Masterpieces of the Classical World - A Neiba thread

Welcome to my Classical Music thread!

I've been thinking of making a Top 100 of my favourite Classical Music Works but I just can't do it. There are too many to make a 100 list and it's too hard to rank them.

In alternative, I decided to create this thread where I'll post my thoughts on some of my favourite pieces, following no specific order, just what I feel like listening and writing about!

I am open to recommendations and requests, so if there's a piece in particular you like to talk about just ask!

Hope everyone likes it, I'll try to keep this as active as possible!

The day of the creation of this thread was not chosen by chance. Today is the birthday of the greatest of the greatest composers of all time: Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johannes-Passion is one of my favourite pieces of music written by this colossal name of the Classical Music and one of the most respected works of all time.

Why/when was it composed?

Bach was an extremely religious man. He believed the aim of music should always be the prasing of God. This intense belief combined to a unique mind produced some of the most amazing music of all time.

When he wrote this Passion he was at his first year in Leipzing, working as the chapel master. It marked the beggining of a time of intense production, because he had to produce a different Cantata (vocal composition with orchestral accompaniment) almost every week and make different music for every religious holiday. He kept this position till the day he died, 26 years later, so you can imagine how much stuff he wrote.
Johannes - Passion was premiered at the Good Friday Vespers of 1724, so around this time 292 years ago.

Structure:

Johannes-Passion tells the story of Passion of Christ, from the moment he is arrested till the moment he's buried. It's divided into 2 parts (in the middle of which there is supposed to be a sermon), with a total of 40 different movements, some of them divided into even smaller sections.

The central figure of this work is the Evangelist (one of the most famous tenor parts in Classical Music) that narrates the story in a recitative mode. Other characters are Jesus, Pilatus and the Choir, representing the crowd. These narrative process is sometimes interrupted by chorales, one of the most beloved traits of Bach's work, which serve as a philosophical analysis of what's happening in the narration.

The version I chose:

Choosing a favorite version of this masterpiece is a very difficult task. I sang it myself as a part of the choir a couple of times and I'll probably sing the Pilatus role in 2017, so I know lots of different interpretations.
I ended choosing this version, conducted by Herreweghe and with the choir of the La Chapelle Royale. I like its tempo (though some people will say it's too slow) and stylistic choices, the choir is great and the Evangeliste, Howard Crook, is superb. The rest of the soloists also are very very good.
It's a very big work, with almost 2 hours, but trust me, it will take you to another world. The first movement alone is out of this universe...

I don't know very much about classical music, but I think this is a cool idea. Keep it up

Maybe you'll find something you like here jiraffe! Thanks for the feedback!

Well, I will be following this one. I am a big lover of classical music. Crazy kid that I was (and I am talking about when I was really young), I preferred classical music above all else (or "fancy" music, as I called it).

My main man is Mozart. I listen to it all, though. I probably lean more towards the Classical Period more than any other, but I am kind of hung up on the Romantic Period, too. Although, I really do listen to all of it.

By the way, excellent piece that you have chosen to begin this thread with. And lucky you that you'll get the opportunity to actually sing a part this time. Vocally, then, what are you? What is your range? I am a Soprano (a Lyric Soprano to be really technical about it ). My range is a G3 to C6. Although, truth be told, I would rather be a Mezzo. Ah, well. That's life. Right?

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I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity - Edgar Allan Poe

Thanks for the feedbac, SilentVamp!
Romantic period is my favourite so it will be appearing quite often. And Mozart, it's impossible to be a singer and not adore Mozart! I'll have a lot of stuff from him too!

Oh, I didn't know you were a singer too!!! That's so cool!
I'm a bass-baritone, though I am only 24 and I don't know where the voice is going from now on. Maybe I become a bass, that would be cool!

Funny like every soprano wants to be a mezzo and every tenor wants to be a bass! low notes rock! Ahahah!

Ah, and my range is from D2 to F4.

You sunk my battleship!

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Bravo!!

Nice idea for a thread Neiba. I'm hoping to learn from you as I don't know much about classical music. I go out to work in the mornings but work from home in the afternoons and that's when I listen to lots of music so will be having s listen to your picks

Mr. Cartoon Wolf? That's a stupid name.

Classical music is the greatest kind of music ever devised; great idea neiba!

Totally surprised you know Hugo, the cartoon! I was addicted to his games when I was a kid!

And yes, Hugo Wolf is the answer!!!

Here's your prize:

The Composer:

Hugo Wolf was born in 1860 in Slovenia. He moved to Vienna very young and started studying in the Conservatorium of that city until the age of 17, time when he was expelled for bad behaving.
Started composing lieder (german song) when he was 15 and was responsible for continuing the tradition that Schubert and Schumann had started before him. Wolf was a huge admirer of Wagner, and his music was greatly influenced by him.
Wolf was a very depressive person and he alternated intense periods of composition with another periods of no production at all. He hated Brahms and his conservatism and that may be one of the reasons he never gained the respect he deserved.
As Schubert before him, Hugo Wolf had syphilis and suffered a mental breakdown due to the treatment of that disease at the time. His last composition, Michelangelo Lieder dates from 1897, just before he was taken to a sanatorium where he’d eventually die 6 years later completely insane.

The Work:

Imagine you know you’re about to completely lose your mind and that you’ll become more and more insane till the day you die. What’s the last thing you do before that?
Wolf wrote Michelangelo Lieder, a 3 song-cycle using poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti, translated to german by Robert-Tornow.

The first song Wohl denk ich oft, has a very gloomy start that turn into a triumphant last section that follow the spirit the lyrics by Michelangelo.

Here’s the lyrics:

Often I think about my past life,
How it was before my love for you;
No one had given me a thought,
Each day was lost to me;
I thought I would live solely through song,
And even flee from all mankind.
Today I am renowned in praise and blame,
And all know that I exist!

And the interpretation by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the best lieder singer of all time, one of the greatest voices of the XXth century and my absolute favourite singer:

Too much photoshop!

Next it'll be a very simple and relaxing piece by a composer who's still alive.

The Composer:

Arvo Pärt was born in 1935 in Estonia.
His early works were greatly influenced by composers as Shostakovich or Bartók, in a style that could be called as neo-classicism or post romantic. Later, he adhered to serialism and dodecaphony (the technique of using the twelve notes of the chromatic scale to compose, instead of using a regular tonality made of seven notes).
Pärt had some troubles with the Soviet regime during this stage and he confined himself to silence for some years. During this time he started studying gregorian chant and Renaissance poliphony, which led him to a new creative stage.
His works started being greatly influented by this type of music, and he even invented a new way of composing called tintinnabuli that derived from gregorian chants, from which Für Alina is perhaps the best representative example.
Arvo Pärt is the most performed living composer of today.

The Work:

As I said before, Für Alina is written in tintinnabuli style, a very minimalistic way of composing where we only hear two voices, constantly moving between dissonances and consonances.
It was dedicated to a 18-year-old girl, Alina, who was close to the Pärt family. She was about to go abroad to her studies and the piece tries to portray the feeling of traveling and the joy of youth.
It has a trait I love in most of Arvo Pärt work: a feeling of continuity that abolishes sense of time and ground. The music just seems to levitate endlessly, even after it's over.

Here it is: