The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:37 am

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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Hermit » Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:38 am

trdsf wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:21 am
A collection of Bach fugues with their associated toccatas, passacaglias, preludes and fantasias.
You bastard! You utter, fucking bastard! Look at what you made me open up!



Fucking Youtube! Not even patching it through to a decent sound system can give it the air needed to rattle the bones and melt the heart until it pours out of the tear ducts.

Oh, how I miss the times I froze on my way out of church when the organist belted this shit out on the modest organ of our church after mass, or when I happened to be present while some other anonymous organists rehearsed such stuff on the much more capable organs of the cathedrals in Cologne, Mainz and Strasbourg. Every now and then it slowed down or even stopped time, an experience I had very rarely on other occasions.
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Jason » Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:56 pm


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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by trdsf » Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:29 am

Hermit wrote:
Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:38 am
trdsf wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:21 am
A collection of Bach fugues with their associated toccatas, passacaglias, preludes and fantasias.
You bastard! You utter, fucking bastard! Look at what you made me open up!



Fucking Youtube! Not even patching it through to a decent sound system can give it the air needed to rattle the bones and melt the heart until it pours out of the tear ducts.

Oh, how I miss the times I froze on my way out of church when the organist belted this shit out on the modest organ of our church after mass, or when I happened to be present while some other anonymous organists rehearsed such stuff on the much more capable organs of the cathedrals in Cologne, Mainz and Strasbourg. Every now and then it slowed down or even stopped time, an experience I had very rarely on other occasions.
Glad to be of service! :biggrin:

I've been watching for organ recitals around here... alas, bupkus so far.
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Brian Peacock » Tue Feb 26, 2019 5:25 am

Rationalia relies on voluntary donations. There is no obligation of course, but if you value this place and want to see it continue please consider making a small donation towards the forum's running costs.
Details on how to do that can be found here.

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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."

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"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Jason » Tue Feb 26, 2019 10:51 pm


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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Jason » Tue Feb 26, 2019 11:11 pm


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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Animavore » Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:18 am




Metallica Unplugged. Not too shabby.
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Seabass » Wed Feb 27, 2019 10:20 am





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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by DRSB » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:40 am


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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Sean Hayden » Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:30 pm


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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Hermit » Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:01 am

trdsf wrote:
Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:29 am
Hermit wrote:
Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:38 am
trdsf wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:21 am
A collection of Bach fugues with their associated toccatas, passacaglias, preludes and fantasias.
You bastard! You utter, fucking bastard! Look at what you made me open up!



Fucking Youtube! Not even patching it through to a decent sound system can give it the air needed to rattle the bones and melt the heart until it pours out of the tear ducts.

Oh, how I miss the times I froze on my way out of church when the organist belted this shit out on the modest organ of our church after mass, or when I happened to be present while some other anonymous organists rehearsed such stuff on the much more capable organs of the cathedrals in Cologne, Mainz and Strasbourg. Every now and then it slowed down or even stopped time, an experience I had very rarely on other occasions.
Glad to be of service! :biggrin:

I've been watching for organ recitals around here... alas, bupkus so far.
Yeah, interest in classical music generally and organ music in particular is not particularly strong here, and to be honest, I am not especially interested in the latter either. I just picked BWV 565 because organs are what you normally hear in churches and cathedrals and that piece is one of my favourites. Gabrieli's cansons for brass, any of Tallis's masses, or any choir whatsoever for that matter benefit from a cathedral's acoustics just as much.

I stumbled across a recording done in the Berliner Dom the other day. Same piece as the above. Check out the reverberations.



How on earth does the organist manage to keep such an impassive face? Is he just zoning in on controlling a monstrous combination of musical invention and mechanical beast, or has he hyped himself into showing nothing lest he show too much?

Once again, Youtube is not in the least up to doing it justice, what with its miserly 125 kbps compressing the sound to a muddy consistency. I don't even think patching an LP of this event into my stereo would be up to the task, though it would be some improvement. My sound system is not even near top tier, but consisting of an Onkyo TX-8050 tuner/amp feeding a pair of Richter speakers I paid twice as much for as for the amp, it's not shabby either. Still, a good reproduction probably requires an octophonic setup that goes through a kW/h and a hall to match, and even then it's just a fair approximation of the real thing. May as well make a pilgrimage if and when the opportunity arises. I'd certainly spring 80 Euros a ticket or whatever the asking price is for listening to Varnas, the Tallis Scholars or whoever if I lived reasonably near that Dom or any other cathedral. If some piece I don't like is on the program, like say, anything at all by Arvo Pärt or Henryk Górecki, I could always duck out for a cigarette for the duration.
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by trdsf » Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:34 pm

Hermit wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:01 am
Yeah, interest in classical music generally and organ music in particular is not particularly strong here, and to be honest, I am not especially interested in the latter either. I just picked BWV 565 because organs are what you normally hear in churches and cathedrals and that piece is one of my favourites. Gabrieli's cansons for brass, any of Tallis's masses, or any choir whatsoever for that matter benefit from a cathedral's acoustics just as much.

