HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Subject: Re: Wanted: A crash course in composer's styles
In-reply-to: egras@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu's message of 14 Aug 92 16:35:37 EDT
Organization: pubs
	<1992Aug14.133358.14160@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
	<1992Aug14.183013.17187@midway.uchicago.edu>
	<13346.2a8be0d9@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 18 Aug 92 11:56:18 CDT

Brian Egras (sp?) writes:

   While we're on the subject, can anyone edify me as to what the 
   the technical differences are between the music of different periods?
   It is usually obvious to one's ear as to whether a piece is classical or
   romantic, but what are the technical differences.  I'm not talking about
   forms.  I'm more interested in say listening to a section of a piece and
   saying "That is definitely romantic."

An interesting generalization I saw, which hadn't occurred to me (sorry
if it's too obvious), is that bass lines in the classical period
emphasize fourths and fifths, and in the romantic period they emphasize
thirds and sixths.

Chris Brewster
From: asbed@sol.usc.edu (Asbed Bedrossian)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Orff: a few facts
Date: 13 Aug 1992 00:42:25 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.usc.edu


I've read somewhere that a lot of the controversy about Orff comes
from the fact that he did not disavow the politics of his time in
his country like many other contemporary artists and scientists did.
He did not leave Germany for the US, or go into self-imposed exile;
Therefore, for propaganda purposes, he was often accused of being a
Nazi, or at least a Nazi-sympathizer. Orff was never a party member.

:ll
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: mikulska@astro.Princeton.EDU (Margaret Mikulska)
Subject: Re: Dukas' La Peri
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 02:50:48 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.143758.9601@timessqr.gc.cuny.edu> kos@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu writes:
>
>I've been enjoying a recording of Dukas's La Peri (conducted by Jordan - Ok
>performance, but could be a bit more taught and more brilliant sounding).
>Anyway, this ballet is preceeded by a fanfare.  The notes for the recording
>imply that the fanfare is part of the ballet.  But when I went to check
>the scores (both the full orchestral score and a piano reduction) there
>was no fanfare to be found (neither was there an explanation).

The fanfare was written after the ballet was finished, "as an 
afterthought", which would explain why the score doesn't contain it.

-Margaret

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025))
Subject: Re: Transcendental Etudes of Liszt
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: Franz Liszt
Organization: Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. - Rye Canyon
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 17:53:37 GMT

In article <16icq8INNsru@agate.berkeley.edu>, leon@garnet.berkeley.edu (Leon C. Salcedo) writes...
> 
>Hi. I would like to know if there exist a recording of Liszt's 12 Grandes Etudes
>(1837 version of Transcendental Etudes). 

For two completely different approaches try Claudio Arrau and Lazar Berman.

RN
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: diarmuid@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Diarmuid Pigott)
Subject: John Cage, still dead
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 03:13:48 GMT

I'm sorry if I offended anyone by referring to 4'33" as 3-33, but it is
an __OLD__ joke. (ie how do you know if it doesn't go on long enough).

Calling it 3-33 is in some ways an appropriate response to what after
all is the closest musical thing to a "thought experiment" in music
(though I must confess I prefer those of Brian and Scriaban).

So to all of you mourning pedants who wrote to me: "I'm sorry"

And to the few who were abusive: 
"yes, I did understand what 3-33 was about (backspace backspace...) 
	4'33" was about"
"Yes I do like some of his music: some of his songs fit Robert Wyatt and
	Carla Bley's singing range beautifully"
"Yes I am aware he did wonderful things with seashells full of water"
"Yes it is the end of an era"

    BUT

I still do not agree that he is "the most important musical innovator since
	Bach" 
    AND

quality is not the same as quantity

   AND

I would be happier to compare him to Picasso if he could turn out the
musical equivalents of the Blue Period and the illustrations for the
encyclopedia of nature.

more latin - "de gustibus no disputandam"

or as Sterne says (Tristram Shandy vol 1) "de gustibus non fartandum"
From: david@xlnt.com (David Johnson)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Top composers (was Re: Mozart REQUIEM)
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:43:18 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: XLNT Designs, Inc (XDI)

asbed@sol.usc.edu (Asbed Bedrossian) writes:
>But since we're back on the subject top composers lists, let me add
>mine here, since all the previous ones were so horribly off...

