Album Rating: 4.0

i'd say that when people start studying music theory and get amused by classical stuff, it's not the music that's inherently better than what you listened to before, you're just discovering a new trick that's used in music. you're kinda like the kid discovering metal for the first time

"the best album of 1725!!" [2]

Here because of Violin Concerto No.10 in B minor, RV 580, Op.3, for 4 Violins, Cello, Strings and Cembalo, but no other Vivaldi reviews exist of course. Gorgeous piece!!!!!!

I wish other music took up the naming conventions of classical music...

Meshuggah Album No. 2, New Millennium Cyanide Christ in 23/16, track 2, for extreme vocals, 2 guitars, bass, and batterie.

Can't find that bop anywhere in the database

Hahahhahha oh my that would indeed be wonderful.

The database would have to change significantly as well to make it all work. We would have to split the performer(s) and the composer(s) to make it more in line with classical repertoire. That's why I've always refrained from rating classical on here. It doesn't make any sense!

Alas, Sput is primarily a database of albums.

Very true. And it works pretty nicely in general.

One thing that always bothers me too for non classical stuff is the way splits are listed under a new artist, instead of on pages of the collaborating artists. Technical limitations of course, but still.


Also Vivaldi is COOOOOOL.

Album Rating: 4.5

I mean, when you publish the score, it's a release...

It is a bit tricky what to do with the composers from the record era. Sometimes an "official" audio recording was made, with the composer still alive, well after the score was released. (Looking at you, Bernard Herrmann, Moby Dick cantata). Or, putting two symphonies that are not intended to work together on a single album, because let's use all 80 minutes that fit on a CD (Looking at you, Fazil Say, Symphonies No.2&3)

Very true! The current composers thing works fine in Sput's system.

But of course Vivaldi did not know about 'albums' yet, or they must have been poetry / herbaria / drawings...

And putting 1725 as the release date or "It's also the best album of 1725!!" as a summary displays our issues perfectly! Especially when considering we do not know about so many publication dates.

Album Rating: 4.5

Well, it depends from case to case. With Bach for example you got works like Brandenburg Concertos (which works as a compilation, of 6 concertos written over last decade, presented to a certain Margrave with a known date written in dedication) or the massive fugue collections, Musical Offering and Art of Fugue (published posthumously). Or songs or solo piece collections which were published together as such – Beethoven's Bagatelles come to mind, or Chopin's cycle of Preludes. Song sized pieces, published in a thematically-connected collection. It works as an album, somehow...

And, to continue with the analogy to a (photo) album, symphonic/tone poems do often paint a picture themselves. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, explicitly alluding so.

Various symphonies and concerti, however, weren't necessarily published at all... especially when it was a concerto written by a soloist for himself. What's the release date then? When it was written? When it was first performed? When someone finally decided to publish the score for the first time?

"It works as an album, somehow..."
Very true, but I think the rating system still will not work for this, since our measure of enjoyment depends so enormously on who is playing it, and how it is interpreted. There is not 'one definitive version' of these old pieces. It's always interpreted (how fast are we playing, what's the size of the orchestra, who is doing what solo, what feeling are the orchestra/conductor trying to convey). Saying then that 'The Great Fugue' is a '4.0' or whatever does not make sense to me.

So I'm not at all having problems with the release date or anything. My main issue is I think it is very silly to say 'Grieg's Piano Concerto' is a '4.5' because there is no 'Grieg's Piano Concerto', every iteration is different because of the above, and therefore ratings would vary (immensely) between renditions.

Perhaps it depends on whether we rate the composition in general or any given performance. I personally do not rate things based on a mere score / sheet music, but on how musicians interpret a composer's work. Of course the quality of the composition plays a role here, I see that too, but it's difficult for me to see the score as a dry, stand alone, ratable thing.

So the Mussorgsky example you mention: the same goes for this! It's not an album. It's a piece that gets interpreted by a conductor, an orchestra, is played under varying conditions and with enormously different groups of musicians.

I'm not saying my way is the only valid way, just to be clear! It's just how I personally feel. If others can see a piece and say 'I enjoy this 3.5 in general', fine! I personally cannot do that, it does not work that way for me.

Album Rating: 4.5

Well, I try to rate the composition, though that's sometimes really hard to assess, the interpretation itself adds too much to the perception of music. On cases even technological development of musical instruments can affect the piece and performance too much - Beethoven's pedal marking on "Moonlight" Sonata for example doesn't make sense on a modern piano, sustain is simply too strong and it ruins the piece.

With audio recordings there's only the issue of audio playing quality on your side; of the gear you're listening on, and of sound compression in case you are streaming. But that's much easier to see (hear?) through.

Well, there's always the option of downloading the score and playing it through MIDI. But that's usually not very enjoyable.

PAY THE ARTISTS. STARVE THE ARTISTS.

"On cases even technological development of musical instruments can affect the piece and performance too much - Beethoven's pedal marking on "Moonlight" Sonata for example doesn't make sense on a modern piano, sustain is simply too strong and it ruins the piece."

Yeah exactly! There are so many variables. Which makes the classical (or, 'old music') field so incredibly interesting.

Speaking of interesting: interesting sentiments Cotton!

I do what I can for those that I love. Thanks Trif.

No problem! Keep up the good work!

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

"not every one of those supposed classical "classics" can be all that great"



I want to make a counterpoint to this comment from 9 years ago because it's something you hear a lot from people: I don't think most people who say things like this are aware of just how much classical music is out there, even from eras like this where the options would seem to be much more limited. Vivaldi has hundreds of pieces attributed to him throughout his career, and he is only one composer from one region at one particular time in history. When we talk about pieces like this as the standard-bearers, the standouts of classical music, these aren't the best of a few dozen pieces or anything: there were thousands of works being written and published in this era, and of those thousands, these select few, through one method or another, rose to the very top of the pile and remain there after all these centuries.



Anyone has the right to like what they like, and disliking The Four Seasons is as valid an opinion as any other. However, I think there is often an implication that it doesn't deserve its status as a "classic" because it reached that level of acclaim during a very shallow era, which couldn't be further from the truth. There's a great deal of competition for this type of recognition, in this case even from Vivaldi himself. So it says something that "The Four Seasons" is what has stood the test of time the best.