A fine performance of the piece “Melancolie” by Francois Poulenc, played and uploaded by a YouTube user:
Happy Sunday everyone.
Music For The Day
Music For The Day
Rachmaninov Prelude Op.32 No.13 in D flat major, performed here by Vladminir Ashkenazy:
A fitting end to Rachmaninov’s wonderful cycle of 24 preludes.
Share this:
Music For The Day
“Fantasy in C” by Orlando Gibbons, performed here on the piano by Glenn Gould:
This piece always reminds me of New York. I first heard it while listening to Glenn Gould’s “Great Pianists of the 20th Century” album on the sample headphones at a Barnes & Noble store somewhere near Chinatown, a decade ago, after having walked all the way downtown from my cheap, two-star hotel.
The liner notes to this CD, if I recall correctly (and I’m paraphrasing here), pay homage to Gould’s plausible, natural “English accent” when playing the pieces from this release. Listening again now, it’s hard to disagree.
Share this:
Music For The Day
Mahler yesterday, and for today an excellent performance of Prokofiev’s third piano concerto (final movement):
Ah, that’s the good stuff.
Share this:
The Land Of Might-Have-Been
They just don’t write them like they used to. “The Land Of Might-Have-Been” by Ivor Novello.
This particular performance is a recording by Jeremy Northam, from the soundtrack to the excellent film “Gosford Park”, directed by Robert Altman. If you have not seen it, you really must.
Somewhere there’s another land different from this world below,
far more mercifully planned than the cruel place we know.
Innocence and peace are there— all is good that is desired.
Faces there are always fair; love grows never old nor tired.
We shall never find that lovely land of might-have-been.
I can never be your king nor you can be my queen.
Days may pass and years may pass and seas may lie between—
We shall never find that lovely land of might-have-been.
Sometimes on the rarest nights comes the vision calm and clear,
gleaming with unearthly lights on our path of doubt and fear.
Winds from that far land are blown, whispering with secret breath—
hope that plays a tune alone, love that conquers pain and death.
Shall we ever find that lovely land of might-have-been?
Will I ever be your king or you at last my queen?
Days may pass and years may pass and seas may lie between—
Shall we ever find that lovely land of might-have-been?
Semi-Partisan Politics 