Chopin   (2017Feb11)

Saturday, February 11, 2017                                             9:48 PM

Fryderyk Chopin was tutored in piano by Wojciech Żywny from age six until age eleven. From age 13 to age 16, Chopin (a child prodigy) studied at the Warsaw Lyceum, then composition under Józef Elsner. Chopin lived in Warsaw until the age of 20, in 1830, when he and several friends decamped to Paris—just prior to the November Uprising that same year. This marked the start of a doomed Polish struggle against Russian rule which Chopin is noted as supporting from afar throughout his brief adult life.

Chopin was such a consummate pianist that some of his compositions, when they do not cross into virtuoso territory (which was often the case) are technically accessible even to someone like me—though reading-through and playing the correct notes (mostly) is still a far cry from a true, capital-P performance of a Chopin work. His delicate lyricism and serendipitous, near-improvisational freedom of expression are found nowhere else in written music—and merely playing the notes as written is just a beginning towards reaching the full effect.

But I try—there is something about playing a piece oneself, on the piano—it is the reason that I play, albeit poorly, and with no hope of ever mastering the instrument. When we listen to music, we hear only the sound it makes. But in reading the music, as written by the long-dead genius (or any other) and in pressing the keys with my own hands, I feel an understanding and a connection to Chopin that is easily equal to relationships I’ve had with living people—I get not only the end result, the sound—but also the roots, the human source of whatever musical invention I happen to be playing. It is a wonderful kind of rush that transformed the way I listen to music, as much as it included me in the making of music.

Thus, when I play Chopin, I can stop dead in the middle of the piece—odds are I had to, but even still, I speak to Chopin—I say, ‘clever, that bit—and very beautiful.’ And Chopin replies, ‘I thought you’d like that.’ It’s amazingly like a vicarious composition of my own—as if I was creating it instead of playing it off the sheet music—as if I were Chopin. Despite the fact that my end results are hardly praiseworthy, in the playing of the music myself, I can hear it as Chopin first imagined it—in some ways, sounding more beautiful than the most polished artist’s performance of the same piece.

I was a weird kid. I enjoyed classical music in grade school—I had a lot of LPs, and many more that I borrowed from the Katonah Village Library. I sometimes fought with my siblings about playing classical music on the big stereo in the living room (rather than their rock n’ roll—not that I didn’t enjoy some of that, too) but most often, I would stack’em up on my record player, turn out the lights and lie on the floor to listen in the dark. My dad hated that—he’d burst in and turn on the lights and say, ‘What the hell are you doing in here in the dark?’ or whatever.

But my point is this—I’ve always loved classical music. But it wasn’t until I was fifteen (way too old) before I took piano lessons. There’s something about hitting the keys and making the notes play—feeling the music as an activity, as a part of you, instead of listening to music—it gave me a heightened appreciation of music that I don’t believe is possible without some experience, with some instrument, or with the voice. Glenn Gould’s Bach recordings, for instance, went from relaxing to fascinating—without changing a note—it was like a veil was lifted for me. Music is a wonderful thing to hear—but it isn’t until you make your own that you get the full picture, as it were.

And I’d say that’s why I improvise at the piano every day, too. I can’t make great music, but I can make music—and there’s something very empowering about playing music that no one else has written down, music that I make up as I go along. Survivalists prepare for a life after civilization—I suppose I’m preparing for a life after I-tunes?

ttfn

The Music Of Love   (2015Oct04)

Sunday, October 04, 2015                                       10:39 PM

The Music Of Love

By sweet columbine and punky woodbine lolls my baby,

Lounges my tiger, languishes my odalisque—she

Wouldn’t stay long but here she is now.

Oh, ripple of water over stones behind the purr—her

Throaty laughter at her own foolishness—she

Makes all nerve ends tingle, every single, ringa-dingle.

Scent of attar of roses and melon-musk sweet

As caramel with sea-salt sauce on vanilla bean ice-cream—her

Eyes have lips have tongue—all light and red and curly sweet—so

Sweet, so sweet—Oh, can I have some? Oh please?

