Idiomatic

Photo

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:21:39 -0700

http://kalvos.org/ganness1.html

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 18:10:36 -0700

“New music poses a threat to corporations. On the one hand, it doesn’t offer any immediate financial return, because it takes time to build up an audience. On the other hand, it offers audiences a true alternative to the lukewarm claptrap that the corporations peddle, and thus it threatens to siphon away money from the corporations…

Think about it: who were the last interesting composers to gain national attention? Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams. When did they become famous? In the late 1970s. When did the corporations gain enough power to control the flow of cultural information? During the Reagan years, in the early 1980s. Isn’t it an interesting coincidence that the handing over of free rein to corporate America occurred simultaneously with the apparent end of our cultural history? It just so happens that no composers born after 1940 are good enough to become well-known. Or is that just what we’ve been led to believe?”

sonateharder: Things I love about this: 1. Video footage of...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:11:22 -0700

sonateharder:

Things I love about this:

1. Video footage of Richter

2. He’s playing French music!

3. These old TV sets for piano music always seem crazy in one weird way or another. What’s with the chandeliers?

cmlegends:

Maurice Ravel
Jeux d’eau

Sviatoslav Richter, piano

"A fight with a piano that came near proving disastrous to the greatest of pianists, occurred on..."

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:51:54 -0700

“A fight with a piano that came near proving disastrous to the greatest of pianists, occurred on shipboard while Paderewski was on his way to New York a short time ago. Paderewski in his state room had a small upright piano on which to practice. It was fastened to the floor by means of bolts. On the opposite side of the room was the bed. In a heavy storm the piano was loosened by the rolling of the vessel. Straight it made for the pianist and crashed into his bed, nearly pinning him to the wall. Paderewski on reaching the floor rushed to the opposite side of the room. Instantly the piano followed, coming at him with great force. He dodged it, but it came at him again, being hurled about in the room by the rolling of the boat. The pianist tried to get out the door, but could not loosen the bolt and he was thus hemmed in with the tumbling piano which threatened to crush him to death at every second. There was nothing to do but wrestle with the instrument. He grasped it as it came toward him again and after lengthy struggle in which he was nearly exhausted, succeeded in binding it to the wall.”

- – Popular Mechanics, 1902 (via futility closet)

theodoramartin: piano-soprano: Radu Lupu plays Brahms Rhapsody...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:45:40 -0700

theodoramartin:

piano-soprano:

Radu Lupu plays Brahms Rhapsody in b minor

No words.

"We don’t need drugs, we’ve got Brahms."

Fri, 31 May 2013 23:25:16 -0700

“We don’t need drugs, we’ve got Brahms.”

- Andrew Manze during the second half of his charming and witty lecture “Bach To The Future”, where he discussed the current state of music and the orchestra in today’s society and economy (via theangryviolinist)

sonateharder: Maria João Pires plays Chopin (by...

Fri, 31 May 2013 21:20:46 -0700

sonateharder:

Maria João Pires plays Chopin (by deutschegrammophon1)

She has such a distinctive ringing tone. Lovely.

nprmusic: smithsonianmag: The Evolution of the Treble Clef The...

Fri, 31 May 2013 20:21:37 -0700

nprmusic:

smithsonianmag:

The Evolution of the Treble Clef

The curving flourishes of music notation have always been something a mystery to me, although every day I, like many people, use other arcane symbols without thinking twice about it. The at (@) sign, the dollar sign ($) and the ampersand (&), for example, all function like ligatures or some sort of shorthand. They’ve been demystified by popular use in email, clues on “Wheel of Fortune,” and their inclusion on computer keyboards. But music notation is a semantic system that is entirely different from the written word; a non-spoken alphabet of pitch and rhythm. So, with apologies to the more musically inclined reader, I looked into the origin of the treble clef and the answer was quite simple. The treble clef, the top symbol you see in the photo above, is also known as the G-clef, which gives you the first clue to its origin.

So for my own edification, if nothing else, let’s start with the basics. A clef is a sign placed on a music staff that indicates what pitch is represented by each line and space on the staff. The history of Western musical notation describes an effort toward the development a simple, symbolic representations of pitch and rhythm. It begins near the end of the 9th century when notation for the Plainsong of the Western Church, better known as Gregorian Chant, was first recorded with “neumes”. These were simple dashes or dots above lyrics that indicated a relative change in pitch. At the end of the 10th century, musical scribes increased the precision of his early notation by introducing a horizontal line to indicate a base pitch (see above image). The pitch of this line was indicated by a letter at its start – typically F or C and, as higher range songs become more common, G. Neumes were no longer relative only to one another, but to a standard. This was the beginning of the musical staff.

