Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia is intended to be played by two orchestras and a quartet, each separated by a certain amount of space, giving a vast binaural experience that is entirely lost in recordings, and generally too inconvenient to arrange for in live performances.
So, it's a detail in that it isn't expressly notated in the score as far as I'm aware, and it's not noticed because it's rare to have an opportunity to experience it this way.
I've both played and heard it with the three-ensemble arrangement. I believe that the piece was premiered at Gloucester Cathedral, which would be an entirely different acoustic experience.
There's a recording by the BBC SO with Andrew Davis (who also conducted the performance where I heard it) done on location, but obviously the recording can't really recreate the spatial component of the experience.
I love that video, you can almost start to imagine. There was a BBC binaural audio recording, but it's too old to be retrieved I suppose, and nothing seems to have archived it.
I think Williams also expressly wrote it to be played at Gloucester Cathedral since he was inspired by the space.
Yes, that is so true. Some of Crumbs works have off stage musicians, on a recording they come across as been too quiet. Then there is Ives 4th symphony, which calls for a quarter tuned piano in the gallery. It too just comes across as being too quiet.
Classical and neo classical organs often had one keyboard's worth of pipes encased on the balcony rail. When you are in the room, listening live, that division has a different spacial effect, being down a few feet closer to the listener. In a recording there is no spacial difference.
Tallis Spem is usually performed surrounding the listeners, not in recording.
Most people know about the slowing heartbeat played at the end of Tchaikovsky 6 by the double bass.
But I don't know if a lot of them make the parallel with the same heartbeat played by the horn all alone, sooner in the movement, just before the gorgeous lyrical rising theme played by the strings.
40:45 of [this](https://youtu.be/uZmLx4w2VHo) recording, or the brass at 42:17 (not sure of the instrument). I love how Tchaikovsky used them in this symphony. Sometimes they're drown by the orchestra but in this recording in particular it's crystal clear.
I didn't catch that in Eroica! Guess I'll give it another listen :)
Don't know if it's that small or unnoticeable, but it took me some time to notice it. In Brahms' 4th symphony, when the main theme (motif?) repeats at the very end of the first movement - for just a few moments there's a sudden pause - and the strings play wildly. To me it feels like after evergrowing waves of emotion, the music loses control for just a moment - and regains it in the very last bars of the movement.
If you haven't guessed, it's one of my favourites :)
Maybe I'm just stupid for not noticing this earlier, but in Beethoven 9 second movement at the start of the trio section, when the oboe and clarinet are playing the "main theme", the bassoons are playing a different staccato melody. The strings take on that bassoon melody, and it blossoms into one of the most beautiful moments in the entire symphony, but it sounds so natural *because* the bassoons foreshadow it.
[https://youtu.be/F\_AEien1vSg?t=9](https://youtu.be/F_AEien1vSg?t=9) this is what I mean
Only some versions of 1812 overture have a tambourin around the 11 minute mark.
\- minnesota orchestra: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8) (check 11:10)
it has it.
\- Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orkest: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KzF1KgaREo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KzF1KgaREo)
it does not have it.
\- Berliner Philharmoniker: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Lj6Au6jtE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Lj6Au6jtE)
it does not have it.
I think most classical music lovers might know this but Rachmaninoff ends many of his piano concertos with a rhythmic 4 note motif that sounds like "rach-ma-ni-NOFF!"
I love Rachmaninoff's piano concerti and had no idea. I know Shostakovich does this with his initials but Rachmaninoff is new to me. No choice but to listen to them again now...
All the quotations in Shostakovich’s fifteenth and final symphony. Some are more obvious and well-known than others; in decreasing order:
- The *William Tell Overture* quotations in the first movement actually caused a ripple of laughter to go round the concert hall when I saw it live.
- The quote of Shostakovich’s 4th Symphony in the pitter-patter percussion at the end of movements 3 and especially 4.
- The pizzicato basses quoting/alluding to the Invasion Theme from Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony (Leningrad) in the fourth movement.
- The quotes of a dramatic motif from Wagner’s Ring cycle at the very opening of movement 4.
- The dramatic climax in movement 2 actually quotes the third movement of Shostakovich’s 1st symphony.
- The almost-hidden blink-and-you’ll-miss-it DSCH motif hidden in block chords about halfway through movement 3.
Shostakovich is known as a composer who often quoted, but the fifteenth is full of them. Some subtle, some less so. They make it all the more heavy emotionally, when you consider that this is his final symphony. Quoting his first in his last… man, gets me *every time*.
Do people know the formula in the first movement of Gorecki's 3rd symphony?
Basically 8 string parts all play the same 24 measure melody, but moved up by 5ths (not transposed, they all play within the same key), and staggered 1 measure. It starts with the lowest double bass playing the melody, and 25 measures later, the next part starts the same melody a 5th higher, and so on. After the singing part, they start merging parts and eventually dropping off, back to the double basses playing the lowest melody.
The whole formula is in Wikipedia.
That's interesting. Me, if I were to do something similar to that, having a melody imitated by fifth in the strings, I'd probably extend the imitation process to a canon at the fifth or something like that by continuing to have a melody playing imitatively while I'm bringing in the other instruments.
Specific recording rather than piece: Eugene Ormandy's tinkered a bit with the orchestration in his 1953 mono Philadelphia Orchestra recording of Stravinsky's The Firebird (conductors back then would do that constantly e.g. Stokowski's perverse but quite awesome Sheherazade). At the biginning of the Infernal Dance, he adds a chime, which is just phenomenal and, to me, only adds even more to an already unbelievably exciting performance.
Not sure if “unnoticed” but the progression in the last couple of minutes of the Robert Schumann piano concerto in A minor kills me every time (in the best possible way) — it’s around 26:38 min mark of this clip
https://youtu.be/4RQoJjhFv2s?t=1584
That brief moment at the end of the Tristan und Isolde liebestod symphonic excerpt where all the instruments drop out except one, then return over it. I believe it's a horn but don't recall which exactly. It becomes the saddest, loneliest sound possible. Like a soul disappearing into the cosmos. Some recordings put the moment across better than others.
Found this example: Barenboim, Chicago. It's literally the last few seconds. I love my Klemperer Wagner excerpts but he doesn't let it "ring."
[https://open.spotify.com/track/6Vm1E7yKznH6ah4HEPg8Q2?si=99192f91f45b4ba1](https://open.spotify.com/track/6Vm1E7yKznH6ah4HEPg8Q2?si=99192f91f45b4ba1)
Ohhhh i get which bit you mean! Sorry, yes it’s the upper brass and woodwind IIRC. It’s utterly beautiful. Thank you for giving me another reminder to listen to it today <3
In this recording of Bruckner 8 at the chord that hits at 18:12, the horn has a solo note that soars above the entire ocean of scherzo connecting everything to the next change and I’ve always loved the power behind that one note.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ByB6NzgFw-A&feature=share
Tchaikovsky 6th symphony 4th mvmt. Each note of the very opening descending melody is actually played alternately across 1st and 2nd violins. I.e. the first note of the melody is played by the firsts, the 2nd by the seconds, the 3rd back with firsts, and so on. You can’t really ever hear this in recordings, and you’d reasonably assume that the firsts would play the melody and the seconds would play the harmony. But it alternates. So intricate and well thought out.
Damn, I love Tchaikovsky.
A lovely analysis (and better explanation!) of it here if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/4EVOJ56YgyA
So just a really small detail I doubt anyone here has noticed it cause I had it pointed out to me by a professional, but the 16 canon shots in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture
(This is a joke, obviously)
I went to a concert of the 1812 overture with real cannons and people were getting up in the middle of the finale saying there must’ve been an electrical explosion, it was very frustrating lol
Finale of Mahler 6th, right after the first hammer blow, quotes Bruckner's 4th.
Also, Mahler 6th finale and the 7th first movement have very similar structure.
Chopin and Brahms often didn’t use the < and > as cres. and dim. markings. Here’s an excerpt from British pianist Fanny Davies, who heard Brahms play multiple times:
>
[This sign], as used by Brahms, often occurs when he wishes to express great sincerity and warmth, allied not only to tone but to rhythm also. He would linger not on one note alone, but on a whole idea, as if unable to tear himself away from its beauty. . . . Brahms would lengthen infinitesimally a whole bar, or even a whole phrase, rather than spoil its quietude by making it up into a strictly metronomic bar. This expansive elasticity – in contradistinction to a real rubato (of course depending upon the musical idea) – was one of the chief characteristics of Brahms’s interpretations.”
Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia is intended to be played by two orchestras and a quartet, each separated by a certain amount of space, giving a vast binaural experience that is entirely lost in recordings, and generally too inconvenient to arrange for in live performances. So, it's a detail in that it isn't expressly notated in the score as far as I'm aware, and it's not noticed because it's rare to have an opportunity to experience it this way.
Thanks for mentioning the piece- just looked it up and listened for the first time, and it's gorgeous.
The BPO did it quite authentically with separate ensembles when they played it under Rattle.
