Sign In
Register
Help
Phew! Four hours of juicy concentration
Posted by Datafraction85 , 17 March 2007 - 08:05 AM
Wow! I'm totally exhausted! And so hungry. Just had a major exam in musichistory. It treated the period from the Antiquity to the Classicism. Yeah, that's about 1700 years.... I've spent the last two weeks studying, making chronological schemes on the wall, listening to some weird music and looking at music-scores. Now I fully know the meaning of madrigals from the 14th century and the 16th century and the major differences between them. The same goes for the fauxbourdon and falsobordone (don't even begin to think they're the same!) I can tell you how the opera was developed in France under le Roi Soleil and how it came to be imported from Italy to England with G.F. Händel. Omg, soooo tired....Eh, music.
Now I have to listen to something else. No more motets by Dufay, no more masses by Palestrina (though I really like him).
The test went very well, I hope to get a "Pass with distinction". Since this is what I've been the doing the last seven years (playing, reading and listening to Early Music) I should have known what I was doing, right?
But now I'm not going to worry about that ^^. I'll eat some nice food, listen to some POP-music and play some stupid computergame. And of course continue with that darn Enterprise D desk. I've managed to make some drawings of it...blueeeeepriiiiints I believed it's called. I've planned what materials to use and how many pieces it should consist of and how much it's going to cost and what----
Ok, let's go back a few steps. Didn't I say I was going to do some easy things to let the brain rest? Hm, I belivied I did? So, that's what I'll do now
. Rest!
Now I have to listen to something else. No more motets by Dufay, no more masses by Palestrina (though I really like him).
The test went very well, I hope to get a "Pass with distinction". Since this is what I've been the doing the last seven years (playing, reading and listening to Early Music) I should have known what I was doing, right?
But now I'm not going to worry about that ^^. I'll eat some nice food, listen to some POP-music and play some stupid computergame. And of course continue with that darn Enterprise D desk. I've managed to make some drawings of it...blueeeeepriiiiints I believed it's called. I've planned what materials to use and how many pieces it should consist of and how much it's going to cost and what----
Ok, let's go back a few steps. Didn't I say I was going to do some easy things to let the brain rest? Hm, I belivied I did? So, that's what I'll do now
. Rest!THE Man!! Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 1525-1594
- Share This Entry
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Google
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUponTrackbacks for this entry [ Trackback URL ]
3 Comments On This Entry
Page 1 of 1
Roger
17 March 2007 - 08:19 AM
My Grandmother use to tell me as a child that there was "No rest for the wicked" I suppose we are all really evil men. 
Ray Cole
28 May 2010 - 06:54 PM
My favorite periods of "classical" music are the Baroque (which you've probably overdosed on for the moment, given your recent studies) and modern. I've always thought it strange that modern classical music doesn't enjoy more popularity with sci-fi fans. More than most other art musics, modern classical seems to be consciously trying to be "music of the future." Only the jazz avant-garde seems to offer any serious competition. I like them both. It is a beef I have with most music history classes: whether focused on jazz or classical, the quarter or semester always seems to end before the class reaches contemporary times.
Here are a few of my contemporary favorites.
OK, I'll stop there.
Cheers!
-Ray
Here are a few of my contemporary favorites.
1. Conlon Nancarrow: Studies for Player Piano
Nancarrow was essentially writing MIDI-sequences decades before MIDI or sequencers were invented: in the late 1940s and 1950s. His early studies (1-12) are my favorites. Their insanely complex cross-rhythms and wicked speed take them into the realm of the superhuman, and they have a kind of precise virtuosity that I still find thrilling.
2. Gyorgi Ligeti: Etudes for Piano, Books 1 and 2
I'm not the only one who found Nancarrow's music inspiring. Ligeti directly credits Nancarrow as an influence on his Etudes, Book 1. The challenge Ligeti faced was how to incorporate Nancarrow-style polyrhythms into music that mere humans could play. He created a stunning set of etudes that channels both Nancarrow and Bartok into music I find deeply satisfying.
3. Carl Vine: Piano Sonata (1990) (later retitled "Piano Sonata No. 1" after he published a second piano sonata a few years later)
I first discovered this piece while visiting Australia in 1992. Vine is one of the brightest lights of the current generation of Australian composers, and this piece is a good indication of why. While the Nancarrow and Ligeti pieces listed above are fantastic, they do still feel experimental. Vine managed to take the speed, cross-rhythms, and complexity of Nancarrow's and Ligeti's music and treat them as if they were normal--like they were old-hat and no big deal. Vine's is the first piece I've heard to so successfully integrate these ideas into a very accessible (and incredibly exciting and flashy) work. The second movement opens with a modified quote from one of Alberto Ginastera's piano sonatas, and ends with runs erupting up the keyboard out of a glorious rumble in the low register. Definitely one of my favorite pieces. The first recording is still the best, by pianist Michael Kieran Harvey (to whom Vine dedicated the piece) on the album Carl Vine: Chamber Music Volume 1 on the Tall Poppies label. Harvey's later recording of the piece, on Carl Vine: The Piano Music 1990-2006 (also on the Australian label, Tall Poppies) is not as good because he plays the piece too fast. My second favorite recording is Caroline Hong's on her album Caroline Hong Plays Corigliano, Foss & Vine on the Fluer De Son label.
4. Toru Takemitsu: To the Edge of Dream
No one writes for orchestra like Takemitsu! I like a lot of his music, including classics like Quatrain and A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden, but To The Edge of Dream for guitar and orchestra is my favorite.
Nancarrow was essentially writing MIDI-sequences decades before MIDI or sequencers were invented: in the late 1940s and 1950s. His early studies (1-12) are my favorites. Their insanely complex cross-rhythms and wicked speed take them into the realm of the superhuman, and they have a kind of precise virtuosity that I still find thrilling.
2. Gyorgi Ligeti: Etudes for Piano, Books 1 and 2
I'm not the only one who found Nancarrow's music inspiring. Ligeti directly credits Nancarrow as an influence on his Etudes, Book 1. The challenge Ligeti faced was how to incorporate Nancarrow-style polyrhythms into music that mere humans could play. He created a stunning set of etudes that channels both Nancarrow and Bartok into music I find deeply satisfying.
3. Carl Vine: Piano Sonata (1990) (later retitled "Piano Sonata No. 1" after he published a second piano sonata a few years later)
I first discovered this piece while visiting Australia in 1992. Vine is one of the brightest lights of the current generation of Australian composers, and this piece is a good indication of why. While the Nancarrow and Ligeti pieces listed above are fantastic, they do still feel experimental. Vine managed to take the speed, cross-rhythms, and complexity of Nancarrow's and Ligeti's music and treat them as if they were normal--like they were old-hat and no big deal. Vine's is the first piece I've heard to so successfully integrate these ideas into a very accessible (and incredibly exciting and flashy) work. The second movement opens with a modified quote from one of Alberto Ginastera's piano sonatas, and ends with runs erupting up the keyboard out of a glorious rumble in the low register. Definitely one of my favorite pieces. The first recording is still the best, by pianist Michael Kieran Harvey (to whom Vine dedicated the piece) on the album Carl Vine: Chamber Music Volume 1 on the Tall Poppies label. Harvey's later recording of the piece, on Carl Vine: The Piano Music 1990-2006 (also on the Australian label, Tall Poppies) is not as good because he plays the piece too fast. My second favorite recording is Caroline Hong's on her album Caroline Hong Plays Corigliano, Foss & Vine on the Fluer De Son label.
4. Toru Takemitsu: To the Edge of Dream
No one writes for orchestra like Takemitsu! I like a lot of his music, including classics like Quatrain and A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden, but To The Edge of Dream for guitar and orchestra is my favorite.
OK, I'll stop there.
Cheers!
-Ray
Datafraction85
09 June 2010 - 04:13 AM
Hi Ray!
Wow, those names brought back some good memories! I remember when I used to study these guys and their scores ;) I have to go to the library and see if I find some of the albums. I never heard of Carl Vine, but he sure sounds interesting! Composers writing contemporary music for the piano, is in my eyes and ears, quite rare. In Sweden, where I live, it's more usual for composers to write for smaller ensembles, and then they often combine traditional instruments with instruments you seldom see in a 'classical' orchestra, such as saxophone...
I love Takemitsu too and I think he's quite important for the young culture, since he's been composing so much game music, thanks to him young people know today what orchestra music is :D And those kinds of concerts, where the orchestra plays game/film music, gets sold it in just a few hours.
Nancarrow was really a pioneer, didn't he build his own self-playing pianos, if I remember right? I need to clean up my memory.
Baroque music is so great, I think my music library consists most of early music, there's hours and hours of it! My favorite composer must be Vivaldi, the way he communicates through music is timeless. Händel and Lully I appreciate too :)
Maybe you're familiar with him, otherwise check out Johan Helmich Roman, he was like Sweden's Händel and had studied his music in London. One famous piece is the Drottningholmsmusiken (or Bilägers musiquen) from 1744, music for the wedding between the king Adolf Fredrik and Lovisa Ulrika. Video on youtube ;)
Have a nice summer!
- Datafraction
Wow, those names brought back some good memories! I remember when I used to study these guys and their scores ;) I have to go to the library and see if I find some of the albums. I never heard of Carl Vine, but he sure sounds interesting! Composers writing contemporary music for the piano, is in my eyes and ears, quite rare. In Sweden, where I live, it's more usual for composers to write for smaller ensembles, and then they often combine traditional instruments with instruments you seldom see in a 'classical' orchestra, such as saxophone...
I love Takemitsu too and I think he's quite important for the young culture, since he's been composing so much game music, thanks to him young people know today what orchestra music is :D And those kinds of concerts, where the orchestra plays game/film music, gets sold it in just a few hours.
Nancarrow was really a pioneer, didn't he build his own self-playing pianos, if I remember right? I need to clean up my memory.
Baroque music is so great, I think my music library consists most of early music, there's hours and hours of it! My favorite composer must be Vivaldi, the way he communicates through music is timeless. Händel and Lully I appreciate too :)
Maybe you're familiar with him, otherwise check out Johan Helmich Roman, he was like Sweden's Händel and had studied his music in London. One famous piece is the Drottningholmsmusiken (or Bilägers musiquen) from 1744, music for the wedding between the king Adolf Fredrik and Lovisa Ulrika. Video on youtube ;)
Have a nice summer!
- Datafraction
Page 1 of 1
« September 2010 »
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |