Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen
 Wagner is an acquired taste, particularly late Wagner. |
Speaking of acquired tastes, I went to the symphony again last month - Pinchas Zuckerman (sp?) was guest conductor/performer and they opened with Beethoven's violin romances and closed with Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony.
In between they did Schoenberg's
Verklärte Nacht and much to my surprise I really sort of... liked it. Of course IIRC it is a very early composition.
This Sunday I've got tickets again and they'll be doing something and something else and then the Emperor Concerto. It has become one of my very favorite pieces over the past couple of years and I'm really looking forward to it.
Next season they are doing a whole BUNCH of Beethoven, including the 8th symphony, and in all honesty I might even like that one better than the 9th. I never even listened to it until a couple years ago, I mean with LvB it seems like the focus is always on 3-5-7-9 and sometimes 6, but man when I got a complete cycle on CD I listened to it and it took me DAYS just to get through the first part of the first movement, I would get to the part where it - crap I don't know the technical terms - it all builds up and then you get that big "da da da DUM da da da DUM da da da DUM da da da" and then the last "DUM" bounces you right back to the beginning again. IT BLEW ME AWAY. I just kept listening up to that point and then starting over again, because it's so awesome.
Then I listen to the rest of the first movement and it gets EVEN BETTER. When it gets all minor and tense and builds and builds and then there's that moment where it all resolves back into a major fanfare and it's like the sun suddenly breaking through the clouds after a dark and violent storm. TA DA!!
And the fourth movement is seven minutes of pure bliss, unless the conductor sets the tempo too slow in which I case I turn it off and go listen to somebody else's version.
Too slow it loses what I love about it most, which is that it feels so playful and mischievous. The image I always get in my head is someone dangling a string in front of a kitten, where of course you are the kitten and the music is the string and LvB is the one dangling it and chuckling every time you jump.
Oh hey yeah and I also bought a condo, what were we talking about again?
