Tag: Something For Thursday

EDIT: So I’m sitting up last night and I suddenly realize it’s Thursday and I hadn’t posted anything. What I had forgotten is that I had previously written and scheduled a Thursday thing last week, which is something I do infrequently enough that I completely forgot that I had done it.

I promise I am not losing my mind.

(But if I am, I can declare my bid for the United States Senate!)

Yipes! It’s Thursday! Folks, I’ve spent a big chunk of this week all screwed up as to what day it is. That happens sometimes, huh? I hope it does…anyway, here’s a great song from one of my favorite acts, Blackmore’s Night. Fronted by Ritchie Blackmore (of Deep Purple fame) and singer Candice Night, Blackmore’s Night is a quite wonderful folk-rock group that plays the kind of music you’d want to hear on a warm summer night after a day of hanging around your local Renaissance Festival. This song is “Under a Violet Moon”.

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This speaks for itself.

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I was watching a clip from the movie Gigi the other day, and this video was suggested as a follow-up. It’s from a teevee show that aired in 1961. Hard to believe that this was almost sixty years ago.

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I’m seeing this movie tonight on the big screen…so here are a couple of selections from that oh-so-wonderful camp classic, Flash Gordon!!!

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It seems odd to me that one of the greatest Hollywood film composers, Jerry Goldsmith, had to wait until thirteen years after he died to get a star on the Walk of Fame, but there it is.

Here is some Goldsmith, who is almost always worth hearing.

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I don’t recall if I’ve posted this before, but it’s an interesting piece nonetheless: the Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra by Alexandra Pakhmutova.

The repertoire for solo trumpet is pretty rich prior to, say, 1750, and then aside from the concertos of Haydn and Hummel it dries up spectacularly until the 20th century, when suddenly composers left and right were featuring the instrument. That’s a shame, because it would have been wonderful to hear what some of the Romantic masters might have done with the instrument as a soloist. How great would a Dvorak Trumpet Concerto be! Alas.

Pakhmutova is a former Soviet composer whose work was well enough known in the USSR that she became Leonid Brezhnev’s favorite composer, which is interesting enough. Her trumpet concerto is a complex work with some folk-like rhythms that put me in mind of the more famous Trumpet Concerto by Armenian composer Alexander Arutunian, although Pakhmutova’s effort is more martial in nature and its melodies don’t linger in the ear like Artunian’s. Nevertheless, the Pakhmutova concerto is a fascinating piece, especially for the soloist, making a number of interesting technical demands and at times requiring tremendous skill.

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One of my favorite piano concertos: Mozart, No. 22 in E-flat, K 482. It’s very nearly perfect, so ’nuff said!

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I know it’s late in the day, so here’s something for the setting of evening and night: one of Chopin’s most famous Nocturnes. Way back when I was taking piano lessons, I remember that I started working on this piece, but for some reason I don’t recall, I never got it to the point that my fingers knew it. Alas!

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