(A bit of interesting stuff going on there, but it’s still fun!)
I’m wild about technology and multimedia. I’d like to record direct to the web so that everyone has free access.
Thomas Hampson
I did, in fact, download a completely free recording of “Song of America” … and you can too, if the offer is still on. Go here. The download code is THSOA2009.
Now if only I could convince the powerful people that it would be beneficial for the groups I’m in to allow some free downloads along with YouTube videos. I see no harm. I guess they do.
Here’s a bit ‘o Mr. Hampson for you:
I wish I still had an oboe, because then I could practice it too. I’m really happy after 4 hours of practicing piano, vocal, & volin music
I mentioned that you’d be hearing more from this group of musicians. So here you go:
Movement 1:
Movement 2:
Movement 3:
I realize many now say the work should be for flute, oboe, horn and bassoon but I much prefer this version.
Someday
I’ve finished the living room painting, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that I’m done. Or maybe I can … :-)
If you click on the picture I think you are taken to my flickr account and you can see the rest of the photos. (Igore anything else there … some are things I need to remove now!)
I do think the room would look even better with the wallpaper removed, but I couldn’t handle doing that right now, and I knew that I had to get this painting done this weekend so I can focus on oboe and reeds and Cosi fan tutte! (Main focus should be reeds. Note that I wrote should.)
Arvo Pärt: De Profundis
… are made of arundo donax. And the video below is talking about reeds … but it’s in Italian, so oh well. But it’s fun to see the video, and you do get to hear a bit of playing as well. I want to get a copy of that Queen of the Night aria arrangement! :-)
Here’s the entire Queen of the Night work:
Stay tuned for more from these guys!
I have an image in my head of a goose playing an oboe…
I just read “Musician has world’s fastest fingers” and I wonder what it really means.
I could play really fast on oboe and still be rotten on the thing. It’s not all about speed. But he’ll be in the Guinness Book of World Records. Still, as I tell my students, oboe and French horn were in the Guinness Book I read once, saying we were the most difficult instruments, so there.
The violinist, David Garrett, is one of those who I guess is supposed to appeal to everyone; he plays classical, he plays metal, he plays … well, I guess he plays everything. Except not oboe.
CNN: If you could choose one word to describe yourself, what would it be?
Garrett: Diplomatic. Because I’m always try to get people together. You always have to be diplomatic with music, with classical, with whatever you do.
So he doesn’t use the word “fastest” to describe himself. Whew!
Here are a few videos of him playing. I’ll let you decide what you think after you watch and listen:
Go in to about 5:40 and you can hear him break the speed record:
Bach:
& finally, I expect this is more of what he is about (?), from his PBS special:
And of course I’ll bet he can’t make an oboe reed. So there. Again.
Lugging my sax around london. Used to hide my oboe case in a Benetton bag at school coz it was so not cool. But now it’s a pulling point.
Cello Madness Congress: Alternative Punk Classical Music @ Make Out Room (Mission Dist.)
cellists from around the bay will converge to play improvised music as well as tunes arranged for cello. come listen to the most amazing versatile classical instrument most like the human voice played all funky. Monday July 20th at 8pm. Free
… and it’s so near our son Brandon’s house we could go together.
Hmm. Going to the “Make Out Room” with one’s son just doesn’t work for me. Never mind.
Sad but true, I can’t remember what show this is for … or is it a movie? Seems like it’s a TV western theme song. Who’s gonna help me out here?
Update ‐ even before I’m posting this blog entry! ‐ Jameson said strongly, “The Magnificent Seven”. This explains why I didn’t find it when I checked out “Western TV themes” on YouTube. Whew!
Still, was Central Park last night any place for a guy who was executive editor at the legendary Crawdaddy from 1971 to 1979, when my generation’s main exposure to Ludvig Van was via Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange?
As it happens, I have become obsessed with Beethoven in the past two years. Yes, there is a bit of the political to it — this is the man who always took the part of average folk and famously promoted the view (in his Ninth Symphony) that “all men are brothers.” His “Ode to Joy” accompanied the tearing down of the Berlin Wall — and was played when Kosovo declared its independence. But it is much more than that. Earlier this year, I was in London for my daughter’s wedding and “somehow” found a way to catch three Beethoven concerts within five days. Oh, I made it to the wedding, too.
In fact, if you had told me two years ago that I would spend the morning of my 60th birthday — and the evening of my 25th wedding anniversary — with Ludwig van Beethoven, I would have laughed, or perhaps played a chord of “Wild Thing” on my guitar. After all, until that time, I did not know the difference between a cadenza and a concerto, an oboe and a bassoon. So how did this former rock ‘n roll writer/editor become obsessed with Beethoven?
I don’t need another set of the Beethoven Symphonies, but if I did, I’d quickly hop over to iTunes and buy Nikolaus Harnoncourt/Chamber Orchestra Of Europe set of all nine symphonies for only $14.99. You can’t beat the price, to be sure. I don’t see any live performance YouTube videos of Harnoncourt conducting a Beethoven symphony, so an overture will have to suffice:
… but if you want to hear the conductor and the chamber orchestra playing a bit of Beethoven’s fifth, there’s this recording (this is not from the set on iTunes:
