918 posts
On The Other Hand
On The Other Hand
To hell with originality. It's a fool's quest. The minute you think you're on to something new, you find someone who did it or said it 500 years ago. Don't worry about it.
More Posts from Craigswanson
So here we begin what I hope will be a fun little project: the creation of a "perfect" or "ideal" total 27. The Complete Chopin Etudes in their best (or bests) incarnation piece by piece, player by player. This post will just lay out the full set and then subsequent posts (not necessarily in order) will tackle a little more depth and reflection on each individual etude and the reasons for my choice. As with chess, a (?) after a choice will mean I'm not entirely satisfied with the wisdom or availability of what's listed here; whereas a (!) after a choice will mean I feel this is not necessarily orthodoxy but brilliance beyond the pale. Please feel free to let me know the error of my ways or how you'd do it differently.
Fascinating texturals. I'm not sure this is its ultimate realization, but fine introduction to a composer unknown to me. I assume the performer is Thomas Bjørnseth, although I could be wrong about this. My applause in any event for decoding a difficult text. (I love the video methodology of following the score, brilliant.)
atonalitydotnet:
SCIARRINO Piano Sonata no.5
Complete playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDVL6FopD_E&feature=PlayList&p=EE0742EFCB8874F4&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1
Jazz Just Died
I couldn't help feeling, sitting in the audience in Carnegie Hall last night, that jazz was dying right in front of my eyes and ears. Of course, it was an illusion because all jazz or any jazz or any piece or subset of jazz is just nonsense: a placeholder for the experience I was having in that moment and nothing more. But let me just put it this way: Carnegie Hall isn't, for me, the ideal place to audition a jazz trio. It may be fine for orchestra, or even small ensemble, but jazz trio?
Well, let's bring the players into it. The ensemble in question is the Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette "Standards" Trio. The trio that has recorded a hundred albums or so and still plays live for the millionth time "Someday My Prince Will Come", "My Funny Valentine", "Answer Me, My Love". What was I expecting? More o' the same? Of course. But I had never heard Jarrett live in an ensemble setting before so I decided to try anything once.
There were moments of "beautiful" playing, of course. Especially in the ballads. Their attempts at up-tempo were strangely subdued. Everything felt like it was on crutches. OK so I didn't need to be there, but let's not allow that prejudice to get in the way any further. Most of the audience were anointed, faithful, and true to their god(s). Let me instead just say that the sound itself was oddly attuned, echoey and globular in a way I'm not used to in Carnegie. It often sounded as though it were being played in a natatorium, or at the far end of a long Holiday Inn hall. Like audio from the past. Like audio from The Shining. Creepy.
And then all of us sitting there in the audience respectfully watching the guys do their things. Ugh. This doesn't feel like jazz to me, or music, or anything. Forced to watch a funeral. And keep the tempo up. And tune the bass. And your high-hat too. Not for me. Jazz is about proximity, no matter the real size of the venue, you have to feel intimacy. Whatever the opposite of intimacy is, that's what I felt.
Opus 25
Continuing... you'll have already noted, from the previous post, my tendencies toward speed and a certain violence in the Etudes. Even the slow ones, truth be told. But take it with a grain of salt and the pepper will come later.
Wilhelm Backhaus
Ren Zhang (?!)
Vladimir Ashkenazy (?)
Nelson Freire
Dinu Lipatti
Mikhail Pletnev
Dubravka Tomsic
Lazar Berman
Andrei Gavrilov
Maurizio Pollini (?)
Andrei Gavrilov (!)
Grigory Sokolov