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mephistopheles
My passion: Music of the arts / Beethoven and Mahler above all else. Good rock music:e.g Nirvana,the Smashing Pumpkins,Zeppelin. I watch way too many movies. I follow Manchester United Football Club and my favourite author be Hunter S Thompson. I abhor moral degeneracy, noisy drunken louts, the European Court of Human Rights and other symptoms of unfettered liberalism. My wish for the future: Enforced sterilization for 94% of the human race. "Without music, life would be a mistake" - Friedrich Nietzsche "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein
Schubert's Fantasie in C major ("Wanderer") : can you recommend me a really good recording?
I've discovered I only have the one recording of this piece dating way back to 1949, Clifford Curzon the soloist.
I actually don't know how I've never picked up Sviatoslav Richter's account ? although I'm leaning towards a more recent recording by Paul Lewis but I can't decide.
What do you think, which would you choose, all suggestions are welcome for any you think are good.
Grazie
1 AnswerClassical8 years agoDon't you feel pity for these petulant wastrels who've got naught better to do than report Answers?
For any cretins and peasants who see this (you know who you be) let it be known that I find each Notice Valuation received from Yahoo and points deduction penalty all incredibly funny and I treat em with the indifference they deserve.
Why would I even bother appealing em' when I have a life..
Selah.
5 AnswersPolls & Surveys9 years agoJust to satisfy my curiosity can anyone kindly identify the 2nd protagonist from this question?
Peculiar question posed the other week and as per usual the person who asked it impolitely ignored my query seeking clarification as to who these two people are :
OK the first one is Hermann Nitsch but then who is this Matthew's fella ?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsReO...
I found this, presumably one and the same but what the hell is with the absurdly pretentious name, I mean seriously! that can't be real.
Is it a pseudonym ?
1 AnswerClassical9 years agoHave you heard Pletnev's piano transcription of Grand Pas De Deux from the Nutcracker?
Mikhail Pletnev recorded in 1978 for Melodiya.
Grand Pas De Deux composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c2hFKRauqM&feature...
No one has to answer and I would prefer it if no one did ( :
I just wanted to share this as I only discovered this recording myself the other week and the ending struck me as especially beautiful.
grazie
mephistopheles
4 AnswersClassical9 years agoIs Julia Fischer a much better fiddler than Nicola Benedetti..?
in your humble or otherwise critical opinion.
muchas gracias
mephisto
2 AnswersClassical9 years agoRecovery of coal from RMS Titanic how was it preserved?
From what I understand since 1994 thousands of artifacts have been recovered from the wreck of the Titanic along with a substantial quantity of coal.
I'm trying to find out how the latter was preserved lying under the
ocean all that time and can't find any answer.
I mean it can't have been recovered from the debris field like a piece of Porcelain or leather.
Was it salvaged from the boiler room I thought it would have been flooded?
Presumably some of the coal must have been preserved in a watertight bunker or storage unit of some sort but then how was it was it brought to the surface ?
If anyone can shed some light I would be most appreciative.
mephisto
2 AnswersHistory9 years agoToday is the Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: do you ever find some fragment of melody..?
..stuck in your head which then draws a blank trying to identify it.
It happened with me the other day, I had around ten seconds from the central movement of this piano sonata going around in my head all morning but couldn't fathom what it was.
Initially convinced it was Schubert but was having no luck finding it before I remembered, jeez the sense of relief afterwards ( :
Piano Sonata in C minor K 457 'Adagio'. (the part which begins approximately 2:55 in)
7 AnswersClassical9 years agoJust chanced upon this gem on Youtube : Bernstein conducts Igor Stravinsky?
Leonard Bernstein's highly regarded 1958 New York Philharmonic recording of Stravinsky's Rite followed by (IMHO) his even better 1969 Petrushka (1947 revised score) - played back to back - uninterrupted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k5oR8V3o7s
Is there a question here ?
2 AnswersClassical9 years agoRudolf Serkin : Yay, nay or meh..?
Hi,
yes I'm simply fishing for opinions.
I've watched a few videos of him on Youtube playing Beethoven (recorded very late in his career) but never owned anything by him until just the other week when I picked up a much earlier 1957 Diabelli Variations along with a later BBC live recording of the Opus 106 & 110 Piano Sonatas.
I think I might be most impressed with the Hammerklavier - a real sense of struggle captured perfectly.
Incidentally 2nd question:
Do you like Beethoven's Hammerklavier Piano Sonata, No. 29 in B flat major ?
Grazie
mephisto
3 AnswersClassical9 years agoHave you watched 'War Requiem' : it was screened here in the U.K last night?
It was shown on BBC4 as part of Remembrance Day and I had somehow never came upon it before.
Visual imagery set to the recording of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem directed by Derek Jarman 1989.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZQ_3ePdnQU
I was really tired so actually fell asleep around a third in which doesn't bode well I know but no matter as I had it recording.
Yes so anyway just curious if you've viddied it and what's your take on it ?
mephisto
2 AnswersClassical10 years agoWho's going to earn more Premier League starts : Welbeck or Sturridge?
That would be Danny Welbeck from Manchester United or Daniel Sturridge from Chelsea, of course.
12 AnswersEnglish Football (Soccer)10 years agoWhich of these recordings would you recommend as the best introduction to Josef Suk's Asrael Symphony?
I've narrowed down them down to six although the Kubelik is almost impossible to find ) :
Václav Talich,
Rafael Kubelik,
Kirill Petrenko,
Libor Pesek,
Vladimir Ashkenazy and most recently the late Charles Mackerras.
Any thoughts or opinions are most welcome.
thanks
Mephistopheles
Asrael Symphony in C minor, Opus 27 (1906)
1 AnswerClassical10 years agoIs this possibly the finest work for solo Cello since J.S Bach?
Just discovered this over the weekend, I've clearly been missing out..
Zoltán Kodály's Sonata for Cello, Opus 8.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MEUIGjfHNw
1 AnswerClassical10 years agoJust came across this load of tosh disparaging Jascha Horenstein : Any fellow apparent 'cultists'?
http://www.classicstoday.com/features/090705-HC.as...
Am I completely deluded ? For instance I always found Horenstein's final Mahler performance from 1972 of Das Lied von der Erde without question one of the most profoundly moving of all.
So yes seeing how we are apparently a dying group in deep denial, just curious if there are any fellow 'cultists' of this supposed 'mediocre' conductor ?
4 AnswersClassical10 years agoWhich is more appropriate: Is Mahler considered more representative of the late 19th century or early 20th?
Or is more like an assimilation of both ?
3 AnswersClassical10 years agoWhat is your opinion of the opera Tosca and composer Giacomo Puccini in general?
As a non opera lover, bar for the odd aria I've never formed an opinion but I've listened to Wagner's Tristan in full so I'm thinking of doing the same with Tosca and the real reason behind the choice was so that I can listen to a full Maria Callas performance rather than an album of selected extracts.
From what I've picked up on, her 1953 La Scala performance with conductor Victor de Sabata is considered one of the definitive opera recordings ?
A quote from Wikipedia: Benjamin Britten was reportedly "sickened by the cheapness and emptiness" of Puccini's music.
6 AnswersClassical10 years agoAnyone else a big fan of Dimitri Mitropoulos?
For anyone who might have missed it.
I just wanted to draw attention to this, his final recording released officially for the first time.
A legendary performance of Mahler's 3rd Symphonie from October 1960.
http://www.icartists.co.uk/classics/catalog/cds/di...
I'm so happy ( :
2 AnswersClassical10 years agoOpinion poll : best recordings of Prokofiev's complete seven symphonies?
thanks guys and gals
1 AnswerClassical10 years agoIs this correct : Argentine pianist Martha Argerich has never recorded with conductor Herbert von Karajan?
Does this extend to having never performed together ?
Grazie
3 AnswersClassical10 years agoClaude Debussy : just curious - do you prefer his piano or orchestral works?
His music has grown on me somewhat of late (well all of a sudden in fact over the last three days?) whereas previously I was a bit dismissive.
I'm still more familiar with the piano works.
Prelude no.6 from the first book
Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps in the Snow):
12 AnswersClassical10 years ago