I was reading the post today at Maxminimus today about a football playing thug who earns $1.4 million a month. It reminded me of all the music industry thugs, if you will, who glorify a life of violence and drugs and who make bazillions of dollars doing it. I don't believe that in 200 years this music will be still be appreciated..but I could be wrong. In the meantime all these musicians are laughing their way to the bank.
What I've been listening to recently is music by a man who you could say also glorified violence, at least he did in one instance, by dedicating his Symphony #3 to Napoleon.
But Beethoven later redeemed himself by renaming the Symphony Eroica after Napoleon declared himself Emperor in 1804.
I'm guessing that in 200 years, the music of Beethoven will still be appreciated.
Symphony No. 7 in A Major Op. 92 Allegretto
Showing posts with label classical music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classical music. Show all posts
Around Town - Sunday Afternoon Musicale
Really, this has been a weekend of music and WOW houses for me.
Sunday afternoon I attended a small private afternoon musicale with a piano recital by Steve Hall.
This lovely event was held at magnificent California Mediterranean home.
It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon and the hostess was so gracious to open up her exceptionally beautiful and tastefully decorated home.
Since she shared it with us, I thought that I would share it with you.
Here it is.
The recital was held in the living room, which was great because it was appropriately sized for a small group and it had rather exceptional accoutiscs.
I sat in this hallway between the living room and the library where I could admire the Second Empire furniture and the Impressionist paintings.
After the recital was finished we wandered around a bit to see more of the house.
Here is the library.
With our coup de champagne in hand we admired the pool and the gardens. Everything was so green and the roses were still in full bloom.
Like all major homes it had all the accoutrement's, like his and hers gyms.
A spa complete with hair salon set up, jacuzzi, mani-pedi set up, etc.
And indoor lap pool, yes, with double tv's.
A screening room, naturally...this is LA after all.
And of course a full underground garage, which I didn't see, but I did wonder where all the cars were parked.
Sunday afternoon I attended a small private afternoon musicale with a piano recital by Steve Hall.
This lovely event was held at magnificent California Mediterranean home.
It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon and the hostess was so gracious to open up her exceptionally beautiful and tastefully decorated home.
Since she shared it with us, I thought that I would share it with you.
Here it is.
Here is the library.
Then we went downstairs for the reception with champagne and hors d'oeuvres in the more casual entertaining areas, decorated with less formal furniture and modern art.
A spa complete with hair salon set up, jacuzzi, mani-pedi set up, etc.
Now, if this house appeals to you, you are in luck.
It is on the market for $50 million.
Happy Monday!
Music Appreciation - From Chopin to Hendrix
I adore the music articles in the WSJ Life & Culture section
Last week I was all about Chopin's Preludes
Chopin's Small Miracles - Despite their brevity the Preludes loom large musically
You might like the very fast
Prelude Op. 3 by Chopin master, Ivo Pogorelich
or the forceful
Prelude Op. 15 by Maurizio Pollini
or the long and longing
Prelude Op. 45 by Ivo Pogorelich
Yes, Pollini probably plays the Preludes better but he just isn't as romatical as Pogorelich, is he.
This week I'm on to other music entirely
String Quartet Does Hendrix - Turtle Island's new album is a tribute to his genius
Here is more about the group going Hendrix
I'm pleased to see classically trained musicians having an appreciation of Hendrix
Summer Reading - Music, History and Joy
On my summer reading list...if I can ever find the time to just relax and read.
From the review in the WSJ by Norman Lebrecht
Of all Beethoven's works, the Ninth Symphony is the least explicable. What on Earth was he doing decorating its finale with a chorus and soloists singing an ode of Schiller's, ostensibly about joy but in reality about brotherhood and liberation? What is the Ninth about? Is it a charter for social reform or for individual rights? A religious ecstasy? Does the symphony mean to us what it meant to Beethoven? Does it mean anything useful at all?These are some of the questions that set Harvey Sachs off on a painstaking search to discover the roots of Beethoven's last symphony in the time of its creation. The year was 1824, and the Congress of Vienna had turned Europe back to a network of despotic monarchies, as if the Enlightenment and French Revolution had never happened.
