Classical music pieces - recommendations needed please.

[BassTractor]

8 hours ago, Ricky Rioli said:

Opus Clavicembalisticum?

Whoah! This is only the second time someone has mentioned that work on BassChat  (hence why I felt the need to comment).
You know, with Zappa as his reference frame, I'd not even be surprised if @miles'tone could like that, even though normally it's not to be expected  -  my point being: you don't need to understand or analyse in order to enjoy. 

BTW, I must've played that piece hundreds of times by now - only in my own tempo and with the notes in my own order ...  😐

 

 

[itu]

8 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

And more Vivaldi recommendations - I get sick of the usual overplayed 4 Seasons...

Try Richter's new version of it. Can't say it's perfect, but fun for sure.

[Munurmunuh]

1 hour ago, BassTractor said:

Whoah! This is only the second time someone has mentioned that work on BassChat

 

I am one of not very many people on this planet who have sat through an entire performance of this piece — I think at the time it was still only the 19th performance ever. The audience wasn't much bigger than 19 either.

 

After a while the concept of notes slips away, and later even just the waves of notes start to meld into one vast and weirdly calming whole.

 

It was also weirdly addictive - the pianist was doing another performance not very far away a few days later and I was very tempted to go to that too. Only the long journey back home on my own put me off.

 

I guess after a while the music puts you in its own place. I had a similar sense after a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard gig.

[BassTractor]

26 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

 

I am one of not very many people on this planet who have sat through an entire performance of this piece — I think at the time it was still only the 19th performance ever. The audience wasn't much bigger than 19 either.

 

After a while the concept of notes slips away, and later even just the waves of notes start to meld into one vast and weirdly calming whole.

 

It was also weirdly addictive - the pianist was doing another performance not very far away a few days later and I was very tempted to go to that too. Only the long journey back home on my own put me off.

 

I guess after a while the music puts you in its own place. I had a similar sense after a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard gig.

Wow! That sounds like an experience with a big impact. 
I'd love to have been there.

I've not heard the piece live at all, but now feel compelled to tell you about the first time I heard about it - and about Sorabji at all.
Around 1980 I was drinking coffee with the guys at the college of music when Geoffrey Douglas Madge (whom I vaguely knew) entered the room and yelled: "Guys! I just got permission to play OC!"
I guess I was somewhat happy for him, but was mainly stumped. Many hours of explanation, reading and listening later, I started a quest to get hold of as much Sorabji as I could, but it was nearly impossible back then.
 

In the mean time, Madge performed it live in Utrecht and that performance was sent live on the radio and was released on vinyl. That performance, to my mind, was much better than his later recording of it. I've never found the LPs and must just feel lucky I got hold of the Ogdon version after some time.

Wow, I think we're on a roll here, providing @miles'tone with exactly the information he craves  ... 😁
 

Edited January 10, 2023 by BassTractor

[miles'tone]

21 minutes ago, BassTractor said:

Wow! That sounds like an experience with a big impact. 
I'd love to have been there.

I've not heard the piece live at all, but now feel compelled to tell you about the first time I heard about it - and about Sorabji at all.
Around 1980 I was drinking coffee with the guys at the college of music when Geoffrey Douglas Madge (whom I vaguely knew) entered the room and yelled: "Guys! I just got permission to play OC!"
I guess I was somewhat happy for him, but was mainly stumped. Many hours of explanation, reading and listening later, I started a quest to get hold of as much Sorabji as I could, but it was nearly impossible back then.
 

In the mean time, Madge performed it live in Utrecht and that performance was sent live on the radio and was released on vinyl. That performance, to my mind, was much better than his later recording of it. I've never found the LPs and must just feel lucky I got hold of the Ogdon version after some time.

Wow, I think we're on a roll here, providing @miles'tone with exactly the information he craves  ... 😁
 

Yep! I'm loving all this. I feel like I'm discovering secrets to music from another world. Which I am really. 

Keep them coming! 

[Munurmunuh]

48 minutes ago, BassTractor said:

In the mean time, Madge performed it live in Utrecht and that performance was sent live on the radio and was released on vinyl. That performance, to my mind, was much better than his later recording of it. I've never found the LPs and must just feel lucky I got hold of the Ogdon version after some time

 

11/06/1982 Geoffrey Douglas Madge (piano)

Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, Utrecht

 

Sadly no sign of it on YouTube 

[Munurmunuh]

My third (and final!) suggestion is a piece by Josquin Desprez, designed to be sung very early on Christmas morning, with an opening line which means something like "Outside the natural order of things....." iirc. It's a big but controlled texture, and really nails the sense of something extraordinary and wonderous:

 

 

Earlier than Palestrina, but on the same page.

[itu]

Because you are now into old music, you sure need to listen to some of the very special performances recorded. Here's one:

 

[bass_dinger]

7 minutes ago, itu said:

Because you are now into old music, you sure need to listen to some of the very special performances recorded. Here's one:

 

 

This is very special indeed.  It is rare to hear a recording of this quality. 

 

 

[BassTractor]

15 minutes ago, itu said:

Because you are now into old music, you sure need to listen to some of the very special performances recorded. Here's one:

 

I hold life too dearly to click on that link. 

[Dad3353]

Just now, BassTractor said:

I hold life too dearly to click on that link. 

 

And rightly, of course, but it does serve to illustrate just how difficult it is for Common Mortals to work with this stuff. The virtuoses that do this properly are to be all the more appreciated. 