>1) Beethoven
>2) Tchaikovsky / Mozart
>3) ?
>.
>.
>.
>last - 2) ?
>last - 1) Bernstein
>deadlast) Mahler       (or as they say in France: "Malheureusement Mahler")

You must be joking.  Tchaikovsky equal to Mozart?  Mahler dead last?
Mahler wrote some of the greatest symphonies known.
-- 
David Johnson
XLNT Designs, Inc. (XDI)
david@xlnt.com
From: ajw@Think.COM (Andy Wilson)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: WEBERN
Date: 21 Aug 92 22:45:34 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: custard.think.com

In article <1992Aug13.212031.17505@Princeton.EDU>, schissel@mace.Princeton.EDU (Eric Schissel) writes:
|> Places to find recordings of his works without opus numbers include:
|> 
|> for a middle-period piano piece, a 2-cd set on Denon with Takahashi (sp?)
|> and one other pianist playing lots of Second Vienna School piano 
|> music quite well.
|> 
|> for the single movement for string trio, the piano quintet, and the quartet
|> rondo in d minor (the latter two from about 1905), a DG disk with
|> 
|> Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon (with the LaSalle quartet and others)
|> is now, i think, available again in the U.S., and it has probably
|> been available for some years in other places.
|> 
|> For the single-movement string quartet from 1905 there are now at least
|> two CD choices (Quartetto Italiano on Philips, Artis Quartet on Sony).
|> As for the Langsamer Satz in E-flat (i think), there's getting to be
|> a right profusion of recordings, since it's available on the Philips
|> disk just mentioned, it and the rondo are available on the Artis/Sony
|> recording, a new recording of Szymanowski's quartets includes it and
|> a string-orchestra version of it is available on some disk or other
|> (i don't recall where).

The Arditti Quartet has recorded the complete music for quartet and trio,
released on Disques du Montaigne.  I have not heard it,  but I have not
heard anything by them that I didn't like.  Their recordings of the Carter
and Scelsi quartets are especially good.

|> 
|> I have both the Juilliard (on Sony, in the 3 CD set everyone seems
|> to be mentioning) and the Quartetto Italiano versions of opera 5,9
|> and 28.  It's very interesting comparing their versions of opus 28-
|> which for the Webern-unconverted who've gotten this far is a fine,
|> dramatic, .memorable. piece (it's a 3-movement, 8-minute-or-so
|> string quartet of contrapuntal and emotional interest).
|> Thanks for your time.
|> 
|> schissel@math.cornell.edu
|> schissel@mace.princeton.edu (machine used to post this)
|> 
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: rwh@visual.com (Rob Holzel)
Subject: Cheryl Studer in the Sinopoli "Tannhauser"
Organization: Visual
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 12:09:32 GMT


Hello, operaphiles.

I come late to this discussion.  I totally missed the boat.  I mean
this in two ways -- in regard to the lively discussion here about
the various sopranos recording today, and in regard to Cheryl Studer
in particular.  Where the latter is concerned, boy, did I miss out.
I'm taking this opportunity to send off this belated valentine.

I just got ahold of the Sinopoli recording of Tannhauser.  I don't
know why this set had escaped my attention for so long.  A while back I
posted here asking about it, thinking it was brand new, only to discover
it had been out for about three years now.  Oh, well.  

Anyway, I found it at my favorite used-CD store last weekend.
I snapped it up immediately.  I'm not a regular opera fan -- I mean,
what can you say when somebody's taste walks the peculiar line between
Wagner, Strauss, Mozart, and Puccini, but diverts totally from Verdi?
I'm probably quite "musically incorrect" when it comes to opera.  That's
why I rarely comment on it.

But, wow, I can't describe how much I marveled at Cheryl Studer when I 
finally got to Act II of Tannhauser.  This woman has pipes!  The whole
set is glamorously cast, of course, as you'd expect from this conductor,
but to me Studer was the revelation.  I had never heard her before.
(Like I said, I'm on the periphery when it comes to the whole opera game.)

