Sheku Kanneh-Mason and siblings, playing “Redemption Song”. More info to come, but I really wanted to get this up here! I found this a delight.
Tone Poem Tuesday
It’s not terribly surprising to learn that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was one of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s early influences; after all, Rimsky-Korsakov was a gigantic name in Russian music in the late 19th century, second only to Tchaikovsky. Even in his maturity, when Rachmaninoff found his own sound in yearning melodies and backward-looking Romanticism, hints of Rimsky-Korsakov can be found, particularly in his orchestrations. Rimsky-Korsakov is one of the great orchestrators of all time, and his works would have been studied and their lessons learned by Rachmaninoff.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas are unfortunately neglected in the West, mainly because few singers want to learn Russian and it is simply out of vogue to perform operas in translation. Nevertheless, his operas are highly regarded by those who have been able to seek them out and hear them, and the operas have yielded a number of excerpts that have found life in the standard concert repertoire. This particular work is not one of those, though: it is a thorough rescoring for orchestra alone of the third act of his opera Mlada, which he then retitled Night on Mount Triglav.
This is the type of Russian Romanticism in which a young Sergei Rachmaninoff was steeped. It would leave its mark.
Share This Post
A song for a random Saturday
Something for Thursday
I don’t remember who tweeted about this song the other day, but they basically said something along the lines of, “Sometimes you need a Swedish metal song about the soldiers who protected the Pope during the sack of Rome in 1527.” I, of course, had never once needed such a thing–until that moment, when suddenly I needed this song very badly.
So, here it is. The band is called Sabaton, and the song is “The Last Stand”. The chorus goes like this:
For the grace, for the might of our lord
For the home of the holy
For the faith, for the way of the sword
Gave their lives so boldlyFor the grace, for the might of our lord
In the name of his glory
For the faith, for the way of the sword
Come and tell their story again
That’s…something! It’s quite a song. Apparently this band does a lot of songs inspired by historical events. I’m going to have to give them more of a listen at some point.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
Staying Rachmaninoff-adjacent, as opposed to posting about Rachmaninoff directly: Rachmaninoff learned much from the great master of the Russia of his youth, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky met Rachmaninoff when the younger composer was still a teenaged student, and he gave young Sergei much encouragement and even requested work from him, such as four-hand piano arrangements of his ballets. Tchaikovsky could be a prickly critic of young Rachmaninoff’s early work, but he was nevertheless supportive, and the young composer was hoping for a more collaborative relationship with his elder master when Tchaikovsky sadly died of cholera.
I don’t know if this specific work of Tchaikovsky’s had any direct influence on Rachmaninoff, but you can still hear the brooding drama and the heartfelt lyricism here that would typify just about all of Rachmaninoff’s work.
Here is Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet overture.
Share This Post
“Oh my darling….”
There’s a frankly ghastly anti-smoking ad that seems to be showing up on teevee a bit of late; I’ve seen it nearly every day during visits to my parents. I’m not embedding the damned thing here, but if you MUST watch it, here it is. The ad features a kid singing a broken, increasingly guilt-ridden version of “My Darling Clementine” as his mom gets sicker and sicker from smoking.
(No, I am not defending smoking, but this particular ad is some depressing shit.)
So, as a possible antidote, here’s Bobby Darin’s swinging (and oh, so very fatphobic) version.
Share This Post
Something for Thursday
It’s late in the day, almost 6pm, and I still haven’t posted. I wasn’t even sure what to post…and then I see that David Crosby has died.
Here are Messrs. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
Expect a lot of Rachmaninoff on this site this year, as it’s the great composer’s 150th birth year. Today doesn’t quite see Rachmaninoff directly…but a piece by a teacher of his.
Sergei Taneyev succeeded Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatory, teaching harmony and counterpoint. Among his students was a young Sergei Rachmaninoff. Even though Taneyev is better known for being a teacher of some of Russia’s great musicians, his music is still interesting in its own right. Taneyev’s approach was apparently more academic and classically-oriented than, say, a Tchaikovsky or a Rimsky-Korsakov would have liked; but his ideas lived on in the works of many of his students.
This work is a cantata that sets a Russian poem by Alexei Tolstoy (cousin to the more famous Leo Tolstoy). Sometimes called The Russian Requiem, Taneyev’s work marries a muted lyricism with a carefully-considered mode of vocal writing, including a fascinating fugue in the last section. The work was written in 1884, when Rachmaninoff himself was just eleven years old. Nevertheless, I have to assume that Rachmaninoff heard this work at some point in his impressionable youth, and that its influence would be reflected in later works of his like Vespers.
Share This Post
Something for Thursday: Farewell, Jeff Beck
Sad news from the music world yesterday: guitarist Jeff Beck has died. He had a long and unconventional career, which led to some amazing music-making. This song was my introduction to his guitar work, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs of the 80s, and then of all time. Yes, it’s a cover; the original is by the great Curtis Mayfield, whose own versions are well worth seeking out…but this rendition stood in stark contrast to the Van Halen-esque guitar fireworks that were the main role of the guitar at that time (at least, in terms of the guitar-centric music that I was listening to at at the time). Now, I loved hair metal and I yield to no one in my conviction that Eddie Van Halen is one of the all-time greats, but Jeff Beck was something else. He showed me that the guitar could sing, and his playing here doesn’t merely back up Rod Stewart’s vocals; Beck’s playing here is a full partner with Mr. Stewart.
I didn’t realize until quite a few years after I heard this song that Jeff Beck’s career had been as long as it had been. He was apparently difficult to work with at times, but also he was one of those musicians who follows his own instincts and thoughts, with the result being decades of great music-making.
Thank you for the music, Jeff Beck. I hope your guitar is sounding on that very train.
Here is “People Get Ready”.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was one of the major names in twentieth-century music. HIs work is always brightly modern, but also accessible in a way that much of the avant garde music of that century was not; Messiaen’s work both rewards repeated listening and the first hearing.
I haven’t found much information about this particular piece, beyond the fact that the score was lost during World War II, prompting Messiaen to reconstruct it from memory. The result is a work of unflinching spirituality and modernism, an orchestral kaleidoscope of color and texture. It’s a fascinating listen, as Messiaen tends to be. Here is Hymne (Hymn to the Blessed Sacrament), by Olivier Messiaen.