concerts on my own time

[calimac]

I've been lying down under the radar, hoping for a chance to get my detailed Potlatch panel report written. No time so far. Music has been occupying much of my time; that and a blood test and visiting my mother-in-law in the hospital and getting the taxes ready and helping B. clean house for today's Mythopoeic Society meeting. All had to share space on my schedule with this week's thoroughly active little event at Stanford called The Stravinsky Project: lectures, conversations, demonstrations, a Stravinsky music video (!), and concerts. One of them featured the composer's own arrangement of The Rite of Spring for two pianos. You probably know The Rite of Spring, a harsh, rugged ballet score using the resources of a large, extensive symphony orchestra to terrifying effect. Reduced to the compass of two pianos, it makes me want to pat it on the head and coo, "Who's a little fear demon?"

More on this when my review is published. Trying to decide whether to sneak that Buffy reference into publication.

Also rubbed in to the mix: student chamber music concert. Various individual movements by various performers. You don't know what you'll get until you arrive. Several pieces by Brahms, including a movement from the Op. 40 horn-violin-piano trio, which you don't get to hear often. A quartet for piano and strings by Chausson, something else you don't hear much. And Copland's Vitebsk, not a work for the faint-hearted.

And unrelated, a concert by the Mozart Piano Quartet at le petit Trianon. Mozart's K. 493, not a work on Ron's essential Mozart list. The early and supposed-to-be-Brahmsian-I-wish-it-were-more-so quartet of Richard Strauss. And a work by a turn-of-the-20th-century female composer I'd never even heard of, who wrote under the name Mel Bonis. The Mel was short for Melanie, but she used the abbreviated form to seem androgynous. Perhaps people would think the Mel was short for Melvin, but that seems an unlikely hope, since she was French, and, judging by her music, very very French indeed. She was a student of César Franck, and was praised (in what seems like rather condescending tones) by Saint-Saëns, but her work does not sound like either of those two rather Germanic-influenced masters; it's more like, oh, Chausson. And thus we return to where we were.

Comments

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

it makes me want to pat it on the head and coo, "Who's a little fear demon?"

*giggle*

The Bonis piece sounds quite nice.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I listen to the Rite in its orchestral garb, but 19 out of 20 times, it's a piano version I reach for. Somehow, hearing it played by a team of trained athletes seems less interesting to me. I'll never forget seeing Dickram Atamian on TV, playing the Raphling version for solo piano. By the end of a movement, he'd move his head to get his hair back, and there'd be a spray of water from it. After a short pause, we'd resume, and he'd be neat and dry again. I'd like to have seen what he went through between sections.

Not that effort alone is enough -- if it was, Larry Coryell's guitar version would be listenable. He tries hard enough, but that's all he does.

Then again, I also enjoy the pianola version that Stravinsky supervised. It does one or two things that are maybe humanly impossible. What I'd really enjoy would be a pianola version using the techniques of Conlon Nancarrow.

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

You intrigue me. I did not know there was a piano version of The Rite of Spring. Now I'll have to go looking for a recording! I like encountering different arrangements of pieces. I have one Angel recording (on vinyl, no less) of Pictures at an Exhibition, with the orchestral arrangement on one side and the piano on the other. I like the piano version.

Eine kleine nacht musick on Japanese kotos. The William Tell Overture performed by steel drums (I really need to track that down - I had it on tape and that's bit the dust). But enough about me.

let's see, I have ...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the original (and best) arrangement of a Western classical work for koto ensemble.

The LA Guitar Quartet playing everything.

Great moments from Tchaikovsky played by a tiny early-music ensemble, with crackers for the 1812 Overture's cannon.

Re: let's see, I have ...

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

I have the Koto Vivaldi, too! I love those two albums, and have occasionally tried to find out if there were any other recordings by the Ensemble. But I never turned up any.

My favorite recording of The Four Seasons, though is by Il Giardino Armonico. There's a certain delicious aggressiveness to their playing, that suits it.