Tag: Something For Thursday

Time for a break from all the classical of late and for something Celtic. Here is the band Great Big Sea, joining in with the Chieftains for a raucous rendition of the song “Lukey”.

(Lyrics here, for reference.)

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Emanuel Chabrier was a French composer at the end of the nineteenth century. He was active at the time when Debussy and Ravel were coming into their own, and Chabrier’s voice is a more minor one in the annals of French music, but he wrote vibrant music. His best known work is this musical tribute to the land to France’s south. Here’s Espana.

Pay close attention to the bassoons at the 1:31 mark — that’s got to be one of the best orchestral passages featuring the bassoons ever. Also of note is the big passage at the 3:35 mark, when Chabrier writes a sparkling passage in which it feels as though the sections of the orchestra are playing in two different time signatures.

I was fortunate enough to play this work in college. It’s one of the most infectious pieces I know — its rhythms, constantly dancelike and always just slightly off-kilter with the beat never quite where we expect it, are pure delight, and there are wonderful melodies at play here as well. I love this piece.

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Sometimes one wants a bit of musical perfection; when I’m in such a mood, I generally turn to one of two sources: Mozart or Bach. Here is Hilary Hahn playing the Gavotte from Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E for solo violin:

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Gerald Finzi was a twentieth century English composer who wrote mostly meditative, pastoral works in the tradition of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Finzi’s output was small, but full of vital warmth. Here is his Eclogue for Piano and Strings.

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I’ve had marches on the brain for a while, but I think it’s time to change the pace a bit. All marches — funeral marches, circus marches, military marches, grand marches — are, at heart, processionals; but there are other ways to write processional music. Here is one of my favorite processional works of all.

I couldn’t decide which of these two renditions of this piece of music to use, so I’m using both. From Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, here is “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral”, with original orchestra and chorus:

And here it is, with a wonderful animation, played by wind ensemble in a wonderful arrangement that is a staple of wind ensemble repertoire:

Note that both end differently, as well — this is because in the opera, the piece doesn’t end at all but immediately segues into a dramatic scene. For concert performance of just the “Procession”, new endings had to be composed.

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Well, sticking with my “Grand Marches from Operas” theme from the last two weeks, after the high opulence of Verdi and the portentious gravity of Wagner, here’s a Grand March that keeps its tongue firmly planted in cheek. From The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan, here’s “Behold the Lord High Executioner”:

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Last week we had a grand march from Verdi; this week, we’ll hear Richard Wagner’s approach to the grand march concept. Here’s the Entry of the Guests into the Wartburg, from Tannhauser.

Wagner didn’t care for Verdi, but in our time, we can have both. That makes me happy.

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Decades before movies like Ben Hur, Spartacus, and Cleopatra, there was the opera Aida by Giuseppe Verdi. Here, in a concert presentation with ballet interlude, is the Triumphal March (it’s in two parts owing to length of YouTube video constraints, but the break comes at a decent musical spot, in any case — hit start on the second video just as the first one ends). Note the herald trumpets during the famous second theme:

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I found this by sheer serendipity. I looked about YouTube for a performance of one of my favorite classical music works, and sure enough, I found one…but with a difference.

George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody #1 has been a cherished work for me ever since I played an arrangement of it at the summer music camp I used to work at during my college years. It’s as good a “gateway” piece of classical music I’ve ever heard; by “gateway piece”, I mean a work that is particularly adequate to show people who are generally nervous around classical music that there’s nothing whatsoever to be nervous about. It’s just music, folks. You listen to it, same as any other music. With the Romanian Rhapsody, it sounds like a collection of folk tunes because that’s exactly what it is, and nothing more — albeit a collection of folk tunes assembled by a very gifted composer. It’s also one of the finer orchestral showpieces I’ve ever heard, which is what makes this performance interesting: it’s not an orchestral performance. The piece has been transcribed for string quintet, and that’s what we have here. And it’s still wonderful (even if they do take a couple of cuts in the allegro section):

By way of comparison, here’s the orchestral version (with some nice photos of Romania):

One of the tricks that Enescu employs throughout this work, incidentally, is that he often starts each melody on a beat that is either earlier or later than the ear expects. It’s a simple enough trick, but one that keeps the listener guessing even in the course of listening to a succession of what are basically drinking songs. I suppose this is, in a way, the Romanian equivalent of Rhapsody in Blue.

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