Andre Rieu | And The Waltz Goes On
Beautiful and wistful – such a great combination.
And The Waltz Goes On, with André Rieu.

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@toelysianfields
Andre Rieu | And The Waltz Goes On
Beautiful and wistful – such a great combination.
And The Waltz Goes On, with André Rieu.
Ludwig van Beethoven | Piano Sonata No. 31 in A Flat Major Op. 110
A beautiful piano sonata, rich of emotions, for a dull Saturday evening.
My favorite movement is the third one (track 3–5 above). Here's the beautifully sad Adagio ma non troppo, and the L'istesso tempo di Arioso, ending with some heavy, hammering chords. Very van Beethoven.
Good night.
Kurt Atterberg | Sinfonia for strings
Lately I've been listening a lot to Swedish composer and engineer Kurt Atterberg (1887–1974).
His father was an engineer and his brother a chemist, so perhaps it was his mother, Elvira Uddman—the daughter of a famous male opera singer— who got Kurt Atterberg into music.
The music I've been focusing on is his Sinfonia For Strings, Op 53. Violinist Ulf Wallin and the chamber orchestra Camerata Nordica (from Oskarshamn) plays.
The first movement is quickly up on its sensitively pacing feet, showing a lot of will and zest.
While listening to the 2nd movement the other night—which is dramatic in its allegro molto (very quick) tempo—I thought to myself that I'd like to watch a film in the crime genre with that kind of suspenseful music. I wouldn't be surprised if it would be in the line of Alfred Hitchcock.
(I guess it's in its place to mention that »very quick« isn't like tempo of speed metal. Not at all.)
The 3rd movements tranquillamente tempo brings relief and pause, while the 4th movement takes us back to the »very quick« tempo, with e ritmico added.
Especially when it comes to the quicker parts of the symphony, I can't help but having Arvo Pärt pass through my mind for some occasional seconds. And that's good in my book.
It's at some parts emotional music, moody and suggestive in others, and all in all it's some well spent 30 minutes. And I know I will listen to more of Kurt Atterbergs music, that's for sure.
Side note: as an online reference help, wikipedia has a good section on tempo.
MUSICAL NOTATION, AS DESCRIBED BY CATS
(I would have liked to crop some of these gifs (like the accent ones) to make them more accurate but alas, I lack the skills.)
Piano Sonata No 14 in C#m
Depeche Mode / Sonata No 14 in C#m (Moonlight Sonata) (Ludwig van Beethoven) Performed by Alan Wilder
The first band I embraced full on was the electronic band Depeche Mode, formed 1980 in Bristol, England.
My favorite band member was Alan Wilder, always a bit more in the background than the others. Cooler. Quieter.
Among all their thirteen albums I hold the sixth one—Music for the Masses—closest. It's the top of my Depeche Mode mountain; the abysms of my Depeche Mode subterranea.
The fourth single—Little 15—had two b-side tracks: the beautiful Stjarna (stjärna is star in Swedish) by Martin Gore, and Ludwig van Beethoven's incredible Piano Sonata No 14, played in C#m by Alan Wilder.
Alan Wilder's Moonlight sonata (1st movement) is played with a forthrightness, well, almost bluntness. Raw, and with the lonesome cold of moonlight beams. The piano sound adds to it, of course. It's a harsh and dark sound—as in tracks like Strangelove, Never Let Me Down Again and Little 15.
Depeche Mode (Martin Lee Gore) / Stjarna
The sonata weren't supposed to be on record at all. After Alan Wilder had played Stjarna in the recording studio, he just started to play the Moonlight sonata. Band mate Martin Lee Gore skillfully knew what was going on and got it all on tape. And the fact that Wilder is just playing along might add to that raw feeling. (There's even some performance errors in the end.)
Ludwig van Beethoven never called this sonata the »Moonlight Sonata«, by the way. It was the german poet and music critic Ludwig Rellstab that compared van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 14 with the moonlight shining upon Swiss Lake Lucerne. And this caught on with the public.
Beethoven himself called it »Sonata quasi una fantasia«—sonata in the manner of a fantasy, or almost a fantasy.
One interesting thing about this piece is Beethoven's pedal mark. The whole first movement of Piano Sonata No 14 is supposed to be played wite the sustain pedal depressed. Back in the days when Beethoven was around, pianos had a much shorter sustain than modern ones. This leave todays performers with a delicate problem, since they just can't play the first movement as said in the score. It would simply be too much sustain, with horrendous disharmony as result.
A couple of things can be done to get close to the effect Beethoven wanted. First, there's half pedaling, perhaps combined with releasing the pedal a fraction of a second late, if pianist Charles Rosen may have a say.
Then there's a way where you're creating vibrations of the low bass strings to get the similar sustain effect where chords and notes dissolve into each other. Read more about this at the Piano Sonata No 14 wikipedia page.
To end this text, before it gets really long: I can almost not believe that music this amazing can be made. I don't mean it in a sense that it, otherwise, has to be a higher power that has stepped in and shown the way—even if Beethoven himself might have believed that.
I'm honestly awed and amazed by every note in this piece of music. And every order of every note. And the fashion every single one of those notes are played in. How the »lead« figure is taken down some octavos at the end. How weary and woeful the music becomes, and I with it.
And then it ends.
Ludwig van Beethoven / Piano Sonata No.14 in C#m, Op.27 No.2 (1st movement, Adagio sostenuto) Vladimir Ashkenazy Decca 1983
While listening to—and reading about—Ludwig van Beethovens Symphonie No 1, I came across the term sforzando.
»Sforzando (or sforzato or forzando or forzato), indicates a forceful accent and is abbreviated as sf, sfz or fz. There is often confusion surrounding these markings and whether or not there is any difference in the degree of accent. However all of these indicate the same expression, depending on the dynamic level, and the extent of the Sforzando is determined purely by the performer.« (Wikipedia)
Claudio Abbado and Beethovens 9th symphony
Claudio Abbado died yesterday.
I have several recordings of my favorite classical piece—Ludwig van Beethovens Symphonie No 9 (D-Moll Op. 125)—but it's Abbado that made the best and finest one. By far.
The LP was conducted/recorded by Claudio Abbado and the Wiener Philharmonics in 1987 (Deutsche Grammophon). It's perfect in tempo, mood and spirit. I almost never listen to any other of my Symphonie No 9 records, that's how superb Abbado and the Wiener Philharmonics version are.
My LP copy of Symphonie No 9.
And the artwork is stunning too—a detail of Gustav Klimts The Beethoven Frieze, a work of art finished for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition, and available for the public in The Secession Building (an artwork in itself) in Vienna.
Rest in peace, Maestro. On Elysian fields.
The Protecting Veil & Wake up…and die.
Composed by John Tavener (1944–2013), finished in 1988. Album released August 11, 1998. Cello by Yo–Yo Ma. Orchestra: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Director: David Zinman.
The last track is the »Wake up…and die« piece, written for solo cello and orchestral cello section.
To my Elysian fields
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»Joy, beautiful spark of the divinity, Daughter from Elysium, We enter your sanctuary, burning with fervour, o heavenly being!«
(From Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony, fourth movement, Schiller's »Ode To Joy«)
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The Elysian Fields were, according to Homer, located on the western edge of the Earth by the stream of Okeanos. In the time of the Greek oral poet Hesiod, Elysium would also be known as the Fortunate Isles or the Isles (or Islands) of the Blessed, located in the western ocean at the end of the earth. The Isles of the Blessed would be reduced to a single island by the Thebean poet Pindar, describing it as having shady parks, with residents indulging their athletic and musical pastimes. (wikipedia)
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