I stumbled across a recording done in the Berliner Dom the other day. Same piece as the above. Check out the reverberations.

Oh almighty Bob, that place just rings like a bell!
Hermit wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:01 am
How on earth does the organist manage to keep such an impassive face? Is he just zoning in on controlling a monstrous combination of musical invention and mechanical beast, or has he hyped himself into showing nothing lest he show too much?
A little of column A, a little of column B. I took organ lessons myself Way Back When, and even when everything is going right, it does feel a little like trying to keep a not entirely tamed beast under control. You're trying to do at least three different things at the same time: two different manuals plus the pedalboard and occasionally sneaking in an adjustment to a stop or the volume — without missing a note.

It depends a lot on the performer, too. Virgil Fox fairly danced at the console:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UbDWkZLevM[/youtube]

and Cameron Carpenter is much the same:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKsTQpjKEM[/youtube]

On the piano side, Glenn Gould was just off in his own little world (and had to be mic'ed very carefully because he couldn't help 'singing along'):
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEkXet4WX_c[/youtube]

I haven't been able to find video of E. Power Biggs in performance; he was largely responsible for the re-introduction of Bach's organ music to American culture in the 50s and 60s. My understanding is that he was fairly staid at the keyboard, as was the great harpsichordist Wanda Landowska.
Hermit wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:01 am
Once again, Youtube is not in the least up to doing it justice, what with its miserly 125 kbps compressing the sound to a muddy consistency. I don't even think patching an LP of this event into my stereo would be up to the task, though it would be some improvement. My sound system is not even near top tier, but consisting of an Onkyo TX-8050 tuner/amp feeding a pair of Richter speakers I paid twice as much for as for the amp, it's not shabby either. Still, a good reproduction probably requires an octophonic setup that goes through a kW/h and a hall to match, and even then it's just a fair approximation of the real thing. May as well make a pilgrimage if and when the opportunity arises. I'd certainly spring 80 Euros a ticket or whatever the asking price is for listening to Varnas, the Tallis Scholars or whoever if I lived reasonably near that Dom or any other cathedral. If some piece I don't like is on the program, like say, anything at all by Arvo Pärt or Henryk Górecki, I could always duck out for a cigarette for the duration.
(eyes pair of cheap black speakers lurking behind his monitor)

(shuffles feet, says nothing)
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Hermit » Sat Mar 02, 2019 5:24 pm

Wow. Virgil Fox is quite the entertainer. Here is Don Muro playing the same piece on a synthesiser. He permits only his feet to dance, but boy, do they ever dance.



I quite like synthesisers. Pity that whoever owns the copyright to the stuff Wendy Carlos came up with on the Moog is so militant about it. (Not that I miss out. I think I have all her Bach recordings on CD, and Switched on Bach from when she was still known as Walter on vinyl as well.) It would be nice to make her work better known, and they'd probably generate more sales. I bought quite a few CDs after listening to the publisher's offerings on Youtube.

Cameron Carpenter is quite showy too. Did you notice how he actually plays on three keyboards simultaneously at on stage? His thumb casually drops down one while the other four fingers play on the keyboard above and his other hand on the keyboard below. He likes to have fun as well. Here he is clowning around with children.



As for Glenn Gould, I have a recording where the sound engineer didn't bother trying to avoid catching Gould's "sing"along. You can hear it a bit on this piece, which was a kind of mini-lecture in collaboration with Leonard Bernstein.




Youtube is becoming quite a treasure trove of stuff like this. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I'm getting the impression that an increasing number of copyright owners are realising that they actually benefit from being less anally retentive about their rights. Not just with music either. Entire series of documentaries have become available, some of them years after they were first broadcast.

By the way, if you knock off the "s" in the "https" of the Youtube link, it shows up ready to just click on to make the clip play.
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Re: The thirteenth musical thrill: what are you listening to?

Post by Sean Hayden » Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:46 pm


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