The four seasons
Over 200 works of the well-known Edition Eulenburg series of scores from orchestral and choral literature, chamber music and music theatre are now available in digital format. You can now enjoy the yellow study scores digitally with one click in excellent reproduction quality. Über 200 Werke der berühmten Edition Eulenburg Partiturreihe für Orchester- und Chorliteratur, Kammermusik und Musiktheater sind nun auch in einer digitalen Aufbereitung erhältlich. In optisch hervorragender Darstellung kann man die gelben Studienpartituren mit einem Klick jetzt auch digital genießen.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
19mentions
18people
2007–2024years
37% recommend63% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- You are in Denmark? WOW!! From here in the US, my impression of Denmark is a small country of really smart people with gorgeous women having really good lives!!! Your post questions that impression ....
Here in the US, there are what seem to be related issues. Opinions about what is wrong and why differ. It can seem that we don't address the issues or what is wrong, for example, it can appear that the media believes that making clear the issues and faults are too deep for the audience of the media. For example, so far I've yet to see good engineering style graphs of even the basic measures from the economy, health, education, happiness, etc. In simple terms, the birth rate is so low we are going extinct -- some graphs over time might provide some insight. To avoid going extinct should be worth some graphs of related data?
Here is one guess: Some people want more government involvement, activity, services, ..., at the national level. Involved are money and power, money collected from taxes and/or borrowed and then spent and the people spending the money getting power. Then for the money the guess is that the spending is too inefficient, that is, too often wasted. For the power, it can stop what might be solutions. So, with the waste, we are throwing away our efforts, and with the power we are blocked from better approaches.
For this view, the US has some old images, from history, the movies, some parts of education, and even from some of recent history: So, the old images are from, say, the movie The Big Sky from the 1830s of 20 or so men and one Native Indian woman leaving Saint Louis on the Mississippi River (major US river from the north east going south and dumping into the Gulf of Mexico) and the Missouri River (from the northwest of the US close to the Pacific Ocean and flowing ~2000 miles to the Mississippi) to trade with the Blackfoot tribe to give them woven blankets, guns, tools and get beaver pelts.
The whole effort was lawless, that is, no government, laws, police, political power, regulations. So there was fighting, killing. No medical care, so there was suffering. There were lots of injuries from struggles with the river. It was all highly risky with lots of struggles and losses but in the end successful.
There were more such movies about the US, people on their own, risking everything, fighting, struggling, having failures, in the end being successful. There was Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers (had a bicycle shop), etc.
To the present, there were two guys at Stanford University in a project for indexing the contents of libraries. They thought of indexing the Web sites on the Internet and were offered ~$1 million for their work and Web site. They turned down the $1 million, started a company, and had success. It was all risky. It's now worth ~$1 trillion, called Google. Other successes, risky, one or a few founders, include Microsoft, Walmart, FedEx, Facebook, Amazon, Burger King, McDonald's. One guy, sole, solo founder, used some old Dell computers, an early version of Microsoft's Windows and Web software ASP.NET, built a romantic matchmaking service, grew it, ..., and sold out for ~$550 million.
Mostly these successes are examples of significant increases in economic productivity, that is, how much utility get from each hour of work. Personal computers? Killed off the typewriters with just astounding increases in productivity; same for email; Zoom, .... In cars, using digital electronics to get fuel mixture and spark timing a lot better resulted in the engines lasting much longer -- if looked carefully into what was going on with the old carburetors and breaker point ignitions and the huge ways they were wrong (unburned gasoline diluted the engine oil and, thus, wore out the main engine parts) can understand. Tires -- progress in the synthetic rubber chemistry made the tires last much longer, maybe 5 times as long.
The theme is, as in the movie, leave individuals with a minimum of taxes and government power and let them try and take the risks. The victories can generate massive increases in productivity, wealth, and a better life.
Heck, I like music, A. Vivaldi, J. Bach, ..., S. Barber. Used to be, had to go to live performances. Then we got audio tapes, vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, and the Internet. So, now just from a few keystrokes I can get terrific performances of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Bach's Chaconne, ... Barber's Adagio for Strings.
Those are some of the ideas that have floated around. Money and power: The idea that just these two are the main causes of all of society's problems is tough to accept. But, for the problems in Denmark, maybe these two should get some attention.
- Familiar entry points would be:
Arthur Rubenstein's Chopin, particularly the nocturnes. This is soulful Chopin before it was played as a sport.
Glen Gould's interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations.
Nigel Kennedy's Vivaldi's Four Seasons - and then Max Richter's recomposition, it's really worth it.
Mozart's Requiem - any performance. it's huge. Same with Handel's Coronation Anthem: Zadok the Priest.
Personally, I put a CD of Alan Mearns' Bach (Sei Solo Works) in my car player about year ago and haven't ejected it since, but guitar and Bach are one of my vices.
If you are interested in what's happened since, check out the "Not Quite Classical" spotify playlist as well. It's all new, but you can hear the influences and then track down the roots.
- Here I follow up on
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31903157
post in this thread about Kanopy.
Here I give an introduction to how to start with violin.
Why violin? Classical solo music is written mostly for piano or violin, and the ensemble music is heavily dependent on a section of violins. So, violin is very important in music.
