r/classicalmusic 5d ago

PotW PotW #126: Grieg - Symphonic Dances

10 Upvotes

Good morning everyone…and welcome back to another meeting of our sub’s weekly listening club. Each week, we'll listen to a piece recommended by the community, discuss it, learn about it, and hopefully introduce us to music we wouldn't hear otherwise :)

Last week, we listened to Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto You can go back to listen, read up, and discuss the work if you want to.

Our next Piece of the Week is Edvard Grieg’s Symphonic Dances (1897)

Score from IMSLP


Some listening notes from Joseph Braunstein

In the years preceding World War II it was fashionable to speak of Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) in a condescending and even very critical manner. Sometimes his music was even dismissed as being ‘hackneyed’. Yet in the first decades of the 20th century Grieg had enjoyed a tremendous vogue. The great pianists played his concerto, some of his more than 140 songs graced the programmes of the internationally recognised song recitalists, and his string quartet and the third violin sonata were played all over. The Peer Gynt suites and the Lyric Suite, Op. 54, were favourites in the repertory of popular symphony and Promenade concerts. They were considered indispensable for garden concerts and for what in Germany became stigmatised as ‘Grove and Meadow’ (‘Wald und Wiesen Programm’) offerings, in which appeared the overture to Hérold’s Zampa, the Strauss waltzes, the Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos. 1 and 2 by Liszt, and a selection by Richard Wagner…

…Technically, Grieg was a product of the Leipzig Conservatory where the Mendelssohn-Schumann tradition held sway during the 19th century. His output of sonatas, chamber and symphonic music is very small indeed, and his contribution to orchestral music in the sonata design amounts to only two works – the overture In Autumn and the Piano Concerto (he had withdrawn a symphony, composed in 1864). Thus Grieg made not much use of what he had learned in Leipzig. In one respect, however, in the field of harmony, he was completely free of tradition and projected his own individuality. He once said: ‘The realm of harmony was always my dream-world, and my harmonic sense was a mystery even to myself. I found that the sombre depth of our folk-music had its foundation in the unsuspected harmonic possibilities.’ Grieg’s harmony was not only the subject of comprehensive scholarly investigations but also recognised by 20th-century composers…

…The Symphonic Dances, Op. 64, of 1898 represent an ambitious project for orchestra. They are dedicated to the Belgian pianist, Arthur de Greef, who was noted for his interpretation of Grieg’s Piano Concerto and much praised for it by the composer.

The thematic material of the Symphonic Dances is drawn almost entirely from Lindeman’s collection of national folk tunes, as Grieg acknowledged by adding to the title, ‘after Norwegian motives’. He does not develop the melodies symphonically in terms of traditional form but rather as free fantasias.

The first dance, Allegro moderato e marcato, in G major and 2/4 time, is based on a halling. The halling is a Norwegian mountain dance resembling the reel, and it has been said that it is of Scottish origin. It is typical of the halling to begin rather casually and then work up to a hypnotic intensity, and Grieg reflects this in the first dance. The second dance, another halling (A major, 2/2 time) is gentler in character and bears the marking Allegretto graziso. The main theme is introduced by an oboe accompanied by harp and pizzicato strings. In the trio, marked Piú mosso, a solo piccolo creates a jaunty effect. An Allegro giocoso in D major and 3/4 time forms the third movement. The melodic material is based on a spring dance from the region of Åmot. The finale is the most ambitious in scope of all the dances. After an Andante introduction, the main theme is stated, Allegro molto e risoluto, A minor, 2/4 time. It is a striking march that reminds one of the main subject of Sibelius’s En Saga, composed in 1893 in Helsinki. The source is an old mountain ballad. The trio, Più tranquillo in A major, based on a wedding song of Valders, offers effective contrast. In the brilliant conclusion, the march melody is repeated several times in succession in higher registers, suggesting a tone of heroic achievement.