Her sound seems wonderful down below and up top, nicely covered, with
fine control throughout.  I'm not as fussy about diction -- heck, I'm
a diehard *Anna Moffo* fan -- so I can't comment about Studer in that
way.  What I respond to is just the visceral THRILL of hearing a wonderful
voice.  For some reason, hers is extremely appealing.  She makes me
smile, then makes my mouth drop open in awe.  I'm just wild about her!

I guess I now have some catching up to do.  Is her work in the Sinopoli
Tannhauser representative of her other roles?  

Has she done The Ring?  Der Rosenkavalier?  Or *will* she?  I just
saw Jon Conrad say that she's set to do Meistersinger.  Fantastic!  

 Rob
From: vinay@cs.toronto.edu ("Vinay K. Chaudhri")
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Development of musical understanding
Date: 20 Aug 92 14:34:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: neat.92Aug20.103446edt.47521
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

In article <CB.92Aug19152119@tamarack13.timbuk> cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes:
> If my analogy is valid, the real content of, say,
>Indian classical music might be almost as inaccessible to me as that of
>Urdu speech, since I haven't developed through the stages of Indian
>music (and in fact, Indian classical music goes over my head).  I'd like
>to know what kind of music appeals to kids in cultures with musical
>structures very different from ours.
>

It is an interesting analogy but it is not difficult to find 
counter examples.  Therefore, I think that reasons for our not 
being able to appreciate certain kinds of music may be deeper than 
that.

I am sure you will have several 
friends who grow up in European Culture and still do not like 
Classical (or say, jazz) music.  The interests of such people are
difficult to explain using the above analogy.

I grew up in India and during my formative years, only kind of music
I was exposed to was the pop (junk) music.  When I came to North
America, I ended up going to some orchestra performances, and I 
said, "Jee, this is great music". But no one ever sang gingle bells
for me!  So how come I could acquire the structures necessary to 
appreciate symphonic music.
 
Your not being able to appreciate indian classical music could 
be because of two reasons.  One, you will never end up 
liking that kind of music (the same way some people do not like
say, jass).  Two, you did not spend time and effort to acquire
the taste and appreciation for it (not all things come natural 
to us).  But I do not think that it is because who did not grow
up learning necessary music basics.

There are certain aspects of indian classical music that have
close connection with our culture and mythology.  It might
help to know those things if one is an advanced listener of that
music.  However, a beginner, or a person with superficial 
interest could still enjoy several abstract qualities of indian 
music without knowing much background.
(it is like saying that you do not have to know french
history to enjoy the 1812 overture).
 
 
vinay.
 

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vinay K Chaudhri

Email:                                  Mail:
From: schissel@mace.Princeton.EDU (Eric Schissel)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: WEBERN
Date: 13 Aug 92 21:20:31 GMT
Organization: Cornell University Mathematics Department

Places to find recordings of his works without opus numbers include:

for a middle-period piano piece, a 2-cd set on Denon with Takahashi (sp?)
and one other pianist playing lots of Second Vienna School piano 
music quite well.

for the single movement for string trio, the piano quintet, and the quartet
rondo in d minor (the latter two from about 1905), a DG disk with

Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon (with the LaSalle quartet and others)
is now, i think, available again in the U.S., and it has probably
been available for some years in other places.

For the single-movement string quartet from 1905 there are now at least
two CD choices (Quartetto Italiano on Philips, Artis Quartet on Sony).
As for the Langsamer Satz in E-flat (i think), there's getting to be
a right profusion of recordings, since it's available on the Philips
disk just mentioned, it and the rondo are available on the Artis/Sony
recording, a new recording of Szymanowski's quartets includes it and
a string-orchestra version of it is available on some disk or other
(i don't recall where).

I have both the Juilliard (on Sony, in the 3 CD set everyone seems
to be mentioning) and the Quartetto Italiano versions of opera 5,9
and 28.  It's very interesting comparing their versions of opus 28-
which for the Webern-unconverted who've gotten this far is a fine,
dramatic, .memorable. piece (it's a 3-movement, 8-minute-or-so
string quartet of contrapuntal and emotional interest).
Thanks for your time.

schissel@math.cornell.edu
schissel@mace.princeton.edu (machine used to post this)
Xref: sparky rec.music.classical:11449 rec.music.bluenote:6401 rec.music.makers:9080 alt.exotic-music:469
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical,rec.music.bluenote,rec.music.makers,alt.exotic-music
Subject: clarinet arcana
Date: 19 Aug 92 19:45:44 GMT
Organization: Glasgow University Computing Science Dept.

I came back from my holiday with two instruments:

- a Turkish G folk clarinet bought in Istanbul (buying this was premeditated)

- a Czech C clarinet bought in Prague (an impulse buy, not yet in playable
  order; it looked basically good and the price was right)

My main idea was to play folk music on these things, for which those
pitches are more appropriate than the usual B flat or A.  I might get
interested in trying jazz and blues as well.  I've never played the
clarinet before but am fairly happy with the speed of results I'm getting
with the Turkish instrument.  I'm learning to read at pitch, since
transposing makes no sense for folk music of either the Celtic or Turkish
variety.  (And no, I've never heard of anyone playing Scottish traditional
music on the clarinet, either, but if we can incorporate the bouzouki and
the didgeridoo, what's one more?...)

Some assorted questions, which don't all belong in all these newsgroups:

- What music was written for the C clarinet?  Thurston's "Clarinet Technique"
  alludes to it being used in Verdi's orchestra (which doesn't sound like a
  very rewarding repertoire) - is there any chamber music using it?  Do any
  jazz players use them?

- Why did the C clarinet become extinct?

- Neither instrument has the full set of keys a modern Boehm instrument does,
  and the Turkish one has some minor incompatibilities.  I have figured out
  the first three octaves but have no idea what to try for the extreme high
  register; it feels like it ought to be there if I knew the appropriate
  fingerings.  Is there a book about mutant clarinet designs that might help?
  (Since books on the Boehm system *almost* describe both instruments, I
  assume that neither is an Albert model, but I've never seen a description
  of the Albert system).

- What's a good introduction to jazz clarinet playing?  Or maybe a generic
  introduction to jazz on melody instruments?  I've seen a few but don't
  know enough to decide on one.

- I've seen a standard B flat clarinet for sale second-hand: a Boosey and
  Hawkes 400, for 250 pounds (= about 400 US dollars).  It looks worth it;
  certainly far better made than any student model (wood, with nickel-
  silver keys and ferrules, and a very nice action).  It's tempting to have
  something normal as well as the mutants.  What does this model go for new,
  and how good is it?

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Brad Pierce)
Subject: Re: Wanted: A crash course in composer's styles
Originator: pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 16:33:37 GMT

I ran across a footnote to a German-language report about
distinguishing period and composer via statistical analysis of
intervals between successive notes. Sorry, I haven't read
the report, but here's the citation:

  W. Fucks and J. Lauter, _Exaktwissenschaftliche Musikanalyse_,
  Forschungsberichte des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen no. 1519
  (Ko:ln-Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1965).

-- Brad Pierce --

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Reger's Song of the Hermit
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 23:33:51 GMT

In article <1992Aug22.151222.18230@cs.ucla.edu> pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Brad Pierce) writes:
>In article <CB.92Aug21175058@tamarack13.timbuk> cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes:

>>In one of those situations of hearing to music without knowing its title
>>or composer, I heard Reger's Song of the Hermit (I was almost asleep so
>>I hope I have the info right).  I was interested to hear a full-blown
>>late-romantic orchestral song that I didn't already know (since there
>>aren't many such works), and was totally stumped as to its identity.  It
>>was good stuff!  The recording was Fischer-Dieskau sounding a bit old,
>>but good.  Anyone know this work?  Other recordings?

>I don't know the work, but you probably heard "Der geigende Eremit"
>(the fiddling hermit), the first of four tone poems in Reger's Op. 128,
>"Tondichtungen nach Arnold Bocklin". This is the same Bocklin
>(1827-1901) whose painting inspired Rachmaninoff's tone poem, "The Isle
>of the Dead". The third tone poem in Reger's suite is also inspired by
>"Die Toteninsel" (the isle of the dead). Comparing two musical works
>inspired by the same painting might be an interesting exercise.

