jmc's classics
Most Rradio stations turn off the Christmas Music at midnight on December 25. Many start playing it in mid October. A few play it past December 25. The song "The 12 Days of Christmas " is familiar to everybody. Christms season lasts until Jaunary 6th Epiphany Day. It commemorates the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptis. Some traditons commemorate the gifts of the Maji on that date. Aslo some Eatern Orthodox groups Russians, Serbians and Ukraninains and other groups from the former Soviet Union and Yougoslavia - plus the Coptic Christians in Egypt celebrate Christmas on January 7 because thery follow the Julian Calendar which is 13 days late. In England untill the mid 1700's they also used the Julian Calendar.
One of the cable music channels plays Christmas Music until January 5th or 6th. if you can listen to it enjoy it. Some people especially in colder weather will not be able to take down outside decorations untill the weather gets better. As of now I have 2 more presents I have to give out. One of the cable tv music stations taht plays holiday music is still playing Christmas music as of now. It will probably stop soon. Then they will play music for Valentines Day then Mardi Gras then St. Pat's Day. Both new Years Eve and St. Pat's day are just excuses to go drinking. I used to like Halloween as a kid but Halloween has too many occult overtones. Dans macabre by Camille Saint Seans is often played around Halloween. Around November1st You start hearing Christmas music agian and seeing Christmas decorations beingput up again.
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In 1978 a disco version of Beethoven's 5th made the charts. Several versions of Bach's music has shown up on the charts in the 70"s In 1980 Ravel's Bolero became popular because of the movie "10". Strauss's thus spoke Zarathustrea may have been on the charts. Echoes of Rachmaninoff's Symphony number #2 Ops 27 movement 2 adagio appear in the song "Nobody Does it Better" from the movie The Spy who Loved Me in the James Bond franchise. It was sung by Carly Simon. The melody from the adagio is heard throughout the song. My parents had a 78 RPM of Bolero Which I heard for the first time around 5 years earlier.
Who are the living composers or contempories right now? roger Sessions (1896-1985) and Roy Harris (1898-1979) and leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) may come to mind. As well as John Harbison, Richard Wernick, Christopher Rouse, Richard Danielpour and John Corigliano who as of now are still living. Paul McCarthy (yes the fromer Beetle) have all written classical music. Many orchestras and ensembles have played their music. Some stations do play thier music. Some have written film music. Are composers apreciated in their lifetime? Harbison and Wernick have wrote string quartets. Harbison's 2nd quartet adn Wernick's 4th string quartet were on a CD wiht Gunther Schuller's 3rd String Quartet By the Emerson String Quartet on the Deutche Grammophone lable which was released in 1993. It has recently been reissued. Rouse and Danilpour wrote Cello concertos which was on an ablum wiht Yoyo Ma and the Philadelphia Orchestra which was released in 1996. The Emerson Quartet is an American ensemble named for Ralph Waldo Emerson. They play music of Contemoporariy and traditional classical composers. There are many famous composers. However, there are many more lesser known composers whose music is just as great and beautiful as the more famouse ones. I wuould like to talk in future posts about the lesser known ones. Everybody knows of or has heard of: Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Motzarrt, Tchiakovsky, Schopan, Schubert, Schuman, Hydan, Handle, Debusseey, Raven, Wagner, Verdi, Vivaldi, Donizetti, Rossini, Liszt, Mendolssahn, Sibelius, Richard Strauss, Johan Strauss Jr. , Johan Strauss Sr., Grieg, Bizet, Boccerichini, Berlioz, Elgar, Shostokovich, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Bernstein, Offenbach, Brittian and Offenbach. Most people have head their music at one time or another . if they are not aclassical music fans, They have heard it in church, commercioals or movies and of course at Christmas oraat a wedding etc. It should be noted that Richard Strauss is not related to the other Strausses. However His father Franz Strauss (1822-1904) and Mozart's Father Leopold Motzart (1719-1787) were also both important composers.
This past Saturday I went to a Cathedral Concert at The Catholic Cathedral on St.Louis. They sponsor the Cathedral Concerts series. One of their main concerts is the Christmas concert wiht the Archdiocee Choir and Childrens Choir. They sand traditional carols plus selectons from Joh Rutter and Philip Stopford. Both are British. Rutter is mailny a coral composer and has written amny hyms and carols. Stopford is also mainly a coral composer. He now resides in New York and is working at an Episcopal church in the New York area. Many of the large Episcopal Churches in America have been known for their coral music. However in recent years the Episcopal church has been loosing members at a large rate. It would take to long to explain why this denomination has been loosing members and I don't want to discuss religion or politics. I hope that the Episcopalians keep up the traditions of having good coral music.
