Total Tchaikovsky Firetruck Victory Editionhttps://youtu.be/3jRH6iWY2aoThis thread is for the discussion of music in the Western (European) classical tradition, as well as classical instrument-playing.>How do I get into classical?This link has resources including audio courses, textbooks and selections of recordings to help you start to understand and appreciate classical music:https://rentry.org/classicalgenPrevious: >>128827636
OperaAnons, what do you think of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin?
>tell girl I like classical>she starts talking about operaso that's when I got the ick
Liking Romantic composers such as Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, and Berlioz is an indication that you are twice-born and possess an Aryan dharma. Active within you is the natural response of the noble being to the hemmed-in domesticity of the contemporary world, the lofty need to seek out an antinomian emergent instinct, the surging wave in the soul that crashes against the barriers of morality and convention. This is also why you love incest.Liking modernist composers like Boulez, Nono, Stravinsky, and Penderecki indicates that you are Anayran and probably have bad karma. The desire to eat excrement is quite common among those with bad karma. You feel comfortable following the rules and expectations of society and think yourself very wise for keeping up with "the times". You are perilously concerned with being perceived as a "midwit" and believe incest is evil and disgusting.
>>128836353Embarrassing, a random girl has better taste than you.
>>128836308Daniele BoccaccioJohn WellsLouis ThiryRobert Costin>>128836353imagine not liking some of the best music ever made
>>128836381but i like all of those composers
>>128834155Webern is the second best composer after Bach and the most logical endpoint of the Germanic tradition in western art music.
playing instruments is a mechanical skill, you act like a machine, just following the instructions of the sheet mindlessly, that's why there are good pianists like Martha Argerich and Mitsuko Uchida.composing is an intellectual skill, you don't see good female composers in the same way you don't see good female mathematicians or engineers.
>>128836381Nothing
LISTENING CHRONOLOGY OF COMPOSERS:>Level 1:Mozart (early)Bach (early)TchaikovskyDebussyChopinBeethoven (early)>level 2ScarlattiSaint SaensGlassRichterVivaldiPachelbelHaydnSchubertVerdiRavelBrahmsMahlerPartStraussLiszt(Most other romantic composers)(Most other classical period composers)(Most other baroque composers)>level 3MontiverdiCouperinZelenkaPurcellCPE BachJC BachBrittenReich (late)SatieBartókStravinsky (early)Schoenberg (early)ShostakovichScriabinBruckner(Most mininmalists)(Most impressionists)>level 4PalestrinaGesualdoWagner(Most Renaissance composers)(Most medieval music)Reich (early)RileyStravinsky (late)BergBoulezBerioIvesWebern>level 5LigetiPendereckiGoreckiNonoVareseSchnittkePartchCageCrumbFeldman>level 6StockhausenMurailXenakisSorabjiGriseyRadulescuScelsiFinnissyNancarrowFerneyhoughLachenmann>FINAL LEVELBeethoven (late)Bach (late)Mozart (late)Schoenberg (late)
The eternal, uncontested, unequivocal big 4 of /music/. You either "get it" or you don't, but this is where humanity reached its peak intellectually and thus artistically. You may cope all you want, but this is empirically irrefutable.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hvaOvDOhsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbI71_XXbl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEDxZdDgSDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHmQGsbqNds
Scriabin https://youtu.be/T5mJy24aI5w?si=BAVzqrlg58g2w71e
>>128836476>you don't see good female composers in the same way you don't see good female mathematicians or engineers.Sofia Gubaidulina, Anna Clyne, Amy Beach, Florence Price, the list goes on...
>>128836476most non-white races suck at it too. except for Japs and some African Americans.
>>128836497languishing junk
>>128836493Damn, that's fleshed out. What is late Bach and Schoenberg?
>>128836508Amy Beach had a male brain.
>>128836497based
Scriabinhttps://youtu.be/ALOko0VRCqk?si=trwewoo26Bj8qQf5
Scriabin https://youtu.be/1CtmdgxtMHs?si=0LoQ8D_K4uAzqUOq
>>128836535>>128836524>>128836506I find this so extraordinarily vulgar it makes me writhe with embarrassment that it seems to be regarded as "serious music". I can only hear it as empty noise. Give me the second Viennese school any day.
>“I heard [the First Cello Concerto] twice over the years, and I am not saying that it made me physically sick or anything like that, but Tchaikovsky was more radical than Shostakovich. I heard the Fifth Symphony a few years back here in Chicago; it is so conventional. And Symphony Fifteen, this business of long quotes from Rossini, what a poor excuse for some imagination. If we are to play Shostakovich, why not Hindemith?…">"You know, in the history of music, there are composers without whom the face of music would be completely different, and composers whom if they had never existed, it would have made no difference whatsoever."
Something terrible happened to classical music during the 20th century, and especially after 1945. You may be called a reactionary or a nostalgist if you acknowledge this fact aloud, but every concertgoer knows it. Many individual composers continued writing works of enduring value, but the great preponderance of classical music written over the past 75 years is deliberately opaque and aggressively ugly.
>>128836624Rachmaninoff and Medtner were the last great composers. It's all downhill from there. It's worth noting that up until their death music was actually getting better, and thus achieved its peak during the late romantic era (along with Chopin). Takes a bit of musical IQ and logical reasoning skills to come to this conclusion, however it is the objective, universal truth.
Webern is good but his discography is too small>>128836624A lot of contemporary classical is quite listenable
>>128836641Listen to better russians like Mosolov, Roslavets, Mussorgksy, Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky
>>128836515Die Kunst der FugeMoses und Aron
>>128836670>betterNo such thing exists, Russian or otherwise.
I need to discover more modern and contemporary choral music. I can't just keep relistening to Britten's War Requiem whenever I'm in the mood for it.
>>128836687https://youtu.be/S7rBt3gImT8?si=30kBWXizat-_gX8v
>The philosopher’s perfectionism lead to some harsh critical judgments. “Brahms is Mendelssohn without the flaws,” he wrote. He declared Mahler “worthless… quite obviously it took a set of very rare talents to produce this bad music.”
