21–30 of 37 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I received an email from him last Saturday so I highly doubt that. If that's your idea of having a sense of humor I suggest you get it checked.
probably just a joke referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich
I've worn my best a couple of times in the last few months, it's been enough with the Grim Reaper for a while for me, so I'm not too easily amused by the subject.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Which is very close to how I feel about Haydn. Well, the melody from one of his string quartets was used as a national anthem. In terms of inventiveness, he did things like writing a menuet where the first half is a mirror of the second half. Also, his "The Joke" string quartet screws around with the audience with multiple false endings, then a final ending that makes it sounds like the music will continue. Also, l…
> Which is very close to how I feel about Haydn. Glossed over that part when I first read the comment! It was Haydn who essentially created "The Classical Style", which is perhaps the most perfect mode of musical discourse that humanity has yet encountered. His importance is under-stated in the statement that he is "the Shakespeare of Music". That is all quite apart from the innumerable volumes of individual masterpi…
A real John Henry, that one. :)
It's neat that Hacklily is right next to an article about Reicha. Very musical day on HN. Anyway, here's a piece by Reicha in Hacklily: https://www.hacklily.org/#?edit=jnetterf/sheet-music/Fantais...
It is indeed cool that Hackily is near Reicha; he would have loved it (and Hacker News, for that matter). Music notation software has been ripe for disruption for a while. The problem is that for what most people want to do the interfaces are too complex and slow to learn.
The problem seems to be getting worse because of the desire to make possible the notation of as many far-fetched extreme cases, rather than making the core use as simple as possible.
Imagine if you were to use Finale or Sibelius (two of the best known) as a novice. Imagine you were JS Bach trying to write his first Prelude from Book one of the WTC with the software. The patterns should be faster to notate.
A tough problem, admittedly, but an important one to solve for future generations of young musicians learning the craft. Writing music by hand is still easier for simple pieces, for solo instruments.
Glad that he's finally getting some of recognition that he has been unfairly denied for centuries. There is extraordinary intelligence and personality behind his music. It's almost inexplicable that he doesn't get more attention. By far the most "underrated" composer that I am aware of. Reicha's work proves that the style pioneered by Haydn was not only fundamentally sound, but capable of change and development far b…
The experimentation Reicha loved so much became popular in post World War II Europe and America. Many would argue that this led composers into a modernist dead end. But I guess if Beethoven had never happened Schoenberg wouldn't have either. But then we forfeit Wagner too...
I've been pondering a related question which I've found difficult to answer: if Beethoven's music had been lost or misplaced, would we immediately recognize it as "genius" if someone made a first recording in 2018? I'm not so sure.
Glad that he's finally getting some of recognition that he has been unfairly denied for centuries. There is extraordinary intelligence and personality behind his music. It's almost inexplicable that he doesn't get more attention. By far the most "underrated" composer that I am aware of. Reicha's work proves that the style pioneered by Haydn was not only fundamentally sound, but capable of change and development far b…
My experience with Reicha is mostly through his wind quintets, which are all competent, but not especially memorable IMHO. Which is very close to how I feel about Haydn. Reicha is actually more famous among woodwind players for popularizing (maybe originating?) the ensemble than for any of his individual works. Even a lesser work of Beethoven like his wind octet seems like a much higher standard to me. (To be fair, I…
He was not the very first to write for that ensemble, but the instant popularity of the 24 (actually 25) wind quintets led a lot more people to write for that instrumentation (flute, oboe, clarinet, French or English horn, bassoon).
The blanket statement that Beethoven's octet is a higher standard than anything Reicha wrote for quintet is a little dicey. There's a reason all wind players play Reicha. The works are sophisticated, comfortable and formally pretty quirky, with plenty of memorable moments. That said, if you don't find Haydn memorable then there's not much I can do to argue in his favor, except urge you to listen more of it.
The important point here is that the wind quintets make up a tiny proportion of Reicha's music, and that dozens of hours of music have never been recorded. Much of the music is only available in (messy) original manuscripts in France's National Library in Paris (BnF). Implication: it is hard to make generalizations about Reicha's music because we just don't know it well enough yet. Keep in mind that he composed just as much experimental music as conventional music, drawing conclusions and extrapolating from one opus to the whole output isn't a good idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience with Reicha is mostly through his wind quintets, which are all competent, but not especially memorable IMHO. Which is very close to how I feel about Haydn. Reicha is actually more famous among woodwind players for popularizing (maybe originating?) the ensemble than for any of his individual works. Even a lesser work of Beethoven like his wind octet seems like a much higher standard to me. (To be fair, I…
> Which is very close to how I feel about Haydn. Well, the melody from one of his string quartets was used as a national anthem. In terms of inventiveness, he did things like writing a menuet where the first half is a mirror of the second half. Also, his "The Joke" string quartet screws around with the audience with multiple false endings, then a final ending that makes it sounds like the music will continue. Also, l…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience with Reicha is mostly through his wind quintets, which are all competent, but not especially memorable IMHO. Which is very close to how I feel about Haydn. Reicha is actually more famous among woodwind players for popularizing (maybe originating?) the ensemble than for any of his individual works. Even a lesser work of Beethoven like his wind octet seems like a much higher standard to me. (To be fair, I…
The wind quintets were written on commission, for public consumption, rather than being "written for the drawer", as many of the works in this recording series were. Nonetheless, they are still first rate compositions and full to the brim with truly unusual features. The fact that those innovations are able to go by without being perceived while listening to or even performing them is a testament to Reicha's skill in…
Glad that he's finally getting some of recognition that he has been unfairly denied for centuries. There is extraordinary intelligence and personality behind his music. It's almost inexplicable that he doesn't get more attention. By far the most "underrated" composer that I am aware of. Reicha's work proves that the style pioneered by Haydn was not only fundamentally sound, but capable of change and development far b…
It is indeed intriguing to imagine music history if composers had followed Reicha's lead rather than Beethoven's. There would have been a lot more metrically interesting music earlier, that's for sure. The experimentation Reicha loved so much became popular in post World War II Europe and America. Many would argue that this led composers into a modernist dead end. But I guess if Beethoven had never happened Schoenber…
Loved the documentaries. How about Episode 5 'Paris'?
Glad that he's finally getting some of recognition that he has been unfairly denied for centuries. There is extraordinary intelligence and personality behind his music. It's almost inexplicable that he doesn't get more attention. By far the most "underrated" composer that I am aware of. Reicha's work proves that the style pioneered by Haydn was not only fundamentally sound, but capable of change and development far b…
My experience with Reicha is mostly through his wind quintets, which are all competent, but not especially memorable IMHO. Which is very close to how I feel about Haydn. Reicha is actually more famous among woodwind players for popularizing (maybe originating?) the ensemble than for any of his individual works. Even a lesser work of Beethoven like his wind octet seems like a much higher standard to me. (To be fair, I…
Interesting, I was just reading Sviatoslav Richter's "notebooks and conversations" in which he says of the classical composers, he liked Haydn the best.
As to memorability, clearly the great string quartets are memorable as well as some of the London symphonies. His sonatas for solo piano (see Richter comment) and his luminous trios for cello, piano, and flute are all greatly memorable pieces too in my opinion. That's a fairly large body of works to have labled as "competent but not especially memorable" IMHO.
p.s. Richter's book is an easy and worthy read--mostly biographical with lots of opinions on many topics, especially modern composers and musicians he played with.
Glad that he's finally getting some of recognition that he has been unfairly denied for centuries. There is extraordinary intelligence and personality behind his music. It's almost inexplicable that he doesn't get more attention. By far the most "underrated" composer that I am aware of. Reicha's work proves that the style pioneered by Haydn was not only fundamentally sound, but capable of change and development far b…
It is indeed intriguing to imagine music history if composers had followed Reicha's lead rather than Beethoven's. There would have been a lot more metrically interesting music earlier, that's for sure. The experimentation Reicha loved so much became popular in post World War II Europe and America. Many would argue that this led composers into a modernist dead end. But I guess if Beethoven had never happened Schoenber…
I'm not qualified to comment on the genius of any composer, but knowing my background, I would say he would have become immensely popular. Growing up, people around me knew nothing about western classical music, not even enough to name a few famous composers. I found cassette tapes in Bangalore's music shops and tried them out randomly. Beethoven quickly became one of my favorites and the factors could not have been either that I was over-exposed to his music through general culture while growing up or that his name was famous around here, biasing me in his favour.
I like to think of good composers as one of two kinds: (1) those who impress novices to the tradition of this kind of music (western classical, in this case) and (2) those who impress long-term aficionados. Based on my own tastes, examples of the first kind would be Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mozart, etc. and examples of the second kind would be Bach, Mahler, Schoenberg, etc. Of course, these categories are fuzzy, and I'm sure there are composers who would qualify for both categories. However, I think a valid approach to answering your question would be to survey what sort of an impression a composer makes on novices to the genre.
Thank you for making recordings of Reicha's works! I'm not a novice to the genre anymore, but it's nice to have new compositions from the classical period to listen to.