A major glossy magazine that used to be devoted largely to music -- but long ago fell under the spell of Hollywood celebrity -- still continues to cover music, specializing in listicles that seem designed mainly to provoke ire in those who care more about music than does said magazine (named after a classic blues song, in case you can't guess without a hint). This summer it unleashed a list of songs that, with that aging publication's ironically weak sense of history, managed to overlook the vast majority of the history of song. To put it bluntly, if you're claiming to discuss the best songs ever written and you don't even mention Franz Schubert, you're an ignoramus. My ire over this blinkered attitude towards music history festered for months, so I finally decided to do something about it by writing about some of the timeless songs omitted in the aforementioned myopic listicle.
- 10/25/2015
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
A classicist using Romantic harmonies, Johannes Brahms (1833-97) was hailed at age 20 by Robert Schumann in a famous article entitled "New Paths." Yet by the time Brahms wrote his mature works, his music was thought of as a conservative compared to the daring harmonies and revolutionary dramatic theories of Richard Wagner. But in the next century, Arnold Schoenberg's 1947 essay titled "Brahms the Progressive" praised Brahms's bold modulations (as daring as Wagner's most tonally ambiguous chords), asymmetrical forms, and mastery of imaginative variation and development of thematic material.
The son of a bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, Brahms was an excellent pianist who was supporting himself by his mid-teens. His first two published works were his Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, and throughout his career he penned much fine music for that instrument, not only solo (including the later Piano Sonata No. 3) and duo but also his landmark Piano Concertos Nos.
The son of a bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, Brahms was an excellent pianist who was supporting himself by his mid-teens. His first two published works were his Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, and throughout his career he penned much fine music for that instrument, not only solo (including the later Piano Sonata No. 3) and duo but also his landmark Piano Concertos Nos.
- 5/8/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Shortly after 9/11, and very definitely as a personal response to that event, I wrote an article about Requiems for Cdnow, where I worked at the time (just a few blocks away from Ground Zero; fortunately our workday started at 10 Am, so I wasn't there yet that day, but in the weeks that followed there were days where, if the wind came from the wrong direction, we would go home early, it made us so sick). In the years since, I have written about music composed in response to that tragedy, such as John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls. But now I find myself being drawn back to the Requiem idea. Here's a much-expanded take on it.
This roughly chronological list confines itself to works with a sacred basis, though the 20th century yielded secular Requiems, most notably Paul Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom...
This roughly chronological list confines itself to works with a sacred basis, though the 20th century yielded secular Requiems, most notably Paul Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom...
- 9/11/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 9 Vienna Philharmonic/Bruno Walter (Emi Classics)
Written after Gustav Mahler had been diagnosed with a life-threatening heart disease, his Ninth Symphony -- the last the composer completed-- has been widely interpreted as reflecting that knowledge, but of course there are many reactions produced by the prospect of death. The lengthy first movement is a meditation on the mysteries, terrors, and -- yes -- consolations of death. Leonard Bernstein, who never shied away from romanticizing biographical details, proclaimed the asymmetrical rhythms at the beginning to be a portrayal of the composer's irregular heartbeat.
The cries of the muted brass are poignant, a bit afraid, but somewhat assuaged by the occasional reappearance of a beautiful melody that seems to promise relief from earthly cares. But the nervous twitterings of the winds, and the lengthy sections of quiet foreboding, display an overriding unease. The dances of the second...
Written after Gustav Mahler had been diagnosed with a life-threatening heart disease, his Ninth Symphony -- the last the composer completed-- has been widely interpreted as reflecting that knowledge, but of course there are many reactions produced by the prospect of death. The lengthy first movement is a meditation on the mysteries, terrors, and -- yes -- consolations of death. Leonard Bernstein, who never shied away from romanticizing biographical details, proclaimed the asymmetrical rhythms at the beginning to be a portrayal of the composer's irregular heartbeat.
The cries of the muted brass are poignant, a bit afraid, but somewhat assuaged by the occasional reappearance of a beautiful melody that seems to promise relief from earthly cares. But the nervous twitterings of the winds, and the lengthy sections of quiet foreboding, display an overriding unease. The dances of the second...
- 6/26/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Mahler's Fourth Symphony (1892/1899-1900) is his sunniest, vastly less concerned with existential questions and therefore less laden with angst than all his other symphonies. There are some shadows in the first two movements, but the lengthy slow movement is gorgeously lyrical, and the finale (originally written in 1892 for the Third Symphony) is a setting for soprano of "Lied der himmlischen Freuden" (Song of the Heavenly Life" from Des Knaben Wunderhorn), a child's amusingly prosaic description of heaven. It's also his second-shortest and much the shortest of his vocal symphonies (under an hour in most readings, and yes, by Mahlerian standards, that counts as short). Furthermore, it's in the most standard four-movement symphony form. All of these things combine to make it his most immediately accessible symphony. It thus has been many listeners' entry point into his highly personal sonic world. It was premiered on November 25, 1901 in Berlin, with the composer conducting.
- 11/25/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
When Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was 20, and mostly known to audiences as a pianist, Robert Schumann basically proclaimed him the great hope of German music in an article entitled "New Paths." In those days, the general lament was that no symphonist had been able to measure up to the mighty example of Beethoven. He started composing what could have become his first symphony in 1854; he got cold feet and turned it into his Piano Concerto No. 1, which was premiered in 1859. In that same period, Brahms wrote two Serenades for orchestra -- seemingly to practice dealing with the challenges of those forces -- and his String Sextet No. 1, a fairly grand work for a chamber piece. In 1862 he sent to Clara Schumann (Robert's widow, whom he loved) an early version of the first movement of what he announced would be his First Symphony (it did not yet have its glorious introduction). A decade later,...
- 11/5/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
A late-Romantic composer who occasionally worked in a more modern style, Alexander Zemlinsky (October 14, 1871 – March 15, 1942) was something of a prodigy. Anton Bruckner was among his teachers. Brahms, impressed by the Symphony in D and a quartet, recommended Zemlinsky to Simrock, Brahms's publisher and arranged a stipend for the young composer. Zemlinsky was friends with the slightly younger Arnold Schoenberg and taught him counterpoint (in which Brahms had tutored Zemlinsky); Schoenberg later married Zemlinsky's sister.
The connection to Schoenberg (who studied music with no-one else) probably contributed to the revival of Zemlinsky's music, which was largely forgotten in the decades after the Nazis drove the Jewish composer first from Germany back to his native Vienna, and then to America, where he found none of the success Schoenberg achieved in exile.
A few choice volumes Decca's Entartete Musik series ("decadent music," the Nazis' phrase for music they found insufficiently Aryan or overly...
The connection to Schoenberg (who studied music with no-one else) probably contributed to the revival of Zemlinsky's music, which was largely forgotten in the decades after the Nazis drove the Jewish composer first from Germany back to his native Vienna, and then to America, where he found none of the success Schoenberg achieved in exile.
A few choice volumes Decca's Entartete Musik series ("decadent music," the Nazis' phrase for music they found insufficiently Aryan or overly...
- 10/14/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Despite circumstances that would make most men bitter, Anton Bruckner (Sept. 24, 1824 – Oct. 11, 1896) in his mature symphonies and choral works wrote some of the most spiritual music since Bach's. Insecure, he spent his thirties studying with the dictatorial music professor Simon Sechter, who had briefly taught Franz Schubert. Brucker didn't compose a symphony until 1863, the "Study" Symphony, which he withheld (as he did the later so-called No. 0).
In Vienna, Bruckner was considered by many to be a naïve country bumpkin; he got unfairly entangled in the bitter Brahms-Wagner debates that split the city. Bruckner's symphonies were thus the object of myopic criticism from some in the Brahms camp, including powerful critic Eduard Hanslick (however, Wagner, Liszt, and Emperor Franz Joseph I were among those who praised or supported Bruckner). The unprecedented length of Bruckner's symphonies, which develop in slow-moving monoliths of sound, was an impediment for some listeners. Bruckner, an excellent organist,...
In Vienna, Bruckner was considered by many to be a naïve country bumpkin; he got unfairly entangled in the bitter Brahms-Wagner debates that split the city. Bruckner's symphonies were thus the object of myopic criticism from some in the Brahms camp, including powerful critic Eduard Hanslick (however, Wagner, Liszt, and Emperor Franz Joseph I were among those who praised or supported Bruckner). The unprecedented length of Bruckner's symphonies, which develop in slow-moving monoliths of sound, was an impediment for some listeners. Bruckner, an excellent organist,...
- 10/10/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
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