The King of Instruments and Some Holiday Fun

The organ is a fantastic instrument, nicknamed "the king of instruments." There is a reason Bach preferred this to all others. It was the best and most versatile keyboard instrument available in his time. Some would argue the same is still true today, and moreover, the sheer volume, power, and registration options are now almost endless. Unfortunately, I do not get to play a great organ every week. I wish I did, for I would love to crank up this great beast of a pipe organ for the last verse of the final hymn at a Christmas service.

I have also never had the opportunity to accompany a performance of the Messiah on organ, just excerpts here and there on piano. Below is a clip from a performance of the Hallelujah chorus accompanied by organ. I'm not really sure what prompted the organist to do what he did here. Perhaps it was a power trip on some level, knowing that he could overpower everyone in the church if he wanted to...or maybe he really disliked the choir director...or maybe someone bet him a bunch of money that he wouldn't have the guts to do it. Whatever it was, it makes for a good laugh, especially if you are a musician. As for the performance, it's live (applause after the final chord). And as for what he does, well, just have a listen.


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Beethoven and Shakespeare

These two don't seem a very likely pair. But I was just thinking today about Shakespeare's super famous excerpt from Hamlet..."To be or not to be, that is the question..." and how much of what we know about Beethoven could be tied into those ideas. In Shakespeare's play, I see Hamlet as struggling within himself about whether life is worth living at all. With all the terrible circumstances around him, he is reflecting on human existence and trying to decide whether it is better to "suffer the slings and arrows of misfortune" (I can't remember the exact wording) or end his life. Of course Hamlet knows of the good things in life, but he is wondering "does the good outweigh the bad?" (paraphrased)

This speech reminds me of Beethoven's life and ideals. Beethoven's music is all about struggle, triumph, and the brotherhood of man. It is brutally honest, pure music. You just know that he is telling you exactly how he feels. Only someone that struggled (and even suffered) as much as Beethoven did could have written the utterly tranfigured and exalted music that he was able to compose. At the end of his life, he wrote a set of five string quartets that are some of the most sublime, but cryptic pieces ever composed. The music is many decades ahead of its time, and scholars and performers alike still debate what the music is about, or if it is even possible to explain. The music often does not even sound like Beethoven, and gives the impression that he is operating on some higher plane of existence.

Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament, an extremely personal letter explaining his struggles and artistic goals gives us some insight, and in fact even has some undertones of Hamlet's questions about life's paradoxes. Beethoven wrestled with being misunderstood, and it could be said that this is a condition that we all share on at least some level. (to read the Heiligenstadt Testament click HERE). After his monumental symphonies and large scale works, he retreated into these more intimate last quartets, the canvas for his grand questions and answers.

I view this music as an attempt to sum up everything Beethoven has learned about the human condition, and to show a unity in all art and life. The piece below is the Cavatina from his last string quartet, Op. 130 in B-Flat. Beethoven said that this slow movement was the only piece of his that would bring him to tears. Through the tenderness, you can feel the inner turmoil that has already taken place in his life. Now at the end, he has come to terms with it and is resigned to accept what he cannot ultimately change. However, it is not a surrender. It is a new spiritual understanding that we can all share and make our own. In other words...yes, life can be seemingly unending pain and hardship. But the beauty we can experience makes it worth the struggle.

Happy Listening... The music has been set to pictures of Beethoven. You can't help but feel that this was one of the greatest geniuses and members of humanity to have ever lived..

12/16/08 UPDATE: the original video has been deleted by YouTube, so I have replaced it with another of the same piece. No pictures this time, but the music is there, which is the most important thing...

One Good Thing

Most of you that have stumbled onto this blog are probably aware of my endless gripes about Los Angeles and its culture (or lack thereof). Sure, there is plenty of great stuff around this city to enrich our lives, but finding it is not always easy. Also, I'm mostly speaking on a day to day basis, and how starved I often feel for that East Coast culture.

However, there is one thing that I love about this city, and that is its classical music station. Now the commercial classical station went off the air about a year or so ago, but the public broadcasting station, KUSC (affiliated with the university) is alive and kicking. This classical station is the best I have heard ever, in any city, and I am so thankful it's on the air. It has great radio hosts, NO commercials, and they play works in their entirety, something that is not possible on commercial stations. The musical selections are great too. You can hear plenty of the standard masterpieces, but also many new things to broaden your horizons (pardon the cliche).

My favorite host is Jim Svejda, a guy who speaks with a superiority complex/nasally sounding voice (which I used to find annoying, but now enjoy) and knows more about more topics than you could imagine. And he is not afraid to criticize performances and pieces, which I also find refreshing. They frequently host great interviews with performers (pianist Leon Fleischer) and even current movie composers (Dario Marianelli of Pride and Prejudice)

Tonight I heard on the station a piece written by one of the radio announcers, Alan Chapman. He wrote a piece called Peter and Mr. Wolf, which you might notice, sounds a lot like Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Peter and the Wolf is a cute (but also very well written) children's piece that features a narrator and that uses different instruments of the orchestra to tell a story, each instrument representing a different animal. This piece by Alan Chapman was surprisingly great, taking his cue from the Prokofiev piece but featuring Mr. Wolf as a mean spirited 8th grade science teacher. This is just an example of why we are so fortunate to have a station like KUSC when many cities are losing their classical stations.

If you live in a city which has no classical station, you can go to KUSC's website and listen live to its streaming broadcast. Hurray for technology! Just click on this link HERE and choose your media player. You can also click the programming tab and view complete playlists. Enjoy the music!

No Country for Old Men

I recently watched the film by this name, and was very surprised by it. I hadn't really expected much from it since I'm not really a huge Tommy Lee Jones fan, but while watching, I was really drawn in to what (I think) the writers were getting at. If you're not familiar with it, the film is focused on a serial killer that feels no remorse for his actions. But beyond that, the main point is that Tommy Lee Jones, an old (almost retired) lawman, cannot come to grips with what motivates this kind of behavior. The crimes are not crimes of passion. Instead it seems as though they stem from some inherent evil that is unexplainable.
I found myself identifying with Tommy Lee Jones' character a lot. Back in his younger days, crime seemed pretty straight forward, as did morality and common sense decency. But now, he feels alienated from the situation he finds himself in. I'm not yet 30, but somehow, I have some of the same thoughts. I feel like this old character looking at the new world around him and being past his time. Do times really change this fast? What seemed like common sense only a short time ago, now seems like ignorant closed-mindedness to many. It's as if the world changes before our very eyes.

What I found so poignant in the film, is how Tommy Lee Jones is rendered almost helpless in a way, because he cannot comprehend the killer's motives. He's from another era, a time where life made sense, and was in many ways simpler.

I just recently discovered that the same directors of this film, No Country for Old Men, also did O Brother Where Art Thou, which I also found a little disturbing. I think both the movies have a certain dark humor, but there is in both (especially in No Country...) a focus on the increasing depravity of our society. Let us just hope that with all the advancements of today and new possibilities of doing good, that we don't forget where we came from. People no longer like to talk about it in this age of pluralism, but what I'm referring to are Judeo-Christian values, the underpinning of our society, and the main reason for its success. I don't like religious fanatics, whatever the religion, but I do treasure the foundation our society was built on.

One of my favorite non-classical singers, Alison Krauss, has a song called A Living Prayer. While the words are very meaningful by themselves, some nice person has uploaded the song to youtube and set it to beautiful pictures of the Georgian (the state) countryside. It is very peaceful, and for some reason, makes me think of past days.