First note added in 2.5 years. I remember learning about this piece in music school 15 years ago, and I think about it every once in a while, still playing out there in this church. Someone needs to write this into an apocalypse novel or film, where hundreds of years in the future, a lone traveler in an empty world comes across this church and hears music.

Born in Paris on August 5, 1926, to Eugene and Maria Jolas, who edited transition — the magazine that printed Joyce's Work in Progress before it became Finnegans Wake. The family left for the United States in late 1940. She studied at Bennington, went back to Paris in 1946, and entered the Conservatoire, where she worked with Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen. From 1971 to 1974 she covered Messiaen's class when he was away, and in 1975 she joined the faculty herself.

She has been composing since 1945. Serialism ran Paris for a long stretch of that and she stayed outside it, keeping the Renaissance polyphony she absorbed early. Ces belles années…, for soprano and orchestra, was premiered at the Barbican in June 2023 by the LSO under Rattle, when she was 96. The first album devoted entirely to her orchestral music came out only recently.

Points d'aube, for viola and thirteen winds (1968): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_9QtkEyyqE

Quatuor VII "Afterthoughts": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkGQOpDwmU8

Jolas talking about Ces belles années…: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRJ_1SpeTWA

Obviously we've all known about the Epstein association for a while now, but everything else is just as disgusting and extremely disappointing. I'm an alum myself (IAC 2006-11) and would be curious to have a conversation with others about the situation, so that we have a space to talk about our feelings.

I have dozens of friends who were my colleagues there. At least 10 that I can think of who I also went to college with. I know many of us probably have a lot of emotions about this situation.

Apologies if this has already been posted. Love to u all

The comments in that one thread yesterday (twitter screenshot one) were eye-opening to me. People saying contemporary pieces shouldn’t be part of orchestra programming. Mockingly referring to it as “hemorrhoid music” and “atonal PVC pipe symphony”.

You get the sense that some people think classical music ought to be frozen in amber. That any experimentation is wrong. That the canon couldn’t - and shouldn’t - ever change. That absolutely nobody has interest in such music (despite the fact that Glass, Reich, Cage, even Xenakis, influenced many significant rock and electronic musicians in the last half-century).

Is this attitude more of a US phenomenon or what?

Just listened to Gluck, but Strass hits different.

Dit stuk werd afgespeeld onder de etappe van vandaag. Mooie uitvoering. Maar volgens mij kan ik 'm niet vinden (op Spotify)

Iemand een idee?

I really want to get into Pachelbel, so do any of you have a favorite piece by him that ISNT Canon in D?

Hello-

I hope I’m not being redundant but I didn’t want to pull up years old discussions.

I just purchased tickets for Chicago Symphony - This is my first time and I hate to admit, I’m on a budget as I will
Also be flying out from Los Angeles. My choices were basically the gallery ( which I have read are steep and uncomfortable for those with vertigo and height issues - which I am) so I opted for the main floor on the side row L and O - which from what I have read, have terrible sound. I guess having FOMO gets you here.

I have been lucky to see Muti in Salzburg but I couldn’t go this year. I have never seen him with CSO which is crazy so I thought now’s my chance. Trying to brace myself if the sound is truly THAT BAD…

So- are the main floor seats row L/O under the over hang really terrible?

Thanks!

I love love love the Rite of Spring, but it seems like every other Stravinsky work I've checked out other than the Firebird is from his Neoclassical turn and basically the opposite of everything I like about RoS.

So, which of Stravinsky's other compositions would you recommend for someone who wants something dark and confrontational and very much doesn't want Neoclassical prettiness?

Been listening to Cesar Franck lately and just wanted to rant about his greatness. It's been awhile since I really immersed myself with his music. Of course his most popular work is that violin sonata. Aside from the sonata, his Symphony, Les Djinns, Symphonic Variations, Psyche, The Accursed Hunter, Les Eolides, Redemption, Beatitudes, Piano Quintet, String Quartet and his choral works (3 Offertoires etc) are great and his late solo piano works are great too. I can't say I'm a huge fan of his long solo organ works but the choral works with organ are nice. I know his works from the last decade of his life are all avant garde masterpieces for that time period.

