Jeffrey Gross
@Klassical_Kat
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Riffs/reveries/rodomontades re classical music. Always asking WDTNAD — What do the notes actually do? Writing a book about it, repped by @alireader at @JVNLA
the overtone series
Joined October 2023
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I hope you enjoy my Catalog of Composers, after the Iliad’s Catalog of Ships.
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@Komaniecki_R
And here you were about to hatch a theory about the natural benevolence of children. ;)
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Bach’s calligraphy was gorgeous
On the off chance that you want to nerd out over Bach's handwriting and how he cut his quills and mixed his ink this is the video you need. He composed at least sometimes without a wig, as natural hairs are caught in the ink
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Ring cycle: Audience dies
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I used to think this. I was wrong.
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How sad to be a trumpeter. Marked for death from earliest days.
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Sure, sex is great, but have you ever listened to Tallis’s Lamentations of Jeremiah?
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I often think about this sort of thing. What would Bach think of Debussy?
Sometimes, I wish I could go back in time and play a Shostakovich piece for Mozart, just to see his reaction. 😂😂😂
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@KateBurkeNHS
YES!!!!
If it’s the twilight sedation you won’t feel bad afterwards. I can’t imagine any other way. 😱
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@Komaniecki_R
Crescendo etc. I frequently hear, “it rose to a crescendo.” No, the crescendo is the rising.
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My latest acquisition. From an estate sale, sealed. The Beethoven bicentennial, 1970 — feels so long ago. Sic transit gloria mundi.
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Yes, folks — we’re having some fun now. See y’all in eight or nine days.
#ClassicalMusic
#Beethoven
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My recent haul on the left; the one on the right was already in the collection.
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It’s interesting that Bernstein, who was so brilliant, when talking about Beethoven is reduced to mumbling things like, Beethoven always wrote the right note because it was the right note. But that may be an interesting pointer to the limits of reason in understanding art: Lenny
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TFW it’s your birthday and you’re in a good enough mood although you don’t know how to smile for a camera. & you got to wear the linen suit.
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I will tweak this:
Beethoven was ahead of the times, hence made them; Bach was above them.
"Beethoven was ahead of the times, Bach behind them" - Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Do you agree?!
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@faniaoz
“Ten thousand Swedes
Ran through the weeds,
Chased by one Norwegian”
I swear, an actual Norwegian sea captain said that to me at a party
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Listening to a song from Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, below. I often find something terrifying about the beauty of Schubert’s music: beautifully terrifying. He seems to have a facility for presenting emotions in a pure, naked form by means of very few notes. So the emotions
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Unfortunately the human mind is too complicated to be understood by the human mind.
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I’ll answer your question. There are a lot of people working in Silicon Valley. They need to justify their jobs. The companies need to keep churning out new crap because their investors need them to. It’s like the sorcerer’s apprentice.
why is it that every “solution” developed to solve the crisis of loneliness caused by the mediation of technology in every component of our lives involves further mediation of said technology in every component of our lives? getting a text from a bot on a hike won’t fix you
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@jonathanbfine
And I read of British academics that if they’re spluttering in disapproval of your talk, you’re probably OK, but if somebody says, “just a slight quibble, if I may,” it’s time to batten down the hatches
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I have the Naxos complete Beethoven. Should I get the Warner Classics Y/N?
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so we just keep liking each other’s tweets until we die?
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Marian Anderson, one of the first well-known black classical singers of the 20th century, gave a sold-out performance in lily-white Princeton. Ironically, no hotel or inn would let her stay there. Einstein bailed her out; she stayed at his place.
Albert Einstein sent a beautiful letter of support to Marie Curie when she was being maligned:
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A lot can be said about the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. but right now I just feel like pointing at it.
Spinoza said, “Veritas est index sui et falsi” — “Truth is the index of itself and of falsehood.” So let beauty be the index of beauty.
I will point out only: 1) It’s perfect.
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@janefeinsod
I don’t know her work enough to agree or disagree, but in general I think perhaps we should read more charitably
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A photo of my mother when she was young which I carry in my wallet, and another of me and her about 10 years ago.
#MothersDay
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No one: Are you a hot 25-year old French guy with opinions about composers?
Me: No -- I'm dorky ole' Klassical Kat with OPINIONS ABOUT COMPOSERS!!! (interrogated by
@valerie_reads
)
#ClassicalMusic
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What is the greatest depiction of tragic love in music and why is it the major-to-minor change at the end of Schubert’s “Gute Nacht”?
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Let’s talk about Haydn: genius and silly goose, as he died otd. He’s easy to underestimate, as I did for many years: I didn’t understand.
The celebrated wit — oscillating between puckish and bumptious — makes us think of genial “Papa Haydn,” yet it is a worldview in itself. The
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@radioyumyum
@hering_david
Yeah, many have thought that but they’re wrong. Sure it’s hard but it’s a lot more than hard.
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Bach keyboard music: HARPSICHORD or PIANO?
#Bach
#ClassicalMusic
Harpsichord: I am pure
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Piano: More expressive!
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“I’m looking for that scoundrel Debussy. Where did he go???”
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My parents gave me this when I was lad. Perhaps as a birthday present.