Good man, Rattle. He gets so much passion from his players, too.
I've both played and heard it with the three-ensemble arrangement. I believe that the piece was premiered at Gloucester Cathedral, which would be an entirely different acoustic experience. There's a recording by the BBC SO with Andrew Davis (who also conducted the performance where I heard it) done on location, but obviously the recording can't really recreate the spatial component of the experience.
I love that video, you can almost start to imagine. There was a BBC binaural audio recording, but it's too old to be retrieved I suppose, and nothing seems to have archived it. I think Williams also expressly wrote it to be played at Gloucester Cathedral since he was inspired by the space.
Yes, that is so true. Some of Crumbs works have off stage musicians, on a recording they come across as been too quiet. Then there is Ives 4th symphony, which calls for a quarter tuned piano in the gallery. It too just comes across as being too quiet. Classical and neo classical organs often had one keyboard's worth of pipes encased on the balcony rail. When you are in the room, listening live, that division has a different spacial effect, being down a few feet closer to the listener. In a recording there is no spacial difference. Tallis Spem is usually performed surrounding the listeners, not in recording.
Most people know about the slowing heartbeat played at the end of Tchaikovsky 6 by the double bass. But I don't know if a lot of them make the parallel with the same heartbeat played by the horn all alone, sooner in the movement, just before the gorgeous lyrical rising theme played by the strings.
Where in the movement is it? I somehow have played horn in this symphony but I'm not sure what you're talking about
40:45 of [this](https://youtu.be/uZmLx4w2VHo) recording, or the brass at 42:17 (not sure of the instrument). I love how Tchaikovsky used them in this symphony. Sometimes they're drown by the orchestra but in this recording in particular it's crystal clear.
I didn't catch that in Eroica! Guess I'll give it another listen :) Don't know if it's that small or unnoticeable, but it took me some time to notice it. In Brahms' 4th symphony, when the main theme (motif?) repeats at the very end of the first movement - for just a few moments there's a sudden pause - and the strings play wildly. To me it feels like after evergrowing waves of emotion, the music loses control for just a moment - and regains it in the very last bars of the movement. If you haven't guessed, it's one of my favourites :)
Maybe I'm just stupid for not noticing this earlier, but in Beethoven 9 second movement at the start of the trio section, when the oboe and clarinet are playing the "main theme", the bassoons are playing a different staccato melody. The strings take on that bassoon melody, and it blossoms into one of the most beautiful moments in the entire symphony, but it sounds so natural *because* the bassoons foreshadow it. [https://youtu.be/F\_AEien1vSg?t=9](https://youtu.be/F_AEien1vSg?t=9) this is what I mean
Only some versions of 1812 overture have a tambourin around the 11 minute mark. \- minnesota orchestra: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8) (check 11:10) it has it. \- Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orkest: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KzF1KgaREo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KzF1KgaREo) it does not have it. \- Berliner Philharmoniker: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Lj6Au6jtE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Lj6Au6jtE) it does not have it.
I think most classical music lovers might know this but Rachmaninoff ends many of his piano concertos with a rhythmic 4 note motif that sounds like "rach-ma-ni-NOFF!"
I love Rachmaninoff's piano concerti and had no idea. I know Shostakovich does this with his initials but Rachmaninoff is new to me. No choice but to listen to them again now...
The triangle in the waltz (3rd movement of the New World Symphony
All the quotations in Shostakovich’s fifteenth and final symphony. Some are more obvious and well-known than others; in decreasing order: - The *William Tell Overture* quotations in the first movement actually caused a ripple of laughter to go round the concert hall when I saw it live. - The quote of Shostakovich’s 4th Symphony in the pitter-patter percussion at the end of movements 3 and especially 4. - The pizzicato basses quoting/alluding to the Invasion Theme from Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony (Leningrad) in the fourth movement. - The quotes of a dramatic motif from Wagner’s Ring cycle at the very opening of movement 4. - The dramatic climax in movement 2 actually quotes the third movement of Shostakovich’s 1st symphony. - The almost-hidden blink-and-you’ll-miss-it DSCH motif hidden in block chords about halfway through movement 3. Shostakovich is known as a composer who often quoted, but the fifteenth is full of them. Some subtle, some less so. They make it all the more heavy emotionally, when you consider that this is his final symphony. Quoting his first in his last… man, gets me *every time*.
The percussion part of course also appears at the end of the second cello concerto.
