Jean Sibelius and the virtual national classical music work of Finland. Here’s Finlandia. (Worth watching in HD fullscreen.)
Something for Thursday
Tone Poem Tuesday
Like Edward MacDowell, Frederick Shepherd Converse was an American composer who came on the scene perhaps too early to really take note of the rise of jazz, the first really true American musical idiom. As such, his music is fundamentally European in its language, even if he was inspired by American subjects (moreso than MacDowell, anyway). A good example is this symphonic poem, called Flivver Ten Million, which he composed in honor of the ten millionth automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company.
Incidentally, the orchestra here is none other than the Buffalo Philharmonic. Yay for local musicians!
Share This Post
Why #ImWithHer
I think that she is genuinely the best choice in this election. I believe that she would and will be a good President, and that she also represents the best chance to avoid electing a truly awful one. Her chief opponent has said almost nothing that has made any sense at all and a whole lot of things that are terrible. The “third party” options — which are generally a giant waste of time anyway — are all laughable in one way or another, whether we’re talking about the loopy Libertarian, the oddball Green, or that other guy who is basically Mitt Romney with a better resume.
That’s it. Maybe not terribly convincing, but I don’t really feel the need to be.
Share This Post
Bad Joke Friday
Something for Thursday
Tone Poem Tuesday
As much as I love the Russian Romantics, the work of Modest Mussorgsky has always left me a little cold. However, it’s the Halloween season, and Night on Bald Mountain is a staple of scary music, so…here it is.
Kind of.
I was driving home the other day and Night on Bald Mountain was on the radio, but it wasn’t really Night on Bald Mountain. There was a vocal component to it that I had never heard before, and I ended up listening to the entire thing. It turns out that this was an earlier version of the work, called St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain. Confused, I looked the work up when I got home.
Mussorgsky’s personal life was apparently something of a mess — and by that, I mean, he was an absolute wreck. So much so that when he died young, he left behind piles of manuscripts in various states of completion and/or disrepair, which is why the most famous version of Night on Bald Mountain, the one that everyone knows, is actually an edit made by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. (Also, his famous Pictures at an Exhibition‘s orchestral version is by Maurice Ravel.) At some point, Mussorgsky made a version including child choir, standard choir, and baritone soloist. It’s hard to figure out what is Mussorgsky and what belongs to later editors, but this version of the work is, to my ears, more interesting than the standard Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement.
And as a bonus, here’s another Halloween-appropriate work, Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead.
Share This Post
Colors of Autumn, again
Bad Joke Friday
Something for Thursday
It’s October and it’s gloomy in WNY today so here’s some of my favorite spooky movie music: Howard Shore’s score to The Silence of the Lambs, which remains by far my favorite exploration of the Hannibal Lecter character and one of my favorite horror films.
(If I did this right, it should be an embedded playlist.)