Happy Birthday Igor Stravinsky! 17 June 1882

 

Watching Musicals As A Classical Music Enthusiast

When I watched Cats about a month ago, I realized that classical music remains with us always in a variety of modern musical forms, including musical theatre.

The Overture to the hit Broadway musical Cats, to me at least, borrows both resonant and/or tonal elements from the Classicism and Romanticism movements, as well as dissonant and/or atonal elements from later composers such as Debussy and to an extent 20th-century composers such as Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. The beginning of the Overture contains almost exclusively musical tension for a solid third of the two-and-a-half minute long piece, leaving the audience waiting and waiting for resolution and when it finally arrives around the 1:10 mark it’s glorious.

That’s just one example of how classical music influences modern musical theatre, and musical theatre is just one modern musical form that has influences from classical music. I am glad that I can appreciate modern music as someone who also has a background in classical music, because this allows for me to enjoy the music through an interesting lens.

Originally posted March 30, 2019 on WordPress

Chopin's Waltz

When I was a kid of about ten I had a classical music interactive activity book. My favorite composer was Chopin (who’s still my favorite composer) but what’s interesting is that his page showed a scene of him playing the piano for his lover George Sand and a puppy, who was dancing to the music.

The sheet music on Chopin’s piano was titled “Little Dog Waltz”, and when you used the interactive pen to tap on the sheet music, Chopin’s “Minute Waltz” Op. 64 No. 1 in D Flat Major would play.

That’s why, for the longest time, I thought Minute Waltz was called Little Dog Waltz, and I didn’t realize that it was called Minute Waltz until probably high school. It’s a fun picture though, a little dog dancing to Chopin’s Minute Waltz.

Originally posted March 23, 2019 on WordPress

To be loved is to be changed

 

The Erlking

I remember when I was a mere fourth-grader this one time my elementary school music teacher had to use the room of one of the school’s least favorite teachers because the music teacher’s room was being used for some activity. That classroom smelled bad – it wasn’t horrible but it was unpleasant.

Said music teacher was planning on teaching us about Franz Schubert’s Erlkönig and he did it even though he had to improvise with the new room’s equipment.

The music teacher proceeded to have us listen to “Erlkönig” while showing us an English guide/translation of the piece.

I remember everyone complaining about the bad smell of the room but still being extremely shocked (as in audible gasps) during that last line of the song where the child dies.

Therefore, I associate “Erlkönig” with the slightly off, somewhat musty, stale, and sweaty smell of that classroom and honestly that’s probably what an erlking smells like.

I also associate the piece with me and my classmates being extremely shocked so there’s that.

Originally posted March 16, 2019 on WordPress

Liszt’s Consolation

When I discovered Franz Liszt’s Consolation No. 3 (S. 172), I was very pleasantly surprised by how tenderly beautiful and generally amazing-sounding it was. I absolutely love it and it’s a refreshing change from Liszt’s usual complicated ferventness (not saying that’s bad of course). I feel like when Liszt is quieter he is very nice too, and I kind of wish that his quiet pieces like this Consolation were more well-known.

This is just the romantic in me speaking, but what made me quite emotional upon discovering the piece was the knowledge that Liszt composed it shortly after Frédéric Chopin’s death. The piece is so sweet that I couldn’t help but have my heart warmed with the thought that Liszt actually did care about Chopin – the two Romantic composers were friends at one point, sure, but their friendship was tense, characterized by a grudging admiration of each other, and by around 1845 they had fallen out. The fact that Franz Liszt composed this Consolation shortly after Chopin’s death, however, just makes me think that Liszt and Chopin’s relationship was sweeter than it seemed to be, and that thought is simply romantic.

Originally posted March 9, 2019 on WordPress

Ballade No. 1: A Musical Journey

Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 is a work that I tend to describe loudly as amazing and sublime. It may not be my all-time favorite Chopin piece but it’s definitely up there. Not only does it sound beautiful, I think it’s an amazingly put together musical journey from the very beginning to the very end. The beginning is iconic and it only gets better from there. Interestingly enough that Ballade is one of the few classical music pieces I describe as a musical journey, but I think that description fits perfectly. You go through the piece, feeling many emotions throughout, but it’s beautiful from start to finish.

Originally posted March 2, 2019 on WordPress