Rate Wittgenstein's musical taste:>loved mozart, haydn, beethoven, schubert, labor, meistersinger (he disliked most else by wagner) and brahms>hated all 20th century music
>>128836687Heinrich Pooshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvRth9KYHY&list=OLAK5uy_n8zkVfWhEJXZob-Dw8JYjY8M21EuB6Xdc&index=2
Brahmshttps://youtu.be/rICaiUlgFCA?si=y3mPJTCkPv99WpWLHe took 14 years to finish it, but managed with its final movement to surpass Beethoven with his first symphony
>>128837002It doesn't even surpass Schumann.
>>128837358Schumann's orchestration is gloomy and unclear.
>>128837358>evenBoth Schumann and Brahms far surpassed Beethoven and almost anyone before them (excepting Schubert and Chopin, as always). Please take your plebbit opinion back to plebbit, this is collective-sheeple-opinion free space, we acknowledge sophistication and complexity as we hear it, not as it's written to us by the critics.
>>128837419Unfortunately, methods in music teaching, instead of making students thoroughly acquainted with the music itself, furnish a conglomerate of more or less true historical facts, sugarcoated with a great number of more or less false anecdotes about the composer, his performers, his audiences, and his critics, plus a strong dose of popularized aesthetics. Thus I once read in an examination paper of a sophomore, who had studied only a little harmony and much music appreciation, but who had certainly not heard much “live” music, that “Schumann’s orchestration is gloomy and unclear.” This wisdom was derived directly and verbally from the textbook used in class. [...]Thus, there is not the same degree of unanimity among experts of orchestration as there is between the sophomore girl and her textbook. But irreparable damage has been done; this girl, and probably all her classmates, will never listen to the orchestra of Schumann naively, sensitively, and open-mindedly. At the end of the term she will have acquired a knowledge of music history, aesthetics, and criticism, plus a number of amusing anecdotes; but unfortunately she may not remember even one of those gloomily orchestrated Schumann themes. In a few years she will take her master’s degree in music, or will have become a teacher, or both, and will disseminate what she has been taught: ready-made judgments, wrong and superficial ideas about music, musicians, and aesthetics.
>>128836497cringe
For me, it's Dukashttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcQIZ7MWwig&list=RDtcQIZ7MWwig
New video about Rachmainoff & Scriabin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsw04_2hSUYAn interesting comment:>I just re-read the relevant passage in Reisemann's book where Rachmaninoff talked about an exam in the harmony course where Arensky "glanced at the first page and frowned discontentedly" of the paper produced by all the other candidates. Rachmaninoff got "entangled in a daring modulation... could not find a solution..." He struggled with it and submitted the paper. Arensky looked but without frowning. Rachmaninoff took the risk to as him and Arensky smiled "you are the only one" he said, "to grasp the sense of the correct harmonic change."
>>128837662languishing junk
>>128837669thank you spiteful popslopper
>>128836826Man do Philosophers have bad taste in music, no Bach, no Debussy, no Platonically moral music, just bourgeois nonsense made by pretentious Germans
Kaikhosru Sorabji - "Cadenza I" from Opus Clavicembalisticum (Ogdon)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OrAewTxBrc
Which Sergei does /classical/ prefer? Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev?
go
>>128837810Any sane man would choose Rachmaninoff, obviously. But Prokofiev is beloved here.
>>128837810Prokofiev and it's not even close.
>>128837902Why?
It has been said that Brahms' social manners were often characterized by a certain dryness. This was not the "Unknown" Brahms. Vienna knew his method of surrounding himself with a protective wall of stiffness as a defense against certain types of people, against the obtrusiveness of oily bombast, moist flattery, or honeyed impertinence. It is not unknown that those annoying bores, those sensationalists who were out for a good anecdote and those tactless intruders into private lives got little better than dryness. When the sluices of their eloquence were open and the flood threatened to engulf him, dryness was no protection. This is why he was often forced to resort to rudeness. Even so, his victims may have tacitly agreed to nickname what had befallen them "Brahmsian dryness"; and it may be assumed that each one rejoiced at the other's misfortune, but thought that he himself had been done wrong.Dryness or rudeness, one thing is certain: Brahms did not want to express high esteem in this manner.Contemporaries found various ways to annoy him. A musician or a music lover might intend to display his own great understanding, good judgment of music, and acquaintance with "some" of Brahms' music. Hence he dared say he had observed that Brahms' First Piano Sonata was very similar to Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata. No wonder that Brahms, in his straightforward manner, spoke out: "Das bemerkt ja schon jeder Esel." ("Every jackass notices that!").A visitor meant to be complimentary when he said: "You are one of the greatest living composers." How Brahms hated this "one of." Who does not see that it means, "There are a few greater than you, and several of equivalent rank?"
>>128837987Rach just bores me.
>>128837995>A visitor meant to be complimentary when he said: "You are one of the greatest living composers." How Brahms hated this "one of." Who does not see that it means, "There are a few greater than you, and several of equivalent rank?"So vain.
Reminder that Haydn and Mozart were Romantics in the true sense of the word, not the philistine illiterate sense which extends Romanticism all the way to the 20th century>Mozart and Haydn, the creators of modern instrumental music, first showed us the art in its full glory; but the one who regarded it with total devotion and penetrated to its innermost nature is Beethoven. The instrumental compositions of all three masters breathe the same romantic spirit for the very reason that they all intimately grasp the essential nature of the art; yet the character of their compositions is markedly different. . . .>Haydn romantically apprehends the humanity in human life; he is more congenial, more comprehensible to the majority.>Mozart takes more as his province the superhuman, magical quality residing in the inner self.>Beethoven’s music sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism. He is therefore a purely romantic composer. Might this not explain why his vocal music is less successful, since it does not permit a mood of vague yearning but can only depict from the realm of the infinite those feelings capable of being described in words?
>>128838065Based post. Hoffmann is one of the best writers on music I've ever read, at least from a purely literary position.
>Feldman was commissioned to compose the score for Jack Garfein's 1961 film Something Wild, but after hearing the music for the opening scene, in which a character (played by Carroll Baker, incidentally also Garfein's wife) is raped, the director promptly withdrew his commission, opting to enlist Aaron Copland instead. The director's reaction was said to be, "My wife is being raped and you write celesta music?"
