CLASSICAL OPUS no.60

Felix Mendelssohn “Frühlingslied op.62, no.6”

フェリックス・メンデルスゾーン「春の歌op.62、no.6」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 3 minutes

Mendelssohn’s stubborn yet alluring spoonful of retro-idealism inevitably tickles nostalgic fancies. The recurring, jocular motif washes up repeatedly with subtle lyricism of early romanticism but not without a feathery shadow of German baroque imprint.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_Without_Words#Book_5.2C_Op._62_.281842.E2.80.931844.29

 

A REFLECTION

Graceful, spiritual

With the gentleness of arabesques

Our life is similar

To the existence of fairies

That spin in soft cadence

Around nothingness

To which we sacrifice

The here and now

 

Hermann Hesse: “In Secret We Thirst”

Published in: on October 31, 2018 at 4:54 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.61

Antonio Vivaldi: “Winter”

アントニオ・ヴィヴァルディ：「冬 – 協奏曲第4番 イン・マイ・マイナー」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 10 minutes

The fourth ‘Season’ sparkles with filigrane, intoxicating dose of virtuosity, yet manages to remain both cohesive and lustrous.  It is suffused with onomatopoeic elements – the  rapidity of spine chills competes with the grind of crackly ice.  You have to give the composer credit for making this piece so deceptively free-flowing, despite it being boxed in the ‘slow-fast-slow’ straightjacket of baroque concertos.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Seasons_(Vivaldi)

 

A REFLECTION

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways

Six o’clock

The burnt-out ends of smoky days

And now the gusty shower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

 

T.S. Eliot: “Preludes”

Published in: on October 30, 2018 at 4:55 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.62

Anton Webern – “String Quartet op.28”

アントン・ウェーベルン –  「弦楽四重奏op.28」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 15 minutes

The expressionist quartet’s nocturnal scraps germinate and burgeon, then imperceptibly whittle down in curvilinear fashion.  Webern’s serialist repetitions initially stem from an anarchic chromatic core, but are later reversed and further superimposed.  This was done long before studio multi-tracking durably changed our reception of musical textures.

 

MUSIC

Opus 28:

(a much earlier) Opus 20:

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quartet_(Webern)

 

A REFLECTION

Eye’s roundness between the bars

Vibratile monad eyelid

Propels itself upward, releases a glance

Iris, swimmer, dreamless and dreary

The sky, heart-grey, must be near.

 

Paul Celan – “Language Mesh”

Published in: on October 29, 2018 at 5:03 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.63

Francesco Landini – “Ecco la primavera”

フランチェスコ・ランディニ – 「ここは春」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

The cheerfully organic, multi-vocal pithiness rings seasonally vibrant and rebellious.  With gemstone-like precision of his syncopated ballate, this 14th century’s musical giant never fails to enchant with sharp instrumental simplicity, here equipped with recorders, a lute, bells, a shawm and the climactic tabor thuds.  Alas, for most of us in the northern hemisphere, we are months away from such celebrations…

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

Though in a foreign land I dwell afar,

I taste in dreams the endless joys of heaven.

Fain would I fly beyond the farthest star,

And see the wonders to the ransomed given!

 

St Thérèse de Lisieux: “My Hope”

Published in: on October 28, 2018 at 4:45 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  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.65

Bela Bartok: “Duo for Two Violins – Transylvanian Dance op.44”

ベラ・バルトーク：「2つのヴァイオリンのデュオ – トランシルバニア・ダンスop.44」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

This perfectly fractured, fiddly ditto betrays the composer’s voyeurist addiction to folk inspirations.   Bartok’s folk song collection later helped him introduce novel percussive textures into western music (after which, we had to wait for Edgar Varèse and Moondog to do more work in this direction).  The second version here showcases cello, yet the dance really originated as a solo piano piece, some two decades earlier.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

Oh, Orlando!

Remember the night we danced

quietly on the sands where music

was played? Your words were

wonderers, said quietly

in the pockets of my ears.