Continue reading at Smithsonian.com

This is really cool. —Lars

"What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed..."

Thu, 30 May 2013 02:25:41 -0700

“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music…. And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’ - that is, ‘May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”

- Søren Kierkegaard (via thischarmlessgirl)

"Sometimes you have the idea of the work, “I want that.” Sometimes you discover the work when you are..."

Wed, 29 May 2013 15:56:03 -0700

““Sometimes you have the idea of the work, “I want that.” Sometimes you discover the work when you are doing it. You have this approach of the labyrinth, I say. Either you construct a big perspective and then you are sure of what you are doing, so that you organize that, or you are organizing labyrinths. You are also discovering, possibly, according to this labyrinth, what you encounter also, say, in the resistance of the material. Then the kind of possibilities you see suddenly — you know, possibilities (that you discover at the stage where it is possible to discover something) also have a big impact on you and the work. So, you have always to be very alert and sensitive to what you are doing. Another way is that sometimes when you are composing a piece, the idea of the piece is constantly there — which is closer to what you are talking about, but which is not quite the same thing as saying the music has always already existed. Therefore for instance, you will find (not only in yourself but in this encounter with other people) that suddenly something will click and it will give you an idea. And after that maybe a couple of years later, you are surprised by it yourself, but by then you have drawn some conclusions that you will not have had again when you looked at the work after that.””

- —Pierre Boulez on composition

Dialogues with Pierre Boulez (2000), Di Rocco Pietro.

Source

(via imaginarydances)

"I think so many composers today simply don’t know any music. There’s so much in our culture that..."

Tue, 28 May 2013 21:45:40 -0700

“I think so many composers today simply don’t know any music. There’s so much in our culture that makes us be passive. This is connected, of course, to the rise of recordings. Knowing a piece of music by listening to a recording is not the same as playing that piece[…]
I tell my composers, “Who are your models?” It’s so impressive when you hear that Debussy was ten years old, applying for admission to the Paris Conservatory, and what does he do? He plays the Chopin G minor Ballade from memory. What kind of musician is that ten year-old? How is it that Debussy, who really is, to me, one of the most original composers in the entire history of music, also is the composer who had the most elaborate technical training of any modern composer – going through the mill of the Paris Conservatory, and the Prix du Rome. Everything that he went through helped him to find his voice.”

- —David Conte, “The Teaching Methods of Nadia Boulanger”

http://www.davidconte.net/Boulanger.pdf

(via imaginarydances)

no-tritones-for-you: nprmusic: Composer, pianist and software...

Mon, 27 May 2013 22:59:52 -0700

no-tritones-for-you:

nprmusic:

Composer, pianist and software engineer Stephen Malinowski has created one brilliant solution to an age-old problem: how to communicate and understand what’s going on in a piece of music, particularly if you don’t know standard musical notation. Over the course of some forty years, he’s developed what he calls the “Music Animation Machine,” and the results are stunning.

Bjork commissioned him to work on her Biophilia project, but now he’s tackled Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, just in time for the ballet’s 100th anniversary on May 29.

Through this visualization, you can start to follow and understand the composer’s dazzlingly dense interplays of melody, instrumentation and the relationships between the instruments.

via NPR Classical

It has returned

bless this post

imaginarydances: …or when it’s emerged from something coarse

Sat, 25 May 2013 22:38:03 -0700

imaginarydances:

…or when it’s emerged from something coarse

George Bridgetower (1779 - 1860) and Beethoven: a troubled...

Tue, 21 May 2013 23:23:35 -0700

George Bridgetower (1779 - 1860) and Beethoven: a troubled relationship

George Bridgetower, the celebrated English violin virtuoso, came to Vienna in 1803 and met Beethoven. They played together and Beethoven was impressed.

At Bridgetower’s urging, Beethoven agreed to compose a new Violin Sonata, to be performed by the two of them at one of the celebrated morning concerts in the Augarten pavilion, run by Ignaz Schuppanzigh.