>>128836794>>128836970cool ty
>>128837987Because he's not sane, he endured brainwashing and cannot enjoy anything good unless it's le quirky or le historical.
now playingstart of Schubert: 6 Moments musicaux, D. 780https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnZtmNqJ8oE&list=OLAK5uy_lMoUveloen24xJjsOSiuctHY69ozcpnc4&index=2start of Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 19 in C Minor, D. 958https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txZVjYGg6gE&list=OLAK5uy_lMoUveloen24xJjsOSiuctHY69ozcpnc4&index=7https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lMoUveloen24xJjsOSiuctHY69ozcpnc4Salubrious music for the soul.
>>128838175hehe would love to hear it
Huh, I always thought Wieniawski was a composer from the early 20th century, not firmly within the middle of the 19th century, wtf
Brahms was a terrorist and tried to blow up a train.Fuck Brahms.
>>128838609Brahmas
>>128838609>For the final year of his studies in 1878, Rott submitted the first movement of his Symphony in E major to a composition contest. The jury, except Bruckner, was very derisive of the work. After completing the Symphony in 1880, Rott showed the work to both Brahms and Hans Richter, in order to get it played. His efforts failed. Brahms did not like the fact that Bruckner exerted great influence on the Conservatory students, and even told Rott that he had no talent whatsoever and that he should give up music. Unfortunately, Rott lacked Mahler's inner resolve, and whereas Mahler was able to overcome many of the obstacles in his life, Rott was brought down by mental illness.>Rott began to evidence persecutory delusions. In October 1880, while on a train journey, he reportedly threatened another passenger with a revolver, claiming that Brahms had filled the train with dynamite. Rott was committed to a mental hospital in 1881, where despite a brief recovery he sank into depression. By the end of 1883 a diagnosis recorded "hallucinatory insanity, persecution mania—recovery no longer to be expected." He died of tuberculosis in 1884, aged 25. Many well-wishers, including Bruckner and Mahler, attended Rott's funeral at the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.Thanks, Brahms!https://youtu.be/bBz4tEIM_C4
I listen to Beethoven's early and middle piano sonatas more than I do his later and late ones because the latter are too powerful
>>128838666>Bruckner felt that Brahms was in part to blame for the tragedy and swore that he would take him to task at Rott’s funeral, which Brahms also attended; but his grief and peace-loving nature finally got the better of him, and in the end he said nothing.Pussy nigga
now playingstart of Prokofiev: Music for Children, Op. 65https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qmaDn9ba5s&list=OLAK5uy_l2TBXyhOLzo9JzdrZidgR8rUfrRUUaAIM&index=2start of Alexey Shor: Piano Sonata No. 2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6CGWP5aU9s&list=OLAK5uy_l2TBXyhOLzo9JzdrZidgR8rUfrRUUaAIM&index=14start of Tchaikovsky: Children's Album, Op. 39https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVCd4RDxdUo&list=OLAK5uy_l2TBXyhOLzo9JzdrZidgR8rUfrRUUaAIM&index=16https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l2TBXyhOLzo9JzdrZidgR8rUfrRUUaAIM>This album, which Denis Kozhukhin dedicates in memory of his parents, is very special and deeply personal to him. It brings together the innocence of Tchaikovsky's Children's Album, the playful yet technically demanding Music for Children by Prokofiev, and Alexey Shor's emotionally rich Piano Sonata No. 2. Tchaikovsky's pieces evoke childhood wonder and the fragility of life, while Prokofiev's "easy" works cleverly disguise technical challenges with mischievous charm. Shor's Sonata, filled with bold contrasts and introspective melodies, takes the listener on a journey of emotional discovery and resilience. Together, these works transcend their individual stories to offer a profound exploration of human experience - from the simplicity of childhood to the complexities of adulthood - all brought to life with Kozhukhin's masterful artistry.Wonderful, charming stuff. One of The Classic Review's recordings of the year. Definitely recommended for all fans of these composers, solo piano music, and romanticism.
>Miklós Rózsa (Hungarian: [ˈmikloːʃ ˈroːʒɒ]; April 18, 1907 – July 27, 1995)[1] was a Hungarian-American composer trained in Germany (1925–1931) and active in France (1931–1935), the United Kingdom (1935–1940), and the United States (1940–1995), with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953 onward.[2] Best known for his nearly one hundred film scores, he nevertheless maintained a steadfast allegiance to absolute concert music throughout what he called his "double life".[3][...]>During his Hollywood career, he received 17 Academy Award nominations including three Oscars for Spellbound (1945), A Double Life (1947), and Ben-Hur (1959), while his concert works were championed by such major artists as Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, and János Starker.I usually look down on those who compose film scores, even though I know I shouldn't, for they were just contributing to a new artistic medium in the way they know how -- better them a real composer than some hack -- plus composers have always needed some kind of commissioned work and payday, but this is kinda based. Is his music good?
literally no matter how hard i try i can not stop coming back to schoenberg
>>128838689Bruckner was too noble.
>>128838889Not noble enough to spare us his music.
>>128838463Radu Lupus
>>128838898>Not noble enough to spare us his music.;o -> >:(
>It was Wagner's music that inspired Dallapiccola to start composing, and it was Debussy's that caused him to stop (for a whole three years, in order to give this important influence time to sink in), but it was the ideas of the Second Viennese School, which Dallapiccola encountered in the 1930s, that would have the biggest influence on his style and with which he is most associated today.huhhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6BZrulzimE&list=OLAK5uy_luKtp71wymFQtY0QdtyeeN8qFmST62MIk&index=1
Chopinhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5RpOvtzIlo&list=OLAK5uy_m_bP_SV6lm8U2FM9j6cVzfFzncZ_4yA9s&index=4>Nikolai Lugansky is the young Russian protégé of the late and greatly missed Tatiana Nikolayeva who‚ confident of his dazzling talent‚ pronounced him ‘the next one’. Huh, didn't know that, that's dope.
>>128838825There must be mountains of his music I'm unaware of because to me he, like the other SVS guys, are solely lacking in quantity, so I don't understand how someone can be that obsessed with Schoenberg. A specific piece, sure, but the entire oeuvre when the oeuvre is small? Surely I'm missing something.
Mozart's K.174 String Quintet: yay/nay?
>>128839240It's more than enough. Chopin's oeuvre is pretty small too, but I've been obsessed with it numerous times and will be obsessed in the future.
We need a new, high-budget Bax symphony cycle. Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Walton get recorded constantly, you are never short of options, classic or modern or new. For Bax, you have two older sets with average production or you have the newer budget option from Naxos. All three of which are fine, it's just time for a larger commitment with a big name conductor, world-class orchestra, and exceptional production. Even Nielsen, Ives, and Scriabin got some recently. When will Bax's turn come!?
>>128839265yay. pretty fun workpeople say Mozart is great from K. 200 onwards but honestly I think K. 100 on is the real cutoff point
Don't Say It.
>>128839455The Lyrita set is incomplete but has excellent sound quality so it's not all bad. The Handley set also has much better sound than the old Thomson Chandos.
>>128838065It's an important observation but not to the extent of saying that later composers were not Romantic. The salient point is not about Brahms or Wagner but Mozart and Haydn, who were considered composers of sentiment in their time, but are sometimes stereotyped, positively or negatively, as being clockwork rationalists in contrast to the composers that followed.
its insane how much french avant-garde composers mog russian and jewish avant-garde composers
stop enjoying what I don't
start enjoying what I do :^)
stop having opinions of your own and start asking me what do think
classical music is inherently soulless, as it was made purely for entertainment and for making money. the same could be applied to all secular baroque, renaissance, etc. music. music only regained it's soul after romanticism and perhaps some of the modern movements like serialism could be considered the most soulful, as the entertainment part is pretty much nonexistent and the music was made purely for expression, regardless of the null monetary gain, thus making it truly soulful and pure art.
>>128840207Unironically true. Pre-romantic music is populist cattlecore, even though there are notable exceptions (such as Grosse Fuge, Art of Fugue and a few more, pieces made with pure artistic intentions and hated by the goycattle), it should not be regarded as anything other than a building block to the true greatness of expressive, personalized music. But where I disagree is serialism, as that ventures too far outside the raw human spirit and delves into the abstract and philosophy, rather than pure musical charm.
Ergo, pre-romantic music is popslop, and will be called out as such (as it's being done already), perhaps on a daily basis, until all the goycattle are filtered from this general. Art music begins here, with Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin and late Beethoven.Anything else is to be posted to >>>/mu/ from henceforth, or brought up with utmost humility towards true art.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0tqdhbnpn8
>>128840207>>128840290>>128840331The soul of music is the glorification of God. What you're referring to is music as a vanity project. Romantic "music" is degenerate garbage.
>>128840354thank you low IQ popslopper
>He may have championed Schoenberg, but the composer notably failed to return the compliment: "I have never been able to bear the fellow [...] It is disgusting, by the way, how he treats Stravinsky."
>>128836346>>128836353For me it's Microsoft Edge
>>128840459Arguably Adorno's worst crime as a critic was turning Schoenberg into the vehicle for his ideas to the extent that his account is popularly accepted as canonical, including by people who hate Schoenberg.
Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern https://youtu.be/J5sVtO3ygXE
>>128840368Good post
Arnold Schoenberghttps://youtu.be/Cv1pMRta5r0
Alban Berghttps://youtu.be/q6U8AqRNyU8
>>128840459A rare moment of basedness from Schoenerg
If Bach lived today he would make deeply contrapuntal electronic music like Aphex Twin and Autechre.
>A young conductor who had attained quick renown and who swore only by the trinity of Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner, had permitted himself to make an unjustifiable observation about Schumann's artistic oeuvre. Tchaikovsky got up agitatedly and told the young hothead: 'As a Russian I am ashamed to see a German musician daring to insult the memory of one of Germany's greatest composers'. Thereupon he left the room.>"But I wouldn't be up to writing a whole article: I mean, it would require me to demonstrate that not only the new Russian school, but also Wagner and Liszt are essentially chasing after what is pretty and savoury, and that the last Mohicans of the Golden Age of music were Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, and Glinka, in whom one can already detect, though, a transition from the sublime and beautiful to the savoury (as for Dargomyzhsky, he's just savoury through and through).">"It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the highest, the culminating point which beauty has reached in the sphere of music. Nobody has made me cry and thrill with joy, sensing my proximity to something that we call the ideal, in the way that he has"Yup, I'm thinkin' he based
Elliott Carterhttps://youtu.be/Apc-Fw0r2tI
okay guystoday w e're dissociating to SCHNITTKEhttps://youtu.be/zQ8AIfxMIe4i think postmodernism is gud for my BPD and schizoaffective disorder because it's like being depersonalized and it's veyr soothing to me. i like this symphonie in how its very long and edgy with lots of references. i liek the later religious Schnittke but early schnittke alawy makes me Schnittker. i think the 20th century was a century of schizophrenisa and i cant really listento this symphony if i've taken my imvega because i don't "get it" anymore. the lewd and sleezy bits with the clearnets and brass make bugs crawl under my skin but i feel God presence when there is the bells and purcussion.
Norma is better than whatever youre listening to unless its Figaro or iunno the Ninth but thats it
Milton Babbitthttps://youtu.be/jk8Z8Wo2tcM
>>128840459but Schoenberg himself insulted Stravinsky harshly
guys>watch video>has kinda classical music, feels familiar>look it up, its apparently thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYu0Hmmz71s>supposedly Cesare Pugni's Esmeralda>alright lets listen to the whole 1+ hour thing>starts good but increasingly feels like its not it>gets hella boring, still struggle through it but no it doesnt contain that part>plenty more videos on youtube of the same 1 and half minute part titled la esmeralda>comment below one says its actually Romualdo Marenco's Sieba>hardly anything on the internet about that>just a reupload of the same thing and another longer video>check out the longer video>it still doesnt contain that parthelp me out whats going on, wheres that music really from, is this just that short partyes its modern popslop, no im not trying >>>/mu/ instead
>>128840687For all those who might criticize this music, try to remember that Milton Babbit was teaching at Princeton during the same time period as Albert Einstein. When you hear music like this, try to remember that this is more like a mathematical proof than a sonata. And that indeed, many of the ideas you see here lay the groundwork for the kind of rhythmic freedom and precision that previals in all kinds of 21st century music from the bad plus, especially to electronic music, to the academic composers who continue working in similar lines today. Whether this appeals to your personal taste or not, this is american music as significant as Ellington's "Take the A Train" or Kendrick Lamar's "Humble," an integral part of our cultural fabric to be treasured and appreciated.
