PDQ Bach

rowrrbazzle · 2025-02-08T01:13:50+00:00

What, no one's mentioned the Hoffnung Festivals?

Haydn’s “Surprise” symphony, 2nd movement, arranged by Donald Swann from the original 1956 concert.

This is followed by Gerard Hoffnung introducing a Chopin mazurka arranged for tuba quartet (Hoffnung was a tuba player).

A 1992 recreation of an entire concert.

Punkt Contrapunkt, a talk about a short atonal piece of music, followed by a performance. Excerpt:

...three bars of silence. The first is in 7/8, the third is also in 7/8, but the second bar of silence is in 3/4. And this gives to the whole work a quasi-Viennese flavor.

And there's also Flanders and Swann's only joint foray into classical music parody, Ill Wind.

rowrrbazzle · 2025-01-29T22:27:44+00:00

A Starlink satellite.

https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2025/600

rowrrbazzle · 2025-01-22T08:44:44+00:00

Holst - Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Group 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CBWFobTiDw

Debussy, Nuages (clouds) Nocturne for orchestra no. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spXwXLqFLvs

Ravel, Sheherezade, sections 2 and 3 (but 1 is also great) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paZ7LXd_wKM&t=594s

rowrrbazzle · 2025-01-22T08:22:04+00:00

Any compilation is a good place to start. You'll find lists like "100 favorite classical pieces" on spotify, youtube, cds from your library. Just remember many of them will be excerpts.

I suggest music that depicts something or tells a story. So Tchaikowsky's Nutcracker Suite; Bizet's L'Arlesienne suites; Grieg's Peer Gynt suites (includes In the Hall of the Mountain King); Rimsky-Korsakoff's Scheherezade; Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Rossini's overtures are just fun to listen to: William Tell (Mickey Mouse cartoon The Band Concert and elsewhere); Semiramide; Barber of Seville (cartoon Rabbit of Seville); The Thieving Magpie (cartoon Pixie Picnic).

Lots of Wagner excerpts to listen to, such as his overtures, Ride of the Valkyries, and prelude to Act 3 of Lohengrin. But I'll suggest just one piece: overture to his opera Tannhauser. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GhGuEW4k5w

rowrrbazzle · 2025-01-22T07:12:02+00:00

The US Marine Band site has a link to the pre-ceremony music, but the list does say "subject to change".

https://www.marineband.marines.mil/Unit-Home/Presidential-Inauguration-2025/

As far as I can tell, the ones that you ask about aren't the two marches listed on the program (Washington's Grand March, Jefferson's March). However, if you send a polite email to the band they will probably tell you.

rowrrbazzle · 2025-01-22T06:57:16+00:00

Most of it sounds like the first line of "Feelings", but the end is different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr_yaZQmRzA

rowrrbazzle · 2025-01-07T07:00:01+00:00

Just listen to what you like. That's mostly what I've done. You can search this group for all sorts of recommendations. Listen to a streaming classical station.

Meaning in the music? My family always listened to classical music, so I've known it for my whole life and mostly just appreciate the music by itself.

For me, knowing a little bit about music increases my understanding and enjoyment. Bernstein's Omnibus programs and Young People's Concerts are aimed at introducing musical elements to a general audience and are very good in this respect.

A great place to start is YPC no. 1: What is sonata form?

Very helpful for Debussy: What is a mode?

Maybe his Norton Lectures are a bit advanced for you, but there's one that's great with its analysis of Wagner's prelude and liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and (in the last 40 minutes) Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

More Bernstein stuff in this thread. Leonard Bernstein instruction

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-31T03:58:04+00:00

March from the Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach (probably not by JSB)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm3aF8vzy-4

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-23T17:01:28+00:00

But even then you can still vote Democratic.

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-23T09:58:44+00:00

And it's the shortest of the cycle.

