I'm feeling a little nostalgic today. Lyrics below.
Oh, of all the money that ere I had,
I spent in good company,
And all the harm that ere I done,
Alas it was to none but me.
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall.
So fill to me the parting glass--
Good night and joy be with you all.
Of all the comrades that ere I had,
They were sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts that ere I had,
They wished me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not,
I'll gently rise and softly call,
Good night and joy be with you all.
These guys are hilarious. Thanks to LB for posting about the UK-based electronic string quartet today and to a fellow chorus member (and mother of a very talented young cellist) for mentioning it to us in the first place. Head on over to 3 Ring Binder to see the extremely entertaining History of Music in 5 Minutes. (Though I take issue with the lack of Bach and Mendelssohn in the medley, I give props for the inclusion of Grieg and Rossini.) Below is another fun video of theirs featuring movie music:
You can also see many other YouTube videos by the quartet here,
From Critic's Corner in what appears to be next week's New Yorker (May 4, 2009):
The YouTube Symphony, a global orchestra assembled from online audition videos, may sound like yet another groan-inducing attempt to make classical music hip. But there’s some method in the marketing madness: YouTube has become a serious resource for professional musicians, who use it to investigate up-and-coming talent.
Read the rest of the article here. There's a great illustration of MTT, as well.
I'm having a black cloud day. Today I'll blame it on the nasty weather we're having--forty degrees and raining. Blech. But a perfect composer to listen to when I want to revel in melancholy is Brahms--such wonderful, passionate music carefully crafted around a sound technical structure (and often in a minor key, which fits the bill perfectly today)!
Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, on May 7, 1833 to a double-bass playing father and seamstress mother. At about age ten, he began formally studying piano and music theory with Eduard Marxsen, a noted pianist and composer of the day whose main claim to fame today is that he was the teacher of Brahms. In 1853, Brahms's compositions began being published, and he began a close friendship with composers Robert and Clara Schumann. From 1862 until his death 1897 from liver cancer, he lived in Vienna, working as composer, performer, and conductor.
Brahms wasn't as prolific a composer, as, say, Mozart, but he did write thirteen major orchestral compositions as well as many chamber works for various combinations of instruments. In addition, his oeuvre includes about fifty pieces for solo piano, about two hundred art songs, about sixty for vocal quartet, and some choral music.
Two of my favorite violin compositions by this composer are the Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra, Op. 102 and the Sonata in G Major for Violin and Piano, Op.78.
The sonata may be in a major key, but doesn't mean it doesn't have some real heart-breaking passages. You can hear the longing right at the opening of the piece in the first theme played by the violin:
Played here by Maxim Vengerov. Unfortunately the pianist didn't get billed (nor did the all-important page turner, for that matter) and I have no idea who it might be. The second half of the first movement is here.
To my knowledge Vengerov hasn't yet released a CD of this sonata, though he does have recordings of Brahms's second and third sonatas. The one I've heard most often is Itzahk Perlman's recording with the legendary Vladimir Ashkenazy on piano, but it's not angsty enough for my taste!
The double concerto--for violin, cello, and orchestra--now, that one has all the angst one could ask for built right in to every line from the dramatic opening bars played by the orchestra:
Young though they may be (perhaps because they are closer to those uneasy, angst-ridden teen years?), Julia Fischer and especially Daniel Müller-Schott do a stupendous job of bringing this gorgeous piece of music to life. The rest of the first movement is here, and the reflective second and fiery third movement can be found here and here, respectively.
Fischer and Müller-Schott have a recording of the concerto with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Yakov Kreizberg.
Wishing you plenty of Brahms on any black cloud days you may have.
"It is not hard to compose, but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table." ~Johannes Brahms
I admit I did not just find this song this week. The touring chamber choir I sang with as an undergraduate sang this piece one of the years I was in the group, and I loved it then. But it had totally slipped to the recesses of my mind until this week at the first rehearsal for my community choir's spring concert, where it appeared in the stack of sheet music I was handed as I walked in the door.
"Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal" is a shape-note hymn. In mid-eighteenth century America, shape-note singing originated out of a desire to assist people who were largely musically illiterate in singing music on sight. The basic idea was to give people a visual cue as to the note of the scale they were singing (based on four-syllable solfege):
Shape-note singing sessions still exist around this country, many of which work out of the Sacred Harp tradition.
The rousing arrangement of "Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal" I sang years ago and will be spending the next few Monday nights singing is by choral music legend, Alice Parker. Here is an excerpt--I couldn't find a YouTube recording with the audio clarity I wanted so that you would be able to hear the crisp articulation of the lower voices. I love the rhythms Parker uses--it takes the song to a whole new level.
It was 3 o'clock one morning in 1964, on the eve of the highest holiday in the Tibetan calendar, when renowned religion scholar Huston Smith awoke in a monastery in the Himalayas to experience something transcendent.
"There fell upon my ear the holiest sound I have ever heard," says Smith, who was raised in China by missionaries and wrote the classic textbook, The World's Religions.
Smith was so moved by the sound that he decided to record it, eventually bringing it back to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he played it for a colleague, an ethnomusicologist, who was similarly flabbergasted.
"Why, the man just paced the floor in excitement," recalls Smith. "And at one point, he clapped his palm to his forehead, and he said, 'My God, I am hearing nine overtones!' "
To read the rest of the transcript or to listen to the story, and to hear some excerpts of Tibetan chant, go here.
