Blog

* (This list will be updated regularly)

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Early/Renaissance
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Hildegard von Bingen
William Byrd
Carlo Gesualdo
Orlando Gibbons
John Dowland
Claudio Monteverdi
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Josquin des Prez
John Wilbye

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Baroque
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Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni
Johann Sebastian Bach
Georg Friedrich Händel
Henry Purcell
Antonio Vivaldi

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Classical
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Franz Joseph Haydn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Franz Schubert

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Romantic
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Mily Balakirev
Georges Bizet
Alexander Borodin
Frédéric Chopin
Antonín Dvořák
Franz Liszt
Jules Massenet
Felix Mendelssohn
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
Giacomo Puccini
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Camille Saint-Saëns
Robert Schumann
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Giuseppe Verdi
Richard Wagner

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19th/20th Century (Late-Romantic/Early-Modernist)
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Claude Debussy
Sir Edward Elgar
Gustav Holst
Gustav Mahler
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Maurice Ravel
Erik Satie
Alexander Scriabin
Jean Sibelius
Richard Strauss
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Peter Warlock

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Modern
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Samuel Barber
Benjamin Britten
John Cage (also in Library: Experimental music)
Henry Cowell (also in Library: Experimental music)
Helmut Lachenmann (also in Library: Experimental music)
György Ligeti
Arvo Pärt
Sergei Prokofiev
Karlheinz Stockhausen (also in Library: Experimental music)
Edgard Varèse (also in Library: Experimental music)
Nicholas Wright
Iannis Xenakis (also in Library: Experimental music)

CZECH COMPOSERS

Czech, of Czech parentage or in Czechia born composers of all historical periods. The survey content composers of classical music and artistically beneficial composers of another genres with classical programm influence or with creative contribution to it.

List of composers:

Active in the Sixteenth Century
Šimon Bar Madelka (1530-1550 to ~1598)
Jan Trojan Turnovský (before 1550-1606)

Active in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century
Kryštof Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic (1564-1621)

Active in the Seventeenth Century
Adam Michna z Otradovic or Adam Václav Michna z Otradovic (~1600-1676)
Josef Antonín Plánický (1691-1732)
Václav Karel Holan Rovenský (~1644-1718)
Pavel Josef Vejvanovský (~1640-1693)
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644- 1704)

Active in the Early or Middle Eighteenth Century
Jan Benda (1713–1752)
Šimon Brixi (1693-1735)
Jan Josef Ignác Brentner (1889-1742)
Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský (1684-1742)
Franz Xaver Richter (František Xaver Richter, 1709-1789)
Jan Václav Antonín Stamic (generally known as Johann Stamitz, 1717-1757)
František Ignác Antonín Tůma (1704-1774)
Jan Zach (1699-1773)
Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745)

Active in the Middle or Late Eighteenth Century or Early Nineteenth
Jiří Antonín Benda (1722-1795)
František Benda (1709-1786)
František Xaver Brixi (1732-1771)
Georg Druschetzky (Jiří Družecký, 1745-1819)
Jan Ladislav Dusík (1761-1812)
František Xaver Dušek (1731-1799)
Josef Fiala (1748-1816)
Vojtěch Jírovec (1763–1850)
Jan Antonín Koželuh (1738-1814)
Leopold Kozeluch (Jiří Antonín Leopold Koželuh, 1747–1818)
Antonín Kraft (1749-1820)
František Kramář (1759-1831)
Jiří Ignác Linek (1725-1791)
Václav Mašek (1755-1833)
Wenceslaus Matiegka (1773-1830)
Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781)
Václav Pichl (1741-1805)
František Xaver Pokorný (1729-1794)
Antonio Rosetti (1750-1792)
Karel Stamic (Carl Stamitz ; 1745-1801)
Jan Václav Stich (aka Giovanni Punto ; 1746-1803)
Antonín Vranický (1761-1820)
Pavel Vranický (1756-1808)
Antonín Rejcha (known also as Anton Reicha ; 1770-1836)
Jakub Jan Ryba (1765-1815)
Jan Křtitel Vaňhal (Johann Baptist Vanhal , 1739-1813)

Active in the Nineteenth Century and/or Early Twentieth
Vilém Blodek (1834–1874)
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Zdeněk Fibich (1850-1900)
Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951)
Julius Fučík (1872-1916)
Pavel Křížkovský (1820-1885)
Jan Kubelík (1880-1940)
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Oskar Nedbal (1874–1930)
Vítězslav Novák (1870-1949)
Otakar Ostrčil (1879-1935)
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
Josef Suk (1874-1935)
František Škroup (1801-1862)
Václav Jan Tomášek (1774-1850)
Jan Václav Voříšek (1801-1825)

Active in the Twentieth Century
Karel Ančerl (1908-1973)
Luboš Fišer (1935-1999)
Pavel Haas (1899-1944)
Alois Hába (1893-1973)
Jan Hanuš (1915-2004)
Miloslav Ištvan (1928-1990)
Otakar Jeremiáš (1892-1962)
Jaroslav Ježek (1906–1942)
Miloslav Kabeláč (1908-1979)
Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006)
Václav Kaprál (1889-1947)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940)
Gideon Klein (1919-1945)
Iša Krejči (1904-1968)
Ernst Křenek (mainly written Ernst Krenek, 1900-1991)
Rafael Kubelík (1914-1996)
Zdeněk Liška (1922-1983)
Otmar Mácha (1922-2006)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)
Jan Novák (1921-1984)
Theodor Schaefer (1904-1969)
Ervín Schulhoff (1894-1942)
Klement Slavický (1910-1999)
Václav Trojan (1907-1983)
Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944)
Sláva Vorlová (1894-1973)
Ladislav Vycpálek (1882-1969)
Jaromír Weinberger (1896–1967)

Active in the Twentieth Century and/or Early Twenty-First
Hanuš Bartoň (1960-)
Iva Bittová (1958-)
Sylvie Bodorová (1954-)
Petr Eben (1929-2007)
Leoš Faltus (1937-)
Vladimír Franz (1959-)
Vladimír Hirsch (1954-)
Ilja Hurník (1922-)
Karel Husa (1921-)
Jan Klusák (1934-)
Petr Kofroň (1955-)
Marek Kopelent (1932-)
Ivana Loudová (1941-)
Ivo Medek (1956-)
Jiří Pauer (1919-2007)
Alois Piňos (1925-2008)
Miroslav Pudlák (1960-)
Michal Rataj (1975-)
Milan Slavický (1947-2009)
Martin Smolka (1959 -)
Miloš Štědroň (1942-)
Antonín Tučapský (1928-)
Emil Viklický (1948-)

Some time ago I finished correction of tags for both box-sets, containig all music used in this series. I will share files, that can be used to fix tags later)

Right now, some ststatistics for the curious.

Top Composers: Overall, for Free Planets Alliance and for Galactic Empire
1.


chart shows:
- place
- overall chart + number of tracks per composer
- Free planets Alliance chart + number of tracks per composer + how this chart differs from overall
- Galactic Empire chart + number of tracks per composer + how this chart differs from overall





Gustav Mahler | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Anton Bruckner | Ludwig van Beethoven | Antonín Dvořák | Franz Joseph Haydn | Johannes Brahms | Richard Wagner | Robert Schumann | Georg Friedrich Handel | Jean Sibelius | Franz Schubert | Frédéric Chopin | Дмитрий Шостакович

I recently discovered a chamber ensemble arrangement of Gustav Mahler's 4th symphony on the Belgian label 'Fuga Libera'.

To quote: Arranged (1921) for Chamber Ensemble by Erwin Stein for the "Verein für Musikalishe Privataufführungen in Wien" (Director: Arnold Schönberg).

In 1918 Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and others formed the "Association for Private Musical Performances" as a way for otherwise unrecognized (most frequently avant-garde) scores to get a hearing. This recording is a reconstruction of such a performance.

For us today, such a recording by this sized ensemble puts the 4th in a refreshing light that can be particularly appreciated at a time when many are increasingly composing for ensembles of roughly this size. A great opportunity to hear Mahler's 4th with fresh ears.

Included also is Schönberg's "6 Orchesterlieder".

Apparently Fuga Libera has also released another recording by the same ensemble, Oxalys, of 'Das Lied Von Der Erde'. I will be seeking that out as well.

The Cave Singers

Waterplea

Morgan Page

Justin Townes Earle

Sleepy Sun

Dan Auerbach

Gustav Mahler

Sam Roberts

Дамы и господа, сегодня обсуждается статистика Last.fm по классической музыке.

