Josh Groban ft Herbie Hancock: Machine

Nothing can compare to a live concert where the music with all its power and meaningfulness covers you all over and lets experience just what is meant to by this or that music piece. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to attend your preferred concert or a band’s gig, which leaves you listening to the music you like in earphones in YouTube or your ready-made playlist.

If no other opportunity is left I still am picky and prefer listening to professional recordings of ‘live’ performances rather than studio recordings. Here’s one lovely performance I came across and I love the energy transmitted through it. I’ve no idea how come I haven’t been listening to Josh Groban before but now I can clearly see that I love his music style. Eclectic things like cross-genre music have always  been attracting me and that’s definitely one of the reasons I like what Joshua is doing. He mostly sings in operatic pop and I love the combination a lot. This particular song – “Machine” – is featuring the legendary Herbie Hancock and was performed live in New York.

Missing Adele: Make You Feel My Love

I miss Adele. I really do. It’s not that you can hear that much of a quality kind of music, powerful, original, heart-stirring. Unlike some musicians that first of all focus on the commercial potential of their music, she has always been so much into what she’s making rather than into what it might bring her. According to Adele herself, she’d rather compose less but it would be something worthy. She does know how to set priorities in life. Thus, as soon as Adele becomes a young mom, she shifts her energy to the little baby, setting aside music work. I do hope that everything is fine in their family and that some time very soon Adele will make her fans happy again with new music inspired by the new herself!

Adele and her baby boy

Meanwhile, we can re-listen what we have and enjoy the never-tiring music hit by this UK star. So the other day I was running through my favorite compositions and this one caused some special warm feelings for me. It’s sort of hard to believe that “Make You Feel My Love” is not an original composition by Adele, it is a bit different story. Originally a single by Bob Dylan, the song has been covered numerous times, including the 1st commercial release by Billy Joel. But look how the song changes when rendered by Adele. It’s no wonder that “Make You Feel My Love” in her interpretation became the most popular version. UK’s number One in the Hall of Fame already says something.

Ludovico Einaudi: I Giorni

I’ve written about this talented Italian composer before and I’ll gladly do it again. This time, a bit his album “I Giorni” and the story behind it.

Yeah, that’s a hippo over there. What would it have to do with Einaudi? Here’s what. Once upon a time Ludovico travelled to Mali, it’s during that trip that he heard a kora player called Toumani Diabaté perform a beautiful traditional folk melody. The song tells a story about a hippo that was cherished a lot by the people and got killed by a hunter. It conveys the deep lament of the whole people for the loss of the animal they loved. On returning from the trip Einaudi got inspired for writing an entire set of 14 pieces that compiled his album “I Giorni” (‘the days’).

The main track of the album “I Giorni” is its most popular piano solo. Like other works by the composer it was featured a few times on TV (BBC programs) and in commercials (India, telecom). The tune is very good indeed, but it’s even better when listening to it you can imagine the origins of its inspirational background.

Lily Allen: Somewhere Only We Know

I love it when ads are not just a screaming commercial attempt to get money out of the customer but when they are turned into little art creations that attract your natural interest instead of pushing and forcing you. That’s a really hard job to combine art and advertising and it makes the experience of watching a good ad very rare and enjoyable.

John Lewis ad specialists seem to know their job. Watching their Christmas advert you are forgetting that it’s actually an ad, not a full animated movie. I like everything about it, the holiday atmosphere, the graphics, the kindness. But most of all – the music. I think one couldn’t choose a more perfect song and singer for it – Lily Allen’s cover of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” suits here in all regards, that’s the song that creates the special ambiance and the magic of the Christmas time. To me, it’s one of those cases when a cover is somewhat more successful and attractive than the original of the song. And despite the loads of criticism addresses to Lily’s music recently, I still consider her a very bright performer and this single is a proof.

Game of Thrones Theme by Ramin Djawadi

We all know that every music genre has a special fan circle, people who stick to what they like and follow the recent music novelties and offers. Even though you may like a couple of genres it’s not that you would often get attracted by very contrasting genres. And of course, it’s quite rare that a music piece would leave the borders of its genre and travel throughout others.

I’ll explain better what I mean on the example of music from the popular HBO channel TV series “Game of Thrones”. Its theme was composed by Grammy-nominated Mr. Djawadi who’s also a protégé of the no less known Hans Zimmer. Ramin Djawadi wrote music to the entire series and it’s not at all his first tangibly significant music work (Djawadi wrote music for Prison Break, Batman, Pirates of the Caribbean, and others).

The theme keeps you in a certain kind of tension, just like the unpredictable and intriguing series’ plot. The work got so popular that at some point it became a cross-genre kind of thing. The consequence – numerous covers from various genres artists ( Lindsey Stirling , Roger Lima, Jason Yang, and so on and so forth). I like Game of Thrones though I’m not its ardent fan. What I like even more is the extensive quality music work behind this TV production.

