Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

This really is a full service blog.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

A norm that restrains only one side really isn’t a norm – it’s a trap.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You are here: Home / Music / Open Thread

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  1. 1.

    Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist

    Proof I can’t deliver, but any Randroid can tell you that Rush’s oeuvre is objectively the best music in existence.

  2. 2.

    dr. bloor

    Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations say hi.

    Although Yo-Yo Ma’s recording of the Suites are in perma-heavy rotation in my library.

  6. 6.

    dbt

    Two counterfactuals:

    1) Beethoven’s 9th (dmsilev got there first)

    2) License to Ill (Beastie Boys)

    That is all.

  8. 8.

    jake 4 that 1

    Tim F. you’ve reminded me I need to go out and buy Sacks’ Musicophilia so in the spirit of the Palindrone, I think you should pay for it.

    @Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: Now look, I like Rush, never met a Rand novel I could stand for more than three pages and it wasn’t until I started hanging around this place that I found out there was a connection between the two.

    Leeave Geddy Lee alooooone! [snivel]

  15. 15.

    Felix

    Greatest piece of music eva?

    Beethoven’s 5th – the transition from the third to the fourth movement. Here it is about 4 minutes in. It is the sonic equivalent of ex nihilo.

    I strongly suggest you get yourself a real copy and set your speakers to 11. Fuck the neighbors.

  16. 16.

    Pastafarian

    @Josh Hueco:

    EDIT: Pastafarian, I hate you.

    Sorry, it was just a slow hanging curve over the plate. I couldn’t resist.

    As for best music, I have always loved Mozart’s Requiem ever since the first time I saw Amadeus.

  18. 18.

    Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist

    @jake 4 that 1: …it wasn’t until I started hanging around this place that I found out there was a connection between the two.

    Actually, it was the same for me. I kid.

    In fact, I never knew about Ayn Rand at all until I was a junior in college. Alas for my long-lost youth.

  19. 19.

    telesilla

    I’ve got to throw in another vote for Beethoven’s 9th.

    Although the Mozart Horn Concertos get a sentimental vote for second place; they were the soundtrack of our family’s car vacations through Europe in the late 70s/early 80s, and proved to be stunningly gorgeous road trip music.

  20. 20.

    Joshau Norton

    Nope. "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart gets my vote. Followed by anything else by Mozart. His music is like opening a bottle of champagne.

    Does liking music that doesn’t involve banjos and a washboard make me "elitist"? I can live with it.

  22. 22.

    Joshau Norton

    I suppose it would be even more elitist to admit my cell phone ringtone is Bach’s "Brandenburg Concerto No. 3".

  24. 24.

    Ash Can

    I have a recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance of Beethoven’s 9th. It took place in Berlin shortly after the wall fell and blew the roof clean off the Philharmonie.

  26. 26.

    tigrismus

    I second the Bylsma recommendation, he is really wonderful. I saw him at the National Gallery once, playing Bach suites on the Strad "Servais" cello from the Smithsonian’s collection- magnificent, and he was so generous he played at several encores. I’ve always been partial to the 5th suite, but to each his own.

  30. 30.

    Comrade Kevin

    Anyone who disagrees that this is the greatest piece of music ever is an unpatriotic, anti-American Mooslim.

  33. 33.

    Jeremy

    I second dr bloor – Glenn Gould’s 1981 recording of the Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach. Divine.

    Or perhaps the first Prelude from book 1 of Bach’s Well-Tempered Klavier – again played by Gould. A recording of it was sent by NASA on the Voyager probe as an exemplar of humanity’s glory. A fitting testament to the greatness of both Bach and Gould.

    And of course Gould was Canadian, which is just extra sauce.

    Yes, Yo Yo Ma played the Bach prelude on the West Wing, but unfortunately they mangled it terribly with some very clumsy sound editing. It drives me nuts when they can’t be bothered to treat great music with respect.

  35. 35.

    Krista

    Another vote for Moonlight Sonata. There are a very few certain pieces of music to which I always listen with my eyes closed, because I need to focus on each exquisite note.

    (And no, I obviously don’t listen to it while driving.)

  39. 39.

    W.E.B. Adamant

    Cohen’s Masterpiece (YouTube) from the video game Bioshock is pretty fucking amazing.

    Also, "When David Heard" (no YouTube because it’s too long, but it’s well worth the .99 on iTunes) by Eric Whitacre gives me chills every time I hear it. I’ve never heard something so perfectly embody the sound of grief.

  40. 40.

    John O

    You elitist snob!

    I say your choice is beautiful, indeed, one of my favorites in the classical genre, but dude, it isn’t like there hasn’t been any great music written in the last 2 centuries.

    Plus, in degree of difficulty terms, lyrics make it harder.

    So, I cast my vote for Bridge Over Troubled Waters, or maybe Since I’ve Been Loving You. LOL.

  42. 42.

    Nylund

    I can’t hear that piece without thinking of "You Can Count on Me" (which is an awesome movie that heavily uses the piece).

    I will counter with this. Admittedly, it suits an entirely different mood.

    But the best song ever written might just be Amazing Grace. When done right, there is no way any person on Earth can stop themselves from crying. How good is it? It even sounds good when played on the bagpipes. Not many songs can pull that off. The bad thing about it is that the song is so good that way too many bad singers sing it and confuse the beauty of the song with their own piss poor ability and as a result we are subjected to many horrible renditions of it throughout our lives.

  43. 43.

    eastriver

    The prelude is a frickin’ ’70s wine commercial; "Share it with friends!"

    As stated earlier, Beethoven’s Ninth. I’m also fond of the Third.

    Pet Sounds is seminal for the work it inspired; The Beatles (see entire canon).

    This is one of the most peaceful, beautiful pieces of music ever written; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAR0WkIQ6mg&feature=related

    And, BTW, I hope Winky and Blinky enjoy their 4 year tour of the fucking wilderness. Ah-buh-bye.

  44. 44.

    Dennis - SGMM

    But the best song ever written might just be Amazing Grace. When done right, there is no way any person on Earth can stop themselves from crying.

    Try this version by The Blind Boys of Alabama. Gives you the chills.

  45. 45.

    Dave L

    There’s no disputanding with gustibus, but let me at least suggest a few other things by Bach:

    First part of the Magnificat (Bach’s choral music is, in cold, hard, objective truth, the best music ever written):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CPP9D5m1Hs&feature=related

    Glenn Gould playing the last five Goldberg Variations (just listen, and watch – just do it):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtt1msnwlZQ

    Beautiful Magdalena Kozena singing an aria from Cantata #30 (I threw this in because it’s a fun video, but it also gives you an idea of the sort of thing Bach wrote, week in and week out, just doing his job in obscurity):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb1vArnFSXw

  47. 47.

    Vizsla1086

    Rostropovitch’s rendition is merely fair, but, at least IMHO (and many others) Ma’s doesn’t even rank among the top 5. Listen to Janos Starker playing the Bach Suites. Many feel that his is the most profound, most moving rendition posssessed of a musicality and understanding hard to match anywhere

  51. 51.

    burnspbesq

    Puh-leeze.

    Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra.

    Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring.

    Bach, St. Matthew Passion.

    Coltrane, Giant Steps.

    Davis, So What.

    Cockburn, If I Had a Rocket Launcher.

  52. 52.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @justme:

    That’s really nice. Pärt, that is. I hadn’t heard that before.
     
    Fuck Cage. I know, great avant-garde composer, father of modern dance, all that. Fucking poseur, that’s what he was.
     
    Pärt, on the other hand, is going into rotation.

  53. 53.

    Thrasymachus

    Beethoven’s last piano sonata – no. 32 in C minor. The second movement explores realms of emotion and experience that are close to the edge of human possibilities.

  54. 54.

    kommrade jakevich

    EDIT: Pastafarian, I hate you.

    I knew it!

    As far as classical music is concerned I must confess I’m an uncultured slob. I like it but unless it is one of perhaps 10 pieces I never know what (or who) the hell I’m listening to. I also know I associate a lot of the war horses with Ren & Stimpy or Earthworm Jim. And I like the 1812 Overture just because of the cannons.

    See? Total slob.

  58. 58.

    Pan

    Prelude to the 6th, man. Yo-Yo Ma’s is fucking amazing.

    Also in the best-music-ever category: Variations on a Rococo Theme by Tchaikovsky.

    And yes, I am a cellist. :)

  60. 60.

    HowlingFantods

    I like the Bylsma version the best too, although it’s really hard to criticize the Ma, Rostro, Fournier or Casals.

    Here’s an example of Bylsma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmbIgVSyLQA

    That’s even slower than his famous recording on the Servais Strad, but it gives you a sense of how different his take is.

    My favorite Bach recording is Klemperer’s St. Matthew Passion, though. No clips on youtube unfortunately.

  62. 62.

    jenniebee

    Brahms, 3rd Symphony

    The third movement, the Poco Allegretto, is the only music that has ever made me pull the car over because I didn’t feel safe to drive while it was playing, it moved me so. It sounds to me, every time I hear it, like nostalgia for things not yet to come, as though time could die in circles rather than in lines.

  64. 64.

    PGE

    Number one for me is the first movement of Bach’s
    Double Violin concerto. Also very fond of Dido’s Lament; and the Gould’s take on the French Suites. As for his Goldbergs, I don’t think there’s a "better", just one I’m more in the mood for onw or the other at a given moment. Sometimes I just love the display of virtuosity of the earlier and sometimes I’d rather listen to the depth of the later. (And I like everything Comrade Scrutinizer mentioned; and If I had a Rocket Launcher ) As an (amateur) musician, my own take is that Bach is as high as our species as reached in that sphere. But it’s wierd: sometimes you look at a piece and your reaction is "Huh? How do I make this musical?" It’s not true of all his stuff, but more than any other composer, he demands that the performer figure out how to take an intellectual structure and make music out of it. The cello suites which started this thread were, for the longest time, thought of as exercises. Pablo Casals was the first cellist to treat them as performance pieces.