Oh baby.

My sweeting, my darling one—come to me baby.

Wrap your warm soft arms about my neck—don’t

Withhold your sensuous, sinuous charms.

Run with me over the hay and the heather grasses

Your bare feet whisper among the blades

Your hair flies in the wind

Your eyes flash and your laughter rings off the hillsides—so

Sweet, so sweet—Oh, can I have some? Oh please?

Oh baby.

I’m All About Soil Moisture (2015Jan31)

Last day of January–the Winter won’t last forever, after all….

Well, they finally launched the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory today.
In honor of which, I have two improvs and a song of Mendelssohn…

20150130XD-Twofer (5)

20150130XD-Twofer (1)

20150131XD-Twofer (2)

20150131XD-Twofer (4)

20150131XD-Twofer (6)

20150131XD-Twofer (7)

Me n’ Serge n’ Niko (2014Aug03)

 

 

Now, I’m adding two more (I’m too lazy to create a new post–and it’s all from the same day, anyhow)…

 

 

Two Piano Recordings for March 28th, 2013

A Brahms Intermezzo (2013Mar28)

This is my favorite Brahms piece to play–actually, there are a few–I’ve never been that good with the whole ‘favorite’ concept–I have a tendency to like everything.

Johannes Brahms (May 7th, 1833–April 3rd, 1897)

Johannes Brahms
(May 7th, 1833–April 3rd, 1897)

:

also today I did some fooling around with a Mother Goose-type song, “Cockles And Mussels”

Improv – Alive, Alive, O (2013Mar28)

The Real Mother Goose is one of the larger collections of rhymes for children. It has wonderful pen and watercolor illustrations by Blanche Fisher Wright. This book was originaly published in 1916.

The Real Mother Goose is one of the larger collections of rhymes for children. It has wonderful pen and watercolor illustrations by Blanche Fisher Wright. This book was originaly published in 1916.

That’s it for me today–hope you like it.

Johannes Brahms: Nänie, op. 82

Johannes Brahms: Nänie, op. 82

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Nänie, Op. 82 for chorus and orchestra. Text by Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) / Nénies / Elegy

San Francisco Symphony and Chorus
Conducted by Herbert Blomstedt
1989.

Also Beauty must perish! What gods and…

Language: English

Also Beauty must perish! What gods and humanity conquers,
Moves not the armored breast of the Stygian Zeus.
Only once did love come to soften the Lord of the Shadows, 
And at the threshold at last, sternly he took back his gift.
Nor can Aphrodite assuage the wounds of the youngster,
That in his delicate form the boar had savagely torn.
Nor can rescue the hero divine his undying mother,
When, at the Scaean gate now falling, his fate he fulfills.
But she ascends from the sea with all the daughters of Nereus,
And she raises a plaint here for her glorified son.
See now, the gods, they are weeping, the goddesses weeping now also,
That the beauteous must fade, that the most perfect one dies.
But to be a lament on the lips of the loved one is glorious,
For the prosaic goes toneless to Orcus below.

Language–the original German:

Auch das Schöne muß sterben! Das Menschen und Götter bezwinget,
Nicht die eherne Brust rührt es des stygischen Zeus.
Einmal nur erweichte die Liebe den Schattenbeherrscher,
Und an der Schwelle noch, streng, rief er zurück sein Geschenk.
Nicht stillt Aphrodite dem schöne Knaben die Wunde,
die in den zierlichen Leib grausam der Eber geritzt.
Nicht erretet den göttlichen Held die unsterbliche Mutter,
Wann er, am skäischen Tor fallend, sein Schicksal erfüllt.
Aber sie steigt aus dem Meer mit allen Töchtern des Nereus,
Und die Klage hebt an um den verherrlichten Sohn.
Siehe, da weinen die Götter, es weinen die Göttinnin alle,
Daß das Schöne vergeht, daß das Vollkommene stirbt.
Auch ein Klaglied zu sein im Mund der Geliebten, ist Herrlich,
Denn das Gemeine geht klanglos zum Orkus hinab.