Archive for the ‘ Music ’ Category

Gustavo Dudamel leads El Sistema’s top youth orchestra

TED - Maestros, if you please Select talk #5 from the list

The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra contains the best high school musicians from Venezuela’s life-changing music program, El Sistema. Led here by Gustavo Dudamel, they play Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement, and Arturo Márquez’ Danzón No. 2.

Don’t miss the second one, especially. I have’t heard any music from Mexican composer Arturo Márquez before.

Venezuela is a different Latin American country – and its independent behavior, (under Chavez) has often annoyed the US and its oil companies – by taking money from them to help its social programs, such as El Systema.

Maestro Dudamel (clearly a Mestizo) speaks American English without a trace of an accent. As well he might, because he is the musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and is active in the international classical music scene – a world of its own.

Michael Tilson Thomas in talk #1 of this series gives us an excellent overview of this world.

2013
03/24
CATEGORY
Music
3 comments

Open Goldberg Variations

The Goldberg Variations, MuseScore Edition

I’m not sure what to make of this, it is so clever and new. In this version (and there are several of them), you can listen to the music while watching the musical notation.

It amazes me that musicians can read this effortlessly. But then I am always amazed by classical music – that one man can compose it, and then many men can play it together harmoniously on their antique instruments.

Popular music is degenerate – amazingly so.

2012
05/31
CATEGORY
History
Music
Technology
3 comments

Dickinson on Music

This is the second stanza of her poem J348:

I would not talk, like Cornets -
I’d rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings -
And out, and easy on -
Through the Villages of Ether -
Myself endued Balloon
By but a lip of Metal -
The pier to my Pontoon

I must be frank with you – this did not appeal to me, it sounded too bizarre. Helen Vender, in her book Dickinson, had to take me by the hand and walk me through it.

This poem, in its entirety, is about three arts: painting, music, and poetry.  To be understood, it has to be put in context, namely Keats “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” She also mentions And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name by John Ashbery, which I really should know about too – but that will have to wait for later.

Being a lover (almost an addict) of classical music I know intuitively what she means by:

Raised softly to the Ceilings -
And out, and easy on -
Through the Villages of Ether -

Music takes me to another world – and that (like all the arts) is what it is for.

Popular music seems degenerate to me, with its stark simplicity, deliberate disregard of tradition, and love of vulgarity. I loved the Beetles, when they first came out, but as that trend continued (and got louder) I lost interest in it.

But let me return to the last three lines of the poem:

Myself endued Balloon
By but a lip of Metal -
The pier to my Pontoon -

The word endued is frankly, archaic. But poets seem to feel words like this are aristocratic - definitely an acquired taste. The words Balloon and Pontoon are used because they rhyme – it is a bit of a strain to understand their meaning, but with some thought it does come through.

The main point is this: this is the kind of poetry that takes some work to understand and appreciate.

2012
05/01
CATEGORY
Music
Poetry
1 comment

The Great Regression

NY Times - Prophecy of Machines

I pay $15 a month to subscribe to the Times. I am sometimes disappointed with it, but this article today is outstanding. The author, Frederic Rezwiski is brilliant – and not only that, he knows what he is talking about.

He added two new phrases to my vocabulary: Monopoly Capitalism and the Great Regression (from 1980 to the present). The first is nothing new, but the second is. Consider this quote:

Technology has no doubt conditioned art from its very beginnings.  But for most of its history art has nonetheless been master of the relation.  In the course of the 20th century a subtle reversal has taken place.  Art has become a tool of the machine it has helped to create.  The art which half a century ago set out to change the world has become a passive instrument  of that world’s malfunction.

He ends with this:

 We need, more than ever, a new art that will “drag the republic out of the mud.”

2011
10/19
CATEGORY
Business
Music
Philosophy
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The Red Baton

Medici.tv

The complete title is The Red Baton, Scenes from Musical Life in Soviet Russia. You will have to subscribe to medici.tv to view it. But if you pay your $10 for a month’s subscription, and only view this one documentary your money will be well spent:

“In the Soviet Union, from 1917 to 1990, in an extremely difficult context, one of terror even, there developed one of the most intense and richest musical environments of the 20th century…“, writes Bruno Monsaingeon. A fascinating mystery that Monsaingeon attempts to elucidate in his film.

This essential period of music history is recounted through conductor Guennadi Rojdestvenski, the last remaining representative of these fabulous performers of the Soviet era (he was born in 1931). He is full of humour and it is a treat to watch him evoke the ban on dissonance in 1948, explain why there are two pages 295 in the biography of Prokofiev published in 1957 and to hear him talk about Tikhon Khrenikov, the terrifying secretary general of the Union of Composers who was in office for forty years…

I can see Soviet influences in Costa Rica, in the statues of the Heroic Workers in the highway roundabouts for example; or the ugly poured concrete building that houses the Public Health Service (CAJA) in downtown San Jose. I even saw it recently in a newspaper photo of the Tica President welcoming the arrival of the Canadian Prime Minister (with schoolchildren waving flags of welcome).

The first person I met in Costa Rica deserves a few words of his own. He was from a rich family in Peru, who sent him to attend college in the US. He attended the U of California, learned the ice cream business, got his American citizenship (he then had a dual citizenship), returned to Peru (at his father’s insistence)  and set up a ice cream business there. But the situation deteriorated so badly in Peru he had to leave.