Ladies and gentlemen, today our talk would be about classical music stats on Last.fm

предыдущие посты / previous entries
mainstream
russian rock
progressive rock
black metal
jazz
pop


Сначала наше традиционное упорядочение по количеству прослушиваний и слушателей.

First of all, our traditional arrangement with respect to number of plays and number of listeners.








Признаться честно, здесь не 100 исполнителей как обычно, а всего 85. Всяких авторов музыки к блокбастерам я безжалостно удалил из статистики. Тем не менее, эти графики демонстрируют нам кое-что, чего не наблюдалось ранее: резкое падение популярности ближе к концу выборки. Такое впечатление, что существует некий стандартный набор классических композиторов, за пределами которого - полная безызвестность.

To be honest, there are not 100 artists as usual, but only 85, because I deleted all the authors of popular movies' soundtracks without a trace of pity. The graphs exhibit something new to us: a rapid decrease of popularity near the end. It seems like there's a standard set of classical composers, and composers out of that set are rather obscure.




А здесь видно, что "музыку заказывают" три самых известных композитора: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven. Отрыв от общей массы довольно большой.

From that plot we can see, that three most famous composers dominate in classical music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven.





А это график удельного числа прослушиваний для различных "классиков". Здесь ситуация еще хуже, чем в джазе - среднее значение составляет всего 9.5, максимальное значение этого показателя имеет неведомая широким массам D'Oyly Carte Opera Company - 36 прослушиваний на слушателя.

Here is specific number of scrobbles for classical composers and performers. The situation here is even worse than with jazz music. The average value is 9.5 and the maximal value belongs to quite unheard-of D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which has 36 plays per listener.




Гистограмма лишь подтверждает то, что классику народ слушает без энтузиазма.

The histogram just confirms the fact that nowadays people listen to classical music without enthusiasm.




Наибольшее число сообщений в рупоре имеют наиболее популярные композиторы, как и следовало ожидать.

As one can expect, the most popular composers have the largest number of messages in their shoutboxes.




А здесь мы вновь видим эффект "потенциального баръера", заключающийся в том, что лишь исполнители с удельным числом прослушиваний выше среднего могут иметь большое число сообщений в рупоре. Правда, здесь он несколько хуже выражен из-за малости этого среднего значения.

And here I see the effect of "potential barrier" again: only artists with more-than-average number of plays per listener can have a lot of shouts. But in classical music it is less present than in another genres because of low average specific number of scrobbles.

P.S. Суммарное число прослушиваний классики на last.fm - 150 миллионов.
The total playcount of classical music on last.fm is 150 millions.


P.P.S. Спасибо Hzlqgmnzhh за полезный скрипт.
Thanks to Hzlqgmnzhh for his script.

List of considered artists:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Philip Glass, Frédéric Chopin, Antonio Vivaldi, Andrea Bocelli, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Ludovico Einaudi, Carl Orff, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Edvard Grieg, Antonín Dvořák, Yo-Yo Ma, Michael Nyman, Arvo Pärt, Georg Friedrich Händel, Max Richter, Franz Liszt, Gustav Holst, Glenn Gould, Felix Mendelssohn, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Josh Groban, Richard Wagner, Camille Saint-Saëns, Igor Stravinsky, Giuseppe Verdi, Ennio Morricone, Maurice Ravel, Hayley Westenra, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sir Edward Elgar, Johann Pachelbel, Franz Joseph Haydn, Gustav Mahler, Il Divo, Jean Sibelius, Steve Reich, Sergei Prokofiev, Georges Bizet, Gabriel Fauré, Luciano Pavarotti, London Symphony Orchestr, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Hector Berlioz, Richard Strauss, Giacomo Puccini, Gioacchino Rossini, Samuel Barber, Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov, Robert Schumann, George Gershwin, Enrique Granados, Zbigniew Preisner, Kronos Quartet, William S. Gilbert, Luigi Boccherini, Paul Potts, Katherine Jenkins, Leoš Janáček, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Jan Dismas Zelenka, Johann Strauss II, Fernando Sor, D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Bohuslav Martinů, Itzhak Perlman, Peter Broderick, Bedřich Smetana, Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia, Arthur Rubinstein, Nino Rota

