April 8th 2009
Archive for April, 2009
April 8th 2009
Mahler and his world-famous as the theme music
This piece, the slow movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, became world-famous as the theme music for the film Death in Venice, about a dying musician obsessed by a beautiful boy. Scored for string orchestra and harp, the music builds from a scatter of single notes at the start (like slowly dripping water), first to a coherent tune, then to an edifice of huge, piled chords, before fading again to silence. Its pace never varies, and its mood is sustained throughout. Miraculously, it combines melancholy with heart-easing beauty, so that you are finally uplifted, not depressed. Continue Reading »
April 3rd 2009
RODRIGO
Acoustic guitars are quiet instruments, and their accompaniments need to be subtle rather than assertive. Rodrigo uses an orchestra of a couple of dozen players, who rarely all play at once. The guitar is like the leader in chamber music, and the music is more agreement than confrontation. Continue Reading »
April 3rd 2009
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
After the death of Alexander Borodin in 1887, RimskyKorsakov helped to finish composing his Prince Igor. Delighted by the Polovtsian Dances, he planned an `Oriental’ work of his own, based on the Arabian Nights stories about Sindbad the Sailor. Rather than setting out to retell them in music, though, he preferred to give ‘the general idea of a story of fairy-tale wonders’, and the resulting piece is a ’symphonic’ suite, organized like a symphony, not a set of unconnected movements. Continue Reading »
April 3rd 2009
RESPIGHI
This orchestral show-piece is as explicit as film music, though its pictures are entirely in the mind. Respighi obligingly provides a detailed programme. He took four fountains, and set out to ‘express the feelings and visions they evoked, choosing for each the time of day when it was most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or appeared most beautiful to the observer’. Continue Reading »
April 3rd 2009
RAVEL
Even experts need to practise, and Ravel spent years promising himself the luxury of trying some experiments in orchestration as soon as he had time. His chance came when the dancer Ida Rubinstein asked him to orchestrate some piano music by the Spanish composer Albéniz. Ravel couldn’t get the rights, and offered instead to write Rubinstein an original piece in Spanish style. Continue Reading »
