Beet Farming
February 25th, 2009 Posted in beethoven, classical music
I’ve been craving, CRAVING, the Liszt piano orchestrations (isn’t that backward? De-orchestration?). Unfortunately they were left standing, wailing at the altar of my other computer: the old, crummy, dusty leviathan of a desktop hiding in the undertable dust. It’s a scary proposition to boot that baby up. I’d have to grease the wormgears and prime the pumps and lower the cooling rods, and that’s too tiring after another 11-hour workday (boo-hoo me).
So instead I redownloaded them off of eMusic, which (I bloody hope) you get to do for free. Or at least, I downloaded the one that was really rattling the bars of it’s cage: number 6. Despite the classical music hivemind selecting 5 and 9 as THE SYMPHONIES, I prefer 6 and 7. Especially the first movement of 6. The introductory bars are so… well… what’s it like? It’s like the satisfaction you feel when given a beautifully wrapped parcel, or spectacularly presented desert. It’s the anticipatory x-factor. The mouth whetting.
After satisfying THAT von-Beethoveney urge, I moved over to the Appassionata, which also has a stupendously awesome first movement. That trill, man, it rocks. It sounds so stereotypically classical and prissy, and then those plundering, pounding octaves blast the hell out of it. I love the way Arrau plays it, doing the trill in a really precise, delicate, prompt fashion. It’s almost — not quite — sarcastic.
And musical sarcasm is the quickest way into my heart. And/or pants.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I think you would appreciate Alfred Brendel. Sarcasm, wit, call it what you will, his playing is infused with it.
March 1st, 2009 at 4:36 am
And you can’t go past Liszt’s transcription of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. That piece might seem hackneyed now, but Liszt does a wonderfully witty and irreverent take on it (which suggests that it was already hackneyed then!).
March 9th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Yo dudes, thanks for the recs! I’ll check them out this week.