#NewReleases2024
: a 🧵 of every new classical release I listen to in 2024.
Want to listen too? Then follow my playlist. Maybe you'll discover your new favourite record.
That feeling when you realize you've been deluding yourself for the last three years, that everything you said and thought about Brexit and the "easiest trade deals in history" was wrong, and that this is what you're going to be remembered for.
Weren't the
#Coronation
musicians magnificent? To every chorister, composer, instrumentalist, singer, conductor, music director, and to everyone who helped them become what they are: today YOU made me proud of what my country can be and what its people can do. Thank you.
@PrueLeith
You voted Leave, and your son is an MP in the government lowering the food standards you claim to care so much about.
If you want to back British farmers talk to him about the s***storm that you enabled rather than blathering on here about it.
You won. Get over it.
On Beethoven's (probably) birthday share your favourite works by one of the all-time greatest artistic heroes. My Top 5 today:
Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"
String Quartet No. 14 in C# minor
Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 111
Missa Solemnis
Piano Concerto No. 4
Blimey! I just joined a Political Party that isn't actively trying to destroy the country. Dump the Tory Trash and leave the Labour Lexit Loonies behind.
#StopBrexit
#PeoplesVoteNow
via
@LibDems
You're exiled to a desert island for eternity with only 12 symphonies to listen to. Which do you choose?
Me:
Haydn 86
Beethoven 3
Berlioz Harold en Italie
Brahms 4
Bruckner 8
Mahler 7
Sibelius 6
Nielsen 5
Shostakovich 7
Vaughan Williams 9
Shostakovich 13
Sawyers 3
Mary Philp (22.V.1934 - 06.V.2024)
Thank you for being a wonderful mother,
Thank you for the music,
Thank you for the sherry,
Thank you for everything.
❤️
#NewReleases2023
: a 🧵 of every new classical music release I listen to in 2023. (because why not?) I love discovering new interpretations and new music.
Want to listen too? (why wouldn't you?)
Then follow my playlist.
By age 30 you should have completed 7 symphonies, composed 600 lieder and be starting a final series of transcendent chamber works, piano sonatas and songs as you treat the symptoms of syphilis with the mercury pills that will kill you before you're 32.
Ludwig van Beethoven was (probably) born
#OnThisDay
in 1770.
Celebrate the Bonn bombshell's 252nd birthday (probably) by telling me your all-time favourite Beethoven recording.
Here's mine (today at least).
Happy 100th birthday to the greatest symphony-loving cartoonist of them all. Charles M. Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip was born
#OnThisDay
in 1922.
#ClassicalMusic
Twitter: All I want for Christmas is to know your all-time favourite recording of a symphony.
Mine: Lenny and
@chicagosymphony
's shattering Leningrad Symphony. It still blows my mind over 30 years after I first heard it.
What's yours?
You have a friend who's never heard a symphony before. You take them to a concert. What symphony do you want to be on the programme so they fall in love with the genre? My top 3:
1. Nielsen 4
2. Beethoven 3
3. Dvořák 9 "From the New World"
Joseph Haydn was born
#OnThisDay
in 1732. In honour of my favourite composer's 290th birthday I'm spending the day listening only to symphonies by the father of the genre. I'll post some favourite Haydn symphony recordings in this 🧵 as I go.
If you had to choose ONE symphony to play to someone who'd NEVER heard any symphonies before, which symphony would you choose? Me: Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony ⬇️
#TheCompleteBeethoven
#344
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 "Pastoral" (1807-8)
1/ "No one can love the country as much as I do. For surely woods, trees, and rocks give back the echo which man desires to hear." - Ludwig van Beethoven, 1810
You want to take someone who's never heard a symphony before to a concert. What symphony do you hope is on the programme? My top 5:
Beethoven 5
Dvořák New World
Strauss Alpine Symphony
Nielsen 4
Beethoven Pastoral
Taylor Swift as Bärenreiter classical music scores: a thread (with music!) to wish you a
#HappyNewYear2021
.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), K. 620: Overture
The silence said it all: a 6000-strong audience held its breath and their intense hush became part of the performance as the final notes dissolved into the void. A superlatively played Mahler 9 from
@londonsymphony
and Simon Rattle. Thank you
@bbcproms
, last night was special.