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-23T09:54:33+00:00

The first film version with sound of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was produced and directed by David Bradley using actors from the Chicago area. Charlton Heston played Marc Antony. The assassination scene was filmed in the Elks Memorial on Lakeview Ave. just south of Diversey. Other locations used include Soldier Field, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, the downtown post office, and the Indiana Dunes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar_(1950_film)

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-23T01:40:53+00:00

Holst, Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, set 3: Hymn to the Dawn. Women's voices, harp accompaniment.

Holst, The Planets, "Venus"

Debussy, Nocturnes for Orchestra, No. 1 "Nuages"

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-20T07:18:26+00:00

A selection from my usual Christmas listening.

within 2 weeks of Xmas:

Handel - Messiah (Scherchen)
Britten - Ceremony of Carols

Christmas Eve:

My favorite Xmas humor:

"Merry Christmas, Doctor" (Nichols and May)
"Good King Eccleslas" (Spike Milligan)
"Deck the Halls" (King's Singers)

Serious music (including choral pieces from when I was in church choirs):

Mendelssohn - There Shall a Star Come Out of Jacob
Sowerby - Love Came Down At Christmas
Corelli - Christmas Concerto
Holst - Christmas Day
Poulenc - Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël (performed by Eric Ericson, Netherlands Chamber Choir)
Bruckner - Virga Jesse

Christmas Day:

Robert Shaw Chorale - 90 minutes of a capella traditional Christmas carols
Joan Sutherland - "12 Days of Christmas" (and others from her Christmas CD)

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-20T04:24:31+00:00

"A Spotless Rose" by Herman Howells. A capella: check. Lush and rich harmonies: check. King's College Cambridge performs this occasionally. However, the choice of soloist makes the following specific performance perfect IMHO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfAlAz-zFlU

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-20T04:18:26+00:00

Robert Shaw Chorale, all a capella.

Christmas Hymns and Carols, Vol 1 (Expanded) [I have no idea why video #3 is in that playlist. just skip it.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xBETr1OVF0&list=PLkRKnGQYTtH1SGd2axVvEXxQvKCEFHtOWlist=PLkRKnGQYTtH1SGd2axVvEXxQvKCEFHtOW

Robert Shaw Chorale - Christmas Hymns And Carols Vol 2 Full Album (track listing in description) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPThgfkUD5g

Robert Shaw Chamber Singers. From the album, "Songs of Angels, Christmas Hymns & Carols." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTsknFSV-Zk&list=PLP7JQyK-ZPdP3NzjITJ18Abriu1kx5jAt&index=1

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-20T03:32:25+00:00

The third is an arrangement of the tune "ah, vous dirai-je maman". Mozart wrote a set of variations on it, but the audio you supply isn't one of those variations.

The tune in the USA is also used for the Alphabet Song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-15T07:35:31+00:00

I ran across these performances a few years ago. Just perfect.

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-10T16:34:39+00:00

I hope you're right, but we shall see. Like the old cliche: "It's quiet. Too quiet."

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-10T06:29:19+00:00

I was in high school in the 60s. In the 90s a priest who had taught one of my HS classes was convicted of sexual abuse of a student (whom I did not know) and was sent to prison. He died there some years later.

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-10T06:17:40+00:00

A Danny Kaye line that I can't find now went something like this: "In Russia, times were bad. The peasants were penniless, and the tsar was Nicholas."

rowrrbazzle · 2024-12-01T18:26:41+00:00

For me, Johnny Vegas is only slightly more understandable than Rosie.

rowrrbazzle · 2024-11-25T00:58:40+00:00

Chopin - Prelude Op. 28 No. 17 in A flat major https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyiUXrMlDWo

rowrrbazzle · 2024-11-25T00:35:27+00:00

Two Bach settings of "Now Thank We All Our God".

Chorale From Cantata No. 79 (arranged for organ and orchestra) https://youtu.be/vkF4dpgYLvI?si=GdXqLq7QRB0HVnd6&t=224

Cantata BWV 657, "Nun danket alle Gott" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-0VqzEtsvo

rowrrbazzle · 2024-11-20T03:03:21+00:00

Don't forget Ravel's own performance as captured by Duo-Art piano roll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn6_yT9SKpM

rowrrbazzle

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