Geek level: UNLOCKED
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I hope someday it will grow up to be a big, grown-up viola da gamba and run wild over the veldt!
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Tonight’s listening.
Yes, folks — some serious viol-ence here
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Nice fugue ya got there. Shame if an unexpected stretto were to derail all your traditional notions of rhythm and meter.
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@yuanyi_z
I don’t understand UK politics AT ALL, but it sure seems like y’all are having a lot of fun over there.
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This is raspberry plus almond paste plus chocolate. My syllogism:
Major premise: God wants us to be happy.
Minor premise: this will make me happy.
Conclusion: [you can do this part]
This is based on a knowledge of Aristotle almost on the level of Taylor Swift
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Bumper sticker:
I SURVIVED THE TWITTER DEBUSSY-RAVEL WAR OF 2024
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I mean… No reflection on his music, but Tchaikovsky was pissy re other composers. He called Brahms “a giftless bastard.” 😹🙃🤡
"Handel is the master of us all." Haydn
"Handel is only fourth rate. He isn't even interesting." Tchaikovsky
Moral: ignore everyone and make your own mind up.
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@derekcrneal
@moonbeeaam
Agreed. The point of oedipus is that his great efforts to avoid fate are in vain, right? I mean, it seems too obvious to mention.
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Including my family members
On 15/4/1945, British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen. They found around 60,000 prisoners in the camp, most of them seriously ill. Thousands of corpses lay unburied on the camp grounds.
Between May 1943 & April 15, 1945, between 36,400 & 37,600 prisoners died in Bergen-Belsen.
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Perhaps it will help if you consider what Hannah Arendt said about Nabokov: “There’s something vulgar about his intelligence – it’s as though he thinks of himself in terms of ‘is smarter than’.”
Some insults are so memorable and so devastating that the objects of them can never recover in your mind. I will never be able to take William Faulkner wholly seriously after reading that Nabokov called his books “corncobby chronicles.”
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1 Post the cover of a great album.
2 Nominate 6[-ish] people to do the same.
@AlexeyZiskin
@GabeBlessing
@deeplyclassical
@gadboit
@mikeirons12
@EdelaQuintaine
@baroque_pride
@LoveInner
@JVNLA
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@JoyceCarolOates
OMG Trump is so NOT old money, that’s hilarious.
Like sure, a regular George Plimpton. 😹😹😹
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But why do symphonies like this always have to “tower”? Couldn’t they build them out, like, sideways?
Anton Bruckner’s towering Eighth Symphony was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic, under the baton of Hans Richter on 18 December 1892. The wondrous Adagio steals my soul every time I hear it. An incredible work! What are your favourite recordings of Bruckner’s 8th?
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I’m just saying — hear me out — sometimes a weird selfie is what you need
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So as not to derail
@LoveInner
’s thread about Monteverdi, a couple additional thoughts.
Thesis: no other composer wrote in a more sensual fashion for the female voice. A bunch of Monteverdi is just sex in vocal form.
Exhibit A:
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And in what form would you like your heartbreak today, Mr. Kat?
Oh, I think I shall have my heartbreak in the form of Schubert. I often find that Schubert is the best form of heartbreak, wouldn’t you agree, Smithers?
Undoubtedly, sir.
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One of the greatest songs ever written, penned by Schubert at 17.
Schubert’s eyeglasses and the manuscript of Gretchen am Spinnrade, Schubert Museum, Vienna.
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Wait until they find out about classical music
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Excellent question. Ultimately Debussy is the greater master, I think, but I’m more often in the mood for the clarity, the lapidary incisiveness of Ravel.
Team
#Debussy
or Team
#Ravel
? I've had 2 conversations this week with people who told me they prefer Ravel to Debussy. Ravel has also been my favourite composer since my teenage years. What do you think?
@RMAFrenchMusic
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@Frenchbiche
My friend and I. That’s for the subject of a sentence.
My friend and me. That’s for the object.
“My friend and I saw you waving.”
“Did you see my friend and me waving at you?”
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Two billion stars, but try to get a plumber on the weekend
This is what a very small portion of the Andromeda Galaxy looks like. Yes, almost 2 billion stars.
Credit: NASA
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Is this any good? I found it in the back of a closet. 😹😜😵
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This morning’s listening: Spanish baroque music for voice and harp. Gorgeous stuff.
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After being extremely depressed all day by what’s going on in the world, I am now, in honor of Easter, listening to Bach’s Cantata 4, “Christ lay in the bonds of death.” Just heard the opening choral Fantasia.
So blown away, so obliterated by the greatness:
>
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@John_Attridge
I always say to them, “Let’s motor!”
And they look at me like I was a *checks notes* roit mad bugger.
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Wanted to listen to music for a couple hours this evening but I got caught up in doomscrolling. In fact, if you scroll at all these days, doom is hard to avoid. However, just listened to Beethoven’s wonderful Les Adieus piano Sonata. What next? >
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My German-Jewish grandparents had a copy of this, and I turned out amazeballs
Everyone should read their three year olds the German classic Struwwelpeter so they know what happens to bad children who don’t behave
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My — or rather my family’s — 1927 Steinway Model L is back in someone’s (a neighbor’s) house being played and getting TLC.
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