If Music Be The Food Of Love, Play On: The Music Thread: What Are You Listening To?

What speed should Beethoven’s music be played at? It seems perhaps his metronome markings in the score aren’t as they seem. Conductors have ignored the markings for years because they seem much too fast. Recently however, “historically informed” performances have taken the prescribed markings, and the performances have been described as frantically fast.

So, they have been trying to figure out what might be the problem: Beethoven’s metronome, or rather his inability to read it properly.

www.eurekalert.org

Big data will analyze the mystery of Beethoven's metronome

Data science and physics research at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and UNED has analysed a centuries-old controversy over Beethoven's annotations about the tempo (the playing speed) of his works, which is considered to be too fast based on these marks. In this study, published in the PLOS...
www.eurekalert.org
 
SuperMatt said:
What speed should Beethoven’s music be played at? It seems perhaps his metronome markings in the score aren’t as they seem. Conductors have ignored the markings for years because they seem much too fast. Recently however, “historically informed” performances have taken the prescribed markings, and the performances have been described as frantically fast.

So, they have been trying to figure out what might be the problem: Beethoven’s metronome, or rather his inability to read it properly.

www.eurekalert.org

Big data will analyze the mystery of Beethoven's metronome

Data science and physics research at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and UNED has analysed a centuries-old controversy over Beethoven's annotations about the tempo (the playing speed) of his works, which is considered to be too fast based on these marks. In this study, published in the PLOS...
www.eurekalert.org
Click to expand...

Fascinating.

And reminiscent of the disagreemment over the speed of the French national anthem, or, rather, the speed at which it should be played.

In recent decades, well, since M. Mitterrand was elected to office in 1981 as President of France for the Socilaist Party, and subsequently decided that the Marseillaise should be played at a faster speed, reflecting its revolutionary heritage (and perhaps the speed at which it was originaly played when it was first composed), a decision reversed by his Gaullist successors, who insisted on a slower (more sedate) tempo, this had beocme a political matter, as well one of histiry, of music and of artistic sensibility.

Those on the left
 
Madeleine Peyroux. Tracks from her 2009 album Bare Bones.


peyroux - bare bones.jpg
​
 
Decent Brother recommended that I listen to the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (which he discovered during the current lockdown and thought I would like) and that is exactly what I am doing just now.
 
A few from the Human League: Don't Yuou Want Me; Love Action; Mirror Man; The Lebanon; Love Is All That Matters; Louise; Together In Electric Dreams; and Human.
 
Alan Hovhaness - Symphony No, 2, Op. 132, Mysterious Mountain. Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony (1958). This was the first recording of this 1955 composition, and it remains the most preferred one all this time later.

 
Scepticalscribe said:
Decent Brother recommended that I listen to the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (which he discovered during the current lockdown and thought I would like) and that is exactly what I am doing just now.
Click to expand...
Did you?
My husband is a definite fan.

lizkat said:
Alan Hovhaness - Symphony No, 2, Op. 132, Mysterious Mountain. Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony (1958). This was the first recording of this 1955 composition, and it remains the most preferred one all this time later.

Click to expand...

Hovhaness. My introduction to his sound world was by way of the wonderful Cosmos… Symphony No.19.

I never warmed to him outside of his slow movements. Perhaps I should give him another listen with my much older and wiser ears.

:)
 
Arkitect said:
Did you?
My husband is a definite fan.


Hovhaness. My introduction to his sound world was by way of the wonderful Cosmos… Symphony No.19.

I never warmed to him outside of his slow movements. Perhaps I should give him another listen with my much older and wiser ears.

:)
Click to expand...

Yes, I did like them.

Decent Brother regularly phones (or texts, or even somtimes DMs me by tweet with musical recommendations he thinks I would like).

Just now, I am listening to Nuestra Ultima Cita - Ibrahim Ferrer - Buena Vista Social Club.
 
And that brings a prompt, a reminder, to listen to one of the greatest albums of the modern era, timelss and simply awesome, The Buena Vista Social Club.

In another life, a pre-Covid life, I even had the privilege of hearing them play, live......during a European tour around 20 years ago.
 
Mozart piano concertos 21 and 23 for me tonight... Murray Perahia, English Chamber Orchestra

album art mozart perahia pcons 21 23.jpg
 
Scepticalscribe said:
A few from the Human League: Don't Yuou Want Me; Love Action; Mirror Man; The Lebanon; Love Is All That Matters; Louise; Together In Electric Dreams; and Human.
Click to expand...

I love Human League's later synth-dance-pop, but have you ever listened to their much earlier material? It's before the two female singers joined, it's darker, more trance electronic, really neat stuff. Probably the most notable of their earlier work is Being Boiled (partially, a protest anthem against silk farming of all things ...)

This is the version from the album Travelogue, there's a few versions, I like this slightly faster, more musically dense take:

 

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