Tag Archives: Beethoven

Mendel’s Isolation Playlist: Week One

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During these unusual times, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are compiling musical recommendations from staff, faculty, and students to help brighten our days in quarantine. Mendel’s Isolation Playlist features music from PUL’s extensive audio and video e-resources, such as Naxos, DRAM, Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall, Metropolitan Opera On Demand, and Classical Music Library.

Find a post on our social media each day with links to music that’s calming, energizing, or encouraging. Each week, we’ll post a recap of the previous five days’ social media posts. We hope that you’ll discover a new e-resource and also a new piece of music that you’ve never listened to before!

Here are our recommendations for April 13-17, 2020:

McCoy Tyner, Fly with the Wind

1. McCoy Tyner, “Fly With the Wind” on Naxos Music Library: Jazz 

This recommendation comes from Rudresh Mahanthappa, Anthony H. P. Lee ’79 Director of Jazz. Rudresh says about his selection: “The last living member of John Coltrane’s legendary quartet, McCoy just passed a month ago. I always love these albums from the 70s where he plays with fierce beauty against the backdrop of an awesome rhythm section in conjunction with a large studio orchestra. This selection is uplifting and motivating. It makes me want to work hard and do good.”

Brünnhilde riding a horse, bearing a wounded warrior

2. Verdi, Don Carlo on Met Opera on Demand

3. Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle (Die Walkure is video, the remainder are audio-only right now) on Met Opera on Demand

Hannah McLaughlin, a second-year musicology graduate student, chose these operas available for viewing on the Metropolitan Opera’s Met Opera on Demand. She says, “I am watching EVERY OPERA by Wagner and Verdi available on Metropolitan Opera on Demand in preparation for my generals. I just finished watching the 2010 Don Carlo production and I thought it was really good! Not one of Verdi’s most well-known operas, but I recommend it! As for Wagner, now’s a great time to watch the Robert LePage Ring Cycle; when else will you have 16 hours in one place to do it? Blew my mind.”

4. Handel, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno on medici.tv

Mendel’s Public Services Manager, Sara Hagenbuch, is watching this staged Handel oratorio from Festival Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence. She says, “Sabine Devieilhe’s artistry is so inspiring, and listening to Baroque strings play Handel always motivates me! I look forward to watching the productions from Aix-en-Provence, and they’re often are available on medici.tv. Emmanuelle Haïm is leading the orchestra, Le Concert d’Astrée, and I’m a huge fan of their work.”

The restored Dresden Frauenkirche (D. Scott, 30 July 2018)

5. Beethoven, Missa Solemnis on Classical Music Library

Darwin Scott, Music Librarian, recommends this stunning video performance of Missa Solemnis. Read more about the piece and its performance location, the Dresden Frauenkirche, and see more beautiful photographs of the the church!

Join us in listening and sharing! Write to muslib@princeton.edu with your recommendations, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter to see our daily playlist installations.

Beethoven in Dresden

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High altar with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and organ pipes,
Dresden Frauenkirche (D. Scott, 1 August 2018). Johann Sebastian Bach performed on the original Silbermann organ on 1 December 1736, soon after its completion. The new organ is by Daniel Kern.

To round out our first week of the Mendel Isolation Playlist, Darwin Scott, Music Librarian, gives us our Friday music recommendation: Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis on Alexander Street.

This visually and musically stunning live performance of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis captures the 2005 concert celebrating the reconsecration (30 October 2005) following the completion of Dresden’s reconstructed Lutheran Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) that had commenced in 1994. The video, continuously panning between the performers and the church’s restored interior, not only captures the magnificence of Beethoven’s conception, completed four years before his death in 1827, but also the awe of being within the revivified space.

Ceiling arches and remake of the allegorical paintings originally by Johann Baptist Grone (1689-1751) on the interior of the great dome, Dresden Frauenkirche (D. Scott, 1 August 2018)

Completed in 1743 after the death of its architect George Bähr (1666-1738) this architectural wonder and one of the great landmarks of Dresden, turned into a burning inferno and collapsed on 15 February 1945, two days after the Allied fire bombing that destroyed the city. Under the communist regime of the GDR, the remaining pile of rubble eventually became a memorial against war. During the 1980s, the destroyed church increasingly became a rallying point for protestors until the 1990 reunification of Germany.

In a visit to Dresden in late July 2018, Mendel Music Librarian Darwin Scott experienced firsthand with profound wonderment the restored Frauenkirche, and the unforgettable images and sounds of this performance immediately came to mind.

Listen now!

The restored Dresden Frauenkirche (D. Scott, 30 July 2018)
Dresden Market with the Frauenkirche (painted 1749–1751)
by Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780—also known as the second Caneletto)
Ruins of the Frauenkirche after the February 1945 bombing and collapse (with statue of Martin Luther that survived the destruction)
High altar with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane by sculptor Johann Christian Feige (1689-1751). About 80% of this altarpiece (in over 2,000 pieces) survived the bombing. Dresden Frauenkirche (D. Scott, 1 August 2018)