Steve Langendorf of the Chicago Reader wrote last week:
Leonard Bernstein described the end of Mahler's Ninth Symphony as "the closest we have ever come, in any work of art, to experiencing the very act of dying." Mahler's final completed work is an overwhelming journey, filled with nostalgia, apprehension, conflict, and finally resignation. His writing, constantly turning on itself, is never free of struggle. By spanning his emotional spectrum with the same thematic material—a first-movement gentle breeze becomes a violent storm, a second-movement peasant dance turns grotesque—Mahler creates tension that miraculously holds everything together. His astounding orchestration is sparse and transparent at times, thunderous and turbulent at others. In the last-movement adagio, where Mahler embraces life as he gives it up, ensemble and conductor are strained to the limit—Carlos Kalmar will need all of his inspiration and control. Thankfully, he's bringing the Grant Park Orchestra indoors for this symphony, whose conclusion often leaves audiences sitting in stunned silence.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-list-august-6-12-2009/Content?oid=1173131


Spurred by this blurb, yt ran a search online and stumbled unto great work - the LSO conducted by maestro Bernard Haitink. I could gush like anyone who's ever discovered something of this magnitude - or I could link to a more sensible article here: http://berkshirereview.net/2009/07/21/mahler-symphony-9-london-symphony-haitink/

Get on it. The Ninth Symphony by Gustav Mahler, is simply, superb.

The Turkish Five (Turkish: Türk Beşleri) is a term used to describe the five pioneers of western classical music in Turkey. They were all born in the first decade of the 20th century and they composed their most outstanding music in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, especially during the presidencies of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and İsmet İnönü. They all shared contacts with the two presidents and were highly encouraged as such, both on a personal level and also through the general drive towards westernization in Turkey.

I uploaded a sample work for each composer. Download and listen, I'm sure you'll like at least one of them!

Ahmed Adnan Saygun


Ulvi Cemal Erkin


Cemal Reşit Rey


Hasan Ferit Alnar


Necil Kazım Akses


Uploaded samples:
Adnan Saygun - Sample from the 3rd Symphony
http://r ap i d s h a re . com/files/263335224/05_-_Ahmet_Adnan_Saygun_-_Senfoni_3_Bolum.mp3.html

Cemal Erkin - Symphony No. 1 - Scherzo (this one is my favorite)
http://r a pi d sh ar e.com/files/263335223/03_-_Ulvi_Cemal_Erkin_-_Senfoni_No.1_Scherzo.mp3.html

Reşit Rey - Estantanelerden Bayram
http://r a p id sh a r e.com/files/263335222/01_-_Cemal_Resid_Rey_-_Enstantanelerden_Bayram.mp3.html

Ferit Alnar - Scherzo for Violin and Piano
http://r a pi ds h a re.com/files/263335226/04_-_Hasan_Ferit_Alnar_-_Keman_Piyano_Suitinden_Scherzo.mp3.html

Kazım Akses - A sample which I don't have its' title... But this one is my 2nd favorite! 7.53 mins long.
http://r ap ids h a r e.com/files/263335225/08_-_Necil_Kazim_Akses_-_Oda_Koncertosu_2.Bolum.mp3.html

How to download? Just remove the spaces between letters.
Also, these are for promotion only and samples! I'm not letting people download complete works of composers! These composers are hard to find anyway, even if I had the complete works I wouldn't share with anyone just because of this.

I managed to find some of the works of Ahmed Adnan Saygun (classicsonline.com, bought it online) but having a hard time with other composers. Especially for Ulvi Cemal Erkin. I really like his Scherzo in Symphony No. 1 but that is all I have. Searched all over the web and couldn't find his symphonies... Same thing for the others. What I'm trying to say is, if you could help me finding these, I'd really appreciate it!

Hope you like the samples. If the download limit exceeds, just say and I'll re-upload for you.



Ludwig van BeethovenWolfgang Amadeus MozartJohann Sebastian BachRichard WagnerGiuseppe VerdiJohannes BrahmsFranz SchubertFranz Joseph HaydnAntonín DvořákFranz LisztAntonio VivaldiRobert SchumannGustav MahlerJean SibeliusBedřich SmetanaFrédéric ChopinHector BerliozAnton BrucknerCarl Maria von WeberRichard StraussClaude DebussyMichael KamenMaurice RavelErik SatieEdvard GriegGabriel FauréCésar FranckSir Edward ElgarMaurice DurufléRalph VaughanGustav HolstFrederick DeliusMax BruchGeorge ButterworthDarius MilhaudArthur HoneggerWilhelm Furtwängler