Bridgetower was tall and good-looking, with an eye for the ladies. He was a mulatto - his mother Polish, his father West Indian.

Recognised as being of exceptional talent, he had performed for King George III at Windsor Castle, the Prince Regent at the newly built Brighton Pavilion, the Pump Rooms at Bath and across southern England.

For the new sonata, Beethoven took the final movement from an earlier sonata (which he replaced) and composed a new first and second movement. The first movement was huge, opening with solo double-stopping across all four strings for the violinist. He delivered the new movements to Bridgetower only the day before the performance!

A glittering audience assembled for the premiere of the new piece - including the British ambassador, Archduke Rudolph, Prince Lichnowsky, Prince Lobkowitz , and other patrons of the arts.

The performance began. In bar 35 of the first movement Beethoven had written a huge run just for piano, spanning several octaves. It comes in a passage marked ‘to be repeated’. In the repeat, after Beethoven executed the run, Bridgetower imitated it on the violin.

Beethoven looked up from the piano in astonishment, ran across the stage, embraced Bridgetower, ran back to the piano and continued playing.

The performance was a triumph. At celebrations afterwards, Beethoven announced he was dedicating the new Violin Sonata to Bridgetower. He wrote on the top of the title page of the manuscript: Sonata per uno mulaticco lunattico.

Later, the two men were drinking, when Bridgetower made an off-colour remark about a lady Beethoven knew. Beethoven was outraged. He demanded that Bridgetower return the manuscript of the sonata, and informed him he was withdrawing the dedication. He would dedicate it instead, he told Bridgetower, to Europe’s greatest violin virtuoso, who was resident in Paris.

Bridgetower pleaded with Beethoven to change his mind, but Beethoven was adamant. The rift between the two men was not healed, before Bridgetower left Vienna a week later to visit relatives of his mother in Poland.

Beethoven and Bridgetower never met again. Long after Beethoven’s death, Bridgetower - an old man - was living in poverty in a home for the destitute in Peckham, south London. A Beethoven researcher went to see him and asked him if it was true he had once met Beethoven.

Bridgetower related the story of the first performance of the Violin Sonata, how he had copied the piano run, and how Beethoven had dedicated the sonata to him. And how one stupid remark about a lady had made Beethoven withdraw the dedication.

It should be the Bridgetower Sonata, he told the young researcher, his name that should be known across Europe, his name that would live for ever.

Instead he was unknown to history, and destined to remain that way. Bridgetower died in poverty, the woman who witnessed his death signing her name on his death certificate with a cross. He is buried today in Kensal Green cemetery, just off the A40 flyover west of London - his name forgotten.

And the violin virtuoso in Paris to whom Beethoven sent the sonata? Rudolphe Kreutzer, whose name adorns the greatest Violin Sonata Beethoven ever composed: the Kreutzer Sonata.

So next time you hear a performance of the Kreutzer Sonata, spare a thought for the man who gave it its first performance and after whom it should really be named. George Bridgetower.

One final point. When Kreutzer received the manuscript in Paris, he looked at it and declared it impossible to play. Beethoven does not understand the violin, he said, and he never once performed it in public - the sonata that today bears his name.

"We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:25:26 -0700

“We should always remember that sensitiveness and emotion constitute the real content of a work of art.”

- Maurice Ravel (via heartinwinter)

imaginarydances: [White guy] has written music for [list of standard classical ensembles]. His...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:00:45 -0700

imaginarydances:

[White guy] has written music for [list of standard classical ensembles]. His music combines a contemporary classical style with [probably some alternative rock/pop style] and a love of [probably film or video game music or something]. His works have been performed at [festivals you haven’t heard of]. He has studied with [some older white guys] and is currently pursuing his [degree] at [somewhere].

"Art is the opposite of nature…a work of art can only come from the interior of a man…it shows the..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:17:16 -0700

“Art is the opposite of nature…a work of art can only come from the interior of a man…it shows the inner image of the soul—the images on the back side of the eyes”

- Edvard Munch, Letters (via kateymichelelikes)

Photo

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:18:25 -0700

"I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it."

Fri, 03 May 2013 21:50:21 -0700

“I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.”

- Igor Stravinsky (via ryandonato)

flasd: フォノグラム（音の図形）

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:06:58 -0700

flasd:

フォノグラム（音の図形）