Remembering Seiji Ozawa: the great Japanese conductor died today at the age of 88. His vast recorded legacy spans a career the lasts more than 60 years. Here are four of my favourite Ozawa recordings. What are yours?
Happy 291st birthday to my favourite composer! Joseph Haydn, the father of the symphony and the string quartet, was born
#OnThisDay
in 1732.
"What a man! Beside him we are just wretches." - Johannes Brahms
Happy New Year! 2024 is the 200th anniversary year of Anton Bruckner (top left) and the 150th anniversary for Gustav Holst (bottom left) and, still controversial today, Arnold Schoenberg (top right) and Charles Ives (bottom right).
#Bruckner200
#Holst150
#Schoenberg150
#Ives150
Twitter! (*) I demand to know your top six symphony composers. Why six? Why not? Mine today:
1. Haydn
2. Beethoven
3. Sibelius
4. Mahler
5. Nielsen
6. Vaughan Williams
(* Whatever
@elonmusk
calls it, it'll always BE Twitter)
Dmitri Shostakovich died
#OnThisDay
in 1975. A 20th century titan whose glorious music transcends even his own extraordinary life story.
You can only keep ONE of his symphonies and must lose the others forever. Which do you save?
Me:
#13
'Babi Yar'
Keep all the symphonies of one composer but you must give up all the other symphonies ever written.
Oh, and you can't have Beethoven.
Whose symphonies are you keeping? No prizes for guessing my choice. What about you?
My favourite composer of all. Joseph Haydn was born
#OnThisDay
in 1732. A packed programme with family and friends will keep me off Twitter most of today but I'll be filling every possible minute while cooking, driving etc. with the wit, wonder and wisdom of his music ❤️
Every 20th-century symphony is to be consigned to eternal oblivion except for four that YOU choose. Which ones do you save? Me:
1. Mahler 7
2. Nielsen 5
3. Vaughan Williams 9
4. Shostakovich 13
Sergei Rachmaninoff died 80 years ago
#OnThisDay
, and Saturday is his 150th birthday, so it's the perfect time for a deep dive into his glorious Symphony No. 2.
#SymphonistOfTheWeek
returns to revel in the Russian romance of one of the genre's richest and most glorious works. 1/
It's my 53rd birthday. To celebrate I'm eating THIS in my car while listening to the Vienna Philharmonic play Bruckner 3 at FULL BLAST.
Good times
@BurgerKingUK
.
Great musicians born
#OnThisDay
, clockwise from top left: composers Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683) & Dmitri Shostakovich (1906), conductor Sir Colin Davis (1927) and pianist Glenn Gould (1932). What a quartet!
I want YOU to help me celebrate Herbert Blomstedt's 95th birthday. I'm going to listen to some of the conductor's best recordings. What are your favourites?
Mahler 7: a phantasmagoric fever dream in sound that interrogates the very idea of what a symphony can be and what an orchestra can do. Kirill Petrenko and the magnificent
@BerlinPhil
embraced and integrated the dualities of its world in a stunning
@bbcproms
performance. Bravo!
Gustav Holst died
#OnThisDay
in 1934. I'm reminding myself for the umpteenth time what bl***y marvellous music The Planets is. What's your favourite recording of this astonishing work? ❤️💚🧡💛💜🤍💙
Claudio Abbado was born 90 years ago
#OnThisDay
. Because Twitter is a cruel place you must lose all of the great Italian recordings except one. Which one will you keep?
Me:
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday dear Symphonist
Happy birthday to me!
Kammerorchester Basel & Giovanni Antonini give me a Haydn gift fit for a queen making
#NewReleaseFriday
a very happy birthday indeed! Sample it here ➡️
Joseph Haydn died
#OnThisDay
in 1809. Luckily it's impossible to stay sad when listening to my favourite composer. Here's a 🧵 of 10 Top Recordings ⟨™⟩ of symphonies by the father of the genre.
