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sillywilly · Joined: 20 Jan 2003 Location: Canada.

Tomato, Turandot is amazing. Absolutely agree!

Ok i have to confess that I still dont quite know what constitutes classical music.. and I studied music for several years. No supreme grades in theory.

In terms of instrumental stuff Id have to say Im most moved by Beethoven. But I have a real hard on for opera and choral music. Verdi's requiem, especially Dies ire, makes me feel light-headed.

flakfizer · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:10 pm Post subject:

I love Beet's 7th as well. I also enjoy his 5th piano concerto a lot. And, there is a reason why his 9th symphony is synonymous with "masterpiece."
Love Paganini-exspecially his first violin concerto.
One of my favorite works is a relatively unknown one by a guy named "Weiss" (Baroque era) called, "Passacaille." I have a CD on which this piece is performed by the guitarist, Julian Bream. It's amazing.
"Le Cygne" from Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals" is a very simple and beautiful piece as is Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat (opus 9 #2).

tomato · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 2:22 am Post subject:

Quiz time:
What is significant about this license plate number?

Satori · Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Location: Above it all

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto...joyful exploding argeggio's everywhere...

flotsam · Joined: 28 Mar 2006

eamo · Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.

I love this guy...

Claude Debussy. Very romantic and rich in aural colours. 'Pr�lude � l'Apr�s-midi d'un Faune' is my favorite piece. Also 'the girl with the flaxen hair'.

I listen to most of the impressionist/romantic composers. Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Dvorak, Mahler.

But especially Debussy.

A few friends introduced me to Arvo Part a few years ago and he has become a big favorite.

tomato · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 3:36 am Post subject:

Hello, Flotsam!

You got that question real quick.
Sorry I don't have $64,000.

Hello, Eamo!

I've never heard any of Arvo Part's music.
I'm curious, because I have been told that I look like him.
I'm partly bald and I have a beard.

Hello, Silly Willy!

I don't think there is any factor in music theory which distinquishes classical music from any other style.

What I see as its greatest distinction is that it encompasses most absolute music. This term refers to instrumental music which does not represent anything.

Most people may say that they think classical music is boring, but most people do not object to classical music being used as background music for movies--or in TV commercials--or for 휴대폰's.

It's not the music itself which the masses dislike. Rather, it is only when classical music is uninterrupted by dialogue or visual stimuli that it is considered boring.

Popular songs have lyrics which hold people's attention. Popular music usually does not become instrumental music until after a popular song becomes well-known and is made into an instrumental arrangement.

Think of the compositions which are most often used in music appreciation classes. Most of those compositions are examples of program music, or music which represents something. Everyone knows what a caravan looks like, what a king looks like, and what a beautiful princess looks like, hence the popularity of In a Persian Market by Albert Ketelby. The story of Peer Gynt is a nice story, hence the popularity of the Peer Gynt Suite by Edvard Grieg.

Also, an example of absolute music could be a good candidate if it
has a good story behind it. Hence the popularity of Haydn's Surprise Symphony.

On the other hand, the structure of a sonata movement, a rondo movement, or a movement in the ABA form--absolute music, in other words, can hold the attention of a trained musician. That is why many classical music lovers are trained musicians.

tomato · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 6:43 am Post subject:

Here is a music appreciation test which you can't fail:

1. The word "Emperor" is the title of:

a. a waltz by Johann Strauss
b. a piano concerto by Beethoven
c. a string quartet by Haydn

2. Which of the following composers wrote a song entitled Ich liebe dich?

a. Beethoven
b. Grieg
c. Liszt
d. Richard Strauss

3. Au clair de la lune is the title of:

a. a song by Lully
b. a song by Faure
c. a piano piece by Debussy

4. La folia is the title of an old Spanish song which has received a set of variations by which of the following composers?

a. Corelli
b. Geminiani
c. Salieri
d. Rachmaninoff

5. The melody familiar to us as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" has been treated by:

a. Adolphe Adam
b. Mozart
c. Dohnanyi

6. Which of the following composers wrote a composition which was inspired by the Maeterlinck drama Pelleas et Melisande?

a. Debussy
b. Faure
c. Sibelius
d. Shoenberg

7. Which of the following American composers was a student of Nadie Boulanger?

a. Aaron Copland
b. Philip Glass
c. Walter Piston
d. Robert Russell Bennett

8. Which of the following operas takes place in the city of Seville?

a. The Marriage of Figaro
b. Carmen
c. Fidelio
d. La Forza del Destino

9.The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice inspired an opera by which of the following composers?

a. Peri
b. Monteverdi
c. Gluck
d. Offenbach

10. The legend of Faust inspired a work by which of the following composers?

a. Gounod
b. Berlioz
c. Boito
d. Liszt

whitebeagle · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: UK

Faure's requiem is a masterpiece. His last nocturne written for the piano is absolutely sublime.

Chopin's music is wonderful to listen to, especially performances by Nelson Freire, a very underrated performer. (Sorry to veer off to the subject of performers) It's a bitch to play though, I've performed Chopin ballades lots of times but can't seem to make it work as a whole. Anyway, his piano sonata no 3 and the piano concertos are works of true beauty and elegance.

I'm a big fan of Aussie composer Carl vine, his symphonies and piano sonata are accessible even to listeners who can't bear anything 'modern'. I love almost all works written by Prokofiev, and although he was an absolute looney, Scriabin's music is addictive.

I agree with Beethoven's violin concerto, my favourite work of his, also love the Sibelius Violin Concerto.

tomato · Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 2:30 pm Post subject:

I've always been curious about Scriabin's technique.
All I know is that one starts with a chord consisting of C, F#, Bb, E, A, and D.
Then what does one do?
Is that treated as a tone row, or what?

whitebeagle · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: UK

I think, tomato, you're referring to 'poem of ecstasy'? Don't know much about Scriabin's use of tone rows, I suspect though, he was certainly an influence on the 'Viennese' school of composition. If you're interested in Scriabin, check this out,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebJY_y4zrE&search=horowitz

Awesome!

coolsage · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 9:58 am Post subject:

Fine work, Tomato. Clearly you're more than a pretty face. And someone got ahead of me with Debussy. Where do we draw a line as to what is classical'? If Debussy is in (that's been called impressionist), then Ravel is in, with his entwined 'Bolero'. And that means that Gershwin is in,with Rhapsody in Blue'.

tomato · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 9:01 am Post subject:

According to the Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck ([1894] 1922), a brother and sister raised together are immune to sexual attraction to each other not because they are brother and sister, but because they are raised together.

This effect has come to be called "the Westermarck effect."

This effect has been validated by a study of sibling incest in Western society (Weinberg, 1955), observations of Chinese (Wolf, 1966, 1970) and Israeli kibbutz (Shepher, 1971) societies, and by animal experiments (Trotter, 1985):

For the sake of academic honesty, however, one must mention that this theory has been counterindicated in Eskimo culture (Holm, 1914).

An adult who has raised a child from infancy is unlikely to become sexually attracted to that child at any stage of the child's development (Kaufman, Peck & Taguiri, 1954).

This observation has been validated many times (Weiner, 1962; Bell & Vogel, 1960; Gebhard & Gagnon, 1964; Lustig et al., 1966; Trotter, 1985).

Yet in both Puccini's Edgar and Menotti's The Medium, there is a romantic attraction between a guy and a girl who were raised together.

In both The Barber of Seville and Ernani, there is an adoptive father who seeks to marry his adoptive daughter.

Shall we claim a poetic license for the operatic stage?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, N. W. & Vogel, E. F., eds., 1960. A modern introduction to the family. New York: Macmillan. Quoted in Lustig et al., 1966.

Gebhard, P. H. & Gagnon, J. H. 1964. Male sex offenders against very young children. American Journal of Psychiatry 121: 576-579.

Holm, G. 1914. Ethnological sketch of the Angmagsalik Eskimo. Meddelelser om Gronland 39: 65. Quoted in Murdock, G. P. 1949. Social structure. New York: Macmillan: 291.

Kaufman, I.; Peck, A. L.; & Taguiri, C. K. 1954. The family constellation and overt incestuous relations between father and daughter. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 24: 266-277.

Lustig, N.; Dresser, J. W.; Spellman, S. W.; & Murray, T. B. 1966. Incest: A family group survival pattern. Archives of General Psychiatry 14: 31-40.

Shepher, J. 1971. Mate selection among second generation kibbutz adolescents and adults: Incest avoidance and negative imprinting. Archives of Sexual Behavior 1: 293-307.

Trotter, R. J. 1985. Fathers and daughters: The broken bond. Psychology Today 19, 3 (March): 10.

Weinberg, S. K. 1955. Incest behavior. n. c.: Citadel. Quoted in van den Berghe, P. L. 1983. Human inbreeding avoidance: Culture in nature. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6: 91-123.

Weiner, I. B. 1962. Father-daughter incest: A clinical report. Psychological Quarterly 36: 607-632.

Westermarck, E. [1894] 1922. The history of human marriage. New York: Allerton, 2 vol.: vol. 2: 294.

Wolf, A. P. 1966. Childhood association, sexual attraction, and the incest taboo: A Chinese case. American Anthropologist 68: 883-898.

_____. 1970. Childhood association and sexual attraction: A further test of the Westermarck hypothesis. American Anthropologist 72: 503-515.

peemil · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: Koowoompa

At the moment-

Mozart's Symphony no. 25.

VanIslander · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject:

The greatest classical work was composed in Iowa, of all places, by a Bohemian, influenced as he was by black spirituals and native American songs. It even had some syncopation, in 1894!

Especially love the slow second and bombastic fourth movement.

And curse Hollywood for ruining ears: it's hard to hear the symphony nowadays without echoes of themes from Star Wars and other overwrought facsimiles.