Silence

It’s been quiet around here due to my exams at the conservatory. Still 2 to go and then I’ll start blogging again. Until then, even more silence.

Cecilia goes shopping

I think I deserved some shopping, after 5 hours of practical harmony (and doing the dishes). As a reward for my work, I went to the Fnac, which is just behind the corner. My budget was slightly larger than normal, so I permitted myself to buy all those cd’s I’ve wanted to buy for so long.

Igor Stravinsky (box): with The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, Pulcinella en Apollo, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (cd)

Benjamin Britten (box): with War Requiem, The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Les Illuminations, Nocturne, Sinfonia da Requiem, Suite on English Folk Tunes, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (cd)

Béla Bartók (box): with The Miraculous Mandarin, Concerto for Orchestra, Piano Concertos, Violin Concert No.2, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (cd)

Karol Szymanowski (box): with. Symphonies 3 & 4, Violin Concertos, King Roger, Orchestral songs, Stabat Mater, Harnasie, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (cd)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Cello Suites, played by Sigiswald Kuijken on the violoncello da spalla (cd)

New Trombone Collective: New (cd)

Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge, played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard (cd)

Immortal Beloved (dvd)

The Hours (dvd)

And now back to work. Writing harmony, with one of my new cd’s playing in the background. But which one?

Cecilia @ De Slegte Hasselt

I wish I had my birthday more than once a year, so I could get crazy in book shops more often. Like today, I bought:

Hear, listen, play part 2 for clarinet (sheet music)

Thad Carhart: The piano shop (book)

Olivier Pourriol: Mephisto Valse (book)

Margriet de Moor: Kreutzersonate & The Virtuoso (book)

Roberta Guaspari en Larkin Warren: Music of the heart (book)

Cecilia @ PBL

This time I brought home:

Andromeda Romano: The Spanish bow (book)

Michael Nyman: After Extra Time (cd)

Brass of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: works of Willem van Otterloo, Nick Woud, Giovanni Gebriele, Hans Werner Henze, William Schmidt and Derek Bourgeois (cd)

Christian Lindberg: The winter trombone, works of Antonio Vivalde, Darius Milhaud, Lars-Erik Larsson, Georg Philipp Telemann and Roland Pöntinen (cd)

Louis Andriessen: Rosa, the Death of a Composer (cd)

Luciano Berio: Sequenza’s (cd)

The story and the music

How important is it that there’s a story behind the music? I personally think that the music of performers who have a certain image in their mind while playing, has a greater value than the music of those who just play the notes (even if they do play musical lines and dynamics).

Yesterday  a class mate played to me the clarinet concerto by Carl Nielsen. At the beginning of the third part I had an image of a couple of ballerina’s, tripping across the stage, or two ballroom dancers, floating across the dance floor. However, in this version, the ballerina’s where like elephants. I explained my vision, she agreed, and from now on, those measures dance.

Try imagining it:

0.40 man and woman floating across the dance floor

0.48 man steps on woman’s toes, woman complains, man tries to calm her, woman complains even more

I can defenitely see it. Although I think Sabine Meyer’s version of the dancers, and even of the whole concerto, isn’t completely interesting. At some points it’s completely exagerated, in an attempt to tell a story (although it is not at all clear what story). And it sounds very difficult. I know, it is very difficult, but that’s a reason more to play relaxed and anti-technical, so the result is fluent and nice to listen to.

My favorite recording of this concerto is that of Martin Fröst. He clearly sees another story than me behind the notes, but he lets the listener enjoy ‘his’ story. Anyway, I think the most important thing is to make it completely clear to yourself what ‘your’ story is, so you can transfer it easily to your public.

That’s how it works

One could say there are five sorts of people: men, woman, musicians, tenors and percussionists. Lets take a closer look.

1. Men

Apparently the most normal creatures on earth. Nothing more to add.

2. Woman

People say woman can easily do two things at a time, for example cooking and talking on the phone. Did you try that yet? I must say I tried it several times and have never succeeded.

Another thing woman can do is talking through everything, even through music. Now, I couldn’t bear talking through music. Could you?

3. Musicians

I can tell you for sure, this is the kind I belong to.

We are superiour compared to the last two groups, because we are defenitely not normal (check) and we can do way more than two things at a time (check: read notes, play an instrument, watch the conductor, look at the public, throw angry looks at each other when something goes wrong and think of what we’re going to eat tomorrow).

4. Tenors

Hans von Bülow once said:

A tenor is not a human being, but a disease.

I agree with him.

5. Percussionists

That’s those people you always see hanging around with musicians.

Another thing about musicians: we can’t live without our own instruments. But sometime there’s no other choice and we have to do with a spare instrument for a couple of days. Yesterday, I brought my B flat clarinet to the doctor. I miss him (the clarinet, not the repairman), but it’s for his own good and we’ll be back together in no time.

Surprise

To he who crossed a bus and a passenger car this afternoon with excessive speed:

Why would you cross a bus that’s driving exactly the maximum speed? Because it’s a bus? Or were you trying to get rid of your mother-in-law on the back seat? Whatever, you must have been surprised when you found me already driving in front of that bus. Well, what did you think? That a bus would keep the maximum speed? Yeah, right.

Note to myself: When you are leaving the city and you are coming from the right and a bus without service is coming from the left, slow down a little and let the bus go first. If not, the bus will keep driving right behind you the whole way back.

Avoid accidents, take the bus (in stead of driving in front of it).

Sticky tunes

The last piece we sang at choir rehearsal today was this:

I first sang ‘Im Feuerstrom der Reben’ from ‘Die Fledermaus’ in 2003 (the choir part of course). Since then the tune has been stuck in my head every time I heard it. Grrr. Not that I don’t like the music, it’s just hard to fall asleep at night when the notes of ‘es lebe Champagner der Erste’ keep jumping into your head.

I’ll try listening to a completely different cd before going to bed. Let’s hope I get a good night sleep, so I’ll be fresh tomorrow to work on my harmony exercices.

Ah-tonality

At the Yahoo Answers website I read the following question:

Do you like atonal music? If so, why?

In my opinion this question is completely irrelevant. Atonality is not something you enjoy, like a nice warm bath. You don’t put on Schoenberg’s music while cleaning, eating dinner, reading or studying (except when you are about to read about Schoenberg’s music in you music history syllabus).

So, do I like (or enjoy listening to) atonal music? No. Do I find it interesting? Yes (although that’s isn’t always the case with Schoenberg).

Why do so many people attend a performance of Ligeti’s ‘Le Grand Macabre’ (I went to see the very last performance in Brussels last week, and the place was absolutely full)? It’s not because the opera is full of Mozartian tunes that you’re still silently humming days after the performance. It is because people appreciate the idea behind this opera en they draw a parallel with our own situation. And because Ligeti manages to express the hysteria of the (fake) apocalyps through the music. And because he uses such surprising combinations of the timbres in the orchestra. And because he asks of every individual voice type to completely give themselves. And maybe it’s also because of the exceptionally original ‘car horn prelude’, that will put a smile on your face every time you hear it.

Anyway, the conclusion to all this is that I (and alongside with me probably lots of people) don’t like atonality or am able to enjoy it, but that I appreciate it very much, just because it can be so enormously interesting if you take the time to explore the piece and the meaning within.

Brass sensation

From today on I’m also a fan of Christian Lindberg. That is, of his trombone playing, as wel as his compositions. Why? I think the following video’s speak for themselves.