Share your favorite classical music

ImaFungi
Any instrumentation you'd like (solo instruments, chamber music,concerto, symphony)... Looking forward to discovering some new (old) great pieces (feel free to post contemporary classical music as well though).

I scanned the listings here in this thread and found two renderings of Schubert s great quintet in C major, the second movement (there may be more listings than these two).

This major quintet piece by Schubert is regarded as one of the loftiest works of art in existence. Apparently Schubert never heard it performed as it was published only after his untimely death.

The rendering (performance) that I add to the list here is my own.

You may have questions. Who are the players? What is the name of the group?

The performance is not by a group. It is by one person. Did this one person play all five instruments (parts) himself alone? The answer is yes. And no. The five parts were played by the same person but not in the usual sense of a live performance. The five individual parts (tracks) were completed separately and blended (mixed down) to two stereo tracks. The first violin and cello are on the left channel. The second violin and 2nd cello are on the right channel. The viola is in the center.

There is a type of software program called a (midi) sequencer (Pro Tools, Cubase) that is used to key into the computer a sequence of the notes indicated in the printed score. The resulting file is called a sequence. The file contains all the data available from the composer s score (score from IMSLP). The data indicates which notes are to sound in what order and at what loudness and at what speed.

But the sequence file (when played) makes no sound. There is another software program called a sampler (Kontakt) that accepts the data from the (playing) sequence file and assigns sounds to the notes (a violin sound for the 1st and 2nd violins, a viola sound for the viola, and cello sounds (including plucked strings) for the 1st and 2nd cello. The output of the sampler is a music stereo file in the WAV format. Voila: music. A performance created by one person.

To put it another way. The composer s score is a code. Five string players can decipher the code and produce a performance in the intended manner.

But that is the traditional way. This is the new age. The computer age. The computer savvy musician can use the computer to decipher the code of the composer s score and produce a performance (not intended) from files (sequence, sampler) created from a computer keyboard based on the music data indicated in the score. The sequencer is the performer. He instructs the computer how to render his performance.

Why? [answer not given]

If you already know Schubert s great quintet (my favorite for 50 years), then listen and compare the listed performances. One thing you will notice right away is that my tempo is by far the slowest. Another item of note is the absence of annoying reverberation.

If you are interested in Wagner, check my comparison of Sokolnikov vs Furtwangler.

Schubert Quintet

reply to post by leostokes


Thanks so much for that informative reply. The first time I heard that piece, and movement I knew it was special, in music space is just as important as stuff. I am listening now and though do not usually enjoy computery classical music, this isnt so bad...but I am sorry to say I may always prefer human performers, though it is possible to accomplish things on computers humans cannot.

Please feel free to post more music whenever you want.

ImaFungi
reply to post by leostokes

 

Thanks so much for that informative reply. The first time I heard that piece, and movement I knew it was special, in music space is just as important as stuff. I am listening now and though do not usually enjoy computery classical music, this isnt so bad...but I am sorry to say I may always prefer human performers, though it is possible to accomplish things on computers humans cannot.

Please feel free to post more music whenever you want.

edit on 10-10-2013 by ImaFungi because: (no reason given)

Thanks for your acknowledgement.

I have a vast collection of CDs including all the available work of Toscanini.

There is one big advantage to computer controlled performances of a sequencer person like Ivan Sokolnikov: live performers want the audience to focus their attention on the players. My attention is focused not on the players but on the composer. The man who created the art. The players are to me a distraction. We all admire their great skill. But they must bow to the art of the composer and accept a secondary role. That is the goal of Ivan S. The computer rendering of the composer s score brings the listener closer to the composer s art.

leostokes

Thanks for your acknowledgement.

I have a vast collection of CDs including all the available work of Toscanini.

There is one big advantage to computer controlled performances of a sequencer person like Ivan Sokolnikov: live performers want the audience to focus their attention on the players. My attention is focused not on the players but on the composer. The man who created the art. The players are to me a distraction. We all admire their great skill. But they must bow to the art of the composer and accept a secondary role. That is the goal of Ivan S. The computer rendering of the composer s score brings the listener closer to the composer s art.

I gotta ask are you Ivan S.?

I completely agree that the composer is important, but imo composer and players are co dependent, they need each other. Electronic music for example, is one in which the composer is in direct control, they have their palate of sounds and they create what they wish and can. I personally enjoy the sonic quality of recordings from live players performing, and there are emotional and flowing/sharp moving subtitles of human instrumental play. I agree the visual element can take away from being completely taken away by the sound, I would prefer if audiences listened to classical music laying down and blindfolded in dark rooms.

ImaFungi

leostokes

Thanks for your acknowledgement.

