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The wonderful piano music of MartinůThe tourist brochure in Policka, Moravia (Bohuslav Martinů’s home town), is called “Sunlight on the Marble.” The marble being, the marble on Martinů’s tombstone.
This phrase is peculiarly apt for describing the markedly sunny (yet substantial) style of Martinů.
John GibbonsThis is what you do:
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The measurably superior First Concerto is an astounding amalgam of Liszt, Stravinsky, Richard Strauss and Slavic and most probably quasi-Slavic folk motifs. The wholly original second movement stands with Stravinsky’s “Les Noces” as a uniquely extended timbral mosaic. The mediation between percussion and string sonority in the piano writing reveals a profound understanding of the piano’s unique multiple role as a rhythmic, melodic and percussion instrument. Bartok’s piano is a virtuoso piano, inherited from Liszt but informed by modernity.
On this date in 1917, Alexander Zemlinsky’s Eine florentinische Tragödie (A Florentine Tragedy) was premiered in Stuttgart. It is the first of two operas that Zemlinsky (1871-1942) based upon the works of Oscar Wilde. Der Zwerk (The Dwarf) followed in 1922.
This post was supposed to be a discussion of the John Williams Inauguration composition Air and Simple Gifts. But the piece itself just wasn’t that interesting! So how about some brief comments and links, and have some more Marian Anderson?
Whatever your political persuasion in the 2008 election, it’s beyond dispute that the inauguration of an American president of African descent is historic. Given that Obama has lived so long in, and represented, the Land of Lincoln, it was inevitable that he’d tap into the Lincoln mythology with gestures such as his train trip into DC and his taking of the oath of office using the same bible that Lincoln used in 1861. A piece of symbolism missed by the TV commentators, not to mention me at the time, was the backstory of Aretha Franklin’s performance of “My Country Tis of Thee.” As a lover of true contralto voices and a history buff, I’m a little sheepish that it took a belated visit to The Rest is Noise to remind me that Marian Anderson sang the same song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. Anderson, an internationally successful opera singer, had been denied permission to perform to an integrated audience in venues owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution and a local white public school.
Greg Mitchell’s HuffPo piece on Beethoven’s legendary 1808 concert (written about by Bonnie yesterday) generated a lively discussion by a very engaged and informed Huffington Post audience. In response, I give you my own deserted island musical moments.
On December 22, 1808, Beethoven himself rented a hall in Vienna and promoted the concert to end all concerts: the debut, over four hours, of three of the greatest works in the history of music: his Fifth Symphony, the Sixth (“Pastoral”) Symphony, and the astounding Piano Concerto No. 4, plus the wonderful Choral Fantasia (forerunner to his Ninth Symphony). And yes, it was a fiasco. But imagine: It was as if Orson Welles premiered Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Touch of Evil on the same night — with The Lady from Shanghai thrown in for good measure. (Greg Mitchell)
That’s the subtitle, amusingly similar to a complaint I recently made to an innocent conference worker at the Chicago Hilton, of a fun, light read by Daniel J. Levitin in The Wall Street Journal.
You may have heard of something called the YouTube Symphony briefly discussed on TV news, but if you aren’t into online video, social media, etc. you may not know what exactly it is. Luckily, one of your crack Holde Kunst bloggers (hint: it’s not John) works in the website and search engine industry and keeps pretty good track of Google (YouTube’s parent company) and its plans for world domination and, now, online classical music hegemony.
John Gibbons