Art Lovers discussion
Music
>
Miscellaneous
date
newest »
newest »
Happy Wednesday!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4KXUr...
Simon & Garfunkel- Wednesday Morning 3 A.M
It was their debut album (1964) initially unsuccessful because of "Beatle-mania." It was rereleased in 1966, successful with a later re-mixed electric/acoustic version of The Sounds of Silence http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaSFzp...
Can someone correct the spelling of this thread? Thanks!
Arthur Rubinstein's rendition of Chopin Nocturne Op. 27 No. 2. (I'm not sure what year this was recorded.) In my opinion, this is the loveliest recording of this particular nocturne, although I haven't heard every single last one....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ8RVj...
This is beautiful! I'm listening to it as I write. Thank you, Lobstergirl!
Thanks for fixing it Heather. I know I don't post often, but I try to keep up!
Young Maurizio Pollini (he's only 18 here...and quite the looker...) plays 3 Chopin preludes, 8, 6, and 24, in 1960. Total time 6:07. I love his version of these three.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ9ZkB...
Love it! He is so young, such a baby face & tiny ears!So you play? (Saw your sheet music!)
Hee...tiny ears....I do play, but not as much as I'd like to. (I lack a piano currently.)
Bummer. I haven't played in a long time (major health issues) but things are getting better so I should dust off the keys.
The slow movement of Schubert's string quartet "Death and the Maiden." Total time 7:24."...one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire. Composed in 1824, after the composer suffered through a serious illness and realized that he was dying, it is Schubert's testament to death...." (wiki) He died at age 31, most likely from syphilis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azGjSn...
This is absolutely beautiful, Lobstergirl. I'm really liking your taste in music! I love almost anything violin anyway.
Thanks! I love that Andante movement too.
Oh....oops! There's another 5 minutes. They split it in two parts. Here's the rest of it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&am...
Schubert is probably my favorite when it comes to chamber music, and Death and the Maiden is one of his most beautiful. But it's so sad that I don't listen to it as often as I could.
Brendel plays Schubert Impromptu Op.90 No.3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyzUc2...#!
A. Brendel - Schubert, Klavierstücke D. 946 No. 2 in E Flat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoMsV5...
How nice to come home from work, sit back, relax and listen to all of this wonderful music...Thanks, Carol and Lobstergirl!
Carol wrote: "A. Brendel - Schubert, Klavierstücke D. 946 No. 2 in E Flat"
Gorgeous.
Carol wrote: "Horowitz - Schubert - Impromptu n°3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxhbAG..."
You can hear church bells clanging outside the concert hall. It doesn't appear to bother Horowitz too much.
I read a memoir by Horowitz's piano tuner (a Steinway technician). He tuned Horowitz's pianos and traveled with him whenever he went on tour. He was a very devout Christian and was constantly trying to convert Horowitz (and Rubinstein and others) to Christianity. Emil Gilels was the only one who seemed interested - bibles weren't available in the Soviet Union, where Gilels lived, so the tuner would give Gilels bibles to sneak back with him.
Emil and Elena Gilels (his daughter) made this nice recording of the Schubert Fantasy in F minor for four hands. Posted here is part 1 of 2 (time 7:35):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMM8Nx...
and part 2 of 2 (time 10:45):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRfbBS...
I killed this thread!(Hopefully not.)
Alfred Brendel playing Mendelssohn Variations Sérieuses, Op. 54, which have been called "one of the finest sets of piano variations between Beethoven and Brahms." I like Brendel's version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8VCyD...
Lobstergirl wrote: "I killed this thread!.. (Hopefully not.)"NOT!!
Just a little stressed out this week. It's just wonderful to come home, relax, & listen to beautiful music! Thanks Lobstergirl!
I hope not to offend anyone who loves classical music but I wanted to share my favorite American jazz pianist -- Art Tatum (1909-1956), who in my opinion was exceptional despite that he had been nearly blind since birth.Art Tatum - Tiger Rag (2:20)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BTw6e...
Art Tatum plays his rendition of Humoresque by Dvorak (2:46)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYcZGP...
