Category: Music

The first four Mahler symphonies are called Wunderhorn symphonies for good reason: they all draw inspiration from songs in the Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection, including quotations or rearrangements of song settings that Mahler had done. That correlates with the structure of the Wunderhorn symphonies, contrasted with his later work: more songlike, more scene-painting, more focus […]

It’s an awful question to pose, to pick just one (or even several). I’m forcing myself to limit myself to five: The 2nd movement of the Ninth: a dialectic of nostalgia and dissolution, of wistfulness and nihilism. The 1st movement of the Ninth: an astonishing accomplishment both formally (everything is in the first two bars) […]

Well, this will be an odd response. Clarinet Concerto (Nielsen). Which is a companion piece, to my mind, to Symphony No. 5 (Nielsen). Answered 2016-07-31 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-are-the-best-clarinet-concertos-ever/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

OP, your question appears to be about musical notation (written language), not about the language of music per se. Western musical notation developed out of Mensural notation , which in turn developed out of Neumatic notation. The Byzantine Notation system is an independent development of neumatic notation, used in the Greek church, which looks nothing […]

Lazily: because Stravinsky wrote it at the time he was writing his Neoclassical stuff. The Symphony of Psalms does not have the obvious shoutouts to the Baroque or Classical period that Pulcinella or Oedipus Rex does, and in parts it sounds closer to his earlier Russian period. It certainly ostinatoes like early Stravinsky. Good catch, […]

Gustav Mahler: Der Tambourg’sell. It’s an wrenching, heart-on-sleeve story of a soldier about to be executed. And the stanza that resounds with me most is not the final (“Farewell, marble rocks; farewell, mountains and hills”); it’s not even the second (“Oh, gallows, you tall house, you look so frightening”). It’s the third: Wenn Soldaten vorbeimarschier’n,bei […]

OP, and I’ll go first. Havergal Brian’s Symphony No. 1 “The Gothic”. I first heard of Brian from the Guinness Book of Records, back before it became a picture book. My curiosity was reawakened this past year through some random link taking me to the Havergal Brian Society’s pages. His life story is cool; his […]

This question comes up a lot in different guises. Let me put up a related question. Let’s say some contemporary of Beethoven’s—in fact, a classmate of Beethoven’s—started writing music a century ahead of his time. With polyrhythms, and atonality, and all that nice Stravinsky stuff. What would Beethoven make of him? I give you: Anton […]

A friend of mine was listening to Telemann’s solo violin music, to understand better what was so good about Bach’s solo violin music; I followed his lead. And you know, I like Telemann’s solo violin music. It’s not sublime, but I disagree with Jordan Henderson that every piece of music I ever listen to must […]

My votes, in no order: The Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, as a group. I refuse to separate out the Chaconne, they’re all sublime. The Cello Suite no. 5, with the Devil’s Fugue. The Passacaglia & Fugue. Brandenburg no. 5. Orchestral Suite no. 3. Minus the Air; the Goldberg Air is more Bachlike for me, […]