>>128840744Anaryan dharma>>128840591Aryan dharma
>>128840694No, no Stravinsky insulted him a litle bit
>>128840545I had a dream I was making electro mashups of Bachs prelude's in G and C along with Wagnerian choruses and romantic stuff
>>128840705it's from Wagner
>>128840677There's a pasta named after that opera. The funny thing is the original cast contained a woman called Giuditta Pasta. I think it was also the Opera Paul Morphy watched while playing his Opera House Game
Pierre Boulezhttps://youtu.be/IwB6ts45qHQ
Brian John Peter Ferneyhoughhttps://youtu.be/_5isRPTn6GE
Someone's mad at the Total Firetruck Victory.
>As a teacher, Fischer was electrifying by his mere presence. The playing of timid youths and placid girls would suddenly spring to life when he grasped them by the shoulder. A few conducting gestures, an encouraging word, could have the effect of lifting the pupil above himself. When Fischer outlined the structure of a whole movement, the gifted ones among the participants felt they were looking into the heart of music. He sometimes helped us more by an anecdote or a comparison than would have been possible by 'factual' instruction. He preferred demonstration to explanation; again and again he would sit down himself at the piano.https://youtu.be/e4DVrDSHnPg
>>128840645FUCKSchnittke makes the dies irae sound so sleezyi had a dream that my couasin was trying to push a huge slimy worm on me
>>1288408091800s Europe was beautiful man we need to RETVRN fuck
Charles Peter Wuorinenhttps://youtu.be/T9pb3RP12YE
DAS LIED VON DER ERDE BETTER THAN ALL THE NUMBERED SYMPHONIES THE MAHLER CULT DOESNT WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS
>>128841340Feel like this isn't too unusual an opinion from Mahlerians.
>>128841360The cultists love 8...thats how you can tell them from normal Mahler enjoyers...
>>128840331Mendelssohn is a great landscape-painter, and his palette has a richness that is unequalled. No one else transposes the external beauty of things into music as he does. The Cave of Fingal, among others, is an admirable picture. He is able, conscientious, and clever. Yet, in spite of all these gifts, he fails to move us to the depths of the soul: it is as if he painted only the appearance of sentiment and not sentiment itself.
>>128840482hehe it's funny because I, one of the anons not into opera at all, do in fact use Opera>>128841340I think the sisterposter said Das Lied was their favorite. Only the Klemperer recording tho of course~
>>128841495nobody on the planet disagrees that the Klemperer is the best Das Liede
I do not like composers that waste my timeAway with BrucknerAway with WagnerAway with MahlerOnly neets and incels have time to listen to these composers
>>128841509this isn't your blog
>>128841508My disagreement with the sisterposter was they were of the belief most of Mahler's symphonies only have one recording that's listenable whatsoever. Love the Klemperer one, fine, but there's many, many other good, great, even stellar ones out there!Also to be a contrarian, I might like Giulini's or Sanderling's more :)
Who is the worst popular composer?
>>128841427I always felt 8 was more loved by non-Mahlerians. Most of the time Mahlerians seem to love him for his wrenching agonies. Similar to how Meistersinger is a little overlooked by Wagnerites despite being widely regarded as one of his masterpieces.
>>128841576mehler
>>128836326Best recording of Eugène Ysaÿe - Sonata No. 3?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc-j4ftH2X4
>>128841508I do but then again , I live on Mars
Mahler's Eighth is actually really great, it's 3, 5 and especially 7 that are the weak ones.
>>128841528You're right. It's the Wagnerposter's blog
>>128841621The whole of Die Meistersinger— shaping itself before our very ears — is Wagner's answer to his critics, a song offered them to meet their specifications, filled with all the things they demanded and found wanting in his other work: diatonic structures, counterpoint, singable tunes, ensembles, folk dances worthy of Weber and chorales worthy of Bach.
Music owes as much to Wagner as religion to its founder.
It's nearly Lisztmas-not quite but it's close
>>128840760Schoenberg literally wrote a Stravinsky diss trackhttps://youtu.be/R2_bH-cpTVw>But who’s this beating the drum?>Why, it’s little Modernsky!>He’s had his har cut in an old-fashioned queue,>And it looks quite nice!>Like real false hair!>Like a wig!>Just like (or so little Modernsky likes to think)>Just like Papa Bach!
>>128836346Grab Met Opera recording with Netrebko - one of the best available. Overall I prefer Tchaikovsky's purely instrumental works. Second act is better than the first and third act is better than the second. In any case, it's one of the staples of Russian opera. Check out Tsar's Bride, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Ruslan and Lyudmila, Boris Godunov if you're into that.
>>128836624The Romantic, Classical, Renaissance (sacred music) and modern eras are all degenerate as they often attempt incorporating non-musical elements in music. Opera is a degenerate genre which could only be explained by the lack of taste found in Italy. The only relevant music ever composed for its musical value was chamber music without titles, most baroque and classical music without titles.The ultimate musical degeneracy is clearly Mahler's symphonies and Impressionism, they were manifestations of the ineluctable abasement and prostitution of music. Beethoven's fifth could be considered as one of the first examples of this, although against the composer's intention, but rather because of philistines associating extra-musical ideas to said symphony, such as "fate knocking on the door" or similar retarded shit. Attempts at incorporating anything non-musical in music outside of Overtures and Opera is degeneracy. Most of said degeneracy originated in Germany, due to retarded romantic ideals; Wagner and Liszt would thus be the supreme degenerates of classical music.Chopin always looked at composers nicknaming pieces and doing similar things in contempt; he was right: Chopin was the last composer to walk this earth, before German degeneracy wiped music away and replaced it with effeminate, extra-musical ramblings, sold to dumb masses as "Zukunftsmusik", which should have been named "Unschicklichmusik".
it's timeto finally go through theseI'm starting at Op. 20 though, no time for that juvenilia nonsense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNPeeJppQkY&list=OLAK5uy_mwCy-ADVa33qn1V5Z_zz8VJaqYTIByOuQ&index=99
>>128841885>the angeles string quartetyikes
>>128841576pic related
>>128841913Another anon recommended the set a while ago. I know there's probably better individual recordings of each opus but that can come later, I want to go the complete set route first. Do you have a different rec? Kodaly Quartet? Buchberger Quartet? Aeolian String Quartet? Auryn Quartet?or are you just mocking the name and have no clue what I'm talking about
>>128841495You type like a faggot
>>128841947On that post the affected, playful style was intentional. Else it's just meaningless information.