Now a lot of music can be generated by software on computers, but generating all the expressiveness of a good violin with a good violinist would be a big challenge. So, violins are not likely to be fully replaced by computer generated music.
I learned to play violin, enough to make it through parts of some of the most important pieces, the Bach Chaconne, etc.
Bach wrote that piece originally for solo violin. E.g., as in:
A version arranged for piano by Busoni is:Hilary Hahn 1,458,170 views Aug 15, 2020 Johann Sebastian Bach - Partita for solo violin Nº 2 in D minor, BWV 1004. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjEVKxQCWs
After hear the piano version, that the piece in its original form was for violin is a bit amazing.Bach, Busoni - Chaconne in D minor BWV 1004 - Helene Grimaud (piano) 3,785,361 views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw9DlMNnpPMOne version of an arrangement for orchestra is:
That here an orchestra keeps itself busy playing a piece written just for solo violin is even more amazing.Boston Symphony Orchestra - J.S.Bach Partita in D Minor, Chaconne BWV 1004 124,435 views Apr 4, 2013 Orchestration by Hideo Saito https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WpzfAd5gXkAnother version for orchestra is:
There are also solo organ performances.Bach - Stokowski. Chaconne (1950) 214,972 views Jun 4, 2012 L'orchestration de la Chaconne de J.S.Bach par Leopold Stokowski. Enregistré en 1950. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEUYq5t-cCMFor more violin music there is:
with just excellent, world class, nearly uniquely good, cases of (A) what violin can and basically should sound like, (B) violin tone quality and intonation accuracy, (C) musical expression, and (D) from the soloist Julia Fischer examples of how to hold the violin and bow and nearly everything about the left hand, tone quality, intonation, etc. Just excellent. For beginners I would mention that sometimes she has less curve in her left thumb than is usually recommended.Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Julia Fischer - Performance Edit (Full HD 1080p) 3,567,731 views Jan 17, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-W3lfcVvYFor a more modern view of what can be done with violin music there is:
The CD of that music, played directly, not through YouTube, has significantly better sound quality and a convincing example of some of the reasons for the fame of Heifetz. What he does with his violin is beyond any simple explanation. A piano player can hit a key, maybe with a pedal, on a good piano, and that is about all; not at all so for a violinist with a good violin: There are the violin itself, the strings and rosin selected by the violinist, the bow itself and then the tension, adjustable, on the bow hairs, the bow contact area on the strings, the bow pressure and speed, and then the effect of the fingers of the left hand on the strings. It all can make significant differences.Sibelius / Jascha Heifetz, 1960: Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 - Walter Hendl, CSO - Complete 184,884 views Jun 1, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpPYat2aRB4Here are some good ways to start to learn to play violin:
(1) Listen to some famous violin music, say, on YouTube. So from this, get some understanding of what sounds and music a violin is good for. Sure, concentrate on some of the best violin music by Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Sibelius played by famous violinists, Heifetz, Hahn, Fischer, etc. Get the sheet music, learn the basics of how to read sheet music, and follow along with the YouTube performances.
(2) Look carefully at still images of famous violinists holding their violin, e.g., Heifetz, Hahn, especially the Fischer perforamance of The Four Seasons as above.
The goal here is to learn how to hold the violin and the bow. This learning is important, crucial, etc. Nearly all good violinists of the last 50 years use a special shoulder rest that clips onto the back of the violin. The one I got was from Sweden. An excellent view is the Fischer video above.
(3) Get a few in-person one-on-one beginner lessons in violin. A music school or maybe a music shop should be able to recommend good teachers. Generally you can get really good lessons from a really good professional violinist for not much money. The early lessons are on (a) how to hold the violin and bow, (b) how to change strings, (c) how to tune the violin, (d) how to use the rosin on the bow, (e) how to play in some of the major scales.
Below is a "Music Theory 101 for Beginning Violinists".
After that and some lessons, the main need is practice. Occasionally return for lessons with a good violinist to check that what you are practicing and learning are correct. You might find, as I did, that it takes 1000+ hours of practice alone to make good use of one lesson of one hour.
I recommend the book
Ivan Galamian, Principles of Violin Playing & Teaching, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1962.
I give more in
- I have [this CD](https://www.allmusic.com/album/vivaldi-the-four-seasons-conc...) from 1990 of Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I have never heard a version of the Four Seasons that was so vibrant. Unfortunately I've never been able to find the exact recording on a streaming service, but I cherish that album.
- If you have an iPad, Deutsche Grammophon's apps are a great intro to the intellectual and emotional complexity and nuance of some key classical works. They have apps for Beethoven's 9th, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and Liszt's Sonata.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beethovens-9th-symphony/id6019...
With Beethoven's 9th, while you are listening it visually syncs the original manuscript and score, a visualization of where in the orchestra different instruments are playing, and includes analysis of the performance and intention of the parts. It also lets you switch between four different performances of the 9th by the Berliner Philharmoniker, so you can compare and contrast interpretations over the years.
Highly recommended!
- Not sure what you mean by "heavy", but you might give Vivaldi a try; start with the Four Seasons. It's not minimalist, but it's much lighter than e.g. Beethoven, and not as "serious" as e.g. Bach.
