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1. Chopin - Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 2
2. Barber and Shostakovich - Cello Concertos
3. Stockhausen - Helikopter Quartett
4. Steve Hillage - Rainbow Dome Musick
5. Philip Glass - Solo Piano
6. Kirk Degiorgio - Off World Two Worlds
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Some classical music appearing in the log this week. I don't know much about classical music - I've merely dabbled. There is so much of it. I used to go to the HMV superstore on Oxford Street and the entire bottom floor was given over just to classical music. Rock and pop has been around for 50 years or so, jazz a bit longer, but then you think of classical music and realise it's been around for 500 years at least! Then each piece in the classical music repertoire is "covered" so to speak a multitude of times by different artists/orchestras/conductors (to the experts the interpretations of pieces varies enormously - not for me, one copy of Chopin's Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 2 is enough for me and I'm not too worried who is playing it - actually in this case it is the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra with soloist Alexsandar Madzar and conductor Dmitri Kitaenko).
Classical music is actually a misnomer. People use it to refer to all orchestral music but it actually relates to a particular era of music rather than a type - the "classical period" which more precisely refers to the period 1750 - 1820.
The major time divisions of Western "classical" music have been broadly defined by the following overlapping categories:
ancient music pre 500 AD
early music 500 - 1400
renaissance 1400 - 1600
baroque 1600 -1750
classical 1750 - 1820
romantic 1780 - 1910
modern 1890 - 1930
postmodern 1930 - present
contemporary 1945 - present
Barber (b. 1910), Shostakovich (b. 1906) and Stockhausen (b. 1928) were all "modern" or "20th Century" composers. American Samuel Barber is probably the most "traditional" classical composer here - his Adagio is one of the most celebrated pieces in the classical repertoire and you would have heard it even if you hadn't realised. Dmitri Shostakovich was a prolific Russian composer who wrote symphonies, operas, ballets, chamber music, solo piano works, and even film music and jazz (when the government allowed). Karlheinz Stockhausen was one of the first "avant-garde" composers who was a particular influence upon a number of German rock bands in the late 60s and 70s including Can and Kraftwerk. The experimental nature of his music is aptly demonstrated by his Helikopter Quartett where the four members of a string quartet perform in separate flying helicopters. I know, it sounds mad - you've got to see it really and here is a video:
Steve Hillage was the guitarist in Gong (and later System 7). Rainbow Dome Musick is a bit of a departure from the crazy space rock of that band, being an ambient minimalist piece of gurgling pulsations although it does recall Gong instrumental explorations like A Sprinkling of Clouds. It reminds me a lot of Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air, not just in name.
Kirk Degiorgio's Offworld Two Worlds is an instrumental album of easy listening jazz soul funk mixes. Nice cover too, which graces the top of the log this week.
Classical music is actually a misnomer. People use it to refer to all orchestral music but it actually relates to a particular era of music rather than a type - the "classical period" which more precisely refers to the period 1750 - 1820.
The major time divisions of Western "classical" music have been broadly defined by the following overlapping categories:
ancient music pre 500 AD
early music 500 - 1400
renaissance 1400 - 1600
baroque 1600 -1750
classical 1750 - 1820
romantic 1780 - 1910
modern 1890 - 1930
postmodern 1930 - present
contemporary 1945 - present
Barber (b. 1910), Shostakovich (b. 1906) and Stockhausen (b. 1928) were all "modern" or "20th Century" composers. American Samuel Barber is probably the most "traditional" classical composer here - his Adagio is one of the most celebrated pieces in the classical repertoire and you would have heard it even if you hadn't realised. Dmitri Shostakovich was a prolific Russian composer who wrote symphonies, operas, ballets, chamber music, solo piano works, and even film music and jazz (when the government allowed). Karlheinz Stockhausen was one of the first "avant-garde" composers who was a particular influence upon a number of German rock bands in the late 60s and 70s including Can and Kraftwerk. The experimental nature of his music is aptly demonstrated by his Helikopter Quartett where the four members of a string quartet perform in separate flying helicopters. I know, it sounds mad - you've got to see it really and here is a video:
Steve Hillage was the guitarist in Gong (and later System 7). Rainbow Dome Musick is a bit of a departure from the crazy space rock of that band, being an ambient minimalist piece of gurgling pulsations although it does recall Gong instrumental explorations like A Sprinkling of Clouds. It reminds me a lot of Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air, not just in name.
Kirk Degiorgio's Offworld Two Worlds is an instrumental album of easy listening jazz soul funk mixes. Nice cover too, which graces the top of the log this week.