the year of a minor
looking briefly over my playlist hobbled together over the past academic year, 2006-2007, i have noticed the abundance of pieces we have done in a minor, in uso. sibelius 4 (in a minor), mahler 6 (in a minor), and shostakovich violin concerto (in a minor). if different keys mean something in the language of western music (e flat being the key of the hero, etc.), then maybe a minor is the key of despair. maybe something to do with the tuning note of the orchestra being 'a' and then the promise of a major replaced with something darker. maybe the root of hopelessness.
today's performance of the shostakovich went really well. good attendance, and the orchestra played very well, i thought. it's funny, when i first heard it on a recording, i didn't take the time out to listen, to actually listen, to each musical idea. it was only through rehearsing it that i actually learned it, and grew to love and understand each phrase. the first movement, the nocturne, is utterly heartbreaking, nothing but bleak gray skies and a lone bird, save the ray of hope offered in that d major chord right before the end, before endless night. the third movement, the passacaglia, pulls at the soul, towards divinity. it is as though shostakovich is summoning all the ghosts of european music (esp. the extended english horn solo recalling tristan act 3, the antiquated form of the passacalgia as his frame, and the cadenza's "review" of the previous movements before moving onto the fourth movement, a la beethoven 9) to eulogize and remember all of what is lost to the one-way arrow of time. the second and fourth movements all frenetic insanity, the quick flashing nightmare images, the shock and awe. i find it amazing that shostakovich is so masterful as to clothe his ideas such that at the end, the audience will do nothing but jump up and applaud. i can't help but think it a joke, after all of the doom and gloom he has spoken to us, that he should want us all to clap our hands. what a sense of humor, that guy.
i learned today that a dear violin teacher, a woman formative to me as a musician, passed on yesterday. it is to her credit that i learned to play with full rich tone, and learned to look for that quality in others. today's performance would have meant a lot to her, and i think she would have appreciated the full rich tone from the cadenza this afternoon.
today's performance of the shostakovich went really well. good attendance, and the orchestra played very well, i thought. it's funny, when i first heard it on a recording, i didn't take the time out to listen, to actually listen, to each musical idea. it was only through rehearsing it that i actually learned it, and grew to love and understand each phrase. the first movement, the nocturne, is utterly heartbreaking, nothing but bleak gray skies and a lone bird, save the ray of hope offered in that d major chord right before the end, before endless night. the third movement, the passacaglia, pulls at the soul, towards divinity. it is as though shostakovich is summoning all the ghosts of european music (esp. the extended english horn solo recalling tristan act 3, the antiquated form of the passacalgia as his frame, and the cadenza's "review" of the previous movements before moving onto the fourth movement, a la beethoven 9) to eulogize and remember all of what is lost to the one-way arrow of time. the second and fourth movements all frenetic insanity, the quick flashing nightmare images, the shock and awe. i find it amazing that shostakovich is so masterful as to clothe his ideas such that at the end, the audience will do nothing but jump up and applaud. i can't help but think it a joke, after all of the doom and gloom he has spoken to us, that he should want us all to clap our hands. what a sense of humor, that guy.
i learned today that a dear violin teacher, a woman formative to me as a musician, passed on yesterday. it is to her credit that i learned to play with full rich tone, and learned to look for that quality in others. today's performance would have meant a lot to her, and i think she would have appreciated the full rich tone from the cadenza this afternoon.