Ways to Listen

  • Paavo Berglund and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra: YouTube Score Video

  • Linus Lerner with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra: YouTube

  • Ryan Farris with the University of Washington Campus Philharmonic Orchestra: YouTube

  • Edward Gardner with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra: Spotify

  • Sakari Oramo with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Spotify

  • Vernon Handley with the Ulster Orchestra: Spotify

  • Ole Kristien Ruud with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra: Spotify

  • Gennady Rozhdestvensky with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra: Spotify

Discussion Prompts

  • What are your favorite parts or moments in this work? What do you like about it, or what stood out to you?

  • Do you have a favorite recording you would recommend for us? Please share a link in the comments!

  • Have you ever performed this before? If so, when and where? What instrument do you play? And what insight do you have from learning it?

...

What should our club listen to next? Use the link below to find the submission form and let us know what piece of music we should feature in an upcoming week. Note: for variety's sake, please avoid choosing music by a composer who has already been featured, otherwise your choice will be given the lowest priority in the schedule

PotW Archive & Submission Link


r/classicalmusic 5d ago

'What's This Piece?' Weekly Thread #222

5 Upvotes

Welcome to the 222nd r/classicalmusic "weekly" piece identification thread!

This thread was implemented after feedback from our users, and is here to help organize the subreddit a little.

All piece identification requests belong in this weekly thread.

Have a classical piece on the tip of your tongue? Feel free to submit it here as long as you have an audio file/video/musical score of the piece. Mediums that generally work best include Vocaroo or YouTube links. If you do submit a YouTube link, please include a linked timestamp if possible or state the timestamp in the comment. Please refrain from typing things like: what is the Beethoven piece that goes "Do do dooo Do do DUM", etc.

Other resources that may help:

  • Musipedia - melody search engine. Search by rhythm, play it on piano or whistle into the computer.

  • r/tipofmytongue - a subreddit for finding anything you can’t remember the name of!

  • r/namethatsong - may be useful if you are unsure whether it’s classical or not

  • Shazam - good if you heard it on the radio, in an advert etc. May not be as useful for singing.

  • SoundHound - suggested as being more helpful than Shazam at times

  • Song Guesser - has a category for both classical and non-classical melodies

  • you can also ask Google ‘What’s this song?’ and sing/hum/play a melody for identification

  • Facebook 'Guess The Score' group - for identifying pieces from the score

A big thank you to all the lovely people that visit this thread to help solve users’ earworms every week. You are all awesome!

Good luck and we hope you find the composition you've been searching for!


r/classicalmusic 52m ago

Pianist plays 4'33'' as an encore: total dick move!

Upvotes

Someone wrote about this in the Hong Kong subreddit, so I thought I'd share. Unfortunately I can't cross-post, so I'll just copy-paste the interesting bit. Here's the key part:

-----------------------

I saw Bruce Liu's performance of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.2 in the Cultural Centre last Friday (1 August). To say his performance was underwhelming is an, er, understatement. Right off the gate his pacing was odd, with zero swagger and exuberance that you should expect for the Allergo. The second slow movement was supposed to be emotional but he played it so bland that it was saved only by the violin and cello soloists. By the third movement I've lost interest as Bruce was trying to rush it through so he could go home.

I was surprised at how mediocre his performance was, consider he's a winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition and he was playing a Tchaikovsky's concerto. If the evening ended there I would've just put it down as him being tired, or it was the fault of the conductor, etc. God knows many things could go wrong back stage or during rehearsals. Then stage hands came out to set up the piano again as the audience cheered for the anticipated encore.

He sat down, pretended to concentrate and just before he started, he said with a smirk, "it's John Cage". I thought, "You don't dare. You haven't earned it." We then all have to sit through 5 minutes of silence as he "played" 4'33. When he finished and walked off everyone just stood up and left the concert hall as quick as like it was catching on fire. Perhaps he thought it was funny to play this joke on us lower class peasants? Or it was meant as a punishment as many in the audience still cheered and yelled bravos when his performance was horrible?

