The Classical Music Thread

Igor Stravinsky & the New York Philharmonic - "Le sacre du printemps" (1940)

I enjoyed this highly praised piece of modern classical this week with its bright production job & stunningly original arrangement holding up really well all these years later. There's a darkness to this orchestral ballet that must have been quite intimidating at the time & I find it inconceivable that an individual has had the breadth of mind to produce something so significant with such a disparate array of different melodic parts. I'd imagine that it would certainly have helped that the composer is also conducting the orchestra here as his vision is beautifully realised. The influence on some of the great soundtracks of more modern times is obvious too ("Star Wars" in particular).

For fans of Sergei Prokofiev, Béla Bartók & Arnold Schoenberg.

3.5/5

Giacomo Puccini's "Teatro alla Scala: Tosca" (1954)

A 110-minute Italian opera from the Romanticism movement that's broken up into in three acts. Unfortunately, I found the first act (which makes up the first half of this release) to be a bit of a chore but I quite liked the second & third acts, particularly the final one. I tend to enjoy the more dramatic & firey sections the most with the more theatrical stuff largely going over my head.

For fans of Giuseppe Verdi, Gioachino Rossini & Georges Bizet.

3/5

Andrés Segovia - "The Segovia Collection, Vol. 3: My Favorite Works" (1988)

A compilation CD I purchased back in the 1990's when I was absolutely obsessed with guitar technique & wanted to hear the best the world had to offer. Segovia certainly delivers in terms of Spanish classical guitar too with all ten tracks on offer showcasing his incredible abilities in solo performances that sound to the average listener as if there are multiple instrumentalists contributing, given his unparallelled skill in managing disparate basslines & melodies simultaneously. I enjoy this as relaxing background music more than anything these days.

For fans of Julian Bream, Narciso Yepes & David Russell.

3.5/5

Raphael-Weinroth Brown - Lifeblood (2025)

Cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne first showed up on my radar in 2015 as one half of the canadian neoclassical darkwave duo The Visit, alongside vocallist Heather Sita Black when their album "Through Darkness Into Light" attained the distinction of being one of a very exclusive club of non-metal albums to receive AOTY status from me. Despite this, I must admit that I haven't kept up with his solo work much since. He has tended to focus on releasing single tracks on Bandcamp, with 2020s World Within being his only other full-length prior to "Lifeblood".

The album is wholly instrumental and solely features Raphael's acoustic cello playing with the aid of amplifiers and effects pedals, apart from on a couple of tracks, "Pyre" and "Nethereal" which also feature a bass drum. He says in the Bandcamp blurb that this is his most personal album, with the theme of his relationship to his music and growth as an artist. The result of all this is a classical piece that has great crossover potential and, I believe, may well appeal to many a more open-minded metalhead. I mean, look at that cover, is that metal or what? There is a wide range of emotional scope presented within the albums runtime. As well as sweeping broad strokes that breathe air and life into things, there are moments of quiet reflectiveness and spells of fervent and rabid aggressiveness that complement and contrast each other effectively and are redolent with passion and feeling.

This passion and feeling are the two most apparent emotions I take away from "Lifeblood" and the album as a whole stands as a great testament to the compositional and technical virtuosity of a musician who, in this world of overhyped crap, by the sheer weight of his talent and passion, deserves to be heard by a much wider audience.

4/5