Max Reger Fantazja i Fuga d moll op 135b. Józef Kotowicz

[pieter]

This thread is about classical music and old music.



It is funny my Polish grandfathers name was Jozef Kotowicz.

Same name other family possibly.

[pieter]

[pieter]

Johann Sebastian Bach is music is magical for me. Both his organ and choir music. Mathew Passion, Johns Passion, his Christmas Oratorio (German: Weihnachts-Oratorium) and his cantata's. I heard his music in the Cathedral of Antwerp and in the Eusebius church in Arnhem. You got goosebumps of the sound of Bach in a church. Majestic!

My favorite piece of Bach I heard in the cathedral of Antwerp


I think that Bach was the most briljant, best and most religious Christian (Lutheran) musician ever.

[pieter]

Ton Koopman unleashes the magnificent fury of Bach on the 1693 Arp Schnitger organ, St. Jacobi, Hamburg. Built during 1689 and 1693.

Performed in the presence of the Ringk manuscript.

Pitch: A495.45 Hz

Tuning: Modified meantone temperament

Ton Koopman



Antonius Gerhardus Michael (Ton) Koopman (born 2 October 1944) is a Dutch conductor, organist and harpsichordist. He is also professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In April 2003 he was knighted in the Netherlands, receiving the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

Biography

Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ (with Simon C. Jansen), harpsichord (with Gustav Leonhardt), and musicology in Amsterdam. He specialized in Baroque music and received the Prix d'Excellence for both organ and harpsichord.

Koopman founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1979 and the Amsterdam Baroque Choir in 1992, now combined as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir. Koopman concentrates on Baroque music, especially that of Bach and is a leading figure in the "authentic performance" movement. While a number of early-music conductors have ventured into newer music, Koopman has not. He has said, "I draw the line at Mozart's death" (1791).[1] One exception is his recording of the Concert Champêtre of Francis Poulenc, written in 1928.

Bach cantatas project


Ton Koopman as a conductor

Among Koopman's most ambitious projects was the recording of the complete cycle of all of Bach's cantatas, a project completed in 2005. This project had started while Koopman was an artist of the French Erato Classics label. However, after 12 volumes (36 CDs) the project was stalled when owner Warner Classics wound up its French subsidiary in 2002. Koopman was able to buy back rights for the first 12 volumes and continue the series in 2003 with his own label Antoine Marchand, distributed by Challenge Classics. "Antoine Marchand" is a French translation of his own name.

Soloists for the project were among others Lisa Larsson, Cornelia Samuelis, Sandrine Piau, Sibylla Rubens, Barbara Schlick, Caroline Stam, Deborah York and Johannette Zomer (soprano), Bogna Bartosz, Michael Chance, Franziska Gottwald, Bernhard Landauer, Elisabeth von Magnus, Annette Markert and Kai Wessel (alto), Paul Agnew, Jörg Dürmüller, James Gilchrist, Christoph Prégardien and Gerd Türk (tenor) and Klaus Mertens (bass).


Ton Koopman as a conductor

[pieter]

Pity dich, my God (Erbarme dich, mein Gott)

Erbarme dich, mein Gott is the most famous aria from the Matthäus-Passion by the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach. The aria immediately follows Peter's denial.

The lyrics of the aria were written by Picander. The aria was written in the year 1728. The melody of the aria is very similar to Ich habe genug written in 1727. The rhythm follows the pattern of a Sicilian.

The text

The text of the Erbarme dich is sung by an alto, traditionally the part is sung by a masculine alto.

Lyrics

Erbarme Dich,
Mein Gott,
Um meiner Zähren willen
Schaue hier,
Herz und Auge weint vor Dir
Bitterlich.

Have mercy, Lord,
My God,
Because of my tears.
See,
Heart and eyes cry
Bitter for you

In the Christian faith Jesus understood our pain. In fact, Jesus prayed His most passionate prayers in the hardest moments. And through these prayers we find the example and encouragement we need for our own trying times. Here are three passionate prayers Jesus prayed to God. Pity dich, my God (Erbarme dich, mein Gott) from Johann Sebastian Bach goes about this prayer of Jezus to God, knowing wath his fate would be. This is on of the most intense Christian motives in Johann Sebastian Bach's Mathew Passion.

