[Fegasderty]

The aforementioned Ravel's ballet is the classic single movement masterpiece (at least IMO, aware of other criticisms) Bolero. It was also used in 10(1979), although in a very obvious manner.

[HedgeYourBets]

Swan song performed by Yo Yo ma (poor audio quality, could not find a better version)

[Raj_Copi_Jin]

Thanks k_g for opening a wonderful thread. I love this form of music very much.
Just a little bit of background. As most of us know like everything in the world has evolved, music also has evolved over the time. Like each region in the world has its own classical roots and origins, Western countries (mainly Europe) also has its own. Western Classical Music can be divided into 7 periods. Pre-medieval (upto 9th century a.d), Medieval (9-14th), Renaissance (1400-1600), Baroque (1600-1750), Classical (1750-1820), Romantic (1820-1910) and Modern (1910-present).

As far as I know pre-medieval and medieval period is known for chanting and predominantly church music. Not much source and insights into this form of music. But mostly composers are monks and nuns. If anyone has, please share. But the actual development of arts and science happened in renaissance period. Even though church music was still prevalent, in this period, music attained more complexity, rather than just chants. Music was created outside of church and in Royal courts for the "Mass". Even music was notated, printed and distributed (thanks to the invention of printing press at this time).

One of the greatest composer in this period is Josquin des Prez. He was a pioneer to make a revolution in the music history. As the name Renaissance suggests it is a rebirth, he was mainly known to throw away the conservative middle-age approach to music and extended the first time, the expressive nature in his music, which was missing in the middle-age music. Also the compositional techniques varied so much from middle age. As far as I know, he was known to be the first composer who introduced contrapuntal techniques in his Mass compositions. One such mass is called Missa Pange Lingua. Luckily we have the notations preserved even after 600 years. Here is this mass performed by the Ensemble Clément Janequin. This Mass is divided into 5 parts. Please refer to the youtube uploader comments. Thanks a million to the uploader. The uploader even uploaded with the score sheet which is amazing! This is all treasure not to be missed.
Part 1: Kyrie & Gloria



Par2: Credo


Part3: Sanctus


Part 4: Agnus dei I II and III


Josquin des Prez, One of the greatest composer! Listen to believe it!!

[Lillie_Steins]

"Ride of the Valkyries"
Excessive rage wanes slowly. Rude behavior, this too shall pass..

[Drugmachine]

Please post the last heard classic here. For record, references & discussion..

[MannoFr]

Continuing on the Renaissance period music, these English composers cannot be forgotten. They are Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. They wrote church music and also keyboard music. William Byrd was a student of Tallis. But they both served at Royal Chapel as composers and organist. Tallis is again known for this contrapuntal techniques.

Tallis's Miserere Nostri just gives us an idea of how the music is so heavenly and divine and haunting too!


Tallis's masterpiece "Videte miraculum". You can clearly see the voice counterpoints. Amazing!! It will take you to a spiritual journey beyond this world!! (enjoy the rest in youtube related videos)


Coming to Willaim Byrd, his "Mass for Five voices" was composed between 1553 and 1558 during the late renaissance. If you see this also has those five parts as mentioned in above post.

Tallis Scholars are the best performers of Renaissance music. This was performed by them.



Absolute classic and divinity!!

[9mm_fan]

There were thousands of composers even at that time. Some great composers of Renaissance era were Giovanni da Palestrina (very influential composer at that time), Orlando di Lasso, Gregorio Allegri, John Taverner, Manuel Cardoso to name a few.

Moving on… Many say moving from Renaissance to Baroque era music is not a gradual one, but intentional. Renaissance music mostly concentrated on contrapuntal techniques, which we call voice-polypony, with focussing mainly on voice textures. Also Renaissance started in north Europe, Baroque started in Italy. Baroque to put it "Illustrates" the word (usually called madrigals) or thought, compared to Renaissance which gave main importance to counterpoints, rather than emotions or words. Initially, in Baroque the illustration or importance were given to mere words, but that was not sufficient to move the listeners. It seems there was even complaints that this form of music didn't have power to move the people unlike what Aristotle did. So the mere illustrations of words "intentionally" changed to illustration of entire thought.

Here a single voice of main melody accompanied by either choir or an instrument which acts as a bass line, so that the entire expression or thought can be clearly presented. This Baroque style usually called a secular rather than sacred (Chant, Hymn, Mass) gave birth to the best known form of music popular even today called "Opera".

It is not just simple what I have quoted or how it has evolved, this is just what I could understand, there will definitely be more errors on my part. I am a novice, so can only just enjoy, don't know much technical details.

Claudia Monterverdi is the most famous composer of early Baroque. Here are some of his best known Monteverdi's Madrigal

I crave for this one, very powerful and very moving. Listen to that soulful voice of the singer. I can listen to this piece on and on….


Look at his majestic operas. This playlist will run from night till morning 14th in the playlist is my favorite piece. Recorded at Venice in 1989.


His compositions are very close to my heart, but very far from ordinary!!! Genius

[Ifroham4]

Wow. When I began this thread, I didn't expect posts of such quality. Before I get on to yours (I haven't tread across those composers, many thanks for brief notes), I'd have to throw-in my latest indulgence.

Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance Marches Op.39". Especially March no.1 in D..

Apparently there are many variations. The purely non-vocal one with instrumental choral is my favorite.

I really got into it by accident, from a least expected source. A Football Compilation.

[Beerinkol]

Edvard Grieg's "In the hall of the mountain king". Redirected from "The Social Network" OST .



As someone mentions in one of the comments - this is rock music from 19th century. Wiki reads -

" In a 1874 letter to his friend Frants Beyer, Grieg expressed his unhappiness with what is now considered one of his most popular compositions from Peer Gynt, In the Hall of the Mountain King: "I have also written something for the scene in the hall of the mountain King - something that I literally can't bear listening to because it absolutely reeks of cow-pies, exaggerated Norwegian nationalism, and trollish self-satisfaction! But I have a hunch that the irony will be discernible. "

LOL.

[LottiFurmann]

Thank you kid-glove for opening this thread and thank you too V_S for these pieces.

[NeroASERCH]

Thank you k_g, Sunil and anbu_kathir. May this is my bad habit, but much as I love WCM, I also love its history on how it has evolved (very exciting!). Hope I am not boring you guys. Also thanks for sharing Edward Elgar and Edvard Grieg's compostions, not heard and will listen to these today evening.

[LottiFurmann]

You're not boring us, your enthusiasm is our driving force hehe.

BTW ELLA FITZGERALD IS A LEGEND.

I absolutely love her, Russian lullaby. I came across her when I found Damien Marley sampled her vocals for, Road to Zion.

[9mm_fan]

Monteverdi is such a class composer. His operas L'orfeo and L'Arianna and church music Vespro della Beata Vergine speaks of his monumental works and because of these works, he was even seen as a composer who knows both era's music, Renaissance and Baroque and he was also seen as the main reason Baroque was also born. With heavy heart leaving Monteverdi.

Also you might have noticed, during Baroque period, slowly and steadily the accompanying instruments got it recognition. Right from Harpsichord, clavichord (keyboard instruments), flute, Viol (not viola), lute to name a few, started evolving and composers from middle and late Baroque period used these instruments for their concertos without voice. Concertos used an instrument as primary accompanied by other instruments. Also we heard some new terms in the music like sonatas (eventhough sonata is known in Renaissance, they way it was used in Baroque is different), continuo (again from Monteverdi), trio sonata, string quartet, quintet, concerto grosso and so on.

Arcangelo Corelli is one such composer in mid baroque who's trio sonata and concerto grosso (his innovation) is very famous.

Trio Sonata Op.1 in G minor A Fantastic piece.


Concerto grosso Op.6 No.8 in G minor (1/6) All the six parts are mind boggling and directly touches your heart!!


But Renaissance and Baroque can't be imagined without a Lute. Lute is a string instrument like a guitar. You can view how the lute looks and is played. Once you hear the lute sound, you may not like guitar at all. This instrument was pivotal in many concerto.


