Category: Music

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Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Alfred Brendel – “Der Lindenbaum” -Die Winterreise

I think my appreciation for Alfred Brendel, first discovered as I listened to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau accompanied by him instead of Gerald Moore, as had so often been the case, can be summed up in Brendel’s own comment,

“I am responsible to the composer, and particularly to the piece.”

That one simple, but extremely difficult, committment is why Brendel is so very good in finding the “voice” of his instrument–the piano. His committment to getting as close as he possibly can to the composer’s intention is fiendishly difficult, especially in a society where almost all artists seek to place their own thoughts, feelings and personalitiews above that of the desires of the composer, even when a composer may have explicitly stated directions and commentary for performance guidelines.

“I am responsible to the composer, and particularly to the piece.”

I can appreciate that, especially since in attempting to be responsible in such a way it results in such excellence of performance as Brendel’s.

Once again, one of my very favorite Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau performances, accompanied by Alfred Brendel:

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Good Guitar

I keep seeing all kindsa folks posting videos and recordings of fav guitar performances who then rave about how great these–usually rock performers–are as guitarists.

*pfui*

Carlos Montoya left behind a huge (HUGE) body of guitar performances second to none, and certainly better than any rock performer I’ve ever heard, not that some of them aren’t fair git-fiddle pickers, for what they have to work with.

Malaga – Carlos Montoya

And don’t even tempt me to start posting Segovia performances (cos I can’t find any of his on imeem I want to post right now :-)) … but since Woody remarked about a different performer, here’s one from John Williams (the guitarist, not composer/conductor):

Romance for Guitar and String Orchestra – John Williams

Oh, and here’s one by the guy Woody mentioned, Stevan Pasero:

Winter – Stevan Pasero

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America’s Theme Song Under The 0!?

Bye-bye to America’s “romance” with a constitutional republic based on the rule of law…

Simon and Garfunkel did a good “Bye Bye” but for another take on the same piece, try The Everly Brothers version:

Either way, kiss the Founders’ dream goodbye while The 0! implements the CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY “for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis”.

First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Now do you get the infamous Rahm Emanuel comment?

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

The 0! isn’t just not letting “a serious crisis to go to waste” but actively working to manufacture and exacerbate crisis after crisis. It’s all in the master (race) plan… By engaging both anarchy and tyranny, The 0! and his partners in crime (not all just Dhimmicraps; there are more than a few Repugnican’ts going along to get along–Juan Mexicain and Lindsay Graham are you listening? No, didn’t think so, you Repugnican’t creeps) are attempting to take the US inexorably down the road to a Marxist dictatorship of the politburo (I almost typed that “politburro”–a slip for which I’d have had to apologize to miniature asses everywhere).

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Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

No, not the piece that goes by that name; a different piece by a different composer, but equally suited to be “night music” I think. Called “Für Elise”, the Beethoven “Bagatelle in A minor”:

Maybe I’ll feature the Mozart number later for readers who were misled by the title. 🙂

Here’s a portion (the minuet) of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, for Chris:

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Re: Cap and Trade (Crap and Raid)

Instead of “The Rape of the Common Man” Congress seems intend on performing, we need a Congress dominate by this spirit:

[audio:fanfare common man.mp3]

(The United States Marine Band doesn’t give the absolute best performance of Fanfare for the Common Man here, and it’s only 96kbps, but it’ll do)

Here’s a sample of another performance:

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The Wasteland

Passing observation…

To me “oldies” refers to Purcell, Palestrina and des Prez. Contemporary music after Duke Ellington mostly… isn’t. Music that is. Yeh, there are some truly remarkable exceptions–including a few in rock music. But on the whole the latter part of the 20th Century anno domini was a musical wasteland–especially in the “serious” music category, IMO. And it’s not gotten much better in the first decade of the 21st Century. Still even the worst music can perform a useful function, serving as very good bad examples. Unfortunately, it seems the moral decline in our country (and generally in the Western world) is matched or even overmatched by a decline in musical perception among the masses.

Jose Ortega y Gasset’s “mass man” strikes again…

Writing in 1930 or so, Ortega y Gasset said, “The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will.” And it is even more so today, as the lowest common denominator in morality, in knowledge and in reasoning yields us such nightmares as crap rap and Barack Hussein Obama… Ortega y Gasset’s observations echo the reasons the Founders did NOT structure the United States as a democracy. And yes, I do certainly believe that crap “music” and crappy government are related in a society that has come to think of itself as democratic.

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Polls, Schmolls…

Rabbit trail…

I generally look at polls of the general populace as simply information about what the pollster is seeking from folks who range from well-informed to complete know-nothings (sadly, more of the latter in recent years than ever before, it seems). Polls of persons selected for critical knowledge in a field often yield more interesting information. Of course, there’s also peer pressure to account for even in areas where knowledgeable folk are polled on a topic in which tghey have and exercise expertise, but still, I found one poll that I can at least generally agree with those polled about the top five selections (although I’d argue about the order of ranking :-))

Classic CD (United Kingdom)
June 1999

Top Singers of the Century (Critics’ Poll):
1) Jussi Björling 2) Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau 3) Kirsten Flagstad 4) Tito Gobbi 5) Maria Callas

Classic CD (United Kingdom)
December 1999

Now, while I might argue about the relative placement of numbers i and 2 (Björling’s utterly amazing, but Fischer-Dieskau’s range of artistry is/was greater, IMO), I can accept that ranking as agreeable in general. But while I agree with the inclusion of the other three in the top five, Callas is FAR too far down on the list, IMO. Number three is as low as I’d place her, even as much as I appreciate Kirsten Flagstad’s contributions. I’d be happier with a 1) Fischer-Dieskau 2) Björling 3) Callas 4) Flagstad 5) Gobbi ranking of the top five, but on different days, I might swap my 1-2 and 3-4 spots (Gobbi was a great baritone, but couldn’t really touch Fischer-Dieskau, IMO, and I’d choose either Flagstad or Callas over his admittedly wonderful baritone voice any day, even as much as I am NOT drawn to most soprano voices *heh*).

Just search for some performances by each of these real artists (as opposed to the crap “artists” played on most radio stations) on YouTube for an intro to their world. Worth some time, IMO.

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Go placidly amid the noise and waste…

…And remember what comfort there may be
In owning a piece thereof.

The internet is often very nearly a grab bag of stupidities, false “information” and outright lies, but if one has a decent basic education (a rarity nowadays *sigh*), the ability to read and actually comprehend the language of ones birth and the rudiments of research and filtering capabilities, it is also a rich, rich resource for learning. No, not Wikipedia, although it too has its uses for folks with enough basic knowledge and filtering skills to be able to throw the bullshit flag with authority. No, I’m talking about such gems as the MIT Open Courseware, Project Gutenberg, The University of Chicago Press online books and a myriad of other less easily found but profoundly enlightening sites.

A new discovery for me is the “education” links Gary Garriton has posted at his website that promotes his sample libraries and software. Imagine: a resource anyone who writes music can find valuable, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Principles of Orchestration, available as an interactive tutorial, complete with sound samples that are drawn from the score samples in the book. Anyone who writes music would almost have to salivate over the prospect of having an interactive Principles of Orchestration right on their desktop! Oh, my! Nice! Sure, the book’s now in paperback (not so in my days as a student) and remarkably inexpensive, but the setup at Garriton’s site, complete with forum for discussion, is much more valuable than isolated study.

Anyone interested in learning how to write better music would be well served by hieing themselves over there and getting on with it.