[pieter]

In the musical world of course this deeply religious music of Bach is played by people of many cultures and faiths. In the Netherlands there is a strong Bach tradition next to a strong Mahler tradition. I grew up with parents who played a lot of 'classical' music of the composers Ludwig van Beethoven (17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827), Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897), Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809), Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904), Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856), Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886), Felix Mendelssohn (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847) (the violin concertoes of Mendelssohn), Frédéric Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), Karol Szymanowski (1882 – 1937), Henryk Wieniawski (1835 – 1880), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893), Sergei Prokofiev (1891 – 5 March 1953), Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908) and occasionaly Josef Strauss (20 August 1827 – 22 July 1870), Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860 – 1941), Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) -my mother loved Vivaldi-, and the French composers Camille Saint-Saëns (9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921), Erik Satie (1866–1925) and Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937). A composer they also played an whom I often forget is the composer Edvard Grieg. Of course this was often to much classical music to the adolescent ears of my sister and mine. Because our interest was pop music, rock music, disco, soul music, Reggea music and video clips of these pop groups and not the boring 'old folks' classical music. Now the older me of 50 am greatful to my mother and father for exposing us to that rich tradition of European classical music, both Baroque and Romantic music of the 18th and 19th centuries.

One of our favorite pianoconcertos is this marvelous masterwork of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943)


My father and I are very fond of Robert Schumann's Pianconcert a-Moll Op. 54


Unfortunately Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) suffered from a mental disorder that first manifested in 1833 as a severe melancholic depressive episode—which recurred several times alternating with phases of "exaltation" and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. What is now thought to have been a combination of bipolar disorder and perhaps mercury poisoning led to "manic" and "depressive" periods in Schumann's compositional productivity. In late February 1854, Schumann's symptoms increased, the angelic visions sometimes being replaced by demonic ones. He warned his wife Clara Schumann (1819 – 1896) that he feared he might do her harm. On 27 February, he attempted suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the Rhine River (his elder sister Emilie had committed suicide in 1825, possibly by drowning herself). Rescued by boatmen and taken home, he asked to be taken to an asylum for the insane. He entered Dr. Franz Richarz's sanatorium in Endenich, a quarter of Bonn, and remained there until he died on 29 July 1856 at the age of 46. During his confinement, he was not allowed to see Clara, although Brahms was free to visit him. Clara finally visited him two days before his death. He appeared to recognize her, but was able to speak only a few words. Diagnosed with psychotic melancholia, he died of pneumonia two years later at the age of 46, without recovering from his mental illness.

[pieter]

Another excellent version of Erbarme dich

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Old medieval European christian music can go very deep as well in the spiritual and musical sense. I like the music of Hildegard von Bingen.



Hildegard von Bingen



Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath of the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most-recorded in modern history. She has been considered by many in Europe to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard's fellow nuns elected her as magistra in 1136; she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs for female choirs to sing and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota



Although the history of her formal canonization is complicated, branches of the Roman Catholic Church have recognized her as a saint for centuries. On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of Hildegard to the entire Catholic Church in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 7 October 2012, he named her a Doctor of the Church, in recognition of "her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching."

[pieter]

[pieter]

In German without English subtitles unfortunately

[pieter]

Stabat Mater



Stabat Mater (P.77) is a musical setting of the Stabat Mater sequence, composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736) in 1736. Composed in the final weeks of Pergolesi's life, it is scored for soprano and alto soloists, violin I and II, viola and basso continuo (cello and organ).

Background


Giovanni Battista Draghi (4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), often referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Italian: [perɡoˈleːzi; -eːsi]), was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist and organist. His best-known works include his Stabat Mater and the opera La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress). His compositions include operas and sacred music. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 26.

Many pieces which were said to have been composed by Pergolesi have been misattributed; the Stabat Mater is definitely by Pergolesi, as a manuscript in his handwriting has been preserved. The work was composed for a Neapolitan confraternity, the Confraternita dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo, which had also commissioned a Stabat Mater from Alessandro Scarlatti. Pergolesi composed it during his final illness from tuberculosis in a Franciscan monastery in Pozzuoli, along with a Salve Regina setting, and, as it is said, finished it right before he died.

Reception

The Stabat Mater is one of Pergolesi's most celebrated sacred works, achieving great popularity after the composer's death. Jean-Jacques Rousseau showed appreciation for the work, praising the opening movement as "the most perfect and touching duet to come from the pen of any composer". Many composers adapted the work, including Giovanni Paisiello, who extended the orchestral accompaniment, and Joseph Eybler, who added a choir to replace some of the duets. Bach's Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden is a parody cantata based on Pergolesi's composition.

The work was not without its detractors. Padre Martini criticised its light, operatic style in 1774, and believed it was too similar to Pergolesi's comic opera La serva padrona to adequately deliver the pathos of the text.


Portrait of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). Italian composer, organist and violinist, A non artist, XVIIIth century. Museum: Pinacoteca Civica, Jesi, Italy.