musicalia

Mar. 10th, 2015 07:28 pm
calimac: (Haydn)
[personal profile] calimac
1. The New Century Chamber Orchestra, reviewed. I enjoyed the rest of the concert, but the Brahms gives you the opportunity to see how I write for publication when I really dislike the artistic quality of the performance. Not since that listless Franck Quintet at Menlo ...

2. You have never heard Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, at least the way Tchaikovsky wrote it. My question is particularly for anyone not an intense classical listener who makes it all the way through the sound clips: how much of a difference do you think these scoring changes make?

3. Mark Evanier reports on a lost Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch with video attached. The strange thing is that this sketch, which is the pre-titles sequence of Episode 38, is included in the script book (The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, Pantheon, 1989), but I never noticed before that there was a sequence missing from the DVD. I thought I'd long ago watched them all with script book in hand; I've marked in the book a few spots where the script doesn't match the program. Yet some how I missed this, and the fact that most of the same episode's post-credits sequence at the end is also missing from the DVD.

The other thing I'll note from the video is that John Cleese dancing looks a lot like John Cleese doing his silly walk.

Date: 2015-03-11 08:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com
I wonder whether that sketch was in the mind of Morecambe and Wise, or Eddie Braben, or whoever wrote this famous sequence for the M&W 1976 Christmas special, featuring Angela Rippon, the first woman ever to act as a regular anchor on BBC news.

Date: 2015-03-13 07:59 pm (UTC)
landofnowhere: (lady)
From: [personal profile] landofnowhere
Lurker poking her head out to respond to 2: I'm a classical music fan, but not an intense listener. The First Piano concerto was my gateway drug to Tchaikovsky, at age 11 or so, and I've listened to it many times since, but mostly as background. I should also note that I have minimal musical training.

The changes in scoring do make a substantial difference to me. The texture of the whole thing seems different, and more subtle -- more similar to other Tchaikovsky I've heard (I'm not sure precisely what I have in mind here, but maybe the sixth symphony?) The different dynamics in the beginning of the second clip makes a big difference to me, with the quieter violin -- the 1955 recording makes me want to sing along with the violin, whereas the new recording highlights more the interplay between it and the piano.

The difference in the final cadenza feels more subtle to me than the others.

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