forthcoming Debussy opera, Pelleas et Melisande, and, in my humble opinion the orchestra and choirs are also up to the task. Beyond that, we would have to swipe our respective versions to know which is really the best

[Gary Blanchard]

Started my morning with Philip Glass, Symphonies 2 & 3. Am now listening to Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Violin, and Harp.