  67. 67.

    oh really

    But the best song ever written might just be Amazing Grace. When done right, there is no way any person on Earth can stop themselves from crying.

    Sorry, but I don’t care who sings it, I hate it, I always have hated it, and I always will hate it. My usual response to hearing Amazing Grace is to turn it off, plug my ears, or retch. Sorry.

    Tim F. You’re wrong, but proof isn’t possible, since taste and greatness always have subjective elements.

    I have a lot of Bach CDs and none are among my favorites. I don’t deny his greatness, it just doesn’t appeal to me that much.

  68. 68.

    Dave L

    Oh Really:

    Thank you. I want to run, screaming, from the building every time Amazing Grace gets hauled out. It’s been done to death, and slathered with a thick coat of sentimentality. I think people respond to it because of association: the lone Scottish piper at a brave fireman’s funeral, that sort of thing. It’s a shabby piece of music that has to rely on that kind of prop.

  71. 71.

    Hawes

    I’ll throw out Vivaldi’s Guitar Concerto in D Major, and I agree that Beethoven’s 9th is at or near the very top.

    Something to be said for the Brindisi from La Traviata.

    And the collected works of Patty Griffin.

  72. 72.

    The Golux

    I prefer Rostropovich’s rendition as well. The pace makes it sound like multiple instruments, and the chords are more coherent. The pauses in Ma’s interpretation diminish those aspects of the piece, to its detriment, I think.

    Dude who wrote this knew what the hell he was doing.

  73. 73.

    catatonia

    The Ninth is fantastic, but some versions I’ve heard rush through it, which is an outrage.

    But the Emperor Concerto; Christ, I tear up every time I hear it (and I rarely cry), it’s so boundlessly moving.

    I’m also partial to some of the background score from 90s-era porn movies as well.

  76. 76.

    Xanthippas

    I don’t know if I’d say it’s the greatest piece of music written by man by itself, but I would certainly argue that Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin and cello are among the greatest classical works every written collectively, for a variety of reason. For the listener they are as complex and multi-faceted as any piece for one instrument can be, they are a delight to both the trained and untrained ear, and they are opportunity to marvel at the mastery of the musician who is performing them. For the player, they are a well-known benchmark of technical ability, give the musician the ample opportunity to impart his own flourishes, and are a joy to play. And truly, though musical styles have changed much since Bach’s day, it would be difficult to argue that he is not one of the masters of classical music and would be so today were he alive now.

    And for what it’s worth, there are two schools of thought on the tempo these pieces should be performed at, of which Ma and Rostropovitch are representative. There are those who prefer the urgency and immediacy of a faster tempo, and those who enjoy the chance to linger over the music when played at a slower pace. I don’t think either is wrong; it’s merely a matter of what the performer and the listener prefer.

  78. 78.

    john b

    as a cellist, the thing about the bach cello suites is that they’re mostly quite easy to play yet VERY difficult to play well. there are also so many different directions the pieces could be taken. bach’s scores were more like foundations on which you can put your own interpretations. and the fact that his notes can be beautiful when interpreted in so many different ways speaks to his genius.

    but really, i prefer shostakovich’s fifth symphony above all. i’ve never heard a piece more beautifully reflect human emotion.

    edit: rach’s 2nd piano concerto is fucking beautiful too. i get chills in the second mvmt every time.

  80. 80.

    Morgan

    catatonia:

    I think the Emperor is probably my top choice, too. The first and second movements are just amazing.

  82. 82.

    Xanthippas

    I’ve thought the Prelude is the sound of the universe contemplating itself.

    What piece then exemplifies best the sound of one hand clapping, or a tree falling in the forest?

  85. 85.

    Robert Chaviano

    Fuck all that! "Born To Lose" by Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers beats them all like a rented mule.

  86. 86.

    Badtux

    Mozart’s Piano Concerto #20. Except it’s so bleepin’ hard to find a good recording of it. It’s supposed to go along at a nice sensible Classical-era pace, but folks corrupted by Romantic-era notions instead send it skittering along at warp speed. And of course it rarely gets done with a real piano-forte’ (the instrument it was written for). Using a modern grand piano to play this is as much an atrocity as setting it to banjo would be.

    – Badtux the Snobbish Penguin

  90. 90.

    Simon

    Bach’s Partita #2 in D minor: Ciaccona for solo violin is mind-blowing. I really enjoy Itzhak Perlman’s recording. In fact the whole collection of the three Sonatas and three Partitas is truly impressive.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks