Pomegrant

I would have to agree with you father. Even in his most simplistic works there is great amounts of depth and complexity which I guess stems from the ornate culture of the baroque period. However I think Bach transcends baroque music and he really did a lot of experimentation with harmonies. I just really admire that he did his music even when his music was going out of fashion.

I'm trying to remember some of my favorite pieces but remember BWV numbers after all of these years isn't too easy. I'll post some videos once I find them.

Cellos are just so much more beautiful than violins.

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Pomegrant

I always enjoyed this fugue a whole lot.




I can't find youtube videos of the Italian Concerto movements that I like but it's a wonderful piece.

I've found some Goldburg vartions though and I suppose everybody likes Glen Gould although my teacher didn't because her teacher apparently was heated rival of Gould. The 70's was just so much cooler for musical feuds.

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VEGANGELICA

My dad says the exact same thing about how wonderful the harmonies are that Bach sets up throughout his music! I am an untutored listener, so I think I appreciate Bach's music much more simplistically than my dad, who was born with perfect pitch and knows all the frequency differences among notes, plus is instantly aware of the chords and different keys used.

I think the one downside to Bach's music is that sometimes the music's intricacy takes over at the expense of the music's emotion. Even my dad agrees with me on this. Some Bach pieces feel rather robotic to me. However, others are painfully beautiful, and those are the ones I prefer.

Yes, cellos are just much warmer and resonant than violins, I agree...although when I play lower notes on the violin I get to imagine I'm playing a cello but high up, so then the violin isn't so bad! And the violin can sound very sweet.

Thank you for sharing some of your favorite pieces!

The Bach Partita reminds me of the Bach Double we Suzuki violinists always love playing, I think, when we are kids. I remember enjoying it very much. I'm sure you know it, of course, but here it is anyway...and the violins don't sound too shabby!

Bach Double Violin Concerto





I had never heard of Bach's English Suites before last week, when I asked my dad what his current favorite music is and he said he really finds the Allemande portion of English Suite #1 to be lovely. We first listened to Suite #2 by accident (so now, thanks to your post, I've heard it twice), and then to Suite #1. It begins at 2:57 in this video, which I like because the pianist plays the piece more slowly than in some other recording I heard that was of Glenn Gould, actually!:

Bach - English Suite #1



I looked up both your teacher's teacher, Rosalyn Tureck, and Glen Gould to learn more about their rivalry. Wikipedia says, "In a CBC radio special on Glenn Gould, the host told Tureck that Gould cited her as his 'only' influence. She responded by saying she knew that she was an influence, and that it was very kind of him to say so." The rivalry perhaps shows up in her phrasing when she says she knows she was an influence! It's too bad...both are deceased now, I see.

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rondo

My top 5:

Beethoven
Sibelius
Debussy
*gasp* Verdi (I generally love operas though , Wagner & Mozart - Runners up!)
Bach

And my top 5 works would be:

1. Debussy - La Mer
2. Verdi - La Traviata
3. Sibelius - En Saga
4. Bach - Goldberg Variations
5. Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major (Waldstein)

VEGANGELICA

I'd never heard Bach's Goldberg Variations before Pomegrant posted a video (above), and now I'm listening to all 30 to appreciate them more.

I like the way Bach constrains himself to be creative within certain limitations he decides upon. For example, I read that in the Goldberg Variations, "after a statement of the aria at the beginning of the piece...the variations do not follow the melody of the aria, but rather use its bass line and chord progression." Goldberg Variations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I never thought of just using the chord progression or bass line to form musical variations of a theme, instead of just doing simpler variations of the melody! Listening to the Goldberg Variations, I wouldn't have realized this is what is going on unless I had read about it.

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VEGANGELICA

I've been thinking tonight about Beethoven and how I feel about his music because I had the chance to play his 2nd Symphony for the first time this week and have mixed feelings about it.

I've decided that playing Beethoven's 2nd Symphony is very enjoyable, especially the 4th movement, because it has a lot of activity to keep a violinist busy. No time to think about anything else other than the music during that piece! You have to pay attention to catch all the notes, and certain brief passages are very lovely, which makes playing the movement engrossing.

However, when I listen to the piece (when I'm not playing it), I find myself getting bored. While I am intrigued that Beethoven was realizing the torture of his increasing deafness right around the time he wrote this sunny-sounding symphony in 1802, the music doesn't inspire me. I'd never want to sit through listening to others play the 4th movement, but I enjoy being part of the orchestra making the music.

This is one reason I'm not an ideal orchestra member. I like playing in the orchestra, but I don't really care about performances because if *I* were in the audience, I'd be daydreaming like mad during most of this piece to find something more interesting for me to think about:



I also tried listening to Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, since rondo likes it, but I find I don't care for it at all. Actually, I first wrote that I hate it. It sounds so tedious to me, so dry, so overdone, so directionless. All those little notes flitting about. Funny, how people's tastes can differ so much.

So, I don't think Beethoven would be on my list of 5 favorite composers, if I had such a list. I also don't like most Bach music because it seems too mechanical and emotionless to me. I'm in a "classical cynical" mood right now, I think!

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Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Beethoven is ok. However, I myself find it amazingly frustrating that through centuries of wonderful music the entire classical genre is usually generalized to Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin... occasionally Tschaikowsky(whom I adore, but still). I feel if the true depth, and variance, of the genre were exposed to the world, there'd be a lot more fans.

In my findings, Beethoven definitely has his hits, and definitely has his misses.

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ThePhanastasio

My favorites vary greatly, depending on my frame of mind at the time, what I've been listening to...where I am...any number of things. There are times I may love Beethoven, but times he may be the last composer in the world I'd want to listen to.

To be quite honest, I've never been so much a fan of this whole piece in general, and not just the fourth movement - it doesn't really evoke any strong emotion within me. Then again, I'm really not in a Beethoven mood right now.

I'll say that my favorites (for the time being) are:

1.) Maurice Ravel
2.) Rachmaninoff
3.) Tchaikovsky
4.) Stravinsky
5.) Shostakovich

In particular, I've been listening to a lot of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin.

A wonderful version of the third movement (Menuet) from this piece is:


The piece as a whole is wonderful, but that particular movement is superb. Easily one of my favorite compositions at present.

I'm also kind of obsessed with his 3 part piano composition, Gaspard de la nuit.

Here's the piece in its entirety, separated by movement into three separate videos:

Movement I: Scarbo


Movement II: Le Gibet


Movement III: Ondine


It's really a pretty dark, haunting piece, but I find it exceedingly beautiful.

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Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Amazing choices, I've been finding myself enjoying quite a bit of all four recently.

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Stephen

Any recommendations for a particular recording of this?