 

Sheema Kalbasi: “Dancing Tango”

Published in: on October 26, 2018 at 4:58 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.66

Georges Bizet: “Arlesienne Suite no.1 and no.2”

ジョルジュ・ビゼー：「アーレジアンスイート1号と2号」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 37 minutes

This magical rêverie for strings is seamlessly interlocked with minuet-like intermezzos.  The second part shines with its cinderblock, huffy and anguished first movement.  Almost subversively, it remains planted in our memory.  For true aficionados, we have here both no.1 and no.2 performed by Nathalie Stutzmann, but also a short fragment (“Farandole”) from no.2, under the direction of Herbert von Karajan.

 

MUSIC

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Arl%C3%A9sienne_(Bizet)

 

A REFLECTION

In misfortune, friends increase.

You who enter, leave all despair.

Goodness, your name is man.

It is here that the wisdom of the nations remains.

 

Comte de Lautreamont Isidore Ducasse: “Poésies II”

Published in: on October 25, 2018 at 4:57 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.67

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: “Le vol du bourdon”

ニコライ・リムスキー=コルサコフ：「バブルバーンの飛翔」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2 minutes

Virtuosic, incisive, punchy, muscular and intrepid, this cuddly interlude literally swamps us with its debonair winks.  This celebrated composer, mentor to Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and vintage Stravinsky, is often quoted as comfortably reveling in the juxtaposition of “feminine” orientalism and occidental masculinity.  Buf if that sounds like virile Kozaks’ unstoppable Drang nach Osten, whence the prototypical levity that buzzes around this piece?  Either way, no insecticide is required.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

It may indeed be fantasy when I

Essay to draw from all created things

Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;

And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie

Lessons of love and earnest piety.

So let it be; and if the wide world rings

In mock of this belief, it brings

Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.

So will I build my altar in the fields,

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “To Nature”

Published in: on October 24, 2018 at 4:59 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.68

Jean-Philippe Rameau: “Le rappel des oiseaux”

ジーン・フィリップ・ラモー：「鳥の呼び声」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 2×3 minutes

We are instantly inebriated with the speed at which these cascades of notes flocculate, pollinate and reinject themselves relentlessly into the advancing theme.  Accused by his compatriots of being ‘italianate’, Rameau subverted with such kamikaze speed the established complexity of gallant productions that prevailed in the grand wig era.  Intriguingly, I find the version for guitar duo much less hectic.  The celebrated, somewhat gritty, earthy transcription for two saxophones (by Goebbels and Harth) falls somewhere in between.

 

MUSIC

 

 

 

INFO

http://thunderswallow.blogspot.com/2015/05/rameau-le-rappel-des-oiseaux.html

 

A REFLECTION

In the same way that a fresh, red rose shows its petals to the sun,

so this female eagle blushed when she heard all this.

She gave no answer, neither a ‘yes’ nor a ‘no’, she was so taken aback, until Nature said:

‘Daughter, there’s nothing to be frightened of, I assure you.’

 

Geoffrey Chaucer: “Parliament of Fowls”

Published in: on October 23, 2018 at 4:51 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.69

Joaquin Rodrigo: “Concierto de Aranjuez”

ホアキン・ロドリゴ： 「アランフェスのコンサート」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 27 minutes

Everything in this composer’s art is visual.  He indulges in additive, ochre patterns, overlaid with multiple lattices of light, watercolor strokes.  The title acknowledges gossamer praises to the Royal abode’s yesteryear glory.  Familiar as the theme rings, this instant classic was penned full 30 years after Albeniz had brought back Iberian music to Europe’s heartland.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

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

 

A REFLECTION

Has my heart gone to sleep?

Have the beehives of my dreams

stopped working, the waterwheel

of the mind run dry,

scoops turning empty,

only shadow inside?

 

Antonio Machado: “Has My Heart Gone to Sleep?”

 

Published in: on October 22, 2018 at 4:53 pm  Leave a Comment  
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