Because of a wonderful chamber music concert that I saw last night during the second half of the opening concert for our IVAI program here in Blacksburg, VA, I have been inspired to re-evaluate my musical knowledge and make a few resolutions to better my overall musical palette, and musicianship in a broader sense.
To give a bit of background as to what spurred this train of thought in the first place, I must begin with the specific repertoire which was performed in last night's concert. The concert featured the music of Schumann, whom although he's in the typical Western Classical music canon, is not a composer with whom his less popular works are well known to me, as well as the music of a very little-known composer named Ernő Dohnányi (pronounced [doch-na-nee]) whose compositional style resembles that of Brahms, and was a Hungarian contemporary of Bartok and Kodaly. Interestingly enough, Sir George Solti was even a pupil of his.
At any rate, after listening to Dohnanyi's Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, played by a superb group of chamber musicians here at the IVAI program (the specific instrumentation was that of a typical Piano Quintet--a pianist, a cellist, a violist, and a first and second violinist), I realized that I am not familiar with enough of the wonderful music that is out there, which, like this Dohnanyi, might not be played that often, but is nonetheless absolutely wonderful and deserves to be known and performed. It was out of this realization that my resolution to listen to an unfamiliar piece of classical, jazz and pop music each day sprung to life.
So, in order to do this, on top of all the other things which need to be completed each day, I have resolved to make a note of it on my blog each evening before I go to bed, so that you, the readers of my blog, can hold me accountable in a silent way, and give me a bit of pressure to keep my resolution going strong. That way, not only can I learn of new music and broaden my own experience by introducing it to my knowledge base, but you can also come along on this trip with me, so that perhaps you will find something new which you enjoy as well.
In other words, every night at 10pm, I will listen to my three songs, post the artists' or composer's names, and the titles of the pieces (and if possible a youtube link to the pieces themselves), and a few sentences of what that piece made me feel, or reminisce about, etc...
I hope you all will enjoy my musical voraciousness as much as I intend to do, and I am excited to have you all along on this auditory exploration with me! Thanks for signing up! :)
Oh, and, regarding today's adventures at IVAI: I've thus far slept in, done yoga, read a bit of my German novel that I'm working through (Goettertrank by Andrea Schacht--a historical fiction about the history of hot chocolate in Europe and South America), gone to Panera with some colleagues for brunch, written this blog post, mailed some postcards, and I'm now on my way to the practice room to spend a little more time with learning the role of 'Rosina' and my Der Barbier von Sevilla score for August's performances in Bad Orb. So, toodleloo until tonight's first musical entry at 10pm!
To give a bit of background as to what spurred this train of thought in the first place, I must begin with the specific repertoire which was performed in last night's concert. The concert featured the music of Schumann, whom although he's in the typical Western Classical music canon, is not a composer with whom his less popular works are well known to me, as well as the music of a very little-known composer named Ernő Dohnányi (pronounced [doch-na-nee]) whose compositional style resembles that of Brahms, and was a Hungarian contemporary of Bartok and Kodaly. Interestingly enough, Sir George Solti was even a pupil of his.
At any rate, after listening to Dohnanyi's Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, played by a superb group of chamber musicians here at the IVAI program (the specific instrumentation was that of a typical Piano Quintet--a pianist, a cellist, a violist, and a first and second violinist), I realized that I am not familiar with enough of the wonderful music that is out there, which, like this Dohnanyi, might not be played that often, but is nonetheless absolutely wonderful and deserves to be known and performed. It was out of this realization that my resolution to listen to an unfamiliar piece of classical, jazz and pop music each day sprung to life.
So, in order to do this, on top of all the other things which need to be completed each day, I have resolved to make a note of it on my blog each evening before I go to bed, so that you, the readers of my blog, can hold me accountable in a silent way, and give me a bit of pressure to keep my resolution going strong. That way, not only can I learn of new music and broaden my own experience by introducing it to my knowledge base, but you can also come along on this trip with me, so that perhaps you will find something new which you enjoy as well.
In other words, every night at 10pm, I will listen to my three songs, post the artists' or composer's names, and the titles of the pieces (and if possible a youtube link to the pieces themselves), and a few sentences of what that piece made me feel, or reminisce about, etc...
I hope you all will enjoy my musical voraciousness as much as I intend to do, and I am excited to have you all along on this auditory exploration with me! Thanks for signing up! :)
Oh, and, regarding today's adventures at IVAI: I've thus far slept in, done yoga, read a bit of my German novel that I'm working through (Goettertrank by Andrea Schacht--a historical fiction about the history of hot chocolate in Europe and South America), gone to Panera with some colleagues for brunch, written this blog post, mailed some postcards, and I'm now on my way to the practice room to spend a little more time with learning the role of 'Rosina' and my Der Barbier von Sevilla score for August's performances in Bad Orb. So, toodleloo until tonight's first musical entry at 10pm!
So, what happened to the first entry?? ;)
ReplyDelete