Spotify Classical Playlists: The Most Significant Piano Work of the Millennium

At least the eminent Charles Rosen said so.

If you are interested in this magnificent composition, J.S. Bach's The Musical Offering, and Prussia history of Bach's time in general, I recommend this book: Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment.

Here's the Spotify playlist: The Musical Offering: Ricercar in 6 Voices (21 tracks, total time: 2 hours) It features the ricercar played on piano (by Rosen), organ, harpsichord, and by various kinds of ensembles, plus orchestra arrangement by Anton Webern, and a triple orchestra version by Igor Markevitch. Yes it's the same music played 20 times (one version is not available in the UK and one in Sweden), but this is probably the best example of a piece of music that bears, deserves and benefits from repeated listens. Enjoy.

Greetings from the blogger

Hi everybody,

I am Chinese, 26 years old, have been listening to classical music for 6 years. I'm not a musician but work in the music industry, though one of my favourite quotes is Ives' "the birth of art will take place at the moment in which the last man, who is willing to make a living out of art is gone and gone forever."

In the beginning I saw the film Amadeus and was awed, then I began to build my collection started from Naxos' Mozart piano concertos. On my 20th birthday I got Bernstein's Mahler cycle with NYPO on Sony. Since then Mahler's nostalgia for a lost or never existed homeworld always moves me, you know that China is still going through the pain of a quick-paced modernization and I feel that things are changing so fast that it is almost impossible to identify myself with anything. Not many great classical concerts here in Beijing, last year I was lucky enough to attend Abbado's Mahler 4th and it will always be a very precious memory.

Recently I started to use the instant online streaming music service Spotify, it has a huge classical library, but it seems that very few people listen to classical on it. There are many Spotify playlist sharing sites, and many of them don't even have a classical section. So I started my own blog.

Besides the playlists I post, when I mention artists or recordings in the posts, most of the time I will link them to their Spotify ablums, so you can click through if you are interested.

I look forward to exchanging playlists and thoughts on classical music and other arts with you.

Music is the best.

Peace
Ulysses

Spotify Classical Playlists

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Most Significant Piano Work of the Millennium

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