MetaFilter posts tagged with symphony

the Hyperedited Ronald McDonald Japanese Symphony Orchestra

Grimp0teuthis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:15:24 -0800

Ladies and gentlemen, It is my pleasure to present to you the Hyperedited Ronald McDonald Japanese Symphony Orchestra. (QLYT).
1. The Sabre Dance
2. Turkish March
3. The Marriage of Figaro
4. Beethoven's 5th Symphony

We are all connected

bwg — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:01:04 -0800

Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, sing to us (auto-tuned in a way that I actually don't hate), in We Are All Connected*. *Possibly NSFW owing to sidebar video links. Something similar was mentioned here previously.

Conductor or charlatan?

bassjump — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:06:27 -0800

Gilbert Kaplan: businessman, investor, occasional journalist, and conductor of Mahler's vast Second Symphony. Or is he, really? Yes, Gilbert Kaplan only conducts one piece of music. And it's not some simple little string symphony. It's Mahler's sprawling Symphony No. 2, requiring him to negotiate a vast orchestra, choir, soloists, and offstage brass, and he conducts it from memory. He has twice recorded the work; his 1985 Cardiff recording has become the best-selling recording of Mahler 2, outselling interpretations by such luminary conductors as Bernstein, Abbado, and Boulez. But is he any good at conducting this piece? "That Mr. Kaplan is no professional conductor was immediately apparent." -Review in the New York Times A "rank amateur" but one now "acknowledged as the leading technical authority on Mahler’s second symphony, consulted by many professional maestros on matters of detail." -The Economist "Each cue was exact without a wasted gesture. His beats were about as textbook as I've ever seen from a conductor." -Phil Catelinet Now David Finlay, a musician in the New York Philharmonic - where Kaplan recently conducted the one piece he knows for the 100th anniversary of the work's premiere in New York - has spoken out against Kaplan. "I have to take extreme exception to the many reviews I have read of his performances.... Mr. Kaplan excels in ignoring the blizzard of Mahler's performance direction." And: "My colleagues and I gave what we could to this rudderless performance, but the evening proved to be nothing more than a simplistic reading of a very wonderful piece of music." On the day of the performance, after hours of rehearsals, members of the orchestra demanded a meeting with orchestra president Zarin Mehta and complained for an hour about Kaplan. So has Kaplan been fooling the music world? Has he been riding on the coattails of Mahler and the American dream? Or is he truly that rare amateur who has learned a new skill at a professional level?

Conducting? Hell, a robot could do it!

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:37:31 -0800

ASIMO Conducts The Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Overthinking a platter of Beethoven

pjern — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:00:30 -0800

An analysis of 376 recorded performances of Beethoven's Eroica (Symphony #3), broken down by such variables as the age of the conductor, length of the recording, and tempo variations. I thought this is worth a FPP and was surprised that the datahounds here do not appear to have posted it before. Even Celibidache is represented. (Paging matteo)

Art Experimental: Ruttmann vs. Milant

carsonb — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:11:47 -0800

Ruttmann vs. Milant
Alexis Milant has composed scores for three experimental animations realised by Walter Ruttmann. The pleasure in watching and [listening to] this come from the reactivity in the same temporality between sound and picture. Walter Ruttmann is perhaps best known for his silent documentary Berlin: Symphony of a Great City* (1927) and for his carefully orchestrated abstract animations. (Ubuweb has Opus I-4 in one.)

Alexis Milant has impressed us before with his excellent art is a game and game an art, aka awesum fingerboarding video! Turns out the impressive sound design of that video is his specialty.

Finally, here are some one-off videos of interest:

Another modern score for Opus I-4
Michael Szymczyk's modern-day re-imagining of Berlin, Vienna: Symphony of a Great City (not silent ;)
A video fingerboarding tutorial

*in 8 parts—you might want to put on some music for this

Mozartmania

ubiquity — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:21:23 -0800

Search the complete works (including 8000 pages of critical commentary) of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a gift by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum on the occasion of his 250th birthday. (German links are also available).

Mozart's famous symphonic theme in G minor played on bottles with rollerblade extensions

persona non grata — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 22:06:07 -0800

The opening theme of Mozart's symphony in G minor, K. 550 - on rollerblades and downhill.

Good for Goodie

1f2frfbf — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:14:28 -0800

However interesting your life is, it probably pales in comparison to Moondog. A homeless, blind composer who transcribed in braille, he went from a career as a street corner musician in New York, to sitting in Carnegie Hall for rehersals at the invitation of Artur Rodzinski, he was invited to Germany and wrote a symphony for four conductors: "The Overtone Tree", he was covered by Janis Joplin and worked with Julie Andrews. (mi)

CARLO MARIA GIULINI | 1914-2005

matteo — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:35:49 -0800

San Carlo of the Symphony. Il Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini, orchestra conductor who passed away Tuesday at 91 "had an almost uncanny ability to transform the sound of an orchestra, any orchestra, into a dark and intense glow, which became his trademark over the years". "We have lost one of the greatest musicians of our time," says Esa-Pekka Salonen (.pdf), music director of the LA Philharmonic. Giulini has been called "the last humanist", a gentle man beloved by his orchestras, so humble in his approach to music that, always feeling the necessity to "fathom" each new work, it wasn't until the 1960s that he finally felt ready to conduct Bach, or the symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven. This from a man who, at the beginning of his career (as a viola player) had played under Richard Strauss. "I had the great privilege to be a member of an orchestra," Giulini said in 1982. "I still belong to the body of the orchestra. When I hear the phrase, 'The orchestra is an instrument,' I get mad. It's a group of human beings who play instruments." More inside.

Listening Adventures

hypersloth — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 03:16:27 -0800

From the New World , Symphony No. 9, by Antonín Dvorák (flash). Navigation help here.

Tick...Tock...

Orange Goblin — Mon, 24 May 2004 11:48:03 -0800

Poeme Symphonique - a piece for 100 metronomes.

Ding!

Mwongozi — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 11:09:43 -0800

A symphony in Sound Recorder (Flash - sound)
Via B3ta