music

A Symphony From The Heart Of The City

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

I strongly encourage all readers with an interest in classical music to read this account of the history of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony (“Leningrad”) and to watch the linked videos – a fascinating article about an iconic piece of music.

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Stephen Walsh praises Brian Moynahan’s Leningrad, a book on how the siege of the city influenced the work of composer Dmitri Shostakovich:

Shostakovich, a native of Leningrad/St Petersburg, was in the city for the first few weeks of the siege, and by the time he was flown out in early October 1941 he had composed the bulk of three movements of his Seventh Symphony. He already saw it as a symbol of the city’s defiance, and in Moscow he told an interviewer: ‘In the finale, I want to describe a beautiful future time when the enemy will have been defeated.’

It had become a Leningrad Symphony in all but name. Its composer had been photographed on the roof of the Conservatoire in a fireman’s outfit hosing down a (non-existent) conflagration. Now, in his absence, Leningraders struggled to concerts played by emaciated, half-dead musicians in freezing halls. Music had become an…

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Music For The Day

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Prelude in D flat major, the “Raindrop Prelude” No. 15 Op. 28 by Frederic Chopin:

 

Performed here by Vladimir Horowitz.

Horowitz has never been a favourite pianist of mine; in all honesty, I have somewhat resented the fame and recognition that his name elicits to the detriment of pianists that I consider far superior. However, it is nearly always the case that pianists excel in the interpretation of repertoire by particular composers, and Horowitz’s affinity for the music of Chopin is both arresting and undeniable.

Music For The Day

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Prelude no. 10 in G flat major, Op.23, by Sergei Rachmaninoff:

 

Tender and wistful, with a hint of that Russian romanticism only really shining through towards the end, this piece makes quite a contrast to some of the more bombastic preludes in the cycle. And the cadence at the end, the final two chords, are beautiful, like a book being closed at the end of a bedtime story.

The prelude is performed here, as were previous examples of Rachmaninoff preludes on this blog, by pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Music For The Day

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A moving performance of Aaron Copland’s “Billy The Kid”, arranged for two pianos and performed by Albert Tiu and Thomas Hecht:

 

The arrangement is slightly richer in detail than the solo piano version, yet still retains that essential, desolate sparseness that makes up so much of Copland’s best writing. In so doing, it also put me in mind of another of Copland’s works, the hugely evocative Quiet City with its glorious solo trumpet.

Happy Monday to my readers.

Music For The Day

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

I don’t know who has laid down the definitive best recording of Verdi’s opera “Otello” – not because I have failed to listen to them all in my thirty years on this Earth, but because there are several top contenders. This one, surprisingly, only barely makes the cut for the top five. It does, of course, on the strength of Kiri Te Kanawa and Placido Domingo in the title roles.

Here is “Gia Della Notte Densa” by Domingo and Te Kanawa performed at the Royal Opera, under the excellent baton of Georg Solti:

 

I defy anyone to name a better performance of this particular duet.

And I’m sorry, but not all arts are equal. Dissenters and critics are free to call me out and accuse me of snobbery on my Comments or Contacts pages; but if you took Miley Cyrus’ twerking antics at the VMAs, multiplied it by a million and plated it in gold, you would have, at most, a hundredth of this performance.