Actually, I bet it was the cantata "Der Einsiedler," a fairly late work
of Reger, which, unlike the Boecklin-Suite, calls for a singer.  There's
a Requiem from around the same time.  Tis is from Reger's heaviest
phase, with, among other things, strings divided into muted and unmuted
choirs, but sitting together, and all that polyphony.

>According to "melvyl.ucop.edu" there is a 1989 Chandos CD (CHAN 8794)
>of Reger's suite. It is performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
>of Amsterdam and is conducted by Neeme Jarvi.

Penguin also lists a Boecklin Suite w/Berlin RSO on Schwann.  No
Einsiedlers, though.  

Roger
From: diarmuid@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Diarmuid Pigott)
Subject: Re: JOHN CAGE
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 03:17:24 GMT

smoliar@argon.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
[...]
well... actually he writes everything I would have said, but far more
elegantly. 

I would have said it is impossible to divorce the process of creating
from the composition itself. But that could be my philosophical hangover
from considering the difference between being and becoming, as
investigated by the sophists. I would have thought that the thing with
the conches filled with water (which I love, BTW), with all the delights
of climax and development in an indeterminate system, would surely be
delaying a portion of that becoming for the performer...

And I am certain someone with the perception of Cage would have known
how irritating 6'9" would have been for people like Brian Yoder. And I
am certain it would have tickled his fancy. I remember a passage in (I
think "Silence", but someone can correct me) where Cage and his wife are
lying down communing with nature, when some rubbernecks come and spoil
it, saying "there's nothing here to look at." I think 6'9" must include
a subtle rejoinder to their rejection of nature.

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: Bach and religious feelings
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 16:53:41 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.102459.14378@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> tomanix@sintra.xip.dec.com (Antonio Rodrigues) writes:

> It's funny I had commented your reply with a friend and he told me, and I 
>agreed, that you seem to be one of 'those academics'.

I thought you thought he was the kind of person who listens only in his
car????

Anyway, Roger can speak for himself superbly well.  But as another of
"those academics" (horrors!), I have to reply to the intent of your
sentence.  What you seem to be saying is that "someone devoted to the
study of music cannot *LOVE* it like *I* do."

Well, there's no point in comparing individual levels of appreciation;
like the souls in Dante's conception of Paradise, we are each filled
with as much bliss as we can hold, I suppose.  :-)

But it just won't do to say that "those academics" (musicologists and
theorists -- I'm some of both) don't care about music and don't
understand it.  On the contrary, they love it *so* much that they have
devoted their lives to listening to it, performing it, trying to
understand it better, and trying to help others understand it better.
All this effort, of course, is nothing compared to the importance of the
music itself.  But there are times when enjoyment of the music would be
impossible had one of "those academics" not found the score, or
transcribed it, or advised about its performance, or exposed someone to
it.

It's curious: in most fields, the more you know about the subject, the
more expertly informed your opinions are considered to be.  But in
music, there's this attitude that expert knowledge makes one a soulless
music-hater or some such thing.  How about a little common sense on this
subject, please?  I recall the old Hollywood composer's complaint:
"Everybody on the production knows his own job -- plus music."

I'm certainly not trying to stifle exchange of opinions here (even if I
wanted to, how could I?).  We all have ideas about different aspects of
music, and we gain a lot from sharing them.  But this idea that the more
a person actually KNOWS about it, the less musically senstive that
person must be...that idea should be consigned to a hasty burial.  Even
in the arts, there are sometimes such things as provable facts that can
invalidate certain statements, however *deeply* felt such statements
must be. (I recall someone posting indignantly a couple months back, 
"Let's have fewer *facts* in these discussions!")

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Stephen P. Guthrie)
Subject: Schreker
Originator: spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 22:04:22 GMT

I'd like some information about this composer (Schreker). Particularly whether
it's worth shelling out for any of his operas. I've seen two at mid-price:
Die Ferne Klang, and Der Schatzgraber (probably incorrect spelling). What
is this stuff like? Perhaps Straussian? What about the chamber symphony?