[BassTractor]

@miles'tone, do you happen to know Dalbello's song "Black on Black"?
It starts with a looped phrase from Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere mei, Deus", a wonderfully beautiful late Renaissance / early Baroque piece. (To me this is late Renaissance music, but I'm aware modern scholars have better opinions.)

Here's a hastily found version I haven't compared to other versions, but it sounds alright at first impression:

 

 

[BassTractor]

On 10/01/2023 at 07:55, zbd1960 said:

And less well-known items such as the toccata and fugue in F.

Nice call. That pedal part should also interest bass players.
Me, I stupidly played it with two feet. Very hard work. (This was before I saw the wisdom in opting for a 34'' scale thingie in a bass case rather than carrying around an organ with 32ft. pipes.)

Edited January 11, 2023 by BassTractor

[Leonard Smalls]

It's also important to listen to the best players in order to really appreciate the piece:

 

 

[BigRedX]

46 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

It's also important to listen to the best players in order to really appreciate the piece:

 

 

 

With Brian Eno on clarinet and production.

[Dad3353]

2 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

It's also important to listen to the best players in order to really appreciate the piece:..

 

... and given the circumstances, it's really not that bad at all..! You yourself have played worse (often..!)..! 

(OK, not the tubas..! ...)

[BassTractor]

@miles'tone, how about if you test a few works and report back here?
Seeing the vastness of eight centuries of music, it might be an idea to narrow it down, and I'd guess we could manage to adapt our advice to what you happen to like. 

In the mean time, I'd like to draw your attention to, and possibly to hear your comments on, stuff like:

- Stravinsky: Firebird Suite  and/or The Rite of Spring. Part of the Firebird has been used by Yes as intro music to their gigs, so may be known,

- the Bartok mentioned earlier. Bartok had an immense impact on Keith Emerson,

- Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune,

- Satie: Gymnopédies or similar piano music, as played by Aldo Ciccolini or Reinbert de Leeuw (very, very different).

If you do like Zappa's later work like Civilisation Phase 3 (yes, I've translated it for you ☺️ ), then please tell, and I'll try and find 20th century music that might fit.

Edited January 11, 2023 by BassTractor

[zbd1960]

On 10/01/2023 at 19:15, BassTractor said:

I hold life too dearly to click on that link. 

I know better than to click on that link... 😇

[Woodwind]

as @BassTractorsays, definitely give the rite of Spring a listen.

Ideally a decent recording, ideally on a decent stereo and get the volume up as loud as your household and/or neighbours can tolerate.

 

Zappa was a big fan of the bassoon and as a contrabassoonist myself I can't help but get excited every time I hear the rite (as a whole, as much as the Wonderful opening bassoon solo).

 

John Williams basically ripped thr piece off wholesale for the Starwars soundtrack and I believe Pino Palladino quotes a line from the bassoon part in the Paul Young track wherever I lay my hat.

 

If you find this piece to your taste, it is fantastically well written and it's possible to lift tiny segments as great exercises on any instrument.

 

 

This thread is excellent.

Lots of really great suggestions.

 

[nekomatic]

On 09/01/2023 at 19:26, Ricky Rioli said:

 

Some people with no knowledge of classical music find this stuff from the fringes easier to enjoy than people with a solid knowledge of the repertoire — not being very aware of what's different, they just find it exciting. 

So much this. People are told that the reference point for classical music is Eine kleine Nachtmusik or some other iddly-twiddly Mozart, but in fifty years of exposure to classical music I’ve never got Mozart (with the possible exception of the Requiem). Shostakovich on the other hand…

 

If you want to give your ear for harmony a workout, I’m going to suggest string quartets - the Debussy is gorgeous, Shostakovich no. 8 is heart-rending. The best way to experience any of them is to be in the same room as the string quartet, but I guess the next best way is through good headphones. 

[pfretrock]

On 09/01/2023 at 20:21, Smanth said:

I’m working my way through this one at present.

S’manth x

 

I had a go at this a while back but did not get very far. I love the whole series. If you can, check Glen Gould's piano recording of this, he recorded the 24 in 1963 and again a decade later. Listen to the delicate change in articulation and stacatto in the right hand, you won't listed to anyone else play it after that!

[bass_dinger]

On 09/01/2023 at 22:13, miles'tone said:

Thanks for this! What a great way to make sense of the whole piece. 

I should be able to sightread those 8th notes once I get the rust off. What a great way to try! Brill 🙂

 

Did you manage it?

 

It is surprisingly possible, I have found. 

 

I am also pretty sure that there is a key change or a mode change in there, but I cannot say what is happening in technical terms 

 

At 3'20 it seems to revert to the original key, but I cannot hear when it left it!

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by bass_dinger
Better words

[pfretrock]

On 11/01/2023 at 16:40, BassTractor said:

 

- the Bartok mentioned earlier. Bartok had an immense impact on Keith Emerson,

-

Emerson was well known for using classical pieces and not giving credit (Janáček and Bartok on ELP's first album).  This was later credited on the CD releases. He hot-footed to Argentina to seek approval for the Brain Sald Surgery Toccata based on the (still alive) Ginastera's composition.

Diary of an empty day by The Nice is based on a classical piece by Edouard Lalo, uncredited on the vinyl.

Still.... I miss him.

[Lord Sausage]

On 09/01/2023 at 18:00, dclaassen said:

Bach cello suites….

That's how I started. My first teacher was a classical guitarist. Started me off playing Bach etudes on my Encore P bass.

[Lord Sausage]

On 09/01/2023 at 18:55, Ricky Rioli said:

How do the first 2 minutes and 11 seconds of this make you feel?

 

 

Serious question.

Wonderful, love a bit of Bela. Fantastic stuff