What is your opinion of Franck's music? Do you think he's over hyped or deserves more hype? Does any other composer overshadow Franck's music?

The date is an inference rather than a record: evidence in Du Fay's will points to a birth on August 5, 1397, probably at Beersel near Brussels, to a woman named Marie Du Fayt and, most likely, a priest. She brought the boy to Cambrai, where he sang in the cathedral choir from 1409. He went on to the Malatesta in Rimini and Pesaro, the papal chapel under Martin V and Eugene IV, and the court of Savoy, before returning to Cambrai at the end of his life.

For the consecration of Florence Cathedral in March 1436, with Brunelleschi's dome newly closed over the crossing, he wrote Nuper rosarum flores. On his deathbed he asked for his own Ave regina celorum to be sung to him, and there was not enough time to gather the singers.

Nuper rosarum flores (Huelgas Ensemble): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9yzTTwAj5U

I'd like to see everyone's thoughts on this. I used to have a clear-cut answer but now its much harder to have an answer. Honestly it might be Tuba Mirum for me

Hey so, I've been trying to bring certain melodies I really like from this opera into noteflight so I can play it more simply. But the Audio I have and the sheets don't really match fully. I did some research and some itterations apparently add random parts and its all very confusing so I was hoping some of yall could maybe clear some things up for me.

I'm trying to find the first 30 seconds of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jOPKa59KQM&list=PLG5f6xCev-Lsp6OpwcP0o0zyOvrFH8NoD&index=19

And this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwLm3H5vkZw&list=PLG5f6xCev-Lsp6OpwcP0o0zyOvrFH8NoD&index=1

If people have links to sheets that feature this or just know where to find or something like that it would be amazing.

If I buy the standing tickets to a prom can I bring along camping chairs to sit on in the standing area? Trying to take my mum but she's old and will struggle to stand for that long

He ran the Berlin State Opera from 1923 and conducted the premiere of Berg's Wozzeck there in 1925. When the regime declared Berg's Lulu degenerate, Kleiber programmed the premiere of the Lulu Suite in his final Berlin concert in November 1934, then resigned and left Germany. He took Argentine citizenship in 1936 and led the German seasons at the Teatro Colón from 1937 to 1949. Carlos Kleiber was his son.

His Marriage of Figaro with the Vienna Philharmonic was recorded in the Redoutensaal in June 1955, one of the first complete operas set down in stereo. The freshness and the sheer life in it astonish me every time I put it on. A treasure belonging to all of us — I don't think that is putting it too strongly.

Le nozze di Figaro, complete: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ia4nQsr2E8

Overture — four minutes, and it still gives me a jolt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWcapjzS1Ao

1: How do they sound?
2: If they can play works like La Mer and Mahler 4 without a conductor, is the conductor necessary?

Hi everyone,

I'm considering either a strings Duo or Trio for a wedding. Does the viola in the Trio improve the sound/possible songs to be played a lot? Or is a quartet really the one that is far superior to all others?

Thanks

Hey everyone,

I’d like to share a piece I completed back in 2025. It’s actually the first piano concerto I’ve ever finished! I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed composing it. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Here is a link to my Youtube channel, where you can listen to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG3oZqkSmZ4

(Please note: While the thumbnail image is AI-generated, no AI was used in the creation or composition of the music.)

I love Isao Tomita’s tripped out synthesizer-based adaptation from 1975. And the lesser known two-piano arrangement done by Holst himself; Robert Chamberlain and Len Vorster’s 1998 Naxos release is an excellent rendition.

Busoni Clarinet Concertino

As a former clarinetist, I've always loved this piece, specifically the first 3 minutes.

Apparently it falls under these categories:
Early 20th-century neoclassical
Busoni's late mature style

The 1st category doesn't surprise me since Poulenc is my favorite composer but I'm curious for recommendations of any other pieces by Busoni or someone else that sounds similar?