I have a vast collection of CDs including all the available work of Toscanini.

There is one big advantage to computer controlled performances of a sequencer person like Ivan Sokolnikov: live performers want the audience to focus their attention on the players. My attention is focused not on the players but on the composer. The man who created the art. The players are to me a distraction. We all admire their great skill. But they must bow to the art of the composer and accept a secondary role. That is the goal of Ivan S. The computer rendering of the composer s score brings the listener closer to the composer s art.

I gotta ask are you Ivan S.?

I completely agree that the composer is important, but imo composer and players are co dependent, they need each other. Electronic music for example, is one in which the composer is in direct control, they have their palate of sounds and they create what they wish and can. I personally enjoy the sonic quality of recordings from live players performing, and there are emotional and flowing/sharp moving subtitles of human instrumental play. I agree the visual element can take away from being completely taken away by the sound, I would prefer if audiences listened to classical music laying down and blindfolded in dark rooms.

When we stand in front of Monet in the museum, we experience his art directly. The emotional experience is ennobling. And there is no middle man.

This emotional experience can be had with other forms of art like poetry or music or mathematics. For example. ..I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high oer hill and dale, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils.. ..The square on the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the squares on the legs..

Shakespeares plays require a middleman, the actors. But the middleman can be eliminated because his text can be read alone. I find the poetry of his text much more effective than his drama on stage. Julius Caesar is a weak drama but a great poem. ..I come to burry Caesar, not to praise him..

I am saying that art in its varying forms instills in us a positive emotional experience that is a free gift from the the artist. In some forms of art the communion between the artist and his patron is direct. Art in the form of music though requires a middleman.

You can go to a concert and listen to a pianist perform a Beethoven sonata. Is the applause for Beethoven or Rubinstein? Some in the audience will credit the pianist with the magic. I say no. The magic is from Beethoven. The piano is a musical instrument. But do not forget that it is also a machine that is designed by mechanical engineers. It requires a mechanic to operate it. A middleman.

Beethoven and his musician player are codependent. But Beethoven and his listener patron are also codependent. The player is a necessary but also an unwanted distraction.

There is a woman who was clarinetist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her playing as a soloist is simply astounding. It seems supernatural. I love to listen to her playing. I applaud her expressive gift. But the thing is that when she plays Mozart her playing distracts from Mozart. And I much prefer Mozart. (I forget her name.)

The sonic aspect is a thrilling part of an orchestra. Particularly with Tchaikovsky. He uses the sonority and acoustic effects to great advantage. I love to hear Leopold Stokovski (leostokes) do him. However, there is little to compare between the art of PIT and LS. I prefer the composers art.

While Napoleon was raping Europe, Beethoven wrote his third symphony. The general represents violence and cruelty an destruction. It seems to me that Beethoven was answering Napoleon by saying that creating a beautiful thing and giving it away is a better way for men to interact.

Yes.

Regards,

reply to post by leostokes


I respect your point of view, and slightly comprehend your sentiments, though I do not personally share the same perspective. I have listened to so much classical music, some of which is displayed on this thread (I cant say all of which because I think there are 2 midi pieces I have posted, which sound quite good in my opinion ill link at least one at the bottom of this post) most of which are human performances, all of which I would never experience the joy, love, and praise to the glory of the composer. The performers are mediums, instruments themselves. In the highest and most celebrated and there for listened to cases, do the composer and his minds creation most justice. Chopin was a human, who sat at a piano and wrote music, I will never be able to hear Chopin play a piece of his music, but I have countless opportunity to hear countless skilled pianists, who have trained their whole lives in the art and techniques of piano, who have studied Chopins life and musical ideals, and poured over his composition, studied how throughout history it was interpreted and played. Classical music more then any I can think of has a pretty strict tradition of following whats written on the page, and this is respected and sought by the musicians.

Like your shakesphere drama/poetry example, if I wanted to experience the raw humanless data of music, I would read the compositions note by note, but I love the spatial and sensual experience of music most of all, I love the sound of the acoustic instruments recorded and playing in synch in a concert hall. Thats flat out the reason I dont listen to pure midi or computer generated versions of compositions, to my ear, the sound quality and depth of sound is not as vibrant and..there as with computer generated versions. Some day perhaps it will be, and then in my opinion, it will be a very sad day for classical music, perhaps the death.



I think one of the hardest parts with me is getting the realest and truest sound of the instrument attempted to be replicated like here on the piano. I can tell its not real, and if the goal is to get away from the real, and train my ear to love the non acoustic fake, why not just listen to other genres of music, like electronic music, which is purely computer generated 'modern' composition?

reply to post by Advantage


Another nice Liszt piece for ya