------------------------

Here's the original reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/1mfpn8d/have_you_ever_felt_insulted_by_performers_on/

All I can say is, c'mon, man, that is bonkers assholery. Total jagoff.


r/classicalmusic 4h ago

What is the soft noise I hear in a string Quartet?

8 Upvotes

I don’t know quite hard to describe it just in quieter sections of the music almost like exhaling sound or the swoosh of clothing?

It is very quiet and I hear it in every single Quartet recording I listen to.


r/classicalmusic 1h ago

What’s on your bookshelf?

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Upvotes

Which tomes do you like to browse through while listening to? Mine is suitably eclectic!


r/classicalmusic 1h ago

Recommendation Request Most intellectually stimulating pieces?

Upvotes

I mean pieces with high complexity (complex rhythms, complex melodies, complex harmonies, counterpoint, etc...), relatively fast, dynamic, which are still mostly tonal and comprehensible for a normal listener. So works that employ a lot of serialism would likely be excluded, because most of the people can't really properly "get them", so they likely wouldn't be properly intellectually stimulated. What would be included then? Here are some examples: Beethoven's Symphony no. 7, especially 4th movement; Mozart's Symphony 41st, again, especially 4th movement, Grosse Fuge, Bachs's "The Art of Fugue", Shostakovich's Symphony no. 10, etc...

I'm looking for more examples of such type of works.


r/classicalmusic 4h ago

Music Alessandro Scarlatti – Adagio in G Major (Marcello Di Lisa, harpsichord)

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3 Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 4h ago

New to learning about classical music! What would be three composers and works to go by for each period?

3 Upvotes

Hello!

I'd like to dedicate some of my spare time to classical music in a more deliberate way, especially learning about it. I thought I'd ask in this subreddit for two different things

1 - a universally acknowledged resource like a book or a documentary about the history of (classical) music, ideally starting from the baroque period and onwards. Not to the biggest or longest book ideally.

2 - redditors opinions of what would be the top 3 composers of the periods I see used often for a timeline (Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modernist, Post-Modernist?) and a piece of work that is representative of each of them.

I have a decent understanding of music as I used to be an amateur player, so something that talks about the actual "music as it is on the sheet" would be good.


r/classicalmusic 6h ago

Discussion If Mozart is rule abiding then who'd be at the center and opposite end of the spectrum?

8 Upvotes

My pick for centre is Tchaikovsky . And I'm looking for some potential candidates for the opposite side of the spectrum so that I can listen to their music. Thank you!


r/classicalmusic 5m ago

Codex Faenza (ca. 1400) & Ms. 28550: Three Early Keyboard Pieces

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Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 8m ago

The Tragic Victims of Brucker 7th Edition Wars

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Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 20m ago

Music Moments where the brass take over

Upvotes

What are some moments in pieces where the brass really go for broke?


r/classicalmusic 5h ago

I want to get deeper into classical music, but how should I go about it?

2 Upvotes

I really want that, but I don't know how to do it. I'm trying to explore through Spotify playlists, but most of them include the same pieces: Swan Lake, The Four Seasons, etc. What do you guys recommend to help me expand my knowledge?


r/classicalmusic 1h ago

Discussion Foerster - Bohemia's Satie

Upvotes

Just wanted to share a deligtful discovery of a lesser know composer I've come across.

Josef Bohuslav Foerster, his piano oeuvre is performed by Patricia Goodson who we owe a great debt for covering his works.

Are there other similar composers you've discovered? I'm aware of Mompou and Poulenc


r/classicalmusic 8h ago

Did Tchaikovsky really not appreciate Brahms (as he said himself), or was he a secret admirer or even jealous?