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

I’ve always loved Disney’s works and I don’t think there has been at least one film that didn’t break my heart open. I’m no longer a 10-year-old kid but these animated movies are something I can always watch like a bewildered child.

Anna

If earlier in childhood I loved them mostly for the magic that Disney manages to create in every film work, now that I grew up to focus on things beyond that, I started making other points for being in love with Disney. And the greatest compliment a musician could make is adoring the music behind the films and longing to perform it yourself. Disney does know how to make good music.

One of the recent animated films by Disney is the popular “Frozen” that has already drawn a lot of attention due to the awesome animation, the great music and the star voicing staff. Some works have become very popular out of the cartoon’s context and I’m not surprised about that. Thus, one of my favorite pieces is the “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” song performed by Anna in the film. The drawn kid is adorable but the live image of Anna depicted by Kristen Bell is even more adorable. The talented actress managed to act as and sing for all the three Annas at different stages of her life (3, 9 and 15). Beautiful melody, lovely acting and flexible voice of Kristen, enjoy:

10 Favourite Opera Arias

Sometimes you don’t feel like listening to the entire opera but you want to “taste” it first, in case you haven’t heard it yet. Or, if you have, you may just need to refresh your memories and remember the brightest part of the opera. The best way to do it is to listen to one of the most spectacular arias of the opera and you will re-/live the whole music experience.

Aria, from Italian ‘air’, is actually an independent music work for solo voice with or without orchestral accompaniment. It can be a part of opera, cantata or oratorio but at the same time it’s a very self-contained music work and you can enjoy it even out of the music context.

I compiled a short ‘play-list’ of my favourite arias. It’s not about selecting the most famous of them but just about my own music preferences in there. Enjoy, if you like them, or add some to the list of your music likes, or grab the score and play along! Let’s go:

1 The aria of Dalila "Mon Coeur" (Fr. ‘My Heart’) from opera “Samson and Dalila” (composer Camille Saint-Saëns)
Love this performance of Elīna Garanča in Vienna Opera Ball:

2 Aria “Che gelida manina”(from Italian ‘What a cold little hand’) from the opera by Giacomo Puccini “La Bohème”
Pavaroti’s version is of course beyond competition but I like Jonas Kaufmann’s performance too:

3 Aria “Au fond du temple saint” (French ‘In the depths of the temple’) from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers”
Duet of Andrea Bocelli & Bryn Terfel in Ney York Philarmonic:

4 “Vesti la Giubba” (It. ‘Put on the costume’) from “Pagliacci” by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Performance of Luciano Pavarotti:

5 "Vilja Lied" from “The Merry Widow” (Franz Lehár)
Renée Fleming’s performance:

6 "Seguidille" aria from “Carmen” (G. Bizet)
Again the charming Elīna Garanča (Baden-Baden, Germany):

7 “Una furtiva lacrima” (‘A furtive tear’) from “The Elixir of Love” by Gaetano Donizetti
Rolando Villazon performing the aria in Vienna:

8 "Ach so fromm" from Friedrich von Flotow’s opera “Martha”
An old recording of Nicolai Gedda’s performance (1953):

9 "Vissi d'arte" (‘I lived for art’) from “Tosca” by Puccini
The gorgeous Angela Gheorghiu:

10 "Una voce poco fa" from “The Barber of Seville” by Rossini
Performed by Joyce DiDonato:

Hope you liked my short playlist and would enrich yours!

Latin Jazz from Fabio Gianni

Jazz and Latin music – both passionate and rhythmic but in a slightly different way. I believe that this simultaneous similarity-and-different makes them so good in a combination. I personally love mixed forms of art, especially when it comes to music. And that’s why coming across some new artists who can do it skillfully is every time a little treasure to me. My latest finding is of Italian origin – pianist, composer and arranger Fabio Gianni. It’s one of those cases when you are not too likely to meet the musician’s work at every corner of the Internet, because Fabio doesn’t seem to be too crazy about online promotion preferring real-life word-spread to it (at least I got such an impression trying to find some more info about him in the world network – too scarce).

Fabio began to play salsa music about 15 years ago and apparently loved it so much that decided to make it his passion. That’s how the idea of the “Latin Sound Machine” project was born, where the Latin was mixed up with some pop, jazz, soul and a bit of rock. The Italian pianist stuck to that direction and was composer for different bands playing Latin music, like “IGUAZU” trio. He also made salsa-jazzy duets with popular musicians like Cano Estremera, Tony Vega, Maelo Ruiz, Paquito Guzman and others, as well as creating a long list of own solo works for piano.

The first composition I heard was “Tell You How I'm Feeling” and I recommend it for your first listen too. Just lovely. And there’s the music score to it, for piano, if you wanna play it yourself. Oh, and sheet music to some other works by Gianni - here. If you like salsa as much as I do – enjoy!

