And Witzel’s solo is an extension of that theme, using its harmonic base to improvise on but also extending the time—and the harmony—within his improvised choruses. In other words, the solo, too, is a composition, just a spontaneously created one. While my readers know very well that I am not a big fan of this modern trend towards soft-grained jazz guitar playing, it is what Witzel plays rather than the style in which he plays it that grabbed my attention. His solos are wonderfully creative, far better than the first “soft jazz” guitarists of the 1990s were.
Indeed, “noise” itself and silence became elements in composition, and random sounds were used by composers, such as the American John Cage, and others in works having aleatory or impromptu features. Tone, moreover, is only one component in music, others being rhythm, timbre , and texture. Electronic machinery enabled some composers to create works in which the traditional role of the interpreter is abolished and to record, directly on tape or into a digital file, sounds that were formerly beyond human ability to produce, if not to imagine. Of all the artworks that speak a musical voice, I find that Australian Aboriginal art offers the clearest idea of music I have ever heard or seen in any artwork.
- In the last movement, Gražinytė-Tyla drives the music forward with an almost manic force.
- Comparing her performance here of the Third to Thor Svedlund with the Gothenberg Symphony, for instance, one hears very similar tempi but completely different phrasing.
- It also helps that tenor saxist Dann Zinn, who joins him on his three original pieces , is also an exceptional improvising artist.
- What Gražinytė-Tyla does is to “preview” the growing sadness in his music through her interpretation.
- A futuristic mixture between jazz and eastern notations achieves a spacey feeling to play with from dawn to dusk.
Writing such reflective, slow music for the last movement is surely unusual, but in time the tempo doubles as both lower strings and winds in the orchestra play syncopated figures. He brings a rare combination of seriousness and light-hearted insouciance to this music, which makes it work quite well. Eventually, the busy elements of this movement fade away, there is a moment of silence, and whet it resumes it is again moody and reflective. Being five movements long rather than just three or four, Weinberg has a lot to say in this work. One is struck, for instance, how the solo harpsichord passages somehow manage to sound sad as well, since this is one of the most cheerful-sounding instruments in the world. I must give kudos to Kirill Gerstein for his sensitive, outstanding performance as well.
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It’s more of a carefree romp, although the bridge uses rising chromatics which gives the tune an interesting shape. Here, Zinn is the first soloist up, and he does try to play Witzel’s game of creating an entirely new piece from the basic material. He comes close, but eventually departs from the structure of the first half of his solo to “take off” in his own angular style. As I say, he’s quite interesting and not really disruptive, but at times he does sound as if he’s playing with a different group.
Maestro Giacomo Sagripanti appointed Music Director at Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre
Bychkov gives some interesting accents on the low string theme that follows, particularly the first time around, emphasizing the sadness of the music. From the very first notes of the Schoenberg Klavierstücke, one is aware of the fact that Iman is an artist and not just a technician. His phrasing and subtle use of dynamics mold and shape this music in ways I’ve never quite heard before. There is a certain “curvelinear” feel to his phrasing that attracts the listener, despite the fact that this is already 12-tone Schoenberg. In addition, his piano is recorded perfectly, giving his sound great clarity with just enough natural reverb around the instrument to not make it sound like an echo chamber.
An Online Journal of Jazz and Classical Music
And clearly, by the time he wrote the Seventh Symphony for harpsichord and orchestra in 1964, Weinberg’s sadness had clearly set in. In 1949, angry at his very modern scores, Stalin had his father-in-law killed in what was made to look like an auto accident, but the composer wasn’t fooled. He knew it was a “hose’s head” warning to him to play ball or face harsh treatment, possibly even death. By this time, the composer had formed a bond with Rudolf Barshai, conductor and co-founder with harpsichordist Andrey Volkansky of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, and Barshai led the first performance of this symphony in 1964 with Volkansky as soloist.
The program, working in tandem with MECA&D’s rigorous visual arts offerings, prepares students to cross traditional boundaries as musicians, performers, sound artists, artists and thinkers. You will note that amidst the percussion instruments are “5 Japanese temple bells,” and it is these plus the glass harmonica that create the eerie droning effect. My readers know that I detest modern-day “ambient” music because it is usually soft, slow, tonal and drippy, but Crumb, one of the pioneers of ambient music, was NEVER tonal and drippy. Even in his slow, soft music, as here, he was harmonically and texturally adventurous to a fault. Like Harry Partch before him, he created sounds never previously heard by human ears out of instruments that were, in other contexts, quite “normal”-sounding, and Dream Sequence is clearly one of these.