CLASSICAL OPUS no.90

Johannes Sebastian Bach: “English Suite no.2 in A Minor”

ヨハネス・セバスチャン・バッハ：「英語の第2番の小曲」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 24 minutes

 

Stout and vehemently didactic, the suite enraptures us with its mechanical perfectness.  A rich variety of tone qualities lands on the keyboard, initially with little in the way of percussive decisiveness.  This is unusual for a baroque piece, but the style will change completely for the bourée, at 17th minute mark.  Originally written for harpsichord, here it is performed by Ivo Pogorelic, the pianistic enfant terrible of the early 1980s.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Suites_(Bach)

 

A REFLECTION

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.

Speech is born out of longing,

True description from the real taste.

The one who tastes, knows;

the one who explains, lies.

 

Rabia al Adawiyya (Rabiʿa al-Basri): “Reality”

Published in: on October 1, 2018 at 4:53 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.91

 

Dmitri Shostakovich – “Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano”

ドミトリ・ショスタコーヴィチ – 「2つのヴァイオリンとピアノのための5つの作品」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 11 minutes

Abandoned, husky and rumbling, this collection exposes head-on clashes between deceptively banal melodicism and strident scraps of what hostile Soviet critics dubbed ‘formalism’.  Mysteriously, it’s his outings into dissonance that prove most deeply affective and almost pungent with bereavement.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://www.earsense.org/article/?id=3080

 

A REFLECTION

Falling is the constant mate of fear,

And feel of emptiness is the feel of fright.

Who throws us the stones from the height —

And stones here refuse the dust to bear?

 

Osip Mandelshtam: “Falling is the constant mate of fear”

 

Published in: on September 30, 2018 at 3:56 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.92

Albert Huybrechts: “String Quartet no.1”

アルバート・フイブレヒツ -「弦楽四重奏曲第1番」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 18 minutes

Elegant, triste and listless first, then increasingly polarized and chugging, this irregular chamber score challenges the listener to seek, in vain, a closure.  The radial pattern of this expressionist quartet does not settle until the poignant theme returns at halftime, offering a sense of relief.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://www.goldenrivermusic.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19:albert-huybrechts&catid=2:composers&Itemid=3&lang=en

 

A REFLECTION

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice–

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried

 

Mary Oliver: “The Journey”

Published in: on September 29, 2018 at 2:01 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.93

Jean Sibelius: “Valse triste”

ジーン・シベリウス：「悲しいワルツ」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 5 minutes

Delicate and musing in its fidgety, doomed forays into the most nocturnal of waltzes, the composition flourishes unexpectedly with a series of unsettling, dynamics jolts.  Initially dark and austere, it swells seamlessly and climaxes with emblematic intensity before reclining for the final repose.  This symbolic chiaroscuro was handed down by one of the last of exponents of musical nationalism (in the Finnish case – anti Russian).

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valse_triste_(Sibelius)

 

A REFLECTION

When sorrow fades

Come the memories,

And each of them

Hurts uniquely.

 

Eeva Kilpi: “When Sorrow Fades”

 

Published in: on September 28, 2018 at 7:05 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.94

Giovanni Batista Pergolesi: “Stabat mater”

ジョバンニ・バティスタ・ペルゴレシ：「スタバット・マター」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 42 minutes

Ornate, magniloquent and exalted, this Marian hymn initially misleads with its prototypically laudatory majesty.  By the time we reach its 10th part (on the 28th minute mark), the unusual phrase structures begin to confuse the temporal organization.  It is hard to believe that this was penned by the same composer who shocked the late baroque mores with the levity of his opera buffa.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabat_Mater_(Pergolesi)

 

A REFLECTION

Love, that art Charity,

Why has Thou hurt me so?

