Dvorak's American String Quartet mvt. IV

In 1893 Antonin Dvorák and his family spent his summer in a small hamlet in Iowa composing, in an attempt to escape city life. It was here that he created some of his most famous works, including the American String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96. The pastoral imagery of an Iowa summer evoked throughout the entirety of the quartet is reminiscent of both the natural setting of rolling fields and (particularly here in the fourth movement) the crashing and pulsing of a train tearing through the Iowa landscapes. This is one of my favorite chamber music pieces because it combines Dvorák's eastern European background with elements of American music in the late 19th century and evokes the melting pot of the industrial-revolution era United States in a beautiful synthesis of style and genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n415rCnniIA&feature=related

Brahms: Intermezzo in A major, op. 118 no. 2

While I've been listening to pieces like Beethoven's 3rd symphony all my life, I came across this piece for piano by Brahms somewhat recently. In fact, I heard it for the first time in music theory class my freshman year. Professor Jama Stilwell played it for us one morning and, afterwards, remarked, "Isn't that just beautiful?". The first listening certainly captured my attention, but it was the multiple listenings afterwards that drew me in. I love its subtlety. I love the way the left and right hands fall into each other and intermingle. I love its quiet beauty and contemplative nature. I love it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h4Re5WBEAc

I like the version by Stephen Kovacevich best.

Mars, The Bringer of War

Mars, The Bringer of War is one of my favorite pieces of music ever written. The first time I ever listened to all of "The Planets" by Gustav Holst I was blown away by the emotions portrayed in the pieces, but Mars was the most memorable for me because of the power in invoked. The entire piece seems to build up slowly and slowly around you as it lulls you to a slumber before it knocks you off of your feet with heavy syncopation and a heavy fortissimo.

Mars is able to create a sense of raw power and anger that I have never heard a piece be able to mimic to the same results. The entirety of "Planets" has great piece after great piece, some sad and some joyful. Mars always seems to be the one that I go to first though, and will always be a favorite of mine.

Tristan Perich: Observations

Tristan Perich is one of my favorite contemporary composers and I love his piece, Observations for crotales and six-channel 1-bit sound. The first time I heard it, I had the pleasure of seeing a live performance. The stage was set up with six hanging speakers without enclosures in a semicircle and two percussionists in the middle, each with a set of crotales (high-pitched brass discs). Since the speakers were in view, I could even see each one pulsating with its individual rhythm.

The crotales and 1-bit sounds both have such a steady pulse the entire time, it is almost as if Perich is treating the crotales players as two more electronic channels instead of acoustic instruments. The repetitive nature of the piece almost puts me in a trance but the unexpected movements and note changes throughout keep me on the edge of my seat. The last note is especially shocking because after listening to repetitive high-pitched sounds for so long, I still hear them after the abrupt end.

Perich writes a lot of music for electronics and acoustic instruments, exploring the relationship between the two. some of it is even available to download for free at http://www.tristanperich.com/

Debussy: Preludes pour piano, Premiere Livre: III. . .

I first heard this piece on my living room floor. I was sprawled out on the carpet with the score, listening to a recording by Paul Jacobs. I followed the two staves of the piano as best I could, hoping to somehow obtain the true meaning of the piece by connecting the sounds to their corresponding notes, but I had no idea what I was doing. I was just listening and following contours. I didn't know what the instrument was doing, or how one would even play this piece. But I was entranced. I had never heard the piano not sound like a piano before. The colors took me out of my living room. It sounded like the wind, but there was nothing Romantic about it. There was a breeze, there was the play of tall grass, there were violent gusts. Everything was chilling and subtle and just natural. I decided then and there that I wanted to make those sounds on the piano myself. I wanted to write them too. What could be more beautiful than being able to project images and feelings to another person through music?

I immediately became obsessed with the idea of music as symbolism. Listen to these notes being played, this harmony reoccurring; it is an objective image, it represents one immovable detail in this composition and we must respect that. That obsession took off and I completely overlooked a simple detail of the score; why had Debussy placed the titles at the end of each Prelude instead of the beginning?

I used to love this piece of music because it was the wind. But now when I think about it, purely as sound, I love it even more.



. . . Le Vent dans la plaine

Beethoven Symphony No. 7 Mvt. 4

I like this piece because when I was five years old I was walking down the stairs at my mom's house and the song was playing in the background and it was the only CD we had and at first I didn't like it and I just wanted to play in the pool in the back yard, but then we played the CD every day and then I started to like it and so I would march up and down the stairs like a queen humming the melody as it would play in the background like I was royalty. Sometimes my mom would turn it off and I would cry but I would keep walking on the stairs because I could still hear the rhythm in my head then I had to start kindergarten the next day.

I like the horns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

Millennium - Orange Mighty Trio

My selection for this week's radio show is Millennium by the Orange Mighty Trio, a Minneapolis-based group featuring "a large fiddle, small fiddle, and a fiddle you play with keys attached to felted hammers." This piece is a wonderful example of their self-proclaimed "bluegrassical" style, which incorporates elements of classical technique and jazz-like improvisation. The piece can be found on the music players at the two following sites. Check it out!

http://www.orangemightytrio.com/OMT/Home.html

http://www.myspace.com/orangemightytrio