He and his wife (also from Peru) looked for another Latin American country to establish another ice cream business, and decided on Costa Rica. But Costa Rica disappointed them. They sent their daughter to college in the States, and she is now a successful accountant in San Francisco. The last I heard they had retired in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas; there they have the social advantages of living in a Latino society, without the practical disadvantages.

I spent time with him as he drove around the Metro Area of Costa Rica conducting his business as best he could – meanwhile pointing out all the disadvantages. His summary was this: “Costa Rica has no future.”

The same could have been said of the Soviet Union – but it still exists in greatly reduced form. Could this be the future of the USA and of its satellite, Costa Rica?

2011
08/15
CATEGORY
History
Music
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Khatia Buniatishvili Concert

Classical Music.com

This is a video, a real find, available until Aug 9.

She is an instinctive performer, as you will see on first seconds of the video. She is also a good-looking young chick. She plays the piano.

In this concert she seems determined to educate her listeners in the history of music, with selections from Liszt, Chopin (which I liked best), then Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

I am used to listening to MP3s laying down with my eyes closed. Watching a video in front of my computer was a change, but I got a better idea (a much better idea actually, since the camera was so close to the piano) of how the pianists hands played the piano.

2011
07/27
CATEGORY
Music
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Rossini – Stabat Mater

New York Times

I downloaded this from Amazon, and I must say I was satisfied with it – but didn’t quite know what to make of it either, since Rossini and Bel Canto were new to me. They are an acquired taste, but not one hard to acquire.

2011
06/11
CATEGORY
Music
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Alison Balsom – Haydn, Hummel

13 – Digital Booklet_ Haydn_Hummel_ Trumpet Concertos(1)

According to Wikipedia:

From 2009 to early 2011 she dated British conductor, Edward Gardner; they had a baby boy together. She gave birth in spring 2010 to a baby named Charlie.

No mention is made of any marriages.

However, this hardly matters. Her playing is what matters – and it sounds masculine to me.

You can sample it on Amazon, and download MP3s here. 

2011
06/08
CATEGORY
Music
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Music Came Before Language

One of the benefits of individual study is that, after a while it become self-reinforcing: what you learn in one area is reinforced by what you learn in another.

I am reading two books now: The Master and his Emissary and The Sounds of Poetry. The first is mainly about right-hemisphere vs left-hemisphere differences – but it is also about how people in general have degenerated because of increasing left-hemisphere dominance.

One thing you read about frequently in scientific literature is the question “Why is music so important, what hereditary advantage did it have?” His reply is basically “What a dumb question! Its usefulness is perfectly obvious. It just seems baffling to left-hemisphere people.”

I can remember vividly a family night of music in my Grandmother’s house before they had electricity. Kerosene lamps provided the illumination. Everybody took their turns performing. Grandmother played the piano – she had supported herself for many years giving piano lessons. Dad sang, and as I recall he had a fine voice – and also took voice lessons from a local teacher. Grandfather played his harmonica, a skill he was proud of – and he was a very proud man.

When electricity came, the radio came also – and we became passive consumers of music. Prior to this, people always made up their own entertainment. A favorite was ice-skating on the river – which they were very good at. The overall trend was frightening: they were becoming more and more passive.

My other book, The Sounds of Poetry, makes the same point: poetry is a form of music – and originally it was always a performing art. It isn’t hard to see that music and language have common origins. And it isn’t hard to see why it is no longer popular – people have lost interest in something so sophisticated, and only want simple, immediate forms of gratification.

I can take this even further. Our family were Missouri Mormons and originally speaking in tongues Glossolalia was a common event. This was usually followed by someone interpreting the speech for the rest. No one doubted either one.

Glossolalic speech does resemble human language in some respects. The speaker uses accent, rhythm, intonation and pauses to break up the speech into distinct units.

This likely the type of language first used – before the vocabulary and syntax became standardized.

Babies first use this type of language, and mothers automatically change their way of speaking to accommodate them.

2011
05/04
CATEGORY
Literature
Music
Science
2 comments

Amazon MP3 Downloads; Brahms Requiem

The Web is a great place to get music of all kinds – and I prefer the classical variety. I used to belong to emusic, and was happy with them until I got my new 64-bit laptop which they didn’t have a downloader for. I bitched and bitched and bitched – to no avail. I bailed with them still owing me some downloads. Dealing with dysfunctional companies is part of the pain of being on the Web.

I switched to Amazon’s MP3 Downloads, which have more variety and better quality. I do miss the emusic suggestions I used to get every week where their editors suggested new things I might be interested in. The Amazon one is far too general and concentrates on popular music.

About this time, just by accident, I heard of Brahms Requiem. I looked it up on Amazon – five albums were offered, from $3.68 to $8.99 – including one by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! I picked Robert Shaw, who I have admired for a long time – you can’t beat his choral work and the soloists are top-notch.

As I was writing this, I looked closer at the Mormon Tabernacle version, and discovered it was a English translation by Robert Shaw – and that this Choir and the conductor also used his techniques. I bought it too.

Mr. Shaw himself passed on just before this recording was made.

2011
02/16
CATEGORY
Music
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