Friday Soirée VIII: Ghosts in the Snow
As I sit down to write this the snow has begun. We don't know when it will stop, of course, nor how much we might get, but forecasters seem to delight in adding up the biggest numbers they can credibly find: 18 inches? 20 inches? 26 inches? Whatever, it seems likely that this snowfall will be our biggest since our great blizzard of 1996, when we ended up with some 28 inches of snow. Here's an interesting thing we learned then: once the snow is deeper than about 18 inches it can be plowed and shoveled but there's no place to put it that isn't dangerously in the way.
We were out this evening at a potluck Christmas-caroling party. Happily, we made it home despite the hills we had to negotiate into our neighborhood, but it was just at the edge of barely driveable turning into seriously not driveable.
At the moment it's exceedingly quiet and a little bit mysterious. So, for our brief musical program tonight, the mood is quiet and just a little bit mysterious. Also, our three pieces are short so we're having another first: comparative performances. (To be honest, I couldn't decide on favorites, but the different versions do offer different hearings.)
Peter Maxwell Davies : Farewell to Stromness
Let's start with something modern, but far from modernistic. Davies (b. 1934) is an English composer of considerable repute and talent, who probably isn't so widely known as he should be. In his earlier years his music could be quite experimental and extreme, but he seems to have quieted some in his later years. Some people seem to think it was his moving to the Orkney Islands in 1971 that led to the calmer, gentler Davies.
Regardless, "Farewell to Stromness" is from the calmer, gentler, even melancholy Max. It comes from a set of pieces he composed in 1980 to protest a proposed uranium mine in Stromness, Wikipedia claims that the hypnotic bass line portrays the residents of Stromness walking sadly from their homes, forced out by uranium contamination. Perhaps.
Still, it's a haunting tune. Here it is in its original version as a piano solo, performed by "MattRay94".
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Next, another version of "Farewell to Stromness", this time in an arrangement for four guitars, played by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
François Couperin: Les barricades mystérieuses
To my ear this is one of the oddest, yet one of the most perfect pieces of music ever written; it comes from the early 18th century. I say "perfect" because it's always seems to me so beautifully poised, so elegantly balanced that not a note could be removed or inserted without tipping the whole thing over into a mess on the floor.
But it's also odd in its quirkiness. If you'll indulge me, I want to take a quick look at the musical notation:. These are the first three bars of the piece (click to get an image of the first page):
When I first read the music and then learned to play it on the keyboard, what I was seeing seemed to have almost nothing to do with what I was hearing. At first. What sounds like new agey arpeggios is notated as four-voice counterpoint in which none of the voices ever aligns with the others, so it's filled with syncopation and suspensions.
Musicians might furrow eyebrows to note that the piece begins on the second eighth-note beat in a 2/2 time signature, a very, very odd place to start. When I was learning it, trying to start on that beat seemed awkward and likely to dislocate a shoulder, but once I got it — sublime! The listener doesn't hear this notation but it gives a quirky shift to the rhythm at the beginning of each repetition of the rondeau theme, as though the first few notes tumble over each other in their hurry to get going. It is a rondeau, a simple form in which a theme is repeated with different bits of musical development in between each repetition.
Many people play the piece too slowly, as though that lends gravitas and mystery (or something). I can't stand to hear it that way. These two performances move along just fast enough–not hurried, but not slow!–that you'll hear the bass lines propel the harmony in graceful stride while the upper voices dance in attendance.
You might also notice the unusual sonority of the piece. Again, musicians will have noticed that it's all notated in bass clef. All that means is that it's all written about an octave lower than one might expect, and the voices are rather close together, so the harmonies sound very rich.
I think I could go on and on about this piece, but let's move on to listening to it. First, a performance by one Carlos Rodriguez, previously unknown to me. I like his tempo and the sound of his instrument.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Next, a performance by Scott Ross, a favorite harpsichordist of mine. His tempo is quite similar, perhaps a little slower, but still moving. Most of the interpretive differences will come in the ornament at the end of the rondeau theme and the little break that traditional comes between the end of the theme and the beginning of the next sequence, plus the fact that Ross changes registration (playing different sets of strings) for theme repetitions, for contrast.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Well, look there: the first snow plow of the night has just gone by!
John Dowland: Lacrimae Antique, or "Flow My Tears"
Again, this is one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. You may also be interested to know that, for Isaac and me, this is "our song". We're not entirely sure how that came about, but it is and has been for over 17 years. For those who know our family, it's probably also the reason that we renamed our first greyhound "Dowland" when he arrived.
So, John Dowland (1563–-1626) was another English Composer. (I neglected to mention that Couperin was French, but you might have figured it out.) This "Lacrimae Antique" ("Ancient Tears") was undoubtedly his biggest hit, probably the hit of 1604. It started life as a lute piece, but its popularity meant it got arranged into every combination of instruments imaginable, and all the other composers of the time wrote their own arrangements and variations on the tune. Indeed, Dowland even wrote his own expanded set of pieces based on this one hit (the "Lacrimae Pavans"). Once you know it, you'll hear it everywhere in music of the time.
It is called a "pavan", which is a slow, stately dance. At the time melancholy was a much cultivated affectation, and this was its theme song. As a lute song, it's text began "Flow my tears…". Let's hear one of each.
In this first performance, an arrangement in five parts (I think) for viol consort, played by Hespérion XX and Jordi Savall. Enjoy the very rich sounds of the close voices shifting slowly past each other, sometimes with unexpected dissonances that will raise an eyebrow.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
And finally, the lute song version: "Flow my tears", performed by Diane Cushing and Ted Mann.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Saturday, 19 December 2009 at 23.36
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My my, all that snow, and it's not even the Martin Luther King weekend! Ah, yes, the famous blizzard of '96, my first visit to Washington.
on Saturday, 19 December 2009 at 23.58
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Yep, your first visit and our coming to meet you, all of which made that snowstorm even more memorable.