Yes, it has been a bit slow around here, but I want to wish you all another great Monday!!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_dW2O...
Manic Monday The Bangles
Carol wrote: "I hope not offend anyone who loves classical music but I wanted to share my favorite American jazz pianist -- Art Tatum (1090-1956), who in my opinion was exceptional despite that he had been nearl..."I'm a huge Art Tatum fan. Lovely share
Shamini wrote: "Carol wrote: "I hope not offend anyone who loves classical music but I wanted to share my favorite American jazz pianist -- Art Tatum (1090-1956), who in my opinion was exceptional despite that he ..."He was truly talented and amazing! (Looks like I wrote that too quickly - 1909-1956.)
Yesterdays (2:01)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Cs_z...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGZQZ...In her quest to become a world-famous violinist, Ji-Hae Park fell into a severe depression. Only music was able to lift her out again -- showing her that her goal needn't be to play lofty concert halls, but instead to bring the wonder of the instrument to as many people as possible.
Ed wrote: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGZQZ...In her quest to become a world-famous violinist, Ji-Hae Park fell into a severe depression. Only music was able to lift her out again -- showing her that ..."
She is incredible! And that is my utmost favorite Vivaldi piece from Four Seasons.
This post regarding the music being the only thing to lift her out of her depression reminds me of the book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Music can work miracles indeed.
Unrelated to the government shutdown, Carnegie Hall stagehands just went on strike, forcing the cancellation of an opening gala. I did not know that CH stagehands include some of CH's highest paid employees - a few "make more than $400,000 a year — more than Carnegie’s finance director earns."
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/201...
I should have been a Carnegie Hall stagehand....
HARMONY is a state recognized by great philosophers as the immediate prerequisite of beauty. A compound is termed beautiful only when its parts are in harmonious combination. The world is called beautiful and its Creator is designated the Good because good perforce must act in conformity with its own nature; and good acting according to its own nature is harmony, because the good which it accomplishes is harmonious with the good which it is. Beauty, therefore, is harmony manifesting its own intrinsic nature in the world of form.
The universe is made up of successive gradations of good, these gradations ascending from matter (which is the least degree of good) to spirit (which is the greatest degree of good). In man, his superior nature is the summum bonum. It therefore follows that his highest nature most readily cognizes good because the good external to him in the world is in harmonic ratio with the good present in his soul. What man terms evil is therefore, in common with matter, merely the least degree of its own opposite. The least degree of good presupposes likewise the least degree of harmony and beauty. Thus deformity (evil) is really the least harmonious combination of elements naturally harmonic as individual units. Deformity is unnatural, for, the sum of all things being the Good, it is natural that all things should partake of the Good and be arranged in combinations that are harmonious. Harmony is the manifesting expression of the Will of the eternal Good.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC
It is highly probable that the Greek initiates gained their knowledge of the philosophic and therapeutic aspects of music from the Egyptians, who, in turn, considered Hermes the founder of the art. According to one legend, this god constructed the first lyre by stretching strings across the concavity of a turtle shell. Both Isis and Osiris were patrons of music and poetry. Plato, in describing the antiquity of these arts among the Egyptians, declared that songs and poetry had existed in Egypt for at least ten thousand years, and that these were of such an exalted and inspiring nature that only gods or godlike men could have composed them. In the Mysteries the lyre was regarded as the secret symbol of the human constitution, the body of the instrument representing the physical form, the strings the nerves, and the musician the spirit. Playing upon the nerves, the spirit thus created the harmonies of normal functioning, which, however, became discords if the nature of man were defiled.
While the early Chinese, Hindus, Persians, Egyptians, Israelites, and Greeks employed both vocal and instrumental music in their religious ceremonials, also to complement their poetry and drama, it remained for Pythagoras to raise the art to its true dignity by demonstrating its mathematical foundation. Although it is said that he himself was not a musician, Pythagoras is now generally credited with the discovery of the diatonic scale. Having first learned the divine theory of music from the priests of the various Mysteries into which he had been accepted, Pythagoras pondered for several years upon the laws governing consonance and dissonance. How he actually solved the problem is unknown, but the following explanation has been invented.
