Some Classical Music Fan Here ?

fm0210 wrote: philippe wrote: that's just my personnal opinion...make the comparaison and you will see what I mean Also Dmitri Shostakovich's concerto in A minor figures among the top Have you listened to Shostakovich's string quartets no. 8 & 9? impressive!

Is the 8th that quartet made with several themes from previous DSCH's compositions ?

philippe wrote: I've listened to Khatchaturian's violin Concerto yesterday night...maybe the most beautiful and emotionnal piece I've ever heard...for me it's better than pieces you mentionned about Debussy

Khatchaturian's violin concerto is a very exhilarant piece of music and very difficult to be perfomed (listen to 1965 Oistrach version, is the best... the concert was written just for him !), but IMHO is a virtuoso piece, it remains only on the surface of the musical matter.

However i like it very much !  

nacho wrote: Have you ever listened to Mendelssohn's Eliah Oratorio or some of his organ music? And Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony or 2nd-3rd piano concertos?

YES !  

That's why i don't like them !    

About Skryabin must be said that some piano sonatas are genial and they are worth a visit, but in general he represents all the boasting stupidity of his age (decadentism, M.me Blavatsky, laudanum, Gabriele Dannunzio... ).

... ABOUT ELP AND GENESIS... U  R  RIGHT !!!!!!!

nacho wrote: ita_prog_fan wrote: nacho wrote: Have you ever listened to Mendelssohn's Eliah Oratorio or some of his organ music? And Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony or 2nd-3rd piano concertos? YES !   That's why i don't like them !     OK, you go and clean your ears immediately!!! No, seriously, I had another look at your top ten list at the beginning, and I think it doesn't fit that you put Brahms and Schubert in the 3rd and 4th positions and then completely dislike Mendelssohn. What makes the big difference? I would put them quite close from a musical point of view... Just a curiosity. He hasn't been mentioned before: do you like Alban Berg?

"Der Platz ist verflucht !" Wozzeck says in the first act of the opera... but i'm not referring to this forums

I ADORE Alban Berg for his mixture of atonalism and tonal music, it seems that tonality simply didn't want to abandon his brain and entered through backdoors in his music.

My list of greatest violin concerto: Beethoven's, Brahms', Berg's, Bartok's 2, Prokofiev's 1, Mozart's (all the package ), Stravinsky's, DSCH's.

Between Brahms and Mendelsshon there's an ocean of differences they belong to different world, despite form. Schubert is unique, though he lived in Vienna the same years in which Beethoven ruled, though he venerated Beethoven and also knew him in person, his musc was going towards completely different lands, he was der Wanderer and his music is wandering here and there with no apparent structure except what was coming out of his heart (you know that Lieder - songs - form the greater part of his output and in a simple song there's no place for much structural twistings); for these reasons he may be considered the first romantic, and Mendelsshon really romantic was, but he also was well structured, Schumann (who i like but not love) was more close to Mendelsshon.

Anyway, do you want to know what i love the most ? GENIUS !

Brahms' and Schubert's melodies are unmistakable, their music is full of genius you can recognize it in almost every phrase, every chord, Mendelsshon's simply not.

Between Schubert and Mendelsshon there's the same difference between your english and mine !

OK, it seems as if I'm in charge of poor Mr. Felix Mendelssohn' defence...

I certainly don't agree with both of you on this "inferiority" of Mendelssohn as compared with Brahms and Schubert. On a second thought, if I have to order them it would be 1. Brahms - 2. Schubert - 3. Mendelssohn; so I also prefer the two former ones, but I can't establish such a big difference among them. Of course one always wonder what could Schubert and Mendelssohn have done had they not died as such an early age.

I can't discuss the ideas of ita_prog_fan, since they are based on taste: you don't like Mendelssohn, it's OK. I do find genious in his music.

Now, Haas claims that it's not only his opinion, but most of the classical world thinks like that, and adds that this happened even when Mendelssoh was alive. Let's see: during his short lifetime Mendelssohn was very appreciated by the public, not only as a performer, but also as a composer. He visited Britain 10 times where he was always acclaimed by the public. I quote from my booklet of the Elijah Oratorio: The première on 26 August (Birmingham, 1946) was a triumphant success, the 2000 strong audience lost all sense of decorum and, breaking with the prevailing custom regarding religious works, positively roared their approval. After Mendelssohn's death, this Oratorio was the most popular choral piece in the British repertoir (more that Messiah!) during the second half of the 19th Century. Beethoven himself expressed his admiration for the young composer and mentioned him as one of the great promises for the future of music. Very few composers were as successful as him in their life time... Oh, by the way, apart from a composer and a performer he was also a very good painter, a very good swimmer, a linguist and an expert in Philosophy...

And now I quote from my Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music: ...his genious as a composer led Bülow to describe him as the most complete master of form after Mozart. In him, a classical upbringing was combined with romantic inclination, imparting to his work a poetic elegance which has caused it to be regarded as superficial because of its lack of impassionated features. The popularity of his work in the 19th century was followed by a severe reaction, partly caused by a puritanical feeling that his life had been too comfortably easy, but the pendulum has swung again and the best qualities of his music, its craftmanship, restraint, poetry, inventive orchestration, and melodic freshness are now highly valued. So, where is your pendulum now, Haas?

Anyway, what I am doing? Mendelssohn is not even close to my top-10!!!

haas wrote: ps. I will search for the sources I have to sustain my opinion, but I have to translate them from Dutch.

OK, don't worry too much about it. In fact I think we bassically agree that there is a difference; it's only the size of that difference what divides us.

Now, if you write something like that about Bach or Mahler we will have a lenghty discussion here! 

Favourite classical composers :

Most of them are polish classical music composers : Gorecki, Preisner, Zarebski, Paderewski, Kilar / Enesco/ Vaughan Williams / Britten / Bach / Lekeu / Chausson / Koechlin/ Prokofiev