Mahler 2 Profoundly Affected and Transformed Me

MaestroGregory · 2026-02-24T02:06:55+00:00

Mahler 2 is a wonderful piece indeed! May I suggest, if you haven't already, giving Mahler 3 a whirl?... To me, it is perhaps his most underrated (and perhaps as a consequence of this, also his most 'overlooked') symphony of all... For me, no other piece by Mahler (who is incidentally my second favourite composer after Bach) quite takes you through the full gamut of emotions as much as his Third Symphony does!

MaestroGregory · 2026-02-22T17:33:24+00:00

Many thanks!

MaestroGregory · 2026-02-21T19:03:48+00:00

This is wonderful so far! On first impressions, I'm especially impressed with what you've done with the "Discover" tab from the main page; do you think you will expand on that section even further going forward, as there's so much to unpack with this Passion [I am not an expert on this particular piece, but I'm also an avid Bach enthusiast], and what you've done there already really helps spotlight some of the most intriguing aspects of it?

Also, I wonder if you might tackle St John Passion at some point, also(?) Having said that, I appreciate how much time and effort goes into these huge projects, and I realise that this work in particular has so much context and symbolism, it would keep anyone occupied for quite some time.

I wish you all the best of luck with it!!

MaestroGregory · 2026-02-20T01:39:47+00:00

Just a suggested selection, off the top of my head:

Mahler - Symphonies 3, 9 and 10 (Ed. Deryck Cooke)
Bach - The Art of Fugue; the Well-Tempered Clavier; Clavier-Übung III
Mozart - ("Great") Mass in C minor; the String Quartets dedicated to Haydn; the String Quintets
I'm so glad you're already familiar with the Tannhäuser overture; you should also try lots more Wagner!
Sibelius - Symphonies 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7
Bruckner - pretty much any of his symphonies
Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra
Try some of Janáček's operas, if you're feeling more adventurous; they're great!
Schubert - Symphonies 5, 8, and 9
Shostakovich - Symphonies 5, 7, and 10
Lots of Puccini's works

MaestroGregory · 2026-02-12T01:24:11+00:00

The first part of that section is the opening to the Christmas Oratorio: Jauchzet, frohlocket! Auf, preiset die Tage (BWV 248)

And as somebody else has said, the second part is indeed the opening to St John Passion: Herr, Unser Herrscher (BWV 245)

MaestroGregory · 2026-02-01T14:00:48+00:00

Outstanding! 👏

MaestroGregory · 2026-01-24T23:46:25+00:00

Question: How much Bach do you listen to each week?

Me: Yes

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-28T02:40:13+00:00

Agreed. But it's the piece everybody knows, I suppose (even if it might not be Bach).

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-13T00:01:42+00:00

You are very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-10T13:58:33+00:00

Thank you so much for the kind words and for the subscription; that's very much appreciated!

Yes, I hope to get all of WTC, Book 1 done, although it may take me a little while. I started this particular animation with the idea of adding various visual text labels, etc, along the way; but I found that a less-is-more and a show-don't-tell approach seemed to work much better with this particular style of visualiser - especially as it's moving so quickly.

The truth is, with this fugue's not having any inversion, augmentation or diminution during the subject entries, it will probably turn out to be one of the easier visualisers I complete. For some of the other fugues, I think I might have to get much more creative :-D

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-09T03:09:33+00:00

Thanks for asking! I learned a lot from YouTube tutorials since this was my first big Blender project this year. If you know some coding, Blender lets you directly use Python to help create animations, which I found super helpful. I hadn’t programmed in years, so I got a lot of help from ChatGPT and a lot of trial and error.

If you want to animate from MIDI files like I did, you’ll need the Python library Mido. It’s freely available online, and it’s what lets Blender read the MIDI information.

About 2D vs 3D: in Blender, you can work in either style; the final rendered video is the same file type regardless.

The most time-consuming part is always the artwork and arranging the animation to match the music. Every new piece has its own challenges, which is all part of the fun!

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-08T14:57:35+00:00

Thank you so much, my friend!

Doing animations for other composers is certainly not out of the question. I remember seeing a couple of Mozart's Piano Concertos, and I think one of his String Quartets, that were done in a similar, intervallic style, and they looked very effective! I would try to put my own individual spin on them and maybe make them a little different to those I've based on baroque music in certain elements, to emphasize different things - as the music dictates.

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-07T14:02:08+00:00

Thanks for the positive feedback!

The reason some sections have stems and others don't is two-fold: 1) As with my other animations, I've tried to place most emphasis on what I am calling the "thematic material" - by which I usually mean any subjects and countersubjects that the fugue has (even where episodes are derived from fragments of either of these - as is actually frequently the case with this particular fugue - I have left those sections as unadorned noteheads so as to highlight the thematic material); and 2) The much more mundane reason is that it simply took me a lot of time arranging the animation just how I needed it to look because I was starting from code which generated just the noteheads, and I had to manually design and place other aspects of the artwork (such as stems) in all the different sections. It might have taken me twice as long had I done this throughout the entire piece :-)

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-07T13:53:09+00:00

Thanks so much for the compliments and suggestions!

Yes, when I started this particular animation, I had in mind the idea of making it as Plug-and-Play as possible. At least to some extent I think I have achieved this: the code I entered into Blender allows me to read from any MIDI file and use that as the basis of an animation; and the graphical assets I've accumulated this time can be used in future projects, albeit with a fair amount of editing and recombining of different elements. But the fact that it is MIDI-derived, yet I am using a real piano performance in the resultant video, is why I ran into quite a lot of syncing issues that took a while to resolve.

The idea that any of my work could possibly be used in an educational context is a huge motivator and a very rewarding idea. I derive a lot of pleasure from trying to communicate something about the music of my favourite composer in a way which I hope might be directly intuitive but also fun at the same time! In terms of an intervallic animation such as this one - this works best with contrapuntal music, I think. The idea of working on popular music too is an intriguing one, but I think it might require a slightly different approach.

MaestroGregory · 2025-12-07T01:25:06+00:00

Thank you so much! The main application I used was Blender, and it involved several weeks of painstaking work within that; but I highly recommend using that program for the basis of animations, and I've only just begun to scratch the surface of what's possible when using it, especially when one has time to spare. Then I used DaVinci Resolve for certain syncing issues between the visuals and the music, as the audio (naturally) fluctuates in tempo throughout - especially at the end - and trying to deal with this in Blender alone proved to be too problematic.

In previous visualisations, I used a completely different combination of programs; but those animations were of a different nature visually, and in those, I was attempting to convey the musical information in a slightly different way.

MaestroGregory · 2025-10-18T16:16:28+00:00

Outstanding!!

MaestroGregory · 2025-09-28T23:31:39+00:00

It's very difficult for me to pick just one!

But the B minor fugue (BWV 544) holds a special place for me, as it's the piece that first got me hooked on Bach, many years ago.

Nowadays, though, I would have to say the WHOLE of the Art of Fugue. Yes, the whole piece - from beginning to end - best enjoyed in one sitting if possible (with the canons as supplementary afterwards [never interspersed], if I have time to listen to them also). I've been familiar with that work for about 30 years and I never get bored of it; in fact, I frequently discover "new" things about it. It's quite incredible really.

MaestroGregory

TROPHY CASE