tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post7954585136344008881..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: Friday MiscellaneaBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-9629489664016293032015-03-20T13:32:34.123-05:002015-03-20T13:32:34.123-05:00There is always a context to keep in mind. Bach is...There is always a context to keep in mind. Bach is the kind of composer that you can spend your life playing. Many other composers can be absorbed rather more quickly. In my case, I had already memorized almost all of Villa-Lobos' music for solo guitar, so the guitar part to the concerto was a very familiar language. Plus, Villa-Lobos is easy to memorize. And Arthur Rubinstein was one of the great talents of his time, from a young age.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-38344893118739968122015-03-20T13:27:50.759-05:002015-03-20T13:27:50.759-05:00Such pleasant anecdotes! Ah, eight hours, three da...Such pleasant anecdotes! Ah, eight hours, three days... to a non-performer, a not particularly well educated in music amateur, that seems just superhuman, although that's not a felicitous term perhaps. There is 'preternatural' so maybe there should be 'preterhuman', cultor Aoedes praeterhumanus-- that's just as bad as 'superhuman' maybe although quite differently bad.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-34465525980636585892015-03-20T11:30:26.146-05:002015-03-20T11:30:26.146-05:00In answer to your question "how long does it ...In answer to your question "how long does it take a Martha Argerich or Ivo Pogorelić to learn such a piece?" As the Ravel? I have two possibly misleading anecdotes as answer. I had been working on my own transcription of the Bach First Cello Suite on guitar for a year or so and was complaining to a cellist that I always seemed to have a memory lapse in the Allemande. He just laughed and said that he had played that cello suite for ten years before it sounded good! On the other hand, Arthur Rubinstein relates in his autobiography that he learned the Grieg piano concerto, from memory, in eight hours. I memorized the first movement of the Villa-Lobos Guitar Concerto in three days. But it took three months to really get control of it.<br /><br />I am very sorry to say that I do not know a lot of Sviatoslav Richter's recordings apart from his live performance of the Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, which was very fine.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-77700446635422338852015-03-20T10:30:13.083-05:002015-03-20T10:30:13.083-05:00I second the Happy 100th of Richter. Third album I...I second the Happy 100th of Richter. Third album I ever owned was (1970) Richter, Debussy Preludes, bk. 2 (live). (Second was Beethoven's 5th, Bruno Walter, first was Abbey Road).Ken Fasanonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-18268884134140890402015-03-20T10:12:03.327-05:002015-03-20T10:12:03.327-05:00"The effect was only detectable in musically ...<i>"The effect was only detectable in musically experienced participants, suggesting the importance of familiarity and experience in mediating music-induced effects", researchers remark.</i> Wonderful, although I no longer forget that <i>scientific studies</i> are only as useful as the premises are sound and the method's rigorous. Surely I remember a wave of sentiment based in who knows what science that infants ought to be immersed in Mozart, from a decade or more ago? <br /><br />So far as I know, I'd never listened to <i>Gaspard</i>-- how long does it take a Martha Argerich or Ivo Pogorelić to learn such a piece? I imagine that <i>intelligent practicing</i> for some people is already university recital hall worthy performance for others. <br /><br />I listened to a recording of Grigory Sokolov at the Salzburg Festival in 2008-- had been unfamiliar even with his name, tsk.<br /><br />Ahem. Listened also, yesterday, to a hip-hop song-- had been looking in the Eugene Weekly to see what I might be able to go out to hear this week and noticed a feature about a hip-hop singer called Futuristic who had been here, so searched and the first song that came up is called <i>I guess I'll smoke</i>. Which activity is evidently appropriate at almost any time of day and in almost every circumstance and certainly before, during and after a casual sexual event. I had to laugh because it so exactly mirrored what is my prejudicial expectation of the musical genre, ha. But there wasn't any gunfire or violence. Futuristic seems to have a decent voice and is doubtless a perfectly pleasant acquaintance but... perhaps the whole three minutes is a perfect jest, ironically mocking my old white folks' ways. :-) <br /><br />Today is the 100th anniversary of Sviatoslav Richter's birth. Another great pianist, they say.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.com