Sonic Asymmetry

Georg Frideric Haendel: “Sarabande (4th mvmt from Suite in D Minor)”

ゲオルグ・フリードリヒ・ヘンデル：「サラバンデ（第4楽章）スイート・ディ・マイナー」

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

Misanthropic, inertial and ponderous, the fleeting epitaph engraves its farewell lines with elegiac fluency.  This least florid and most forthright of all baroque greats was unparalleled in generating tormented, dramatic harmonies.  In 1975, the intricately interwoven choppiness of this segment was immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s sunset-lit historical drama, to immense effect.

MUSIC

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_suite_in_D_minor_(HWV_437)

A REFLECTION

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses

your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its

heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the

daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem

less wondrous than your joy;

Kahlil Gibran: “On Pain”

Johannes Sebastian Bach: “Badinerie”

ヨハネス・セバスチャン・バッハ：「バディネリエ」

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

Essentially a jocular dance, this is a showpiece for solo flutists, extracted from Orchestra Suite no.2 in B minor.  A nimble, laconic, scherzo-like structure is however presented with a tempo only suited for the most agile of the courtiers.  Like a childlike, droll pamphlet of grave consequences, it is subverted in the second version by a youthful James Galway.

MUSIC

INFO

https://www.redlandssymphony.com/pieces/suite-no-2-in-b-minor-bwv-1067

A REFLECTION

Orpheus with his lute made trees, 

And the mountain tops that freeze, 

Bow themselves when he did sing:

To his music plants and flowers 

Ever sprung; as sun and showers 

There had made a lasting spring. 

William Shakespeare: “Orpheus with his Lute Made Trees”