>>128841933he's probably just hating because a certain youtuber recommends that set
>>128841933I just find the Angeles tepid for the most part. For op 20 my top choice is probably Mosaiques, or Daedalus if you favor a non-HIP approach.
>>128841960If you mean Hurwitz, I don't have anything against him and even agree with him a lot of the time. Also pretty sure his favorite recording of those quartets is the Auryn one, which I enjoy as well but not as much as the ones I mentioned here >>128841954
>>128841974>For op 20 my top choice is probably Mosaiques, or Daedalus if you favor a non-HIP approach.ty I'll give them a try
>>128841998Meant to quote >>128841974
jokes on u i like my haydn tepid, lethargic, and lackadaisicalaka chill
>>128842004The Daedalus doesn't observe the repeats btw, in case that's a dealbreaker for you>>128842012Knock yourself out, man. I think exultant and energetic suits Haydn better
anyone else love classical but have zero intuitive sense and understanding of the formal elements? I can't even recognize variations on a theme, references to other parts of the same movement, and recapitulations.
(post)modernist Bernstein :3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ7H1aWKGyk&list=OLAK5uy_lX4bZ4hTSClI-ttA5rtYJl4FX-C8Un4mg&index=1I don't get it>When he was a few years into the conductorship of the NY Phil., Leonard Bernstein decided to educate his audience with a large dose of contemporary music. He had the clout and the charisma to carry it off--almost. Subscriptions faltered; audiences walked out in mid-performance.hehe>Today they wouldn't have, not in an era when tonality rules and the 'advanced' atonality of these old works has become passe. Proof of this lies in the fact that no one has recorded the Feldman, Denisov, and Schuller again. Liget's Atmospheres has survived, focourse, and he went on to join Messiaen in the pantheon of 20th-century masteres.
>>128842188To be fair, who WOULDN'T walk out on a performance of that
Happy birthday, Beethoven.
I wish you nothing but a Merry Christmas /classical/ Baroque and Russian classical for all because tis the season.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJYUDy1Q69g&list=RDdJYUDy1Q69g&start_radio=1 [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMGKtXElgvA&list=RDMMGKtXElgvA&start_radio=1 [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc62GZC5p8s&list=RDjc62GZC5p8s&start_radio=1 [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RydMnTCwJvQ [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1bfAmz05Do&list=RDY1bfAmz05Do&start_radio=1 [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GUzJ7fQBtg [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR0Jn1mpWyg [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0vFOax7ZeU&list=RDk0vFOax7ZeU&start_radio=1 [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhiK7ldzP7s&list=RDvhiK7ldzP7s&start_radio=1 [Embed] [Embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYFBZkN-3ag&list=RDGYFBZkN-3ag&start_radio=1 [Embed] [Embed]
The fact that Brahms is celebrated because of his formalism demonstrates just how mediocre he actually is.
>>128842510You can blame the hype on the Germans, they don't care how something sounds, if its crafted according to their autistic standards they will fawn all over it
>>128842510This is like saying a novelist praised for a perfectionist attitude to structure is mediocre. No one would say this about Flaubert for example. Form is literally the context in which the music is expressed and develops, its internal harmonic and motivic relationships. If you think it's not worth thinking about, you're welcome to listen to idk Granville Bantock or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88hnYWKFLko
>>128842450comfy :)
>>128841427I hate Mahler and his only symphony that I enjoy is the 8th.
>>128843970based choral lover anon
>>128836346'Where, where have you gone...' from Eugene Onegin is one of the most beautiful arias in the repertoire. If you want to engage with opera in a 'historically informed' manner, only listen to the arias. Back when opera was popular the audience would eat and chat amongst themselves until a good song came on. And they cared primarily about beautiful singing.Here is one of the best recordings of said aria:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vps9uPfee7oAnd here is the best aria from Queen of Spades (recorded by Tchaikovsky's friend Nikolay Figner)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI-GSZAeik0
now playingMorton Feldman: For Bunita Marcus (1985)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoEpjip6KjY&list=OLAK5uy_nQxkYI1OLE7XEtUrSXB6CVk5s-gw1LUa4&index=2Morton Feldman: Palais de Mari (1986)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2A16Z4B-N4&list=OLAK5uy_nQxkYI1OLE7XEtUrSXB6CVk5s-gw1LUa4&index=3Morton Feldman: Triadic Memories (1981)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssIun9uhJ2o&list=OLAK5uy_nQxkYI1OLE7XEtUrSXB6CVk5s-gw1LUa4&index=3>Feldman's music is gentle and beautiful. It is music that surrenders itself completely to beauty and preserves the second concept of beauty. With this three-CD set, Alfonso Gómez continues his exploration of contemporary classics of the second half of the 20th century for KAIROS. Feldman's monumental Triadic Memories and For Bunita Marcus frame the popular Palais de Mari, his last work for piano.Any fans of Feldman here? Or is he thoroughly RYMcore?
>>128841340Lmfao, most symphonies are better.>>128841731Nonsense. 5 and 3 are in the top 5 easily.>>128842126I think having basic understanding can help you get into larger works much faster by keeping track of sections. Or maybe that's just me. There are tons of great videos on youtube to get you started if you're curious.>>128842510Music critics have nothing better to do. In reality, their opinions are worthless waste of paper and air. Brahms is great though.
>>128845145>Music critics have nothing better to do. In reality, their opinions are worthless waste of paper and air. Brahms is great though.Those who write about art are quite important, actually.
>>128845169Those who write about art in a meaningful way are interesting, surely. Music critics certainly aren't interesting nor important.
>>128845261Every composer, conductor, and musician you have enjoyed massively benefited from being propped up by critics.
>>128845305Incorrect. Most of their great works were shunned by the "critics", most great composers of the latr 19th and early 20th centuries were shunned in favor of "modernism". Critics have done irreversible damage to the art music culture.
>>128845363Incorrect yourself. You wouldn't even know about these great artists if it weren't for the help of critics.
>>128845392Incorrect. Critics didn't exist in the renaissance, yet we know about those great artists today, don't we?
>>128845392>>128845473I will admit that it started off with good intentions, but it got subverted by degeneracy and by the early 20th century it became utterly irrelevant, harmful tool against art. This is evident to anyone with ears and eyes.
>>128845473In their own time, they needed the help of the court, church, and aristocracy. As for why we know the names we do today, why the popular ones are the popular ones? Yes, a large part of that has to do with critics, musicologists, and academics. And then once you get into Bach, who is the first major modern composer, critics begin to play a larger role in his own time. That's not a coincidence, you understand now?
My ex-gf had a quote of Bach on her Facebook page. She never listened to Bach in her life. No wonder I couldn't get it up with her.
>>128845131>Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was a competitive man. In numerous interviews and essays he mentions three composers whose fame and influence he envied: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, and his close friend, John Cage. “It is a contest,” Feldman said.>There was a real substantive difference between Feldman and the others: Feldman didn’t use systems to write music. He relied on his instincts. “You know the expression ‘playing by ear’? I compose by ear, and there you have it.”>Perhaps because of their inscrutable origins in Feldman’s subconscious, his works elude analysis. Feldman provided little guidance: “You cannot analyze why it works,” he said. Some writers, instead of analyzing the pieces, describe the listening experience via metaphor. Composer Cornelius Cardew hit on something essential when he said:>Almost all Feldman’s music is slow and soft… I see it as a narrow door, to whose dimensions one has to adapt oneself (as in Alice in Wonderland)… Only when one has become accustomed to the dimness of light can one begin to perceive the richness and variety of colour.”nice
>>128845504>yfw you finally realize and admit the 20th century is the greatest century for art in all of history
>>128845529>In their own time, they needed the help of the court, church, and aristocracy.???Most composers needed the help of patrons regardless of era lol>why the popular ones are the popular ones? Yes, a large part of that has to do with critics, musicologists, and academics. Circus clownery. The popular ones of the late romantic were NOT favored by the critics, they were favored by the public. Not that either of that matters, as mucic quality is not determined either by the majority or the perceived authority. >Bach, who is the first major modern composer,LOL. Is this a joke? Please get your terminologies right next time.
>>12884558819th > 20th > 18th > 17th > 21st > 16thObjectively speaking.
>>128845131feldman gud for blissin out i think
>>128845590>Most composers needed the help of patrons regardless of era lolOf course, but in those days it was the entirety of the deal. It'd be like talking about how Tallis and Byrd didn't need marketing. You see my point?>Not that either of that matters, as mucic quality is not determined either by the majority or the perceived authority.I never said critics determine quality. They merely help everyone else realize it.>LOL. Is this a joke? Please get your terminologies right next time.sigh I knew this was gonna happenModern =/= ModernistDescartes and Kant are modern philosophers; they are, obviously, not modernist. Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy are modern novels; they are, obviously, not modernist.
>>128845606damn is that a #rare franz kline?
>>128845608>>128845590Also, with this reply, we've reached the point where we are no longer arguing about anything, so let's call it here. All I'm saying is I wish 4chan would have more respect for critics and others who write about art. It's hard enough getting the non-interest boards to respect artists in the first place. Let's not sink to their level.take it easy
>>128845608>Of course, but in those days it was the entirety of the deal.Meaningless word salad.>They merely help everyone else realize it.If they did, then the public and critics would be in congruence. They weren't. By the 20th century critics were up in their arse, and public was listening to pop music. Both of them largely ignored the good art music. >Modern =/= ModernistSo get them right.
Here's an interesting recording I came across. It appears to be taken from a concert with G. Kurtag and his wife duo playing piano, mixing between some of his own short pieces from his work Jatekok and his own Bach arrangements. Check it out! opens with thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaP9DIWP11U&list=OLAK5uy_kC53MdZQu756Y1QKG3SH-JMC1N8Zb3Aig&index=2with the second piece a Bach arr.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca7xxBVzQAI&list=OLAK5uy_kC53MdZQu756Y1QKG3SH-JMC1N8Zb3Aig&index=2you get the idea>Wonderful two and four handed piano accounts of Kurtág’s Játékok (Games) and Bach Transcriptions by Kurtág himself and his wife Márta. Their concert appearances together have been described – by Britain’s Independent – as "events to be treasured in the musical life of the century…Teasing, caressing and attacking the piano, they literally play games." The thirty fragments from Játékok are brisk splashes of ice-water for the mind, the Bach Transcriptions compellingly beautiful.
>>128845648>So get them right.b-b-but I said modern, not modernist...
>>128845623I respect critics who document historical events and keep their subjective garbage to minimum.
>>128845666>le just be objective!The very act of writing about art requires you to make subjective decisions. Who to write about, which works to include, what to say about those works, how to rate their importance and influence. Which all leads back to the importance of criticism and the critic, c'mon...
>>128845608>They merely help everyone else realize it.They also "help" spread misinformed ideas and hatred. You're going to just cherrypick which ones you like the most?>>128845686It can be done from purely objective perspective, but many critics choose the opposite.
>>128845686critics help to promote artworks. after all, any publicity is good publicity.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVEG0aTyQ_E6oK-0d7-9oeW9jRTN0I0YB
>>128845131>chilling with friends>put morton feldman's second string quartet>confront myself and my self (as an ontological historical entity) with the mirror of atonality (as a mirror is not an empathic but a reflexive entity, alien to the space and time it reflects and only existing by itself in relation to the other) and realize the boundaries of human thought, comprehension and consciousness>reach rational ecstasy>pleb friend gets up and says "what is this silence shit, lmao, put some nirvana">get angry at their rockist subaltern consumption conditioned by the structures of power of the imperialist white economies, but contain it>calm myself down by remembering quotes from finnegans wake, my favorite book since i was a teenager>mfw can't express myself because i'm a spectator in the society of spectacle
>>128841576Franz Schubert, particularly as a song composer. I find much more care and detail in the songs of Schumann, Brahms and Hugo Wolf. By comparison, Schubert's settings are literal and offhand, and his accompaniments redundant to a degree I find difficult to live with.
>Prior to 1850 (when he was 37) there is no record of Wagner expressing any particular anti-Semitic sentiment.[9] However, as he struggled to develop his career he began to resent the success of Jewish composers such as Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer and blamed them for his lack of success, particularly after his stay in Paris in 1840–41 when he was impoverished and reduced to music copy-editing. Ironically, at the same time Wagner did have considerable contact with Meyerbeer, who loaned him money, and used his influence to arrange for the premiere of Rienzi, Wagner's first successful opera, in Dresden in 1842; Meyerbeer later expressed hurt and bewilderment over Wagner's written abuse of him, his works, and his faith.>Wagner had already seduced Bülow's sister, when he got tired decided to try with his wife, who was known to be an easy woman. Then Cosima had two daughters from him which Bülow had to cover up with his surname, to save his image. Bülow kept conducing Wagner's works, until Wagner fired him and run away with his wife. Liszt later called this "a moral homicide".
Random autistic question, but what recordings of mahler's 8th have part 1 and 2 as single tracks? I know Bernstein's LSO recording and Inbal's Frankfurt recording have that, any others?
>>128846251Feldman was the most bullshit artist who ever bullshited.
>>128846301Adam Fischer.
>>128846301Always annoys me that recordings list the tracks in the way they often do. Especially when your player pauses for a moment when switching tracks like mine does
>>128842126I dont want to understand it really. Maybe understanding it would increase enjoyment but honestly I feel im at a 10/10 and can only ruin it. Im like a caveman dropped into times square
How is Mahler's 8th a symphony and not a cantata, motet or song?
Has anyone listened to it?
brahms
me listening to Brahms
>>128846808The form.>Justifiably proud, he reported to Richard Specht in August 1906 “I have never composed anything like this. In content and style it is altogether different from all my other works, and it is surely my greatest accomplishment… Its form is something altogether new. Can you imagine a symphony that is sung throughout, from beginning to end?… The whole first movement is strictly symphonic in form yet is completely sung; it is simplicity itself. It is a ‘True Symphony,’ in which the most beautiful instrument of all is led to its calling.” With his Eighth Symphony, Mahler had created a work that was, and still is, unique within the entire symphonic literature.
Wagner was bi-emotional. That is, he fell in love with both men and women and had, essentially, romantic, though sexless, affairs with both men and, sometimes, women (as I believe was the case with both Judith Gautier and Mathilde Wesondonck).Even when not “in love,” he was a strikingly emotional guy. For instance, his good friend and supporter, Franz Liszt, wrote an account of Wagner's histrionics at their reunion after a 4-year gap in 1854:Wagner was waiting for me at the post-house. We nearly chocked each other in embraces. Sometimes he has a sort of eaglet’s cry in his voice. He wept and laughed and stormed with joy for at least a quarter of hour at seeing me again.Assuming he wasn't in love with Liszt, can you imagine how he acted around a man—or woman—whom he was in love with?? (Truly, Wagner was very much like an puppy, both in good and bad ways.)Regarding homosexuality, Wagner was very liberal-minded for his time, though he felt it was an immature form of sexual attraction, with sexual love between man and woman reigning supreme. That said, he had several gay friends over the years. Towards the end of his life, he was very good friends with the Russian painter, Parsifal stage designer, and aristocrat Paul von Jourkowky and his lover, an Italian of lower-class origins named Pepino, who were frequent visitors to the house. Cosima reports Wagner as saying about their relationship: “It is something for which I have understanding, but no inclination.”
>Originally, Mahler conceived his Eight Symphony in four movements, with the setting of the hymn becoming the extended symphonic first movement. The Faust text, in turn, corresponded to a slow movement, a scherzo and a finale, respectively. Without abandoning this original concept, Mahler eventually synthesized the three Faust sections into a seamless single movement of enormous emotional range. The musical setting of the hymn keeps entirely with the symphonic tradition, and presents primary and secondary thematic materials that undergo transformation and development. A grotesquely distorted version of the opening march stands at the beginning of the development proper, and a greatly condensed recapitulation swiftly progresses towards a jubilant coda. In the literary original, the concluding scene from Faust is set in mountain gorges inhabited by hermits. It is therefore hardly surprising that Mahler opens Part II with a broadly drawn prelude evoking a mysterious and mystical wilderness. Subsequently, a variety of themes and motives brush away the musical memories of mortality. The final chorale, the “Chorus Mysticus” begins in hushed awe and reverence, but ends in a blaze of luminous sound. The entire orchestra restates the “Veni, Creator Spiritus” theme in the coda. Mahler had ingeniously referenced the basic poetic ideas in Faust—eternal love, divine grace, earthly inadequacy and spiritual reincarnation—and by connecting it to the Latin Pentecost hymn “drawn a direct line from earthly existence into the primeval light of divine strength of love.”
>>128847883>>128846808
>>128847878The man who coined the term transvestites—and first addressed fetishism—was the pioneering German sex researcher and very early gay rights activist Magnus Hirschfeld. In his 1910 book Die Transvestiten, he includes a whole chapter on Wagner, entitled “Explanation of Richard Wagner’s Letters to a Milliner.” Unlike most everyone else until modern day, he wasn’t judgmental, but wrote:Wagner’s particular inclination justifies assuming that there is a feminine characteristic in his psyche.... [But this inclination] in no way deserves mockery and scorn...[but instead] gives evidence of the unusually rich and subtle complexity of [Wagner’s] inner life, the continued study of which would be a difficult as well as rewarding task.There is no doubt that his music was extraordinarily sensual. As Thomas Mann wrote, “who couldfail to notice the rustle of satin in Wagner’s work?”7 Barry Millington, in his new book The Sorcerer of Bayreuth, after surveying the evidence of his feminine preoccupation puts it this way:In the final analysis, then, Wagner’s fetish for silks and satins, his obsessive desire to be surrounded by soft material and sweet fragrances, is not an embarrassment to be swept under one of his deep-piled Smynra rugs. On the contrary, these tendencies provide a key to the music, which would not be what it is had the composer been a model of ascetic Calvinist rigor. It is entirely appropriate that such a man would leave this world in a pink satin dressing gown.
Chopin's Etudes really hittin' the spot rnhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIrIKjloVsM&list=OLAK5uy_km8lUhA19_Cu9Ek66bvQjIhhK9fMytvfE&index=27
