CLASSICAL OPUS no.3

Ludwig van Beethoven – ”Mondscheinsonate op.27“

ルートヴィヒ・ヴァン・ベートーヴェン  ：「ムーンライトソナタop.27」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 14 minutes

The first movement is tearfully resilient, even provocative in its unassertive and intimate humility.  But this childlike simplicity evaporates under the boneless robustness of presto agitato that follows.  This passage calls for absolute heights of pianistic craft.

Beethoven’s sonatas are sometimes referred to as the classical music’s “New Testament” (as opposed to Bach’s “Well-tempered Klavier”, or the “Old Testament”).  Interestingly, the Book of Revelation makes several references to the moon and, according to some interpretations, to moon eclipse.  Alas.  Tantalizing as this rabbit hole may be, the lunar moniker was only ascribed to this sonata posthumously.  What would the composer think?

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._14_(Beethoven)

 

A REFLECTION

Who wants to graze on silhouettes,

clothe the essence with borrowed deception or

hide behind hope with deceitful possessions?

Bared, I must see the truth

 

Friedrich Schiller: “The Poem of Life”

Published in: on December 28, 2018 at 6:01 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.30

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Ave Verum Corpus”

ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト： 「アヴェ・マリア」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

This dreaming, elated, sacred phantasmagoria of elliptic immediacy explores a wide contemplative range.  A sense of exultation pervades this daring exploration of the soul’s netherworlds.  Invariably, performances call for fresh voices, ensuring recurrent renewal of this eternally evanescent choir piece.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_verum_corpus_(Mozart)

 

A REFLECTION

Where no knowing is I entered,

yet when I my own self saw there

without knowing where I rested

great things I understood there,

yet cannot say what I felt there,

since I rested in unknowing,

all knowledge there transcending.

 

San Juan de la Cruz: “Verses on the Ecstasy of Deep Contemplation”

Published in: on December 1, 2018 at 5:16 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.43

Ludwig van Beethoven: “9th symphony in D minor”

ルートヴィヒ・ヴァン・ベートーヴェン：「第9番交響曲第4番」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 93 minutes

This monumentally encyclopedic, spirited yet rigorous celebration almost annihilated the symphonic form.  The overwhelming, universal perfection of this piece was responsible for the desertification of extended orchestral forms in romanticism.  Luckily, it allows much freedom to maestros who indelibly stamp it with their individuality.  Hence two versions below.  First, the immortal Arturo Toscanini with his left-handed tribute to ambidextrous gentleness.  And then Leonard Bernstein, A.D. 1989, recorded it shortly before Bonn, Beethoven’s native city, lost its historical significance.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven)

 

A REFLECTION

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,

God of glory, Lord of love;

Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,

Praising Thee their sun above.

 

Henry van Dyke: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”

Published in: on November 18, 2018 at 11:39 am  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.55

Ludwig van Beethoven: “Für Elise”

ルートヴィヒ・ヴァン・ベートーヴェン：「エリーゼのために」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 4 minutes

Elemental and full of contrasts – programmatic but passionate, iconic in form and yet epicurean in appetite – this canon of piano teaching has also gained a (largely superfluous) orchestral version.  What’s more unexpected is that “Für Elise” was this radical innovator’s mid-period piece.  If dated properly, it underscores the composer’s dizzying versatility – coinciding with his heroic pieces and the gradual loss of hearing.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCr_Elise

 

A REFLECTION

Like the stamen inside a flower

The steeple stands in lovely blue

And the day unfolds around its needle;

The flock of swallows that circles the steeple

Flies there each day through the same blue air

That carries their cries from me to you.

 

Friedrich Hölderlin: “Lovely Blue”

 

Published in: on November 5, 2018 at 5:47 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.57

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: “Solfeggietto in C minor”

カール・フィリップ・エマヌエル・バッハ：「Cマイナー ソルフェジゲート」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 1 minute

Ah, what a cyclically pedantic oscillator this is!  This flash flood of cascading notes literally submerges us with an unprecedented spontaneity.  Clearly, Johannes Sebastian’s “harpsichord” son moved away here from dad’s signature counterpoint, infusing instead a dose of emotionalism into his own trademark.  But many of us forget this, having heard this piece practiced countless times, emotionlessly, by a neighbor across the wall.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solfeggietto

 

A REFLECTION

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower

There is nothing that you can think that is not the moon

 

Basho (a haiku)

Published in: on November 3, 2018 at 4:57 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.72

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Rondo alla Turca”

ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト：「トルコ行進曲」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 3 minutes

Rallying and throbbing, lashing and oniric, this excerpt remains one of the homo sapiens’ biggest Schlager ever.  But its historical pedigree is intriguing.  Turkish military marching bands were popular salon curiosities, as formerly scary things often are.  After all, this piece was most likely penned in Vienna, exactly 100 years after the city’s last, unsuccessful siege by the Ottomans.  If we discount Jean-Philippe Rameau’s colorful titles, the “Rondo” could also count as the preface to orientalism in Occidental Music.  Here, we invert the trick, presenting the piano-less Japanese version, which seems less shamelessly percussive than the ubiquitous keyboard performances dished out by Westerners.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._11_(Mozart)

 

A REFLECTION

I sought the tavern at the break of day,

Though half the world was still asleep in bed;

The harp and flute were up and in full swing,

And a most pleasant morning sound made they.

 

Khwāja Šamsu d-Dīn Muḥammad Hāfez-e Šīrāzī: “Ode 487” also known as “With last night’s wine still singing in my head”

Published in: on October 19, 2018 at 5:44 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.80

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – “Symphony no.40, 1st movement in G minor”

ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト – 「交響曲第40番、第1楽章のGマイナー」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 31 minutes

Originally composed in separate segments, this zenith of 18th century orchestration relies on dynamic crescendos, unpredictable emotionalism of the home key (G minor) and head-on confrontation between competing melodies.  Canonical and totemic in its closing euphoria, it remains potent as ever.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._40_(Mozart)

 

A REFLECTION

A splendid night it was . . . .

In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed,

But at last drunkenness overtook us;

And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,

The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for coverlet.

 

Li Po: “A Mountain Revelry”

Published in: on October 11, 2018 at 4:49 pm  Comments (1)