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Tag: jazz

June 18, 2013

Liszt – piano concerto no 2 in A major‏

since discovering Tamás Érdi, feral hands,
uncommonly hirsute, but uncovering the
soul of a poet, an angel in wolf’s clothing,
a satyr, without a flute but, at the piano,
I’ve been hooked, combined with Liszt he
is again irresistible, not to mention totally
transcendental

you’ll find Liszt quite a bit like Beethoven,
but more bombastic than philosophical,
style trumps substance, Liszt was a
show-off, a pianistic Paganini

stylistic flourishes abound in the hands
of a deft, however uninformed might he
or she be, technical wizard, it doesn’t
take an Einstein, in other words, to be
a Puccini

and Liszt is a Puccini, who delivers
likewise, and for the very ages

note the same intensity as Beethoven
in Liszt, much of the same musical
idiosyncrasies, but with more dramatic,
late Romantic, alterations of tempo, he’ll
milk a phrase before returning to a more
Classical, which is to say, less elastic
beat

his extemporisations are also less
ruminative, more serendipitously
motivated, like jazz, Liszt wants
primarily to dazzle, kick around,
not instruct

and he does, masterfully, just that

here’s Alfred Brendel doing an alternate,
wholly incandescent version I couldn’t
at all leave out

here’s Julie Andrews giving her take on
the history of jazz

Richard

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December 26, 2012

Beethoven piano sonata no 7, revisited‏

let me say a few words more about Beethoven’s
piano sonata no 7, opus 10, no 3, which I left in a
blur of other sonatas in my last set of opinions, it
is a wonder, and entirely worth a second visit, it
can neatly expose the new Romantic expression
midst the still Classical impositions
 
simply stated the elements of beat, tonality, and
repetition lay out the grid of Classical musical
composition, the blue print, like a house would
have a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and
variations on a communal social space 
 
Beethoven adheres to all of these elements but
does so eccentrically, beat itself is moderately
altered here and there, relaxed somewhat, mostly
at the end of musical phrases, an outcome
incidentally of the piano’s hold pedal, which
allows the reverberation of any note played
beyond its being played 
 
but you can nearly identify Beethoven by the
fact that he is always off the stated beat, which
is to say that his accent is always on the wrong
syllable, off what the time signature requires, the 
template along with key notations indicated at
the front of each set of bars of a musical text
 
this is already a significant peculiarity, and
consistent, endemic, he is fundamentally out of
synch, innately rebellious, which makes for nervy,
edgy music, bristling and electric, electrifying  
 
none of it you can sing, though the tonalities are
still entirely melodic
 
 
as far as repetition is concerned, Beethoven is still
repeating religiously, albeit with extended, and
ever so complex, elaborations, leaving you awed
ever, might as well say soulfully levitated, and 
mesmerized
  
 
the first movement, the presto, for “very fast”, takes
place on hot coals, brisk and electric
 
the second movement, the enchanted largo e mesto,
“very slowly with sadness”, is not only in marked
contrast with the first, a required condition for any
new movement, though here rendered flagrantly
extreme, it also tests the limits of effective pace,
again an innovation of the new piano, this time
coming out, despite the absolutely funereal
constraints undertaken here, instead of stultifying  
unquestionably and incontrovertibly transcendental
 
in the last movement, the menuetto (allegro), a
(jaunty) minuet, his parentheses, after an equally
exuberant third, the rondo (allegro), a (jaunty), his
parentheses again, rondo, a musical form akin to
what a sonnet would be to a poem, you can already
hear intimations even of jazz in the free and easy
tickle of the ivories, casual, debonair and apparently
improvisational, like Gene Kelly himself in dance,
toes twinkling with fresh and candid effervescence
and exhilaration  
 
now how unClassical is that    
 
 
Richard 
 
 
 
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September 16, 2012

a Chopin Fantasia‏, opus 61

 
to be specific, opus 61, you’ll more easily notice 
already the more abstract peregrinations of his
disciple, Debussy, and even the first stirrings of
improvisation incidentally, which is to say the
free-wheeling of idiosyncratic jazz, the very 
inversion of Classical order, personal expression
was trumping even ecclesiastical dictates, those 
very earlier immutable fundamentals of the long
unimpeachable Ten Commandments  
 
Oh Moses, Moses you stubborn, splendid, adorable 
fool, as Anne Baxter, Nefertiri, pagan, therefore 
insidious seductress, would admonish in the film
pronouncements, a film which of course fashioned 
the Biblical iconography of my entire generation,
a veritable “Divine Comedy” for our still recent
enough times, nothing has come up to displace it
meanwhile, though a progressively alternative
cultural morality seems steadily to harken
 
was Moses then a fool, a Prometheus in Christian
clothing 
 
time alone tells, and time is an inveterately
temperamental arbiter
 
 
it would appear now that faith equals
unconditional conformity, when I thought
that faith could not, by definition, be
constrained, faith had been meticulously
a considered personal conviction, an
individual emancipation rather than a
conformist, and nefarious ultimately, it
would appear, code 
 
I count on thoughtful efflorescence then,
and a garden of societal consideration, 
a pantheistic and cooperative accord
 
not excluding, let it be noted, the indeed
worthiest, by thoughtful process, of those
very Ten Commandments 
 
without my own children, for instance, I
still recommend honouring one’s parents,
this will bring, I knowlegeably warrant, 
untold benefits, indeed grace, peace and
profound satisfaction, plenary solace to
the very reaches of each our indeterminate
soul
 
take it right here from an appropriately  
distinctive Chopin, unparalleled poet to
the panoply of possible gods   
 
 
Richard

 

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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April 4, 2012

Franz Lizst – Hungarian Rhapsody no 2‏

any one of the following outstanding interpretations
of Lizst’s Hungarian Rhapsody no 2, even individually,
will make your day, I promise, together, they’ll have
you rocking for surely a week 
 
Hanna and Barbera’s “The Cat Concerto“, with Tom
and Jerry, won the Oscar in 1947, Best Short Subject,
Cartoons 
 
the “Rhapsody“ itself is of course not a concerto, it 
was written for piano only, it’s been proven to be 
incontrovertibly enough, but was given an orchestral
backdrop by the studio for the film, hence“The Cat
Concerto“, I’ll leave the portion about the cat in the
title undiscussed  
 
Liszt also rearranged himself, incidentally, his
immensely successful work for solo piano, adding
a superfluous, in my opinion, orchestra, any virtuoso
who could play this would leave his backup surely,
inexorably, in the dust
 
but I might be wrong
 
 
Victor Borge is an absolute comic genius in a
performance you’re not likely to soon forget 
 
 
Marc-André Hamelin, a French Canadian, is in my
estimation unmatched in the world today, he’ll
blow your socks off, you will be dazzled 
 
the unfamiliar part near the end of his interpretation, 
the part you’ve never heard before, is of Hamelin‘s 
own invention, a cadenza, an option fully granted in
bravura compositons by composers, allowing any
pianist to strut his, her, individual stuff, foreshadowing,
by the way, improvisation, jazz 
 
you’ll find Marc-André Hamelin in his extrapolation
to be nothing short of extraordinary 
 
 
Richard  
 
 
 
 
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