The Silver Screen Oasis

Sandy, I'm a Robbie Williams fan...used to have a major crush on him! I have his "One Night With Robbie Williams: Live At The Albert" DVD-which is his tribute to The Rat Pack (Frank, Dean, Sammy.) He's such an energetic and charasmatic performer and really does justice to these classic tunes. The concert has guest appearances too-from Rupert Everett and Jane Horrocks and Robbie has a duet with Jon Lovitz!
I loved his performance of "It's De-Lovely" in the recent Cole Porter bio-pic, "De-Lovely."

Here's a fun and sexy video with Robbie and Nicole Kidman-

movieman1957 wrote:

MissGoddess wrote:
I do like classical music too, though it tends to bring me down a bit so I listen to it sparingly.

Miss G

As a classical music lover I'm curious to know what brings you down. I find most of Beethoven, Brahms and a good deal of Baroque music to be quite the opposite. Granted there are plenty of pices that can do that to one. If I'm in a mood there are certain pieces I listen to that reflect that mood. I don't want happy music when I'm feeling down.

Tchaikovsky, while a writer of great melodies, can be on the melancholy side.

Hi Chris!

Perhaps "Down" isn't the right word--in fact, it's not. I guess I mean it puts me into a deeper far more intropsective and serious mood. Even the lightest most lyrical pieces do that because I find myself instantly transported to a more romantic time and my imagination goes wild and there I am, all "stirred up" and out of tune with the 21st C. It's just me. However I do love it and find much of it enthralling, I just find I am already too much of a romantic without the overpowering effects of music. Nothing, no image or text moves me more than a melody.

P.S. I love all the composers and styles you listed---Baroque is exquisite, isn't it?

CharlieT wrote:

movieman1957 wrote:

MissGoddess wrote:
I do like classical music too, though it tends to bring me down a bit so I listen to it sparingly.

Miss G

As a classical music lover I'm curious to know what brings you down. I find most of Beethoven, Brahms and a good deal of Baroque music to be quite the opposite. Granted there are plenty of pices that can do that to one. If I'm in a mood there are certain pieces I listen to that reflect that mood. I don't want happy music when I'm feeling down.

Tchaikovsky, while a writer of great melodies, can be on the melancholy side.

Miss G,

Try Mendelssohn's 4th Symphony "The Italian Symphony". It's very light and fun. I always recommend this to anyone wanting to try classical for the first time since it isn't heavy, pounding and somber like much of the more familiar fare.

Of course, I like it light and thunderous, too.

Thank you Charlie! I love Mendelssohn's pieces. I grew up with classical music (my mom studied opera) but I tend to get so enthralled by it that I try not to listen to it too much right now. It sounds absurd I know, but I already indulge myself too much with old movies and classical literature but nothing sways me like music---I'd be lost if I played it too often. Pathetic, isn't it?

bobhopefan1940 wrote: No trouble at all! In fact, I've been waiting to share my collection after I spent many months building my library up. I'm sure it will far surpass anything you could pick up on the net... Hope so, anyway.

Thank you Danny---you're priceless.

MissGodess:

So glad you are a fan. After Moira you are one of the few I have found who enjoy it. And now Charlie. It's great.

With the recent death of Rostropovich I am looking forward to listening to his Bach Cello Suites again.

I hope we will get to talk of music again.

benwhowell wrote:Sandy, I'm a Robbie Williams fan...used to have a major crush on him! I have his "One Night With Robbie Williams: Live At The Albert" DVD-which is his tribute to The Rat Pack (Frank, Dean, Sammy.) He's such an energetic and charasmatic performer and really does justice to these classic tunes. The concert has guest appearances too-from Rupert Everett and Jane Horrocks and Robbie has a duet with Jon Lovitz!
I loved his performance of "It's De-Lovely" in the recent Cole Porter bio-pic, "De-Lovely."

ben, I'll look for that dvd! I had no idea it existed. Robbie duets with Rupert Everett, Jane Horrocks and Jon Lovitz on his album--I wonder if it's the same tracks that are on the dvd? Either way, thanks for the tip!

Sandy K

movieman1957 wrote:MissGodess:

So glad you are a fan. After Moira you are one of the few I have found who enjoy it. And now Charlie. It's great.

With the recent death of Rostropovich I am looking forward to listening to his Bach Cello Suites again.

I hope we will get to talk of music again.