One day while meditating upon the problem of harmony, Pythagoras chanced to pass a brazier's shop where workmen were pounding out a piece of metal upon an anvil. By noting the variances in pitch between the sounds made by large hammers and those made by smaller implements, and carefully estimating the harmonies and discords resulting from combinations of these sounds, he gained his first clue to the musical intervals of the diatonic scale. He entered the shop, and after carefully examining the tools and making mental note of their weights, returned to his own house and constructed an arm of wood so that it: extended out from the wall of his room. At regular intervals along this arm he attached four cords, all of like composition, size, and weight. To the first of these he attached a twelve-pound weight, to the second a nine-pound weight, to the third an eight-pound weight, and to the fourth a six-pound weight. These different weights corresponded to the sizes of the braziers' hammers.
Pythagoras thereupon discovered that the first and fourth strings when sounded together produced the harmonic interval of the octave, for doubling the weight had the same effect as halving the string. The tension of the first string being twice that of the fourth string, their ratio was said to be 2:1, or duple. By similar experimentation he ascertained that the first and third string produced the harmony of the diapente, or the interval of the fifth. The tension of the first string being half again as much as that of the third string, their ratio was said to be 3:2, or sesquialter. Likewise the second and fourth strings, having the same ratio as the first and third strings, yielded a diapente harmony. Continuing his investigation, Pythagoras discovered that the first and second strings produced the harmony of the diatessaron, or the interval of the third; and the tension of the first string being a third greater than that of the second string, their ratio was said to be 4:3, or sesquitercian. The third and fourth strings, having the same ratio as the first and second strings, produced another harmony of the diatessaron. According to Iamblichus, the second and third strings had the ratio of 8:9, or epogdoan.
The key to harmonic ratios is hidden in the famous Pythagorean tetractys, or pyramid of dots. The tetractys is made up of the first four numbers--1, 2, 3, and 4--which in their proportions reveal the intervals of the octave, the diapente, and the diatessaron. While the law of harmonic intervals as set forth above is true, it has been subsequently proved that hammers striking metal in the manner described will not produce the various tones ascribed to them. In all probability, therefore, Pythagoras actually worked out his theory of harmony from the monochord--a contrivance consisting of a single string stretched between two pegs and supplied with movable frets.
The Intervals and Harmonies of the Spheres
From Stanley's The History of Philosophy
In the Pythagorean concept of the music of the spheres, the interval between the earth and the sphere of the fixed stars was considered to be a diapason--the most perfect harmonic interval. The allowing arrangement is most generally accepted for the musical intervals of the planets between the earth and the sphere of the fixed stars: From the sphere of the earth to the sphere of the moon; one tone; from the sphere of the moon to that of Mercury, one half-tone; from Mercury to Venus, one-half; from Venus to the sun, one and one-half tones; from the sun to Mars, one tone; from Mars to Jupiter, one-half tone; from Jupiter to Saturn, one-half tone; from Saturn to the fixed stars, one-half tone. The sum of these intervals equals the six whole tones of the octave.
The Consonances of the Mundane Monochord
From Fludd's De Musica Mundana
This diagrammatic sector represents the major gradations of energy and substance between elemental earth and absolute unconditioned force. Beginning with the superior, the fifteen graduated spheres descend in the following order: Limitless and Eternal Life; the superior, the middle, and the inferior Empyrean; the seven planets; and the four elements. Energy is symbolized by Fludd as a pyramid with its base upon the concave surface of the superior Empyrean, and substance as another Pyramid with its base upon the convex surface of the sphere (not planet) of earth. These pyramids demonstrate the relative proportions of energy and substance entering into the composition of the fifteen planes of being. It will be noted that the ascending pyramid of substance touches but does not pierce the fifteenth sphere--that of Limitless and Eternal Life. Likewise, the descending pyramid of energy touches but does not pierce the first sphere--the grossest condition of substance. The plane of the sun is denominated the sphere of equality, for here neither energy nor substance predominate. The mundane monochord consists of a hypothetical string stretched from the base of the pyramid of energy to the base of the pyramid of substance.
More... http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/s...