Antonio Vivaldi Lute Concerto in D Major (played by none other than John Williams in 1993, but used a guitar instead of lute). Beautiful piece.


PS: Yes Sunil, Ella is such a gorgeous singer, I have most of her collections. Any day or evening, her songs makes you feel fresh.

[Paul Bunyan]

One of my old posts in Mayyam was on sinister-sounding tendencies of WCM, that also touched on usage of "Schubert Trio in E-flat" in Piano Teacher & Barry Lyndon, and significant thematic similarities. But it's gone off the radar.

Will try to get older posts with some of my favorite pieces.

Recent ones here:

One thing you're promised from Japanese films is their devotion to various forms of music, be it Western Classical music, ballet, or Alternative Rock.

In that respect, the recently watched Confessions might easily join ranks with Love Exposure. It has a strange yet extremely effective combination of Bach's Concerto no.5 and Last Flowers (Radiohead), that's put to deliriously orchestrated melodrama as LE's own eclectic combination of Ravel's Ballet and Beethoven's 7th Symphony.

Significant that both films share disturbing themes (from Incest to oedipal rex), once again emphasizing & underlining the scope of WCM (be it Bach or Beethoven) in background compositions. And Japanese films open up such operatic opulence with relative ease. It's to do with the tradition that they carried on from old dance-(melo)drama routines.

Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake (heightened by the fact I saw "Of Gods and Men", more so than Black Swaaan anyway!) The acknowledgement of abyss towards the latter stages makes for a tremendous effect in "The Last Supper" scene..

[Drugmachine]

The film in my avatar uses two key classical pieces (though Johnny Greenwood score is extremely WCM-heavy ornate in itself).
One in closing credits, Brahms' "Violin Concerto in D Major Op.77:3"

And other being by Arvo Part. This is used right after HW goes deaf. There's a lovely moment when it's briefly cut to silence as we're in HW's state of aural void as Daniel tries to speak to him, vainly.

[doctorzlo]

If I had not seen the first page, I would have thought of this as The K_G Monologue page

[tgs]

If not for VS, I'm afraid it'd very much be monologue mode.

[TorryJens]

k_g, Wow! I have not heard much music from Japanese films (watched few films though). Lot of homework to do. Just like Tarkovsky in films (very fond of his Andrei lublev and The Mirror), Tchaikovsky is my very favorite composer. Swan Lake Ballet is one of this best. Happy that your brought that up

[LottiFurmann]

Oratorio forms an integral part of any baroque period music just like the operas. For the same reason Maestro Ilaiyaraaja also used this style to compose his Thiruvasagam. AFAIK oratorio style was introduced primarily to focus people to turn pious towards religion outside the churches. Opera is more dramatic and is not religious specific, but oratorio is sacred and mostly religious specific. But sometimes these concepts are even interchanged between operas and oratorio.

First one comes to my mind whenever I think about oratorio is Sir George Frideric Handel and his Messiah. But there are many composers before him wrote lot of oratorios. One such gem of a composer is Barbara Strozzi. Yes, she is a woman composer at that time who is very prolific and wrote many oratorios. But coming to Messiah, the beauty in this is there is no standard version. Based on the singer and instruments availability this has changed. One version I liked the most (hope everyone cannot deny this) is the one arranged and orchestrated by the greatest composer of all time Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Just imagine the best composer of oratorio Sir Handel's composition orchestrated by the great Mozart.

Here it is, Hallelujha from Messiah composed by Handel and arranged by Mozart.

[Raj_Copi_Jin]

The aforementioned Ravel's ballet is the classic single movement masterpiece (at least IMO, aware of other criticisms) Bolero. It was also used in 10(1979), although in a very obvious manner.

I like Bolero, but I (as well as Ravel himself apparently) sometimes get annoyed when it seems to be the only thing people recognize from Ravel's work. In fact, the rest of his work is actually quite different from Bolero in style. For example, this piano piece is more along the lines of most of his work:



AKA the "impressionist" period in western classical. Ravel, Debussy...anyone else a fan of them?