Classical Music Mayhem!!

This comes from Handel's oratorio 'The Choice of Hercules' (not to be confused with his other bigger production, 'Hercules') which I'll be doing a topic on later.

Ok, I've got one now. This video is very funny and places opera in a different light than we usually see it.

All The Great Operas in 10 Minutes


And if Victor Borge's your thing, this related video is also very funny.
"A Mozart Opera"

Given the recent interest in Boccherini's music on this forum I have searched the Tube for his Stabat Mater, and I have found this.
It is a rather good intepretation, expressive and smooth, and the audio quality is decent
(the video, instead, is an overloaded mess of heterogeneous materials: the only good thing is the glimpse of a few melting images from Pasolini's "Gospel" and "Mamma Roma").

Boccherini wrote his Stabat Mater in 1781 for Soprano and Strings, and rehandled it in 1800 in a new version for three voices (Sopr., Alto, Ten.)
Here we can listen to the first No. (Stabat Mater Dolorosa) from the first version.
Sopr: Sophie Karsthauser
Les Folies Françaises
Patrick Cohen-Akenine conductor



Boccherini's Stabat Mater is a great full-classical style Sacred Work.
the intimacy of the soprano solo version magnifies its deepness and spirituality.

It deserves to be no less popular than Pergolesi's one

Cheers Brine, will add these to this evening's other chores!

The Boccherini's pretty good, though the second video is quite absurd!

You say it is 'full-classical' but what struck me is how archaic it sounds for a work of the 1780s, complete with Bach-like pleading.

Bach-like you say?
But not (if I have understood well) from a formal point of view.

It seems to me that especially the phrasing of this piece isn't baroque-like; even if, however, is typically characterized by a certain degree of archaism (rather common in Church Music).
But I think that you would judge differently after listening to the whole work.

On the argument of the previous post, I have found on the web an interesting article, by the musicologist Remigio Coli.
Unfortunately it's in Italian: there is only a very short abstract in English, but the musical examples are clear.

Here is the link.

He shows some self-borrowings that Boccherini made from the "Stabat" in two of his chamber works (Quintet f-min op. 42,1 and Quartet c-min op. 41,1), and also the derivation of two themes of the "Stabat" from an early quartet, and from a quintet (see page 4, footnote 6).

The author delves especially in the religious meaning the probably Boccherini gave to those these self-quotations. But doing so, he says some other interesting things.

It's interesting to observe how phrases from the Stabat fit well in some typical chamber works:

cujus animam gementem:



trio from c-min Quartet op 41,1



The f-min slow movement of the same quartet, the author says, is a shortened version of the "Quando corpus morietur"



for another self-quotation see pag. 4 link

and also the first section of the Stabat



provides thematic material to the slow movement (in B-flat) of the f-min Quintet:



If I were more good at writing in English, I would translate some passage, but perhaps the example I have quoted are sufficiently interesting.

Well you can't get more archaic than the 15th century!

Well, Rod

I admit the my phrase "full-classical style" was exaggerated.
The Stabat is somewhere halfway.

After all Boccherini was born in 1743, 11 years after Haydn, and 13 long and important years before Mozart.
In his long creative way from late baroque influences to the full display of classicism he was more similar to the former than to the latter.

Greetings.

That makes sense. Greetings back!

Taking the cue from Boccherini's fandango, I have found this clip of Scott Ross playing Padre Antonio Soler's famous (450 bars!) harpsichord Fandango in d minor.

Although near the end the track is shortened of a few notes, it deserves a listening: a fine performance

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=_fycxp401 ... re=related

I find YouTube to be quite a nice source of things most people have never seen before...a lot of cuts of performers who are known(sort of), but have made no commercial recordings or T.V. appearances. Then there is material from classic television programs of the '50's and '60's: The Ed Sullivan Show, Bell Telephone Hour, The Voice of Firestone,etc. There were giants in the world at that time, the likes of which we may never see, or hear, again. It's a great repository for historic clips...a real learning place for those who weren't around to have experienced those artists when they were alive. SS

Yes Youtube is handy for grabbing those brief moments of dance and music genius...

Some clips by the Italian cartoonist Emanuele Luzzati



A tribute to Rossini Duetto di gatti (the cats duet) LINK
A tribute to Rossini Il Turco in Italia Ouverture LINK
A tribute to Mozart and Luzzati: Papageno - Papagena duet LINK