Classical Music, Opera, and Ballet

[Beyle]

If you like Bach, beyle you need to get Glenn Gould's Two and Three Part Inventions. They just released the remastered version this year and it is AMAZING. I've been playing it in the car, and it is just completely beautiful, and entrancing, and... fabulous. I can't recommend it enough.

I will make a mental note. I do have Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias, but not by Gould. I'll have to dig though my collection because I'm pretty sure Gould was responsible for, at least, one of my CDs.

I listen to the commercial-free Rhapsody radio. I can type in what I want to hear, so the CDs just sort of stay on my shelf and collect dust.

Thanks for the recommendation!

Oh, and my mother purchased my first classical music album when I was five. The album was Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" and "Sleeping Beauty." It was the first album I ever received.

[swanflake]

margo said:

So this season I'm looking at going to La Traviata and Faust by Gounod in our new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

I'm so jealous! I sooo want to see Faust. I found some videos on one production on YouTube, but a few minutes into it I realized that it was a naked ballet, which I guess is a neat idea and all, but once the naked leads started pretending to hump one another I thought that the nudity was overshadowing the overall performance.

starskin said:

I just found a clip

[/color] of Anna Pavlova dancing to Saint-Saens' "The Dying Swan". Talk about chills!

[/quote]

I wish I had the kind of educational background in ballet to fully appreciate the video of that performance. I'm sure there's so much meaning to that performance that I do not/cannot even understand.

Starskin, I know that many ballet purists hate to even hear "rhythmic gymnastics" mentioned in the same breath as "ballet", but having said that as a disclaimer, here's another performance to The Swan by Russian rhythmic gymnast Yulia Barsukova, the surprise 2000 Olympic Champion. It wasn't the greatest routine in terms of difficulty, but it certainly stood out as one of the most expressive and beautiful routines of the day. It's definitely my favorite routine of those Olympics.

[iceblink]

Eeep! Thanks to this thread I have remembered I need to buy tickets for Aida tomorrow when they go on sale.

[Deleted]

Does anyone know of a good free site to download some classical music to burn to a CD (for a class)? Specifically Mozart and Debussy. I'm looking for good quality, like played by actual musicians and orchestras, not MIDIs.

[swanflake]

poorfrances, go to AltaVista and do an Audio search for whatever you're looking for. A lot of professors of college music classes put music online for their students to download and listen to before they get to class. I've found a lot of classical music that way.

[Deleted]

starskin said:

I just found a clip

[/color] of Anna Pavlova dancing to Saint-Saens' "The Dying Swan". Talk about chills![/quote]
Stunning! Thanks for posting that, starskin.
Classical music was my life, for most of it, and still is, although I've made a conscious effort to branch out in recent years. I heard nothing but classical (WOSU from Ohio State University) around the house growing up, studied viola and piano and majored in music in college. Our small town had a pretty good classical music scene and we were exposed to a lot of great performers. I got hooked on early music (renaissance and before) in college and played in the renaissance consort. I still love it. The current CD in my car is "The Art of Countertenor" by Michael Chance. His Bach arias, especially from the St. Matthew Passion? Perfection. Having played viola (please, no jokes! I've heard 'em all) I have an interest in unusual music and love unusual voices. Klaus Nomi, hell yeah! Lisa Gerrard, while I don't care for her "adaptations" of classical works, is incredible. Samuel Ramey is awesome and Jessye Norman is a big girly crush.
A highlight of my concert-going life was finally seeing Rudolf Nureyev live. He was ill and not at all in his prime, but still astonishing. Was he the most beautiful man who ever lived or WHAT?! Dance on, Rudi!
And thanks again to Swanflake for starting this thread. WOOO!

[labelleepoque]

Cool thread! I don't know where to start, I adore classical music.

I think Au fond du temple saint from Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles is one of the most beautiful and haunting pieces of music ever written. When I was a teenager and more into the Tchaikovsky ballet scores, my mother used to play it all the the time and I wasn't so much into it then, but a year or so ago I heard it again and realised why my mother likes it so much. I guess it is one of those pieces that grows on you.

Another piece I love is the opening dance from the ballet Coppelia.

SwanFlake, intersting what you say about ballet purists attitudes to rhythmic gymnastcs, one of my former ballet teachers used to yell at us reglarly if we couldn't constistently produce flawless quadruple pirouettes, reminding us that gymnasts have superior technique and preparation.

[Deleted]

Oh, how I ADORE ballet and classical. Especially the Russian composers-Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov!

I've always been a fan of classical, thanks to my dad, although he's more of a Handel fan. In fact, right now, he and Baby Sis are at The Messiah. I was invited to go, but I'm not as much of a fan as they are.

Now if it were say, Sheherazade? Sign me up!

[venusdiva429]

Vocal sex=the chamber version of "Carmina Burana". The baritone soloist, Peter Mattei, is...mmmmm. His voice is sooo yummy.

[PearlySweetcake]

labelleepoque said:

Another piece I love is the opening dance from the ballet Coppelia.

Oh my God, I have been absolutely obsessed with Coppélia for the past several months! LaBelleEpoque, you should listen to the "Mazurka" (the fourth piece); the "Prelude" is an edited version of that piece.

I serve on the board of a local orchestra, and (fingers crossed) I think I've convinced the music director to include a performance of Coppélia's first four pieces ("Prélude," "Valse," "Scéne" and "Mazurka") in the '08-'09 season.