I love those gorgeous Russians, Tchaicovsky and Rachmaninoff, too---I saw a documentary on Rach once and I was mesmerized by his hands. They were enormous, larger than I thought would be practical for a pianist but how gracefully he used them. In fact, he didn't look like an "artiste" at all. Anyway, even though I don't celebrate Christmas, The Nutcracker Suite is one of my favorite pieces of music. Of course, I studied ballet for fifteen years so maybe that's why I love the guy.

Janis Joplin and Tom Jones!!

The only musical in the last 35 years that had music that I really loved, was Ragtime.

LOL! John, so true! Actually, I was in a production of Ragtime last summer. I played Emma Goldman. I had a blast.

Is that really true? No other good music from Broadway in the last 35 years? I used to hang out with a gang that would play the lp of A Chorus Line sing every line. Ah, those were the days...

But there are so many great songs from shows over the past decades (Mack and Mabel, On the Twentieth Century, Into the Woods, even Annie immediately come to mind). Lately I've been compulsively listening to Grey Gardens which features songs that I think will become standards in cabaret setting for years to come ("Drift Away" and "Will You?" among others).

[quote="MissGoddess" The Nutcracker Suite is one of my favorite pieces of music. Of course, I studied ballet for fifteen years so maybe that's why I love the guy. [/quote]

Since we were talking music at TCM I found this. 15 years.

Have you performed someplace we would know? Local companies?

My wife shares the same birthday as Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Clear proof that day you were born does not determine any musical gift.

I missed this thread when posted last year, I hadn't joined yet. and loving melody music, I just had to chime in.
I saw a tv version of Frank Loesser's 'Guys and Dolls'. A saxophoneist played 'My Time of Day'. Usually, I don't care, overly, for the brass, I prefer the strings but this guy did a beautiful job. One of the singers, Peter Gallagher, said that listening to it 'put him on a higher plane'. I thought that a good description. It's the way I feel when I hear Schubert's "Serenade' Or Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'. I also, feel that way listening to several waltzes like 'Wonderful One' and 'the Words are in My Heart'.
Am I right? Was it Ray Charles who was blind and said the worst misfortune was being unable to hear good music? .... mel

Mel, I cannot imagine a world where I could not hear music, and not just "good" music, but music of any kind. I have often wondered just what it is about music that affects the human brain the way it does, so profoundly. I don't think there is a society anywhere in the world that does not have musical expression. I wonder if the deaf have some kind of internal music - I don't think it's impossible that they do - maybe they call it something else.

For me, one of the greatest gifts a human being can have is the gift of composing music; how do they do it? Imagine having all that inside you. It's not hard to imagine the "difficult" personalities of people like Mozart, Beethoven or Chopin - what could it have been like for them to have all that remarkable stuff roiling around in their heads all their lives? And imagine the extraordinary musical facility of people like George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or Richard Rogers, who could just sit down at a piano and toss of masterwork after masterwork - just a job to them, really. The music was already in them; all they did was write it down and get paid.

The cliche of of music being the universal language is so true. Beethoven and Mozart from over 200 years and and completely different language hasn't diminished the emotion of it.

Edward Grieg from Norway, Rachmaninoff from Russia, Saint Saens from France, Verdi from Italy, Vaughan Williams from England and Copland from America all had differnt backgrounds and lives but all spoke the same language.

It's wonderful to listen to the music and also have the gift to be able to read the notes on the work.

You all know I love C&W best, but I also like all kinds of music as jdb1 says, except Rap. I cannot abide Rap. I wasn't crazy about the heavy metal my sons listened to in the 70's, but I could at least walk through the room while it played. Now if someone borrows my car and changes the radio (which is a trick because all the buttons are saved to C&W), but if heavy metal is playing, I can handle it until the song is over but . . . with Rap - it goes off immediately if not sooner. Rap makes my blood boil, makes me angry, and gives me a headache. Not only are most of the words atrocious, but that constant, unchanging background jerking and popping is what causes the anger. There is no way to refer to Rap as music, it is noise, accompanied by a poem. Sorry folks, I didn't mean to rant at all.

Like jdb1 also said, how do people have all of that in them? But I guess it's like any real talent. How do you sit down at a typewriter and write a 500 page book, or paint a beautiful oil painting. It's all relative and I'm so glad we have people who can do it, so we can enjoy it.

Anne