Happy 90th birthday to the incomparable Dame Janet Baker. To this day this is the only recording I never listen to while driving. The one time I did I had to pull over during In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus to have a good cry.
Happy 80th birthday to Maurizio Pollini, one of three keyboard kings all born
#OnThisDay
. Alfred Brendel is 91 today and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli would have been 102. A red letter day for pianophiles!
Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 had its first public performance
#OnThisDay
in 1805. It expanded, extended and exploded the idea of what a symphony could be and laid the foundations for the great symphonies of the 19th centuries. These are my top 10 Eroica recordings. What are yours?
Sir Andrew Davis (1944-1924). Sadness at his death is tempered by reading the universal warmth, affection and respect of so many tributes to a much-loved musician. And what a legacy he leaves behind him for us to enjoy!
#RIP
For no particular reason other than that he's awesome, I want you to tell me your 5 favourite works by Sibelius. Me (today only, obviously)
Tapiola
Symphony
#6
Lemminkäinen Legends
Kullervo
Symphony
#2
Herbert von Karajan was born
#OTD
.
These are my top 5 recordings.
1 Sibelius: Symphonies 4 & 6 (1964/67)
2 Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (1956)
3 Sibelius: Tapiola etc. (1984)
4 Bruckner: Symphony 9 (1966)
5 Haydn: Die Schöpfung (1966)
What are yours?
Happy birthday to piano phenomenon Martha Argerich, born
#OnThisDay
in 1941. A titan of the ivories whose volcanic virtuosity, extraordinary emotional range and astonishing musicality have now been thrilling us for six decades. What are your favourite Argerich recordings?
Four fabulous musicians all born
#OnThisDay
: composers Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683) & Dmitri Shostakovich (1906), conductor Sir Colin Davis (1927) and Canadian keyboard king Glenn Gould (1932).
Good evening from me and my martini on my birthday. Made with a delicious new gin from my wonderful partner who also bought me books on the Eroica and the history of the symphony. Clearly I have chosen well, but what on earth does she see in me?!?!?
"Along with the four Brahms symphonies and Schubert's Ninth, it is among the greatest and purest examples in this art-form since Beethoven" - Donald Tovey
Dvořák's 7th Symphony was first performed
#OnThisDay
in 1885 in London, conducted by the composer.
This evening I'm going to see
@SinfoniaOfLondn
and John Wilson perform Walton 1 and my excitement levels are so high they could blow the roof off the Albert Hall!
A 🧵of Daniel Barenboim playing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in honour of the great pianist's 80th birthday today. I hope you enjoy listening to some of his magnificent performances; they were an inspiration when I was writing
#TheCompleteBeethoven
in 2020.
Franz Schubert died
#OnThisDay
in 1828 aged just 31. I love his eight symphonies but if I had to choose one work to represent his genius I'd pick Winterreise, for me the most heart-rending, nerve-shredding song cycle of them all. What would you choose?
I usually make a mess of pancakes so this year I've kept the traditional lemon but swapped the sugar for tonic water and replaced the flour, eggs and milk with gin and so far it's going much better. Happy pancake day my friends!
Hans Grüber has fallen, the Muppets have redeemed Michael Caine, we've watched mum's favourite festive film The Holly And The Ivy, and now we're sherried up ready for Carols from Kings on TV. It's beginning to look, sound and taste a lot like Christmas
#AtMyMums
🎄🎉🥂🎶
It's Schubert's 227th birthday! Every year my admiration for his joyous "Great" C major Symphony grows and however you number it I'm on Cloud 9 whenever I listen. It's done well on record. Here are my four 21st century favourites. What recordings old or new are heavenly to you?
One of the greatest symphonies of all, Mahler's 9th, premiered 112 years ago today.
#NowListening
to a "pointless, aesthetically bankrupt" (David Hurwitz) period instrument
#NewRelease
, followed by Claudio Abbado (born
#OTD
1933) in Lucerne, hailed by some as the greatest ever.