Day 52

Happy New Year! Or at least it will be for me in less than one hour. Some of you may have already ushered in the New Year, others maybe later. Some of you may not view time in a linear fashion; who am I to critique?

Anyway, I choose this piece because it is one of those pieces that ushered in a new idea of what music is, and yet remained attached to it's own creative musical roots. If you haven't guessed it already, it's Le Sacre du Printemps, also known as the Rite of Spring...plus one other short piece.

Side One:

Pieces: Fireworks

The Rite of Spring (1st part)

Composer: Igor Stravinsky

Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Seiji Ozawa

Record Date: None Given

Side Two:

Piece: The Rite of Spring (Conclusion)

Composer: Igor Stravinsky

Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Seiji Ozawa

Record Date: None Given

The Rite of Spring is one of those pieces where if you haven't heard it, stop what you are doing, go out, get a good recording of it, and damn it, listen to it. It's a whirlwind of force, of tonal calamity brought together and held aloft, with the statement "I am MUSIC". Notice I say music, because while this may be pushing the edge of what some state is music, it is still music. The stories surrounding this piece are great; riots, dancers unable to dance, virgin sacrifice and the French. But what I find most interesting is the fact that in reality the very core of the piece is old, very old. It is a tribal song that Stravinsky heard while on vacation in Siberia, played on an instrument unlike any in a modern orchestra; and the composer ran with it. It is this blending of new and old that drew me to this piece as a new years piece. That and it really rocks, seriously, sit in a completely dark room and play this right before or after playing Rollin's Band and you'll understand.

I'll see you all next year (the 15,000th time you've heard that joke this week)

Day 51

Something I believe I've listened to before, but yet I feel this piece fits the time of year, the end of a decade and potentially today.

Side one:

Piece: Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat, Op. 55 "Eroica"

1. Allegro con brio

2. Marcia funebre (adagio assai) -First part

Composer: Beethoven

Orchestra: Warsaw National Philharmonic

Conductor: Witold Rowicki

Record Date: None-Give, printed 1981

Side two:

Piece: Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat, Op. 55 "Eroica"

2. Marcia funebre (adagio assai) - Conculsion

3. Scherzo (Allegro vivace)

4. Finale (Allegro molto)

Composer: Beethoven

Orchestra: Warsaw National Philharmonic

Conductor: Witold Rowicki

Record Date: None-Give, printed 1981

If you believe what you read (and as a reader of this blog I must assume this is not true), this is Beethoven's personal favorite Symphony. Beethoven also supposedly wrote it for Napoleon, until Napoleon crowned himself emperor, and then some other stuff happened. Whatever. Let's get this straight, this symphony reeks of heroism, struggle, bravery and hope. The opening bars of the first movement cry out with a horn call which is repeated over and over again throughout the fifteen minutes the first movement occurs. The second while much less upbeat still has it's moments, and the third, while often being described as calvary charging their foes, to me it too upbeat and happy to be an appropriate description. This last observation may be due to the change in the view of war in the last hundred year.

And you care why? Well, I choose this piece to help set the stage for the New Year. Whoa Ian, you say; should you have placed it tomorrow then? Of course not, tomorrow will be clashing to new and old; of past and future; of Abbot and Costello. Any guesses?

See you tomorrow.

Day 50

So this is big day number 50. Pretty cool if you ask me, or not. Anyway I really didn't listen to anything special, some Haydn piano trios, the kind of stuff that you would see played during a cheap sitcom when playing up how Waspy or over educated (not the same thing) someone is. Not that I fit that discrpition, not that I sat around reading an intellectual leftist publication (I was reading the NYT) or that I have a tweed jacket with elbow patches (all I want for Christmas). drinking a refined beverage (Absinthe). Either way the works are solid, but no game changers.

Side One:

Pieces: Piano Trio in D, H. XV No. 7; Piano Trio in A, H.XV No.9

Composer: Joseph Haydn

Performer: The Beaux Arts Trio

Menahem Pressler, Piano

Isidore Cohen, Violin

Bernard Greenhouse, Cello

Record Date: None Given

Side Two:

Piece: Piano Trio in E Minor, H.XV No. 12

Composer: Joseph Haydn

Performer: The Beaux Arts Trio

Menahem Pressler, Piano

Isidore Cohen, Violin

Bernard Greenhouse, Cello

Record Date: None Given

Well I'm afraid that's all for a while; I need to get up in 5 hours to catch a flight down to the south for Christmas with the future in-laws, I'm sure it'll be a good time.

