Classical Convert

Getting Smutty

SmuttyNOSED that is! Ba-dum tssch. It’s the guy over there on the left, one of these. This is basically my bestest, most favorite brand of beer, and there is one sitting next to me right now. Unfortunately it’s now a bit empty — about 99% empty, and I’m not touching the lukewarm dregs. Back in the glory days though, with knights and such, about fifty minutes ago, it was full.

It’s hoppy as hell. It drips IBUs like a wet cat.

Here I am tonight enjoying two acquired tastes. Hoppy beer and classical music. For the first unperformance of the evening I listened to that old standby, Shosty’s CC#2. It’s one of my oldest and deepest favorites, one which will ALWAYS shove a warm dagger directly between my cerebral hemispheres. SLICE, goes the first morose saw across the cello; ignore everything else but this.

Here is Rostropovich playing the first movement. Well sort of. The video cuts off right in the middle of the big climax, and there is no part 2 for the first movement. Aggggh! Well, what you do get is frickin’ sweet. He’s got this kinda coarse, throaty, push-it-to-the-last-millisecond way with his playing. It’s sexy stuff:

Tags: classical music, ipa, rostropovich, shostakovich, smuttynose

Melody Unresolvement

You know what is absolutely beautiful? (Aside from my hot bod?) Listening to a poor sound quality YouTubey type recording, and then immediately listening to the same piece in high quality. The first few bars are like the heavens expanding and exploding over shafts of sunlight, or stepping from a shivering, poorly heated room into a shower shimmering with steam. It’s freakin’ delicious.

The story behind this particular revelation is wrought out of blood and tears and toil. You see, earlier today I was simply GASPING and/or GAGGING to hear one particular piece of music. My old true love: Shostakovich’s 2nd Cello Concerto, Op. 126.

But I was at work, where only a few little escaped scraps of music live. “Still” (I thought naively, pacing the corridors and byways of the basement back to my office) “I MUST have a copy of that on my work computer — it’s always on my MP3 player. It must have been copied over at least once”. Oh foolish Ben, whiling the way back whistling the melody from movement one, plonking down on the blue spinny chair with the broken pneumatic cylinder. Ennhh wrong. It wasn’t bloody there.

If only I had found these excellent videos of Rostropovich performing the piece:

Mvt 1:

Mvt 2:

Mvt 3:

They don’t have the best sound quality, and the 1st and 3rd movements have tragically early deaths. But Rostropovich is gold. His performance of the lyrical bit (6:00-7:40) in the 3rd movement  is particularly devastating. I love how he’s got this kind of coarseness, as if each of the notes is just about to fall off of it’s proper tonal place.

After listening to that I put on a CD performance of him performing the same piece. Wow. Clarity like nuts.

But… something is missing without being able to see him play.

By the way, does anyone know if that could possibly be the premiere performance of the piece?

Tags: cello concerto, rostropovich, shostakovich