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What are you listening to? Part III
- Thread starter S.B.G
- Start date
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Yuja Wang is very strong in Russian repertoire (and Ravel); she excels at bringing out contrapuntal voices and interior melodic lines in any of the works she plays. Some of her Beethoven can seem a little perfunctory to me, but not always. She is often mentioned when talk turns to potential successors to Martha Argerich, assuming she doesn't burn out. She's past the usual point where young keyboard artists do sometimes just flame out from overexposure and stress of touring too much too soon while still trying to expand repertoire. Wang's interpretive skills strike me as having been quite as well attended to as her physical command of the piano. I think her time w/ Graffman in Philadelphia has made her Scriabin performances things of wonder.
Wang has a sense of humor too, made a video once where she takes a break from keyboard practice, wanders over to a drum kit and has at it for a few minutes, also sampling some nonstandard percussion instruments and a fiddle... plus treating us to a few bars of piano played while draped over the piano bench on her back with hands stretched over head and turned to strike the keys. Argerich is also known for having quite a sense of humor... but I doubt she has ever let that much of it hang out on video short of a few bits in a docu one of her daughters made.
Then there are Wang's trademark and in some quarters controversially sexy clothes... but that's pretty much a generational thing and some of Wang's contemporaries also seem to wear whatever they like, regardless of pans or praise from critics and audiences. Clothes don't make the pianist and there's no hiding Wang's abilities at the keyboard. She's a lot like Argerich in her performance style: there's just the piano and the music and visual connections to the conductor at key moments of orchestral works. If you're in the audience then good for you but you're not on her mind while she's playing. Argerich has been known to say she feels lonely on stage at least as a soloist, and would rather perform for friends, but I'd say Wang diverges from Argerich on that point, even if she too is playing "for the composer alone" in performance.
And regarding Argerich: Wang's career actually got a huge boost when she stepped in for Martha Argerich in 2007 on short notice for four concerts w/ the Boston Symphony Orchestra, her debut w/ them and performing a substitution of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto for the Beethoven Argerich had been scheduled to play. The conductor was Charles Dutoit, an ex-husband of Martha Argerich and someone with whom Argerich continues to perform and record from time to time. Never been clear to me if Ms. A had a hand in that substitution, although she has nurtured a lot of young musicians via her Lugano festival.
Here is a brief video of the then 20-yo Yuja Wang and Charles Dutoit rehearsing in advance of the 2007 Boston concerts.
Listening to some of blues rock songwriter Dan Auerbach's Keep it Hid album (2009).
Here's the Mean Monsoon track
He did a fun NPR Tiny Desk concert in 2018 with his Easy Eye Sound Revue, closer to bluegrass
Set List
Here's the Mean Monsoon track
He did a fun NPR Tiny Desk concert in 2018 with his Easy Eye Sound Revue, closer to bluegrass
Dan Auerbach, Dante Schwebel, Russ Pahl, Pat McLaughlin
and blues-and-soul singer Robert Finley
Set List
"Waiting On a Song"
"Never In My Wildest Dreams"
"Get It While You Can feat. Robert Finley"
"Shine On Me"
A piece my late father loved, - he had around half a dozen different versions - and I also love.
Listening to lots of stuff, at high volume, in my truck. This was a standout, though.
Doing what I often do on a break, launch some old playlist I'd once spent some time constructing, and then click into the album of one of the tracks and listen to whatever other tracks of it I may have bought. So just now it's been some tracks off Oasis' 2005 album Don't Believe the Truth.
Listening to The Cure. Disintegration is my favorite album of theirs (Bloodflowers, somewhat strangely, a close second), and this is my favorite song off Disintegration so I guess that makes it my favorite The Cure song? Be that as it may, great stuff, and judging by festival performances last summer Robert and the boys are still in excellent shape musically. Hope to see them live again.
I love it - been doing this since SoundJam and Nomad MP3 Players and more religiously after iTunes first came into play, very cool to go back to your earlier thoughts on Music (playlists) and what was cool or a focus at that time in term of playlists 👍
I enjoy going "back in time" to an earlier playlist and exploring (again) music that I thought was relevant at the time 👍
Definitely.. but I'll admit there are a few things I've bumped into that have mostly launched wonderment along lines of "what was I ever thinking?!" Music is like that though: circumstance and mood and the taste of the times can all end up making a band or an album seem compelling and then later... not so much.
Ha Ha - "what was I ever thinking?!" - lol - have that ll the time
That's the very reason to enjoy context / fashion / culture / location from each era - 70's / 80's / 90's etc - for each playlist and timeline
That's the very reason to enjoy context / fashion / culture / location from each era - 70's / 80's / 90's etc - for each playlist and timeline
Absolutely agreed.
Circumstance, and mood, and where you were (physically, mentally, emotionally) when you first heard this piece of music all have an influence on how you respond to (and remember) that particular piece of music.
Ha Ha - "what was I ever thinking?!" - lol - have that ll the time
That's the very reason to enjoy context / fashion / culture / location from each era - 70's / 80's / 90's etc - for each playlist and timeline
And not just context/fashion/culture/location from each era but also specific contexts n both the and place - holidays or travels abroad, for example.
My parents - my mother especially - used to bring tape cassettes of good quality local music back with her from her foreign holidays or trips abroad (something I still do, but with CDs); however, she often found that the music did not translate well to her domestic setting, and that the mood had to be right to appreciate and enjoy this music that was so redolent of a specific time and place (and company).
However, this did enable her to expand her appreciation of music and her knowledge (and my father's knowledge) of music and local cultures, both.
I do recall that when they first visited Greek islands how they were fascinated to learn that serious aficionados of Greek music (modern classical Greek music) rated the music of Hadjidakis (or Xajidakis) to a far greater extent than they did the more popular (at that time) music of Theodorakis.