My heart is smote in two,

And burns with ardent love,

 

Jacopone da Todi: “The Soul’s Over-ardent Love”

Published in: on September 27, 2018 at 6:00 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.95

Charles Ives – “Symphony no.2”

チャールズ・アイヴス –  「交響曲第2番」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 42 minutes

An agonizing and exhilarating debut by this ardent Primitivist.  How could this insurance agent pool street brass bands and folksy citations into such complex layers of hymns, polyrhythms and nascent atonality?  Although it was his 4th symphony that pushed the boundaries, Leonard Bernstein’s delectable introduction here is, again, a must.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

 

A REFLECTION

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

 

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

 

Robert Frost: “Acquainted with the Night”

Published in: on September 26, 2018 at 2:32 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.96

Gustav Mahler – “Adagietto from 5th symphony, part III, 4th mvmt”

グスタフ・マーラー – 「第5交響曲のアダジエート、パートIII、第4楽章」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 11 minutes

Buoyant but rueful, hummable and redemptive, this fragment is scored for strings and harp only. Mahler’s palette shines with web-like contours and his aficionados bicker over who best gives it justice: von Karajan, Klemperer or Bernstein.  But his 5th Symphony is also irredeemably cross-textual, equipped with a Wagnerian quote, impregnated with Thomas Mann’s inspiration and immortalized by Luchino Visconti’s ultimate fresco.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6926092

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._5_(Mahler)

 

A REFLECTION

When a sighing begins

In the violins

Of the autumn-song,

My heart is drowned

In the slow sound

Languorous and long

 

Paul Verlaine: “Autumn song”

Published in: on September 25, 2018 at 6:16 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.97

Johannes Brahms – “Symphony 4 in E Minor”

ヨハネス・ブラームス – 「交響曲4 in Eマイナー」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 45 minutes

The unmistakable allegretto opening inebriates us with its festive, reckless triumphalism.  The swirling orchestral architecture then carries us forward, but it’s the 4th movement – with its obsessive bass figures of a baroque-like passacaglia – that makes the last 12 minutes memorable.  Overshadowed by Mahler’s formal breakthroughs, Brahms was often accused of conservatism (or mis-timed revivalism?) yet remained influential among later modernists.  Leonard Bernstein’s commentary in the second video is an absolute delight.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

 

 

A REFLECTION

Flying past the wind and wave

Fleeing time, who will stop it?

You enjoy it in the moment

And off, running, in haste, now

 

Johann Gottfried von Herder: “Song of Life”

Published in: on September 24, 2018 at 7:03 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no. 98

Alan Hovhaness: “Prayer of St Gregory”, op.62b

アラン・ホバネス：「聖グレゴリーの祈り」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 4 minutes

Performed in warm, cushioned tones, this celestial, sinuous invocation in B-flat minor strides confidently with a pace of ancestral maestoso.  The modal version for chorale-like organ (or harmonium) features Wynton Marsalis’s distinctly melismatic playing.  But it’s also worth exploring the less fluid variant for strings.

 

MUSIC

 

 

 

INFO

Hovhaness – Prayer of St. Gregory

https://everestgtmusic.weebly.com/alan-hovhanesss-prayer-of-st-gregory.html

 

A REFLECTION

The Armenian Grief is a shoreless sea,

An enormous abyss of water

My Soul swims mournfully

On this huge and black expanse

 

Hovannes Tumanyan: “The Armenian Grief”

Published in: on September 23, 2018 at 6:02 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no. 99

Darius Milhaud – Elegie pour piano et violoncelle, op.251

ダライアス ミルホード – – ピアノとチェロのためのエレジー、op.251

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 4 minutes

This elegant, dusky threnody showcases fibrous cello verses, warmly endorsed by heartfelt keyboard touches.  It successfully conceals trans-Atlantic eclecticism that this ultra-prolific composer often betrayed and eventually bequeathed – also to his American students: Steve Reich and Dave Brubeck.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

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

(I know, it’s not much, but if you are truly hungry, here’s the beef):

Click to access these_cortot_pierre_2003.pdf

 

A REFLECTION

Out of this world, we’re on our way:

Our greetings to those who will stay.

We send all our greetings to those

Who give us their blessings and pray.

 

Yunus Emre “Poems”

Published in: on September 22, 2018 at 3:02 pm  Leave a Comment  
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