CLASSICAL OPUS no.12

Edvard Grieg – “Concerto for Piano, op.16”

エドヴァルド・グリーグ – 「ピアノ協奏曲op.16」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 32 minutes

This escalading, utopistic, consolatory melodrama is richly peppered with boisterous flashes of unfettered fancy.  The confident, even jaunty piano opening contrasts with the orchestra’s majestic, howling blanket.  The great Arthur Rubinstein infects the piece with Eastern European emotionalism.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_(Grieg)

 

A REFLECTION

Tonight, away begins to go

farther away, and the dream

what do we know of the dream

metallic leaps Jackson Pollock

silvery streams Jackson Pollock

I gaze across the sea

 

Inger Christensen – “From Light: Blue Poles”

 

Published in: on December 19, 2018 at 5:06 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.21

Edvard Grieg – “Peer Gynt suite 1 and 2 op.46”

エドヴァルド・グリーグ  「ペール・ギュント・ スイート1と2 op.46」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 33 minutes

This ‘Lord of the Rings’ avant la lettre, runs the gamut from deviant zombie dances to misty sleepiness.  The perfumed, emotive suites stem from incidental music to a theater performance, a half-forgotten genre which vanished as quickly as it emerged.  The second video sports only the totemic “Hall of the Mountain King”.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_Gynt_(Grieg)

 

A REFLECTION

In summer dusk the valley lies

With far-flung shadow veil;

A cloud-sea laps the precipice

Before the evening gale.

 

Henrik Ibsen: “Mountain Life”

Published in: on December 10, 2018 at 5:37 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.22

Modest Mussorgsky: “Pictures at an Exhibition”

モデスト ムソルグスキー：「展覧会での絵」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 34 minutes

This palatial, raw, multifarious composition essentially forms a catchy song cycle of a vaguely folksy resonance.  It is unmistakably Russian but remains original in its self-styled collection of pastoral themes.  Kissin in the original version may awe, but the Ravelian orchestration of the piece (here recorded from Japanese TV) is highly recommended.   Note the wake-up clarion used to replace the right-hand intro in “Promenade”.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

Because it is so very clear,

It takes longer to come to the realization.

If you know at once candlelight is fire,

The meal has long been cooked.

 

“The Gateless Gate” (koan)

Published in: on December 9, 2018 at 5:00 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.23

Gabriel Fauré: “La Sicilienne op.78”

ガブリエル・フォーレ：「シチリアオペラ78」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 4 minutes

This introspective and inconsolable lullaby adsorbs layer by layer as a carefully balanced, subliminal chamber piece.  The asymmetric dialogue places a crooning cello in piano’s collateral embrace.  The result is perennially subtle, creaky and slow, just as the means of transportation were in the composer’s era.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilienne_(Faur%C3%A9)

 

A REFLECTION

Eyes, are you not aware,

When eager to admire

Her face so soft and fair,

You are as wax in fire,

As snow in sun? Unless you have a care

Certes you’ll melt away.

 

Ludovico Ariosto: “Madrigal 1”

Published in: on December 8, 2018 at 4:40 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.31

Bela Bartok: “Allegro Barbaro”

ベラ・バートク：「アレグロ・バルバロ」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

Martial, rumpled and always on the precipice of chaos, this psychodrama is prised open by its maniacal dedication to demented accelerations.  Bartok’s expertise is exhibited here in full: scurrying runners that grow ever louder and intense, just as the pace slows down.  The composition functions with more urgency when performed for solo piano, but the orchestral timbres may have infected Akira Ifukube’s stomping anthems which hailed Godzilla’s imminent appearance in Toho Studio’s classic monster flicks.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_barbaro_(Bart%C3%B3k)

 

A REFLECTION

Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,

everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven’t come.

And some of our men just in from the border say

there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?

Those people were a kind of solution.