If Claude Debussy painted on canvas

He would of course be an impressionist. However, Debussy himself strongly disliked being called an impressionist composer. Despite that, impressionism is the first thing that may come to mind when you are listening to, say, “Reverie”. No need to say that Claude Debussy is the prominent master of creating dreamy music for piano, taking inspiration from then-popular movement symbolism.

Madame Monet and Child,  Claude Monet

Indeed, when the piece is playing, you are gradually descending into the calm world of daydreaming, and the repetitive sounds in the first part make you delve into it even deeper. “Reverie” is one of the earliest works by Debussy – composed in 1890 – that’s the time when he was still trying to decide which way to take as far as composing style. No recognizable tricks like explosions in style and texture yet, just lovely meditation music. As it turned out later, Reverie is also among the first works that had a tangible impact on the musicians’ world and earned its author a sign of impressive potential.

Here’s an ‘impressionist video’of Reverie and the score of arrangement for string quintet. Enjoy!

Disney Sings!

The other day I ran across this absolutely amazing cover of the famous single from the Disney movie “Frozen” – “Let It Go”:

No matter how old we are I believe there is always a child hidden deep in there in our hearts and this child is revealed whenever we encounter something like this video. I am personally a big fan of Disney music and I think there is hardly anyone who doesn’t like the world of magic recreated within Walt Disney and Pixar Studio works.

“Let It Go” was composed specially for “Frozen” and was chosen to be released as performed by Demi Lovato. Like with many popular songs, “Let It Go” immediately was chosen as one of the favorites for making covers. But Brian Hull made something very special of his cover version. He mixed the most popular Disney/Pixar characters’ voices and made them sing the song one by one. Even closing your eyes you can recognize your favorite heroes: Captain Jack Sparrow, Winnie The Pooh, Scar, Mickie Mouse and others. A very lovely mashup that brings back a bit of magic (at least it did for me:) ).

Devil Woman

Ambrose Bierce wrote in his "Epigrams of a Cynic": When God makes a beautiful woman, the devil opens a new register. I do think that there is something devil-ish in every woman but that, so to say, could be taken in the most positive sense possible. If well-measured, that makes a very good part of the feminine attractiveness and has always been luring for men.

photo by Michael Phillips

However, if there is too much of a devil about a woman it may become dangerous.) Just as happened in the song of Marty Robbins “Devil Woman”. It’s curious that this 1962 single obtains a slightly different meaning when performed in other languages. Thus, the Spanish version by Chucho Avellanet is called “Magia blanca” (sp. ‘white magic’) and the Serbian interpretation goes as “Čudna devojka” (ser. ‘strange girl’). Strange, devilish or magic – the women are nevertheless amazing in all their aspects.

Today on the International Women’s Day I would like to wish all ladies of the planet to stay so charming. Please keep making men happy and do not lose the little devil in you. Merry Holiday!

O woman, perfect woman! what distraction
Was meant to mankind when thou wast made a devil!

JOHN FLETCHER, Monsieur Thomas

Johann Sebastian Bach. St Matthew Passion. 'Erbarme Dich, mein Gott'

It is believed that Bach composed either four or five passions. However, only two of those survived till nowadays – St. John and St. Matthew. Both of these music works set on the sacred Bible texts tell the story of Crucifixion of Jesus Christ and are performed on "Good Friday".

Despite that, they quite differ in style and character. Unlike St. John, St. Matthew Passion is rather a ‘religious opera’, it’s much longer (twice as many verses), more dramatic and action-oriented. It also has more music grandeur – with its 2-part choirs (each showing different crowds during the crucifixion) and a large orchestra that perfectly produces the dramatic effects (halo though strings ensemble, Christ’s weariness at Calvary though deep pedaling). The Passion was first heard on Good Friday of 1727 in Leipzig but was revised a couple of times after that.
Regardless of the work’s length it is worth listening to it from beginning to end – that’s the best way it’s perceived to the fullest. However, there a number of arias that are often taken as excerpts and make good separate music works. One of them definitely is the "Erbarme dich, mein Gott'" alto aria that, along with others, is based on Christian Picander’s texts. It describes Peter’s lament for having ‘betrayed’ Jesus three times before dawn and is extremely emotional. There also exists an interesting version as far as this aria is concerned. They say that Bach was inspired by love for his wife Anna Magdalena for composing this particular part of St. Matthew’s Passion and kinda ‘dedicated’ it to her. Well, who knows.
Meanwhile, have a listen to the aria itself and the bright counter tenor Peter Kenny singing it at the dramatization by Jonathon Miller:

Let Her Go (Passenger)

