What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol.IX)

Cyril Snear - Fluent In Seven Types Of Monotone

 When artists perform ancient songs, ballads or dances, they often bring them to life in a fresh, personal way. It was a shared love of ancient music that led Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen to form a new group three years ago. Now they've brought out their first release titled Hirundo Maris. In Latin, the title means sea swallow. Each piece on this new disc in some way has a relationship to the sea. It's the sea that connects the two homelands of Arianna and Petter: Spain and Norway.

Julie Amacher, Minnesota Public Radio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKW5wUHAVMQ

This is another very good second disc of Snetberger playing with Arild Andersen, also on the Anja label:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODq5wTztEvQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0kh8l0xep0

Markus  Stockhausen adds here a unique layer with his searching trumpet sound.

Vinyl LP

The world could stop turning but music would be enough to sustain me.  This morning an early listening session of the complete studies on Chopin's Etudes from Godowsky.  Through the week I've listened to two of the etudes on the youtube link for nearly an hour each day.  I would encourage anyone interested to listen to Chopin's original if you are not already very familiar with them and then compare and note the differences or similarities.

1) Nouvelle Etude in A-flat (0 to 4'-14").  The original was a straightforward two against three study (eighth notes in the left to triplets in the right hand).  Tricky enough in its own right to be a challenge for all those except the advanced cream of the crop to manage correctly.  The Godowsky transcription simply takes the first sixteen bars of the original and turns this into four unique variations.  From Hamelin's notes in the CD liner he says, "The seamlessness of this Study artfully conceals the toil and trouble necessary to its proper assimilation by the pianist."   Well this is the understatement of the decade.  If you watch Hamelin he looks so relaxed and calm with perfect weighting on fingers/hands that look like they are barely moving.  The skill and the mind/intelligence required to play like this should not go unnoticed and I applaud Hamelin for this.  Simply astounding.

The piece itself was originally in A-flat major but Godowsky transcribes this to E major.  At the end of this piece is a country scene with lots of green and gray.  Only a veiled amount of sunshine is starting to come but this is a walk in the country after a rainstorm. This is exactly how this piece makes me feel.  It is a sostenuto piece in a major key so the overwhelming sense is one of hope (but definitely not too much).  For me, it relays a happy melancholy, if that is possible for others to imagine.

2) Op. 10 No. 6 (7'-40" to 11'-30") for left had alone.  The transcription takes this beautiful melody and wraps it in an emotional outpouring of demisemiquavers flowing like a body of water would flow around rocks and other obstacles.   The piece is set in E flat minor but surprisingly it flirts with E major.  While Godowsky's transcription blows me away with its conception alone it contrasts beautifully with Chopin's starkness.  Both are different ways to relay the same sadness.  Compared to the Nouvelle Etude above (in a major key) this etude offers a much more profound and interesting permanence to its sadness (the difference between a major / minor keys).  With the Chopin Etude though you have a very interesting ending which you should be aware of and try to notice this in the Godowsky too.  Just as Bach would play with suspensions, Chopin's original end, dyeing away in E flat minor but in a freakish surprise turns the last note played to complete the piece in E major.  This effect is somewhat lost in the Godowsky.  In the original, I think it is very significant and completely unexpected but this is the sign of hope he wanted to offer.  Like putting a question mark on the future.  It's gloomy but there just may be a silver lining behind the clouds coming but don't get your hopes up too much...

Again, the astounding playing of Hamelin (using only 50% of his given tools) speaks for itself and leaves me completely humbled.  The music gives me such pleasure too that I can't stop listening and thinking about it.

Thanks again to Haim for reminding me of these musical gems.

Doug 

1988 Philips vinyl LP.

Original Vinyl

Graham

Well eh...It's A Drive In Sunday....

Not listened to this for some time. A great album

I bought this 1972 Czech Supraphon LP from the old USSR (the big Melodya shop in Moscow IIRC) way back in 1987. Haven't heard it in yonks. Good recording quality and a very creditable performance.

Side 2. LOUD! Wish 'Celebration Day' sounded as good as this! G

...now where did I leave my copy of Ziggy Stardust?

Nice legs on that chair.

This, on vinyl (another purchase from the USSR, either from Leningrad or Kiev, I think)

Except that he one I have is in a blue sleeve with Russian Cyrillic text on it with a red Melodiya label. Recorded by Igor Reprintsev, it sounds stunning. The pressing is thick and quiet (given that everything we in the West took for granted was in short supply in the USSR, I'm always surprised at how good Soviet pressings were - although the sleeves were almost always crap, both in terms of design and print/card quality) and the performance... simply stunning.

One of the very best classical records I've ever heard. I really must play it more often.

I think the pot that plant's in is really attractive too.

2nd live disc

Originally Posted by Bert Schurink:

Another Pocket Symphony.

Haim,

do you like it really?

I don't think so...