 

Constantine Cavafy: “Waiting for the Barbarians”

Published in: on November 30, 2018 at 5:40 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.35

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: “Scheherezade op.35”

ニコライ・リムスキー ・ コルサコフ：「シェヘルザード37」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 52 minutes

This sonic fresco strikes as expansively maverick in its sedately sibilant solos, but the undulating imagery of open spaces remains forever compelling.  The composer manufactured a veritable pinnacle of symphonic synesthesia, but he did it in a starkly representational art form – a meticulous, graphic poem resonating with the sounds of the steppe.  Subversively, this Lansdschaft for our ears has remained lively and relevant, unlike, say, Sergei Bondarchuk’s long forgotten movies, which were intended as pictorial tributes to those endless vistas.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade_(Rimsky-Korsakov)

 

A REFLECTION

Night, snow and sand make the form

Of my slim fatherland

All silence is in its long line

All foam emerges from its marine beard

All coal fills it with mysterious kisses

 

Pablo Neruda: “Discoverers”

Published in: on November 26, 2018 at 3:46 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.42

Isaac Albeniz: “Asturias”

イサク・アルベニス：「アストゥリアス」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 6 minutes

The hasty, insolent, unnerving attacks are richly interspersed with pastoral vistas.  Feared as a challenging piece to play, this sonically nationalistic symbol ushered a century of European fascination with peninsular traditions.  Others would follow.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturias_(Leyenda)

 

A REFLECTION

White cloud stained by the blood

of the sun piercing the earth to be born again

in another world of its kingdom. 

White as the cloud, the spray of heavens,

celestial cumulus which waters the earth.

 

Published in: on November 19, 2018 at 2:04 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.49

Modest Mussorgsky: “Night on a Bald Mountain”

モデスト・ムソルグスキー「禿げた山の夜」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 14 minutes

This monstrous, apocalyptic, calamitous drama sparkles with contorted, spine-chilling visions.  The delirious opening soon ferments into a backwood mystery which is punctuated by fervent climaxes, but never ultimately resolved.  Il grande Claudio Abbado graces us here with wazoos full of heavy percussion that he seemed to relish over the brass dynamo.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

The tired choir of stars calms down, yet.

Night goes away with apprehension.

There you descent from far hills in sunset.

I craved for you. To you my spirit’s spread.

You’re my salvation!

 

Aleksandr Blok: “I Seek Salvation”

 

Published in: on November 11, 2018 at 11:46 am  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.56

 

Alexander Borodin: “Polovtsan Dances from ‘Knyaz Igor’”

アレクサンダー・ボロディン：「イゴール王子のポロフツァン・ダンス」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 12 minutes

This matinal excerpt serves us pagan, shamanic, or downright deranged ritualism.  Based on medieval epic it quickly subverts traditional canons of instrumentation.  The lightness of harp is transported from its Hellenic references towards Ural, woodwind greets the sunrise and the swing of the strings predates Hollywood classics.  This immaculate cuisine fills our palate until it’s relieved in the triumphal hustle.  Yes, the real deal begins from the 4th minute mark.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

And I matured in peace born of command,

in the nursery of the infant century,

and the voice of man was never dear to me,

but the breeze’s voice—that I could understand.

 

Anna Akhmatova: “Willow”

 

Published in: on November 4, 2018 at 5:51 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.64

Mily Balakiriev: “Islamey”

ミリー・バラキリエフ「イスラミー」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 8 minutes

Balakiriev, the guiding spirit behind the “Mighty Handful” grouping, leaves behind trancelike ribbons of extravagant, tribal neuroticism.  He never quite fulfilled the promise encapsulated in the hazy orientalism of this piece.  And yet, his influence was enduring, during the Empire and beyond, in Soviet periphery.  Just listen to Mustafa Zadeh’s smoky jazz piece in the second video.  Despite valid claims to mugham heritage, isn’t this Azeri artist’s work just another twist on Balakiriev pioneering work?

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

For some we loved, the loveliest and the best

That from His vintage rolling Time hath pressed,

Have drunk the Cup a round or two before,

And one by one crept silently to rest.

 

Omar Khayyam: “For some we loved”

 

Published in: on October 27, 2018 at 5:05 pm  Leave a Comment  
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