through this romantic scene
May. 24th, 2022 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yamamanamaIt was hot that day. There was a heat advisory for the day before, but the high temperature was 71°F and then it almost reached 90 but I think the low temperature was far too low for that, but somehow it came close, and I didn't have much to drink until later, so I found it stiflingly hot inside.
I met what I think is a Australian cattle dog who was very happy to see me, probably because I just finished eating a sausage sandwich, and a woman with a tattoo of a bird with its wings spread and a woman with her face in profile and a serpent.
There was a brief snowstorm of flower petals.
It's back down to the typical May mid-50s. It's weird because it isn't overcast or rainy, it's blue skied and clear.
Before we began, we were treated to an impromptu Merzbow performance.
Olivier Messiaen - Thème et variations pour violon et piano
Messiaen saw four conflicts in his life: one, that he was a devout Catholic with an irreligious audience. He was obsessed with birdsongs and yet he wrote music for city-dwellers. Third, synesthesia. Fourth, that most art music wasn’t as rhythmically complex as he’d like it to be.
He wrote these theme and variations as a wedding gift for his first wife.
Charles Martin Loeffler - Deux rhapsodies for oboe, viola, and piano.
Originally, this was written for bass singer, clarinet, and piano. I don’t think that version actually exists, or if it does, this version is far more popular. I did find one arranged for flute, cello, and piano.
The first one was surprisingly jaunty, for a poem about a pool full of old fish, blind-stricken long ago, and goblins lighting up black marshes and the moon as a death’s-head lit from within peering into a dull mirror.
The song mentions thunder and I thought I heard thunder outside. The booklet doesn’t mention someone offstage hitting a tam-tam.
The second of the rhapsodies sounded French, Debussyesque especially, and the viola evoked the sound of bagpipes.
Steven Stucky - Sappho Fragments for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion’, that is to say, a brake drum suspended in the first movement and laid flat in the fourth, vibraphone, maracas, claves, glockenspiel, snare drum with snares, tenor drum without snares but you can use a large tom-tom instead, which I think it’s what they used, as they had it lying around from back when they performed Upon Enchanted Ground.
No, “celery” wasn’t included. She sung half in Ancient Greek and half in modern English. Ancient Greek pronunciation is a lot different from Modern Greek pronunciation. If you’re ancient, Sappho sounds a lot like you’re spitting. If you’re modern, it’s Sap-fo. If you’re the gangsters from Kiss Me Kate, it’s Sap-puh-ho. And on the subject of modern Greek, the reason that English uses th for both þ and ð, it’s because English speakers would pronounce those sounds interchangably. Come to think of it, I can’t think of any heterophones that differ in the pronounciation of the th.
It's very modern and dissonant and percussion-heavy When she sings Ἔρος δαὖτ’ ἐτίναξεν ἔμοι φρένας, ἄνεμος κατ’ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέσων, it sounds like a mountain whirlwind punishing the oak trees.
Franz Liszt - Romance oubliée for cello and piano
It’s a pity they didn’t post the booklet on their website as they had with all the other concerts because Franz Liszt led quite the interesting life.
As for the piece, I was like “that’s it?” when it ended. Because it’s only 4 minutes long.
César Franck - Piano quintet in F minor
Franck’s source of inspiration was a young composer-singer-poet named Augusta Holmès. Camille Saint-Saëns was so offended that he left the stage abruptly. Saent-Saëns was also infatuated with her. Also, César was married.
Afterwards, Abigail Arndt was singing and John O'Leary was playing acoustic guitar in the Public Garden.
burning question: Dis, n’as-tu pas regret d’ignorer à jamais le sort de ta première bien-aimée?
I met what I think is a Australian cattle dog who was very happy to see me, probably because I just finished eating a sausage sandwich, and a woman with a tattoo of a bird with its wings spread and a woman with her face in profile and a serpent.
There was a brief snowstorm of flower petals.
It's back down to the typical May mid-50s. It's weird because it isn't overcast or rainy, it's blue skied and clear.
Before we began, we were treated to an impromptu Merzbow performance.
Olivier Messiaen - Thème et variations pour violon et piano
Messiaen saw four conflicts in his life: one, that he was a devout Catholic with an irreligious audience. He was obsessed with birdsongs and yet he wrote music for city-dwellers. Third, synesthesia. Fourth, that most art music wasn’t as rhythmically complex as he’d like it to be.
He wrote these theme and variations as a wedding gift for his first wife.
Charles Martin Loeffler - Deux rhapsodies for oboe, viola, and piano.
Originally, this was written for bass singer, clarinet, and piano. I don’t think that version actually exists, or if it does, this version is far more popular. I did find one arranged for flute, cello, and piano.
The first one was surprisingly jaunty, for a poem about a pool full of old fish, blind-stricken long ago, and goblins lighting up black marshes and the moon as a death’s-head lit from within peering into a dull mirror.
The song mentions thunder and I thought I heard thunder outside. The booklet doesn’t mention someone offstage hitting a tam-tam.
The second of the rhapsodies sounded French, Debussyesque especially, and the viola evoked the sound of bagpipes.
Steven Stucky - Sappho Fragments for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion’, that is to say, a brake drum suspended in the first movement and laid flat in the fourth, vibraphone, maracas, claves, glockenspiel, snare drum with snares, tenor drum without snares but you can use a large tom-tom instead, which I think it’s what they used, as they had it lying around from back when they performed Upon Enchanted Ground.
No, “celery” wasn’t included. She sung half in Ancient Greek and half in modern English. Ancient Greek pronunciation is a lot different from Modern Greek pronunciation. If you’re ancient, Sappho sounds a lot like you’re spitting. If you’re modern, it’s Sap-fo. If you’re the gangsters from Kiss Me Kate, it’s Sap-puh-ho. And on the subject of modern Greek, the reason that English uses th for both þ and ð, it’s because English speakers would pronounce those sounds interchangably. Come to think of it, I can’t think of any heterophones that differ in the pronounciation of the th.
It's very modern and dissonant and percussion-heavy When she sings Ἔρος δαὖτ’ ἐτίναξεν ἔμοι φρένας, ἄνεμος κατ’ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέσων, it sounds like a mountain whirlwind punishing the oak trees.
Franz Liszt - Romance oubliée for cello and piano
It’s a pity they didn’t post the booklet on their website as they had with all the other concerts because Franz Liszt led quite the interesting life.
As for the piece, I was like “that’s it?” when it ended. Because it’s only 4 minutes long.
César Franck - Piano quintet in F minor
Franck’s source of inspiration was a young composer-singer-poet named Augusta Holmès. Camille Saint-Saëns was so offended that he left the stage abruptly. Saent-Saëns was also infatuated with her. Also, César was married.
Afterwards, Abigail Arndt was singing and John O'Leary was playing acoustic guitar in the Public Garden.
burning question: Dis, n’as-tu pas regret d’ignorer à jamais le sort de ta première bien-aimée?