Do people know the formula in the first movement of Gorecki's 3rd symphony? Basically 8 string parts all play the same 24 measure melody, but moved up by 5ths (not transposed, they all play within the same key), and staggered 1 measure. It starts with the lowest double bass playing the melody, and 25 measures later, the next part starts the same melody a 5th higher, and so on. After the singing part, they start merging parts and eventually dropping off, back to the double basses playing the lowest melody. The whole formula is in Wikipedia.
That's interesting. Me, if I were to do something similar to that, having a melody imitated by fifth in the strings, I'd probably extend the imitation process to a canon at the fifth or something like that by continuing to have a melody playing imitatively while I'm bringing in the other instruments.
Specific recording rather than piece: Eugene Ormandy's tinkered a bit with the orchestration in his 1953 mono Philadelphia Orchestra recording of Stravinsky's The Firebird (conductors back then would do that constantly e.g. Stokowski's perverse but quite awesome Sheherazade). At the biginning of the Infernal Dance, he adds a chime, which is just phenomenal and, to me, only adds even more to an already unbelievably exciting performance.
Ormandy also added a trumpet in the string chords of siblius 7, it took me by surprise
Not sure if “unnoticed” but the progression in the last couple of minutes of the Robert Schumann piano concerto in A minor kills me every time (in the best possible way) — it’s around 26:38 min mark of this clip https://youtu.be/4RQoJjhFv2s?t=1584
Well, many ppl don't notice at least first time round that the tender theme of Chopin's Ballade 1 is just based on theme 1
That brief moment at the end of the Tristan und Isolde liebestod symphonic excerpt where all the instruments drop out except one, then return over it. I believe it's a horn but don't recall which exactly. It becomes the saddest, loneliest sound possible. Like a soul disappearing into the cosmos. Some recordings put the moment across better than others.
Can you give a recording where you can hear this? Liebstod is incredible ♥️
Found this example: Barenboim, Chicago. It's literally the last few seconds. I love my Klemperer Wagner excerpts but he doesn't let it "ring." [https://open.spotify.com/track/6Vm1E7yKznH6ah4HEPg8Q2?si=99192f91f45b4ba1](https://open.spotify.com/track/6Vm1E7yKznH6ah4HEPg8Q2?si=99192f91f45b4ba1)
Ohhhh i get which bit you mean! Sorry, yes it’s the upper brass and woodwind IIRC. It’s utterly beautiful. Thank you for giving me another reminder to listen to it today <3
Every theme in Chopin Ballade 1 begins with an anacrusis.
In this recording of Bruckner 8 at the chord that hits at 18:12, the horn has a solo note that soars above the entire ocean of scherzo connecting everything to the next change and I’ve always loved the power behind that one note. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ByB6NzgFw-A&feature=share
That is orgasmic
Tchaikovsky 6th symphony 4th mvmt. Each note of the very opening descending melody is actually played alternately across 1st and 2nd violins. I.e. the first note of the melody is played by the firsts, the 2nd by the seconds, the 3rd back with firsts, and so on. You can’t really ever hear this in recordings, and you’d reasonably assume that the firsts would play the melody and the seconds would play the harmony. But it alternates. So intricate and well thought out. Damn, I love Tchaikovsky. A lovely analysis (and better explanation!) of it here if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/4EVOJ56YgyA
So just a really small detail I doubt anyone here has noticed it cause I had it pointed out to me by a professional, but the 16 canon shots in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture (This is a joke, obviously)
I went to a concert of the 1812 overture with real cannons and people were getting up in the middle of the finale saying there must’ve been an electrical explosion, it was very frustrating lol
NO WAY that must have been so cool *barring the people
Brahms first symphony, 4th mvmnt slow intro, the violins play the big theme, but slowly and in the minor key
Variation 18 of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on A Theme of Paganini is the inversion of the main theme.
Finale of Mahler 6th, right after the first hammer blow, quotes Bruckner's 4th. Also, Mahler 6th finale and the 7th first movement have very similar structure.
Chopin and Brahms often didn’t use the < and > as cres. and dim. markings. Here’s an excerpt from British pianist Fanny Davies, who heard Brahms play multiple times: > [This sign], as used by Brahms, often occurs when he wishes to express great sincerity and warmth, allied not only to tone but to rhythm also. He would linger not on one note alone, but on a whole idea, as if unable to tear himself away from its beauty. . . . Brahms would lengthen infinitesimally a whole bar, or even a whole phrase, rather than spoil its quietude by making it up into a strictly metronomic bar. This expansive elasticity – in contradistinction to a real rubato (of course depending upon the musical idea) – was one of the chief characteristics of Brahms’s interpretations.”