Catch you all on the other side, and happy holidays.

Ian

Day 49

Not much to say today. I really enjoy these pieces, especially the theme and variation. Then again, I always love when a composer takes a theme and continually moves it from octave to octave while changing the accompaniment.

Side One:

Pieces: Theme et Variations in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 73; Barcarolles (begining)

Composer: Gabriel Faure

Performer: Evelyne Crochet, Piano

Record Date: 1964

Side Two:

Piece: Barcarolles (continuation)

Composer: Gabriel Faure

Performer: Evelyne Crochet, Piano

Record Date: 1964

Day 48

So I've been gone awhile. I know, I know, I'm lazy. The good news, I'm alive, not that any of your would be able to confirm that, as no one has come to my apartment to check on me after the abrupt end to my blog updates (and for this, I think less of you all). But I am here (well as much as anyone person can be "here" on teh interwebs), and I haven't stopped listening, I just became busy with, well let's say life and leave it at that.

As I said I have been listening, if not writing, and here is a selection that I have enjoyed while gone:

Mozart's Serenade in B-Flat, K. 361 "Gran Partita" (Crap)

Bartok's String Quartet No.1 (different)

Milhaud's String Quartet No7 (makes Bartok look normal)

Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie and Piano Sonata in A-Minor D. 845 (so outrageously good that just thinking about it makes me orgasm so hard that I won't be able to stand for 34 and three-quarter minutes)

So what does this means to you? Nothing. Unless you like good music (and by good music I mean well recorded music, the type is a matter of taste) and/or drugs, because really they are one in the same.

Let me explain. Yesterday I sat down for a listen, and this time I mean a true listen. I turned off all my lights (and as I live next to the north pole it's dark between 2:15pm and 11:30am), sat down on the floor beneath the beautiful print of Rothko's Red on Maroon and listened. And it was glorious. A virgin record, still sealed in its sleeve, devoid of surface scratches, thumb prints, the dust and the oils of life, ready to release it's full tonal assault of beautiful analog brilliance to my ears. I entered an opiate like haze.

More on that in a moment, first let me state what I listened to

Side One:

Piece: Mass in G Minor, BWV 235

1.Kyrie

2. Gloria

3. Gratias Agimus Tibi

4. Domine Fili Unigenite

5. Qui Tollis Peccata

6. Cum Sancto Spiritu

Composer: JS Bach

Performers: The Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra

Conductor: Richard Hickox

Recorded: June 1975

Side Two:

Piece: Mass in G Major, BWV 236

1. Kyrie

2. Gloria

3. Gratias Agimus Tibi

4. Domine Deus

5. Quoniam tu solus Sanctus

6. Cum Sancto Spiritu

Composer: JS Bach

Performers: The Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra

Conductor: Richard Hickox

Recorded: June 1975

So you get the idea now, I was listening to a two Bach masses, that ranged in pitch and tone from pipe organ to solo soprano, and it was amazing. You don't realize how good analog is until you listen only to digital (whether CD or god have mercy on me, lossy mp3) for a while. But once you actually sit down and listen to music they way you're supposed to (with your ears), music becomes a drug; a wonderful, wonderful drug that actually allows for you to listen to music. This is not the compressed crap they shove at people through iTunes, or the Amazon store or hell even your local independent record store (though in truth it looks like everyone is trying to become better). There is air around each note (not to mention there are notes instead of just tones), there is depth to the sound. I could go on and on, but let's put it this way, I'm a music junkie, and I only want the white china stuff.

Bach's masses were, well Bach's masses; they're amazing works of mathematical efficiency, counterpoint to point were the concept breaks down at perfection and still have remarkable beauty. Vocals interplay with organ, bass and cello set the stage for the incredible use of double-reed woodwinds (bassoon and oboe obbligato), the oboe strikes out, setting the melody, winding it's way through the sections of the mass, which always ends in the return to normality (or a G-Major chord). In the end I was a dripping man, laying on my back as my cats poked at me thinking I was dead, though rather I had found relaxation of the deepest variety. I had begun to listen to music again.