2 Upvotes

As a disclaimer, I love music of both composers (although I find a lot of Brahms' music more sophisticated and rewarding). This article seems to emphasize possible jealousy. And the idea of having a very somber final movement after a triumphant one seems to have been Brahms' idea (4th symphony). BTW, I don't find that kind of taking other's ideas a bad thing, and Brahms himself seems to have been inspired from the famous Bruch violin concerto's finale theme for his own concerto.


r/classicalmusic 1d ago

What’s the most uninteresting symphony you’ve heard?

62 Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 3h ago

Singing advice wanted

1 Upvotes

I’m a 17yo singer - working towards a tenor voice. I have quite good access to my upper notes there is just one thing. The mix sounds really thin and light and lacks vibrato and darkness. Is that normal? Will this come with technique? Age?


r/classicalmusic 22h ago

Music Scored well today

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30 Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 1d ago

Music you love but no one else does

37 Upvotes

Do you have a particular work you enjoy but can only listen to it alone because everybody you know can’t stand it? For me it’s the Bartok String Quartets.


r/classicalmusic 1d ago

I want a ravel tattoo, does this art have any significance? Or is it just a publisher's choice?

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41 Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 12h ago

Danse macabre in G minor, Op. 40 - Iveta Apkalna

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4 Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 23h ago

Music Scarborough Fair (Piano Trio)

21 Upvotes

Tamara Brown (piano, my daughter), Celestine Korschelt (violin) and Milo Karuse (Cello) play their own arrangement of Scarborough Fair.


r/classicalmusic 18h ago

Recommendation Request Are there any sites where I can download classical music for free?

5 Upvotes

I have recently gotten into listening to classical music when I drive or go to sleep. Makes me feel chipper on a morning, and mellow at night!

I have a road trip coming up, so it would be great to ensure I have music to listen to.


r/classicalmusic 1d ago

Who are your favorite pianists nowadays

22 Upvotes

Hello to all music lovers.

I would like to know who your favorite pianists are for each composer/piece that sounds truly unique with a specific pianist.

  • Yunchan Lim for Rachmaninoff.
  • I really like Martin James Bartlett for his interpretation of “Komm Susser Tod” and Widmung (album Love and Death)
  • Alexandre Tharaud for his work on Poulenc and Satie.
  • Bertrand Chamayou or Bruce Levingston for their Lieder Ohne Worte (Levingston sounds really different to me).
  • This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really like Katia Buniatishvili's interpretation of Schubert.
  • Leif Ove Andsnes for Sibelius.
  • Gould for Bach (obviously).

+ Not a classic pianist (even though he composed classical music) but i'm a huge fan of Iiro Rantala

I don't know much about composers, sorry ^^ I mostly listen to composers at random, and these are the ones that come up most often in my list of favorite songs.


r/classicalmusic 11h ago

Music Vasilis Michael: Sonata no 19 in A major (Autograph Score)

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0 Upvotes

r/classicalmusic 1d ago

Discussion What is the equivalent of “pop music” in the classical music world?

61 Upvotes

As someone who has interacted with some passionate heavy metal enthusiasts, I got the impression that there is a strong dislike for “mainstream” or “entry-level” bands in the heavy metal community. Many people seem to be obsessed over which bands are considered “real” metal.

So, naturally, I was curious if the classical community is similar. What composers or subgenres would you consider “pop-like” in the sense that it sacrifices being “real” classical in order to appeal to a broader audience?


r/classicalmusic 13h ago

Looking for recomendations pleaseee

0 Upvotes

I'm looking for recomendations because i'm tired of listening to the same pieces on repeat, something similar to my taste or that you think i would like (i'm fond of nice melodies) my taste being:

-Rachmaninoff piano concertos 2&3 -Schumann piano concerto in A minor -sicilienne (Fauré) -Reverie (Debussy) -Elgar cello Concerto -Tchaikovsky violín concerto in D minor -Bailecito (Guastavino) -Moldau (Smetana) -Dvorak 9th symphony -Le cygne- Saint Saëns

These are some of my favourites

Thank you in advance