Thursdays blog is a tardy child
What's there to say about Thursday that you haven't heard before?
Bus, Ladro, library, no show at city hall. Seattle Central, David Mesler, the violin concerto, et al
Friday, however, ah yes Friday.
Bus, Ladro (croissant instead of peanut butter cookie) city hall for the lunch time concert.
A few of the inmates of the Gulag Arpeggio managed to climb over the fence and escape the frigid atmosphere of the moral vacuum at Second and University to play an hour of Mozart for the huddled masses.
It was good to hear Little Joe's very first symphony, written when he was eight, and be able to compare it with his penultimate, the fortieth.
Some consider comparisons odious, but I find them to be revealing. Hearing the first symphony by itself, one is likely to merely enjoy it more or less unquestioningly.
Same with the fortieth.
Together, however they demonstrate the meaning of words like depth, sophistication,
and a lot of other words I can't seem to come up with right at the moment.
Also, they played the third violin concerto with Quinton Morris.
I probably shouldn't (why is there an "L" in shouldn't) have to mention this, but they opened with Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
Of course they did.
E.K.N has the artistic staying power of a sunrise.
Then I went home fooled around a bit on my next concerto for wooden train whistle and strings right hand.
Then went to the salon, where Matthew Weiss and Alan Sharp did a superb job playing my violin duet. "Far.Cry.Blue."
Even listening as critically and as sensitively as I could, anticipating disaster at every moment, I enjoyed it both as composer and as audience.
I screwed up my intro joke, another missed opportunity to start a career as stand up comic.
Here it is.
You can view "America's music" as Dvorak copied out by Nadia Boulanger students.
Or you can say it's Steven Foster to slave chant to blues to jazz to Rock.
The latter of which actually makes money (not always for the right people)
I believe I have achieved a synthesis in this piece inasmuch as it is American music
and it is unlikely to make any money.
I actually got a few knowing chuckles out of it.
Tom has promised a recording which I will post asap.
Tonight it's Pagliacci
Bus, Ladro, library, no show at city hall. Seattle Central, David Mesler, the violin concerto, et al
Friday, however, ah yes Friday.
Bus, Ladro (croissant instead of peanut butter cookie) city hall for the lunch time concert.
A few of the inmates of the Gulag Arpeggio managed to climb over the fence and escape the frigid atmosphere of the moral vacuum at Second and University to play an hour of Mozart for the huddled masses.
It was good to hear Little Joe's very first symphony, written when he was eight, and be able to compare it with his penultimate, the fortieth.
Some consider comparisons odious, but I find them to be revealing. Hearing the first symphony by itself, one is likely to merely enjoy it more or less unquestioningly.
Same with the fortieth.
Together, however they demonstrate the meaning of words like depth, sophistication,
and a lot of other words I can't seem to come up with right at the moment.
Also, they played the third violin concerto with Quinton Morris.
I probably shouldn't (why is there an "L" in shouldn't) have to mention this, but they opened with Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
Of course they did.
E.K.N has the artistic staying power of a sunrise.
Then I went home fooled around a bit on my next concerto for wooden train whistle and strings right hand.
Then went to the salon, where Matthew Weiss and Alan Sharp did a superb job playing my violin duet. "Far.Cry.Blue."
Even listening as critically and as sensitively as I could, anticipating disaster at every moment, I enjoyed it both as composer and as audience.
I screwed up my intro joke, another missed opportunity to start a career as stand up comic.
Here it is.
You can view "America's music" as Dvorak copied out by Nadia Boulanger students.
Or you can say it's Steven Foster to slave chant to blues to jazz to Rock.
The latter of which actually makes money (not always for the right people)
I believe I have achieved a synthesis in this piece inasmuch as it is American music
and it is unlikely to make any money.
I actually got a few knowing chuckles out of it.
Tom has promised a recording which I will post asap.
Tonight it's Pagliacci
Labels: Gulag Arpeggio
posted by Lane Savant at 10:01 AM
4 Comments:
"Gulag Arpeggio", you kill me, Lane.
By the way, thanks for hooking me up with Emily. I'm now setting some of her posthumous poetry to my imaginary music. I'll broadcast it soon to the etherworld for all who believe.
...........Eddy Emerald.............
It was challenging to find much on Gulag Arpeggio:
As apt a title you'll find all year, 'Gulag Arpeggio' is resolute in it's tunnel vision flow
Gulag Arpeggio is excellent indiepop-meets-synthpop with a strong melody. Anti-Glacier Song mostly has a much more minimal arrangement with just acoustic ...
We begin with Gulag Arpeggio. It has often been said that there are more recorded versions of Paul McCartney's Yesterday than any other song. ...
Gulag Arpeggio is trademark Chemistry Experiment: three tunes at once (squiggly krautlectro burbles, bassline long lost by U2 and something gently indie
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 40 in G minor, KV. 550, in 1788.
The 40th Symphony is sometimes referred to as the “Great” G minor symphony, to distinguish it from the “Little” G minor symphony, No. 25. The two are the only minor-key symphonies Mozart wrote, with the possible exception of an early and recently rediscovered A minor symphony known nowadays as the Odense Symphony. [1]
The symphony is scored (in its revised version) for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings. Notably missing are trumpets and timpani.
The work is in four movements, in the usual arrangement (fast movement, slow movement, minuet, fast movement) for a classical-style symphony:
Molto allegro
Andante
Menuetto: Trio
Allegro assai
Every movement but the third is in sonata form; the minuet and trio are in the usual ternary form.
The first movement begins darkly, not with its first theme but with accompaniment, played by the lower strings with divided violas. The technique of beginning a work with an accompaniment figure was later used by Mozart in his final piano concerto (KV. 595) and later became a favorite of the Romantics (examples include the openings of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto).
Mozart was born in 1756.
Mozart wrote his first symphony in London in 1764-5 and his last in Vienna in August 1788.
The last three symphonies, Nos. 39, 40 and 41, were all written during the summer of 1788, each of them with its own highly individual character.
Several cheers for the superlative musicianship performed by Matthwew Weiss and Alan Sharp.
Far.Cry.Blue
You can view
"American Music"
as Dvorak
copied out
by Nadia Boulanger students.
Or you can say
it's Steven Foster
to slave chant
to blues
to jazz
to Rock.
The latter of which
actually makes
some money,
(not always
for the right person).
I believe
I have achieved
a synthesis
in this piece
inasmuch
it is American
music
and it is unlikely
to make any money.
Doug Palmer 2008
It snowed a couple of inches down here in the South Sound this morning, and screwed up my commute. But lo and behold I made to the office, and still found time to contribute to FFTL.
Glenn
What?! I didn't invent "Gulag Arpeggio?"
I was using"The Gulag Archipelago" (by that Russian guy, starts with an "S") to accuse the SSO of being like a series of Russian prison camps.
With full sympathy for the inmates of both.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Doug, it was a real treat to meet you and [the beautiful and engaging] Meredith. How marvelous to hear your duet sing to us through the wonderful acoustics of the chapel, and the through the talented fingers of the musicians. I look forward to hearing more and more of your music!
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