Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: “Maestoso,” from Symphony No. 3, Camille Saint-Saens

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It’s the deepest, darkest part of winter.  It’s cold.  Spring feels like it will never come.  Life is difficult in general, and sometimes really whacks one in the face.  What do we do when this concatenation of suck happens?  I will tell you what we do.  We square our shoulders, count our blessings, tend to our loved ones, and attack the task at hand with even more zeal than before.  Thank the good and gracious Whomever for music, upon which we can rely to be an indefatigable crutch.  This movement from Camille Saint-Saens’s organ concerto is one of the most joyously bracing pieces ever written, and is tailor-made for those moments when you need a pep talk, and/or a sonic kick in the pants.  It has it all: the alarm-clock beginning, the triumphant horns, the gorgeous melody, and the sympathetic minor key interludes that assure you that others have seen the same kind of trying times you’re experiencing, and not only lived through them, but, ultimately, thrived.  It’s pieces like this that inspired me to write this blog in the first place so that I could share them.

“Don’t turn away.  Keep your gaze on the bandaged place.  That’s where the light enters you.”

– Rumi

Throwback Thursday: “Four Last Songs: Beim Schlafengehen,” Richard Strauss

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This piece.  This.  Piece.  This piece is a prime example of how an organized collection of sounds can produce profound feelings on both ends of the emotional spectrum at the same time.  For me, it has always elicited great peace and happiness, and also great sadness – even without knowing the words.  The construction of the song is such that the first half, which begins in a minor key, primes the listener that something is afoot – not all is entirely correct for the singer (who in this recording is the incomparable Dame Kiri Te Kanawa).  The way the melody oscillates back and forth between major and minor suggests turbulence, and a strong sense of longing for something that might never be attained.  The singer is clearly unsettled.  Te Kanawa shows us how tired she is of her lot by her slurring the melody in the first few words of the phrase – appropriate, given the meaning of the words she is singing.

The second half of the song begins at 1:39.  A solo violin leads the listener into the singer’s own daydream of whatever is so strongly hoped for.  When Te Kanawa comes back in at 2:43, the piece unhesitatingly builds to an ecstatic conclusion, at the end of which I am entirely spent.  This is a piece I can only listen to once in a while since it has a power to move me bodily from emotion to emotion, as one would move a doll between rooms in a doll house.  But what a glorious ride.

Words below.

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Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,
soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.  Hände, laßt von allem Tun
Stirn, vergiß du alles Denken,
Alle meine Sinne nun
wollen sich in Schlummer senken.

Und die Seele unbewacht
will in freien Flügen schweben,
um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
tief und tausendfach zu leben.

 Now that I am wearied of the day,
my ardent desire shall happily receive
the starry night
like a sleepy child.  Hands, stop all your work.
Brow, forget all your thinking.
All my senses now
yearn to sink into slumber.

And my unfettered soul
wishes to soar up freely
into night’s magic sphere
to live there deeply and thousandfold.

Throwback Thursday: “J’ai vu le loup,” Anon.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qLA3AIb_jU

To balance out yesterday’s, oh, slightly intense Song of the Day, let’s throw on an old dance track from France.  And when I say “old dance track,” I mean a dance-like song with its origins in medieval France.  I honestly don’t know how old this piece is, or who wrote it, or where, or why, which, as you can imagine, deeply annoys your Yankette.  Be that as it may, I do know the lyrics are probably allegorical.  The song is a story, told in the first person, of chancing upon a wolf, a fox, and a rabbit (or sometimes a weasel) having a grand time dancing, singing, and drinking.  Some sources say that the wolf, fox, and rabbit represent the king, the lord (i.e. the lord whose land you worked on as a serf), and the church.  (I hope you know how much it pains me, as an analyst, to write the essentially meaningless phrase “some sources say,” but it’s the best I got.  If you, gentle reader, have any further information, I would be incredibly grateful.)

English words below!

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J’ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre,
J’ai vu le loup, le renard cheuler.
C’est moi-même qui les ai rebeuillés.
J’ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre,
C’est moi-même qui les ai rebeuillés.
J’ai vu le loup, le renard cheuler.

