2013-06-08 - 12:53 p.m.
A video from Didier using a GI-IC piece Another video from Didier using a GI-IC piece
The 2 new pieces on the Widget above are Moosepoint Compromise Headache and Loveless Carseat Casino.
The Robert Craft Webern CD continues to delight. The final track, the 2nd Cantata is stunning. AW certainly went out on a high. I am so taken with these Craft versions and the excellent notes that he provides that I have ordered Vol 1.
I watched the history of the symphony last night - the first of the series that I have watched. It looked at Brahms, Bruckner, various nationalist symphonist and Mahler. Very interesting on Dvorak in the USA - how he became a tutor to someone who taught Duke Ellington. They also had an interesting take on Bruckner - how he had taken Wagner's technical innovations and put them into a symphonic format. When I was at Cambridge in the first year the only other MS student was a Bruckner fanatic. Sonata form is relevant to some of the stuff Gilbert and I are doing at the moment.
The programme also mentioned Hanslick - how some of his reviews would appear on the front page of German newspapers. I am very keen on Hanslick just now - esp on the relevance of the new 1980 translation of a his key work into English. What the central concept of his vision of the essence of beauty might mean these days.
I was mugged by the Laura Marling interview on R4. Nonetheless she seems to be at an interesting point moving to LA. That sequence of songs at the start of her 4th album makes me think of Hejira; she uses Miss M's rhyme from the opening track of HSL - romance/consequence
; and she seems to be listening to RL Jones too. The mp3 download is only �5. It was also a delight to see the film about the Doors LA Woman again esp with lots from the late R Manzarek. He was a great keyb player finding parts that fleshed out the songs. The trio of R Krieger and Densmore had contrasting backgrounds but points of connection too. They were obviously great at developing song ideas started by any of them. Krieger still uses the Acoustic amps used when I saw them at the Roundhouse. .