Perhaps the Ninth was all some sort of musical Masonic code.
I shall have to read the book and find out.
Around Town - The Stigmatized at the LA Opera
Overall opera is a difficult art to appreciate. While some opera's are easily watched and enjoyed, such as Butterfly and Turandot, more often than not they are challenging, complicated, hours long and require simultaneous reading while watching the events on stage if you aren't familiar with the story or fluent in multiple languages. James Conlon's production of Franz Schreker's 'The Stigmatized' was one of these difficult operas but definitely worth seeing.
The story is set in fin-de-siecle Genoa with a plot that is marked by the Freudian undertones of the outside appearances and the internal decadence of the characters. There is ugliness and beauty and lust in the story, and of course a completely naked girl in a simulated rape scene on stage....because this is the LA Opera, and there are always naked girls and sex on the LA Opera stage.
The score is rich and romantic and sounds more like a film score than an opera. There are no snappy arias that you can hum to yourself later. While the Viennese Schreker is compared mostly to Strauss, I felt that his music was more akin to that of Korngold whose work was used both in opera and in film. Certainly Korngold must have been influenced by Schreker.
The singing by German soprano Anja Kampe, as the artist Carlotta, was extraordinary. She blew everyone away, including the lead tenor Robert Brubaker, as the crippled aristocrat. The set design was kept purposely simple in order to act as a background for a rich lighting design with elaborate projections. It was very beautiful production visually.
Here's the description from the LA Opera.
World-renowned conductor James Conlon continues the critically lauded, groundbreaking Recovered Voices series with the first-ever production in the Western hemisphere of any opera of Franz Schreker. The New Yorker commented that the work "vacillates between melodies of Mediterranean grace and textures of otherworldly complexity...One scene melts into another with cinematic ease."
Sadly, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center wasn't full and the average age of the audience was about 65. For a new generation raised on film, video games, twitter and instant gratification, I'm afraid that opera will be a lost art.
The story is set in fin-de-siecle Genoa with a plot that is marked by the Freudian undertones of the outside appearances and the internal decadence of the characters. There is ugliness and beauty and lust in the story, and of course a completely naked girl in a simulated rape scene on stage....because this is the LA Opera, and there are always naked girls and sex on the LA Opera stage.
The score is rich and romantic and sounds more like a film score than an opera. There are no snappy arias that you can hum to yourself later. While the Viennese Schreker is compared mostly to Strauss, I felt that his music was more akin to that of Korngold whose work was used both in opera and in film. Certainly Korngold must have been influenced by Schreker.
The singing by German soprano Anja Kampe, as the artist Carlotta, was extraordinary. She blew everyone away, including the lead tenor Robert Brubaker, as the crippled aristocrat. The set design was kept purposely simple in order to act as a background for a rich lighting design with elaborate projections. It was very beautiful production visually.
Here's the description from the LA Opera.
World-renowned conductor James Conlon continues the critically lauded, groundbreaking Recovered Voices series with the first-ever production in the Western hemisphere of any opera of Franz Schreker. The New Yorker commented that the work "vacillates between melodies of Mediterranean grace and textures of otherworldly complexity...One scene melts into another with cinematic ease."
Sadly, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center wasn't full and the average age of the audience was about 65. For a new generation raised on film, video games, twitter and instant gratification, I'm afraid that opera will be a lost art.
Around Town - Denali Quartet At Greystone
So many choices, so little timewith the Denali Quartet performing at the beautiful Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills on Sunday at 2:00 or the weekly hike in the hills above Brentwood
With the start of Spring this weekend, I'm opting for the hike
Perhaps I will listen to progressive chamber music on my ipod while I hike...
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