Musicon

Peter Gabriel looking for a place to live

Silentiarius — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:40:53 +0000

Growing Up, by Peter Gabriel (“UP” album) folded in your fleshy purse / i am floating once again / while the muted sounds are pumping rhythm / all the walls close in on me / pressure’s building wave on wave / ’til the water breaks – and outside i go, oh one dot, that’s on [...]

Luup, Meadow Rituals: a surprising, inspired, album

Silentiarius — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:48:16 +0000

New age or ambient music or music even just related with new age, is usually dull and boring, each and every minute shouting about how easily it was made and how easily it can be made, an indifferent, impersonal organization of sounds – nothing more, nothing less. I was surprised to read at the site [...]

The music of Sibelius: ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams…

Silentiarius — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:23:50 +0000

Wildly popular a century ago as an icon of Finnish nationalism in a late-Romantic vein, Jean Sibelius was largely dismissed by music aficionados after World War II as something of a conservative lightweight. So why is the Bard Music Festival this month featuring his work in a series of concerts titled “Sibelius and His World”? [...]

The Conversion of Bob Dylan to Christianity

Silentiarius — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:55:54 +0000

“Towards the end of the [San Diego, November 17, 1978] show someone out in the crowd … knew I wasn’t feeling too well,” recalled Dylan in a 1979 interview. “I think they could see that. And they threw a silver cross on the stage. Now usually I don’t pick things up in front of the [...]

Mellow Candle, Swaddling Songs (1972): a true sonic marvel of beauty and simple melodies

Silentiarius — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 14:28:22 +0000

Despite the fact that after thirty years Swaddling Songs is less of a challenge to listen to than it would have been in 1972, it still stands as a most brilliant documentation of the childhood lives of Clodagh Simonds and Allison Williams. Having grown up in the strict Holy Child Convent School in Dublin, the [...]

Touch (1969): Touches of psychedelia, jazz, avant-garde

Silentiarius — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 09:55:17 +0000

All five members of the band Touch had previously played in Don And The Goodtimes, a popular club band from Portland, Oregon. Prior to that Gallucci, who later became a staff producer for Elektra, was with The Kingsmen, Newman with The Liberty Party and both John Bordonaro and Hauser with Connecticut’s ‘Gretschmen’. Their album was [...]

Katsaris playing the Beethoven Symphonies for piano (Liszt transcription)

Silentiarius — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:24:26 +0000

Cf. Beethoven/Liszt: Symphonies, Nos. 1-9, C. Katsaris, at Amazon Very few pianists can actually play these scores convincingly and Cyprien katsaris in these recordings proves himself exceedingly. This excruciatingly difficult music is played briliantly by Katsaris not only in regards to virtuosity which in some passages is unbelievable (the chorus in the ninth symphony has [...]

Stegemann on the tradition of making arrangements of a work

Silentiarius — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:03:51 +0000

“I have plenty to do now”, Mozart wrote to his father in Salzburg on 20th July 1782, four days after the première of Die Enführung aus dem Serail; “the harmonies to my opera must be written out by a week Monday, otherwise someone else will beat me to it and enjoy the profit.” In the [...]

M. Stegemann on the transcriptions of Beethoven Symphonies by Liszt

Silentiarius — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:01:57 +0000

The 1833 transcription of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique was Liszt’s first attempt to arrange on orchestral work for the piano. In the second of his Reisebriefe eines Baccalaureus der Tonkunst (‘Letters of an itinerant graduate in music’), which he addressed from “Chambéry, September 1837″ to the philologist Adolphe Pictet de Rochemont, Liszt commented in some detail [...]

M. Stegemann on Liszt as an arranger

Silentiarius — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 14:59:56 +0000

One hundred years after his death, Liszt’s important place in musical history has still not been fully recognised. The three major periods of his life — the brilliance of the virtuoso (1820-1847), the decade as Kapellmeister to the Weimar court (1848-58) and the years in Rome, Weimer and Budapest with the dedicated interest in Catholicism [...]