The Cathedral concerts are held throughout hte year. Sometime feature the Vienna boys choir and Chanticlear as welll as other well known choral groups and orchestras. Edouard lalo, It is difficult for me to recommend a certain CD over another of any work. There are many critics out there. different conductors have theri own interpritations of a specific comosition. I have heard many excellent recordings of Schubert's 5th and 9th Symphonies. the recording that I have of these works is over 60 years old. It is the one of Arturo Toscanini(1867-1957) conducting the now defunct NBC Symphony
Orchestra. I am used to this recording. His interpritations of Schubert's 9th is at a slower speed thatn some other conductors. Toscanin was one of the first conductors that I had heard of. Unfortunately, He lived before strero recordings were made. another Schubert work is that of the Piano Trio #2 which was made in mono. Some people may o not like these primitave sounding recordings. Some of the Best Buy Stores had in hte past a good classicla CD collection. Their classical buyer Bill Parker wrote a good book on classical music and had a lot of good recommendations. It may still be available. It has a lor of good anecdotes about composers. Several important composers that he left out are Edouard Lalo, Alexander Scriabin, Roger Sessons and Johan Svendsen. If you want to find a good recomendation ask a friend or reed the review or check them out on You Tube. this would be a good way to check out a version or conductor, orchestra, coloist is to check them our on Youtube. The Naxos lable published and extensive booklet "The ABC of Classical Music" about 20 years ago. It has a more extensive list of composers and a glossery. It lists the curent composers. Naxos is a budget lable. It uses lesser known orchestras and performers. Their CDs are of good quality. They are alos dealing wiht other related geners such as World Music ( aka different countries folk music). They are also releasing some historical recordings. For historical resordings I would sugest the Nuimbus lable's Primo Voce series which deals with many of the historical operas simgers of the past. There is also the Pearl lable which releases a lot of histroic recordings. Both lables are British based. Many of the leading artists and orchestras recorded wiht the bigger lables RCA, Sony(who purchased the Columbia lable), Deutche Gerammaphone, EMI, etc. Naxos uses lesser known artists and orchestras. Many of which came from the fromer communist sountries which did not have copyright laws. Their recordings are just as good. There are many excellent lables. The lesser known ones do record some of the lesser known coposers. For example Charles Marie Widor Who is mainly known for his organ works wrote a Violin Concerto and a Cello concerto. the only recordings of these works that I could find is on the Dutton labele. Some of Johan Svendsen's works ofr orchestra I could only find on the Virgin Lable. George Onslow (the French Bethoven) wrote 4 symphonies that I could only find on the CPO Lable. CPO, Dutton and Virgin are all excellent lables. T There are several compositions that I think are funny among them Chopin's Funeral March (opus# 35), Brahms Concerto for Violin and Cello "Double Concerto" (opus # 102), and Tchaikovsky's Andante Cantible for Cello and Orchestra (opus # 11).
The funny thing about Chopin's funeral March is that is used in a lot of funny commercials. It was used in a funny you tube video of reporters and celebrities freaking out because of Trump winning the election. Although I don't want to discuss politics, I liked the vice presidential candidates better. Although this piece is supposed to be serious, the fact that it is used in commercials makes it funny. The Brahms Double concerto second movement Andante is very poignant. I don't know why but I think that this is funny I did not used to. It was Brahms last orchestral piece. The Tchaikovsky Andante was originally part of his first string quartet(opus #11)poignant. It is also very beautiful. It was played in the background in an episode of the CBS Radio Mystery theatre "Murder Museum", which originally aired in 1974. cbsrmt.comThe CBS Radio Mystery Theatre was a radio series on CBS from 1974-1982 which was an attempt to revive old time radio. I liked a lot of their episodes. check out it's web page. It was hosted by E. G. Marshall at first then Tammy Grimes. Marshal played on the early 1960's TV series The Defenders. Grimes is married to Christopher Plumber. As is known, Plumber played as Captain Von Trap in The Sound of Music. He also played in the Movie Delores Claiborne which was based on the Stephen King novel. Mystery theater is available on line. Those who are over 46 may remember this series. anybody born before 1950 remembers old time radio shows. Brahms and Tchaikovsky were contemporaries. I will talk more about them later. Chopin was older. Chopin wrote mostly for the piano. I am not as familiar with his works as I am with the last two composers. Chopin wrote mainly for solo piano. I do like his Piano Trio (opus #8) There are a lot of funny rock and roll and popular pieces of music in addition to the novelty songs. There are a lot of novelty songs around Christmas. One song that does crack me up and I don't know why is "Band of Gold" by Freda Payne from 1970. One anecdote about Schubert's 9th Symphony is that when it was first played in Vienna in 1844, 16 years after Schubert's death the musicians considered it was too funny and cracked up about it! This is one of my favorite symphonies also. I don't think that it is funny. C I have only visited the twin cities once. I have seen the web page of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The have a good listening library which is free to lissten to. the quality is good.
thestpco.org. It also has some good commentary on the works they have downloaded. There is another orchestra in the twin cities the Minnesota Orchestra which I am not familiar with this one. I was there once around 4th of July. it got chilly one evening. fortunately, I packed a long sleev shirt with me. I visited the Mall of America. I understand now that the trend is away from shoping malls to more open spaces. I wish that more orchestras would follow in the St. Paul Orchestrea with their web pages and have free listening libraries! |
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