J’ai ouï le loup, le renard, le lièvre,
J’ai ouï le loup, le renard chanter.
C’est moi-même qui les ai rechignés,*
J’ai ouï le loup, le renard, le lièvre,
C’est moi-même qui les ai rechignés,
J’ai ouï le loup, le renard chanter.

J’ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre,
J’ai vu le loup, le renard danser,
C’est moi-même qui les ai revirés,*
J’ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre,
C’est moi-même qui les ai revirés,
J’ai vu le loup, le renard danser.

I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare
I saw the wolf, the fox drinking
I spied on them myself.
I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare,
I spied on them myself,
I saw the wolf, the fox drinking.

I heard the wolf, the fox, the hare,
I heard the wolf, the fox singing
I imitated them myself.
I heard the wolf, the fox, the hare,
I imitated them myself,
I heard the wolf, the fox singing.

I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare,
I saw the wolf, the fox dancing
I made them dance myself.
I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare,
I made them dance myself,
I saw the wolf, the fox dancing.

Throwback Thursday: Piano Concerto in A Minor, First Movement, Robert Schumann

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I first heard this piece on a train, halfway between Germany and Poland.  It was the summer before my third year at university, and my father and I were going to be spending two weeks InterRailing around central and eastern Europe.  We had freshened our CD collections at a record store (remember those?) near Leipziger Straße the day we were to leave for Warsaw; we had to have plenty of train music for our discmans (discmen?  Remember those?).  I picked out some dippy movie soundtrack that heavily featured Badly Drawn Boy; my father picked up some Schumann or whatever.  (Pff.  Old people.)  We swapped CDs halfway to Warsaw – I forked over said soundtrack, along with some Louis Prima, and I got this Schumann disc in return.  To this day, I can’t think of that specific train trip without hearing this piece.  Trying to figure out how to order a sandwich in German from the food cart?  Schumann.  Regarding the loveliness of pastoral Germany?  Schumann.  I must’ve listened to it a dozen times over the course of the trip – in Prague, Budapest, on the night train through Slovakia, Dresden – but it’s still lodged in that one particular compartment, as plush and beautiful as the train compartment we sat in.

The beginning of the piece is fantastic – the electric shock of the orchestra’s first chord, followed by the piano almost flinging the melody away before descending down the keyboard to meet back up with the orchestra again.  The rest of the piece builds to the last two minutes, starting around 12:22.  The melody opens up on the piano until 12:43, when it slowly, slowly, starts getting pushed back into its harness, to ultimately be refocused and unleashed at full gallop at 13:24.  The fire is just barely contained, flaring up once or twice before exploding.  It’s just exhilarating – an absolutely brilliant use of tempo and dynamics.  It is worth noting the specific recording I am using here.  I’m not usually this anal but as far as I’m concerned, the only recording of this worth listening to is this one, by Sviatoslav Richter, done in 1958.

This piano concerto was finished in 1845.  Here is a short list of what was happening around the world at the same time, to give the piece some context:

  • Edgar Allen Poe wrote The Raven
  • Texas was granted statehood, becoming the 28th state in the union
  • James K. Polk became the 11th President of the United States
  • The war between the U.S. and Mexico began
  • Blight struck the potato crop in Ireland, thus beginning the Great Famine
  • The British Parliament passed the Aberdeen Act, which allowed British naval vessels to search Brazilian ships as part of the abolition of the African slave trade.

Since I will be heading back to work for real tomorrow, nose to grindstone and all that, I needed something to help me focus on the myriad tasks at hand.  I’m pretty certain it will do the trick, and I hope it does so for you, too.

Throwback Thursday: “Hodie Christus Natus Est,” Jan Sweelink

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In the spirit of Christmas, this blog’s very first post – helpfully on a Thursday – will fit the season.  Feast your ears on Sweelink’s ecstatic “Hodie,” which is three and a half minutes of barely controlled (for a Baroque dude) excitement about the birth of Jesus.  The best part of the piece is at 2:42 when the choir sounds like it’s splitting apart in competition to see who can produce a happier “Alleluia.”  It’s an absolute delight to sing, and every time you realize that you’re involuntarily dancing.