Musical Interlude — January 2023
Starting the new year off with some music.
One of my favorite rabbit holes to fall into on the internet is YouTube — taking leaps and bounds to explore as wide a range of music as I can — searching out new sounds that exhilarate and inspire, as well as stumbling upon some older forgotten treasures.
This time around I am sharing a half dozen of the treasures that made their way towards my ears in the past couple weeks.
I hope you have the time to listen and enjoy — and maybe send you down some musical rabbit holes.
Want to be a gypsy for one day? This piece by the band La Caravane Passe, with singer Erika Serre, will start your feet moving in the right direction.
Being one who loves the cello I have enjoyed Zoltán Kodály's Sonata for Solo Cello for decades. This was the first time I saw a perfiormance of it. Here is one brief movement — played with amazing skill and passion.
Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000) is one of my very favorite composers. This was something I had never heard — a Suite for Guitar and saxophone — and was instantly pulled in. Beautiful!
Piano. Percussion. Monk.
I keep coming across Armenian musicians and composers I like.
Alan Hovhaness - see above.
Another is Arthur Meschian — architect, musician, composer, poet, singer and painter.
And most recently Komitas — an Armenian priest, musicologist, composer, arranger, singer, and choirmaster.
Here's one gorgoeus piece he wrote. "Krunk"
Last, not least.
While I had liked certain works by Ludwig von in the past — in 2022 something shifted and I became a Beethoven fanboy — much of my listening time immersed in all his quarters, trios, sonatas, etc.
It is mpossible for me to pick something representative of the amazing range of this man's musical genius. And yeah, he truly deserves that definition.
So . . . here's a fun visual look at the magic of the 1st movement of his Sonata No.21 — "Waldstein".
Special thanks for all those who have enjoyed my words/art throughout 2022.
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