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Post by Kapitan on Nov 15, 2023 16:53:08 GMT
Classical or jazz, jazz or classical...? I learned yesterday composer Aaron Wyanski arranged Schoenberg's 12-tone Opus No. 25 as what jazz pianist/composer Ethan Iverson calls "casual lounge music." I'm not sure "casual" is quite the word, but you'll get his point. If anything, it reminds me of some of Zappa's genre-crossing "serious" instrumental music. (Serious isn't quite the word, either.) Anyway, check it out: aaronwyanski.bandcamp.com/album/schoenberg-suite-op-25
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Post by jk on Nov 18, 2023 11:24:07 GMT
It always irks me that whenever something from Bedřich Smetana's symphonic cycle Má vlast (My Fatherland) is broadcast, it's invariably the second of the six, "Vltava" (The Moldau). Wonderful though this piece is, there are more in the cycle one might consider "radio-friendly", most obviously "Z českých luhů a hájů" (From Bohemia's Woods and Fields). So I was floored (and delighted) to hear my favourite of the six, the evocative opener "Vyšehrad" (The High Castle), announced yesterday. Well done, that man! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1_vlast
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Post by jk on Nov 18, 2023 11:36:44 GMT
Classical or jazz, jazz or classical...? I learned yesterday composer Aaron Wyanski arranged Schoenberg's 12-tone Opus No. 25 as what jazz pianist/composer Ethan Iverson calls "casual lounge music." I'm not sure "casual" is quite the word, but you'll get his point. If anything, it reminds me of some of Zappa's genre-crossing "serious" instrumental music. (Serious isn't quite the word, either.) Anyway, check it out: aaronwyanski.bandcamp.com/album/schoenberg-suite-op-25This is brilliant! Adding "lounge" percussion to Schoenberg's atonal music is a stroke of genius. I wouldn't say the Zappa music you mention makes me smile but this certainly does. I'd say it reminds me more of "Isoldina", Clément Doucet's light-hearted take on themes from Wagner's deadly serious music drama Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90:
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Post by jk on Jan 9, 2024 11:38:21 GMT
It's that day again... January 9th 1905 is the fateful day in Russian history when soldiers of the Imperial Guard fired upon unarmed demonstrators marching on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, killing several hundred of them. Shostakovich commemorates it in the second movement of his Eleventh Symphony (1957), although it is more likely a depiction of the then recent crushing of the Hungarian Revolution by Soviet troops. This is the complete symphony performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Shostakovich's favourite conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky. This must be the recording made in 1959, on 2 November it would seem (not 1967, as stated by the uploader). Important note: Play at a reasonable volume -- much of the first movement is very quiet and, more importantly, you may otherwise miss the deathly hush (here at 30:04) in the second movement. I. The Palace Square II. The 9th of January (starts 15:33) III. Eternal Memory (starts 34:01) IV. Tocsin (Alarm) (starts 45:48) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich)
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Post by jk on Jan 11, 2024 21:40:52 GMT
I've been listening to (and occasionally watching) this production of Lakmé, a three-act opera by the French Romantic composer Léo Delibes (1836–1891). I'm not really an opera person but this production was described to me with such enthusiasm that I couldn't resist! It served me well while finishing off a tricky jigsaw puzzle and during two sessions of removing condensation from the workroom windows. And then I was half an hour away from the end so I sat down and watched the rest. Thank you, that person. NB: You can only watch it on YouTube: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakm%C3%A9
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 11, 2024 21:56:06 GMT
NB: You can only watch it on YouTube: Actually not even there in the US--at least not that particular video.
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Post by jk on Jan 11, 2024 21:59:22 GMT
NB: You can only watch it on YouTube: Actually not even there in the US--at least not that particular video. Ah. Well in that case this was the clip I was originally shown:
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Post by jk on Jan 14, 2024 21:20:54 GMT
"Since the first day of the war in Ukraine, a terrible pain has settled inside me. Every time I close my eyes, I want to wake up from this terrible dream… but alas, it is not a dream. 'drop after drop' is a kind of an ingot of that pain and memories of my childhood, when my relatives were telling me about the war years and sung wartime songs. I hear those songs inside me again and I wish they would stop…" These are the words of Maxim Shalygin, who was commissioned by Festivals for Compassion to compose Drop After Drop, a "relay piece" in support of Ukraine. The work has been performed by many musicians at as many festivals around the world. This powerhouse rendition for piano quatre-mains is played by two Ukrainian musicians, Anna Fedorova and Antonii Baryshevskyi:
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Post by jk on Feb 3, 2024 15:14:06 GMT
The nice man at our local off-license (US: liquor store) usually has piped music playing. If it's not "vague jazz" he quizzes me on it, whether it's pop or classical. I feel proud that I often know the answer! Occasionally he gives a small hint -- today's piano piece sounded a lot like Chopin but not entirely; it seemed to be harking back to the Baroque. He mentioned the word "Nocturne" and nearly fell over backwards when I in turn mentioned the name "John Field". I can't recall which of Field's Nocturnes we heard -- it was in a major key so it may well have been "No. 1 in E Flat Major (Molto moderato)", played here by John O'Conor: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Field_(composer)
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 3, 2024 16:31:57 GMT
The nice man at our local off-license (US: liquor store) usually has piped music playing. If it's not "vague jazz" he quizzes me on it, whether it's pop or classical. I feel proud that I often know the answer! Occasionally he gives a small hint -- today's piano piece sounded a lot like Chopin but not entirely; it seemed to be harking back to the Baroque. He mentioned the word "Nocturne" and nearly fell over backwards when I in turn mentioned the name "John Field". I can't recall which of Field's Nocturnes we heard -- it was in a major key so it may well have been "No. 1 in E Flat Major (Molto moderato)", played here by John O'Conor: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Field_(composer)I don't know that I've ever heard of John Field, but listening to this and reading his wiki page, I'm fascinated. Beautiful piece of music. And I know what you mean about how it calls to mind Chopin ... but not. I'm not sure Baroque is what I'd say, but maybe. Certainly it lacks some of the small-r romantic qualities of Chopin, it's more ... academic? Strict? So that does seem Baroque, I guess. Or Classical. Fewer of the ebbs and flows of Chopin's Romantic music.
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Post by jk on Feb 4, 2024 11:25:05 GMT
I don't know that I've ever heard of John Field, but listening to this and reading his wiki page, I'm fascinated. Beautiful piece of music. And I know what you mean about how it calls to mind Chopin ... but not. I'm not sure Baroque is what I'd say, but maybe. Certainly it lacks some of the small-r romantic qualities of Chopin, it's more ... academic? Strict? So that does seem Baroque, I guess. Or Classical. Fewer of the ebbs and flows of Chopin's Romantic music. Years ago I was given a box set of Field's piano concertos, which I confess I still have to play. He is often described as the Russian Field, to distinguish him from another composer with the same name. (See his wiki for more on his time in Russia.) As for the Chopin comparison, Field was composing before Chopin was born. These two quotes from the latter's wiki are illuminating: "Chopin took the new salon genre of the nocturne, invented by the Irish composer John Field, to a deeper level of sophistication." "His nocturnes are more structured, and of greater emotional depth, than those of Field, whom Chopin met in 1833."
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Post by jk on Feb 28, 2024 20:36:26 GMT
In the near future we will be visiting an exhibition in NL of work by the remarkable Lithuanian painter, composer and writer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911). We had stood in front of his house when in Vilnius seven years ago -- as with Satie's house in Honfleur, we arrived too late to enter it! It's hard to know where Čiurlionis' visual artistry ends and his music begins -- the two are inextricably interwined, although there is no evidence that he suffered from synaesthesia as he claimed. A fascinating figure, he died of pneumonia when only 35. Today we heard this rendition by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under Modestas Pitrėnas of his Jūra (The Sea, 1907, op. post.) on a Dutch radio programme largely devoted to the artist and the coming exhibition: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikalojus_Konstantinas_%C4%8Ciurlionis
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 6, 2024 12:09:41 GMT
I heard this tune--and maybe this performance--on public radio this morning. I'm putting it in the classical thread because the composer (William Bolcom, b. 1938) is primarily in that world, but it's also explicitly a rag, so it could go into the jazz thread. It is Bolcom's "Graceful Ghost Rag," and I think it's fantastic! The DJ said Bolcom was already an established classical composer when he was truly exposed to ragtime, and he enjoyed it so much he began composing rags. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bolcom
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Post by jk on Apr 6, 2024 14:04:01 GMT
I heard this tune--and maybe this performance--on public radio this morning. I'm putting it in the classical thread because the composer (William Bolcom, b. 1938) is primarily in that world, but it's also explicitly a rag, so it could go into the jazz thread. It is Bolcom's "Graceful Ghost Rag," and I think it's fantastic! The DJ said Bolcom was already an established classical composer when he was truly exposed to ragtime, and he enjoyed it so much he began composing rags. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_BolcomThanks for the heads up, Cap'n. Yes, a lovely piece -- and a most interesting man. It seems his magnum opus is a two-and-a-quarter-hour setting of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kkDXO-7p-NaSEjbADCFu9yYlbIZiSLeTIJudging from his wiki, it should make a fascinating listen. I'll lend an ear to it over the next few days while working on my jigsaw puzzle.
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