You know there are songs that can be put on your media player track list just on their own – when you click the  ‘repeat’ button and can spend quite a while with that music playing there in your ears for many times on end. Normally it’s not the classics (oh, forgive me, my favourite genre!), as classical music requires your full concentration if you want to perceive it to the maximum (imho). Most often those are rather pop or light rock kind of songs, neither too intrusive not too frivolous.

photo by Murad Osmann

So today is one of those days when I’m good with one of those ‘endless’ songs on my playlist. And today it’s “Let Her Go” by Passenger, a folk-rock-indie-pop piece. I chose the acoustic version and it goes in perfectly. I did like Michael Rosenberg’s (Passenger) work for both its melodic line and ‘non-empty’ lyrics. So besides enjoying the soft flowing guitar music I love to think about the depth of the things he’s touching in the song itself. So often do we have to lose something/someone, which is very much regretted later but is never to be returned. From such simple examples as missing sun in winter or missing home when on the road, Michael goes to the main point: we learn to appreciate and know Love when we let her go.

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low

Only hate the road when you're missin' home

Only know you love her when you let her go

Good lyrics, amazing music, pleasant work. No wonder “Let Her Go” topped the charts of many countries in 2013 and was nominated for Brit Awards 2014 as British Single of the Year. Enjoy the song and take care of your loved ones!

The Portrait of Love in Classical Music

It has already entered into tradition to dedicate an annual post to the day of celebration of Love – St. Valentine’s. This time is no exception – Happy St. Valentine’s, guys, all those who are lucky to celebrate it truly! Have a very special cosy day with your Valentine.

And to help make it more special there are always some great tracks to shape the right atmosphere. Pop music bulks in love songs today and it wouldn't be hard to pick some. If you want some deeper lyrics with you’d rather opt for some rock ballads. Or, if you just need a nice background, light jazz or chill-out would be the best alternative. But what about classical music? Which repertoire is better to convey the ‘love’ message?

Definitely, some of the classical masterpieces like Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Carmen are obviously filled with love making it the central object. But there are many more classical music works that make this subject not so evident but still convey it perfectly. Let’s name some of them.

Bach. St Matthew Passion. Erbarme Dich, mein Gott. Despite being a sacred work, this is a very emotional and powerful expression of composer’s love for his wife Anna Magdalena.

Berlioz. Symphonie Fantastique. Composer’s love for an Irish actress Harriet Smithson acted as a driving force for writing this symphony. He met her at the Shakespeare’s Hamlet performance in Paris (Harriet played Ophelia) and fell in love. The symphony was dedicated and sent to her but Harriet listened to it only in 5 years. Well, the good thing is that they did get married in the end.

Mahler. 5th Symphony. Adagietto. Expression of love for Mahler’s wife Alma Schindler. This part was actually written before the symphony itself and served as a love-song based on a small poem Mahler dedicated to his wife.

Brahms. Rhapsody for Alto. To-be-kept-in-secret composer’s love for Schumman’s daughter who was to marry another man. That’s a very personal work, intense and powerful. No wonder that at first composer didn’t want it to be published anywhere.

Janáček. String Quartets 1 and 2. Very illicit expression of passion in both quartets. No.1 was inspired by Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata (theme of jealousy) and No.2 inspired by author’s attraction to and correspondence with a very young woman.

There is another interesting observation that I stumbled upon. It is believed that the thematic tilt is somehow predefined by the music key of the piece. Thus, the B minor is said to be the best one to express romantic or sad or melancholic or even grieving feelings. It was usually a certain means of tender complaint but at the same time a sign of accepting the destiny. These were the conclusions made by the theorist Christian Schubart. Just some food for thought.

Classical Winter Music Pieces

It’s freezing. Oh yea it is, like all over, all the way down through to your bones. But I’m still trying to find the charm about the lady in white, lady Winter. Everyone’s got their own ways of keeping warm in winter, warm clothes, hugs, hot tea, and so on. I have my ways too, and in addition to the above mentioned I love to just get wrapped in granny’s woolen hand-made cover with a huge mug of lemon tea and turn on my collection of “winter pieces”. I’d like to share some with you if one day you may find yourself willing to use the same method.

I’ll start with probably one of my favourites – Tchaikovsky’s “Winter Daydreams” (Symphony No.1). The symphony that almost drove the famous composer out of his mind (literally!) – so much effort he put in its composing. Doctors were insisting he have a rest and some sleep. But the obsession seemed to take over him. Despite that much labor contributed, the work wasn’t met with much of a welcome by either music critics or composer’s teachers and friends (Rubinstein, Zaremba). Edited, partially recomposed and renewed, with time the symphony gained its acknowledgement and was named the first of composer’s early notable music works. For a person not digging too deep in history to learn about the author’s sufferings over this work, “Winter Dreams” is a wonderful vigorous piece with a folk motive of the amazing Russian winter scenery.

The most ‘winter’ winter would go to Vivaldi’s “Winter” from “Four Seasons”. So recognizable and memorable this violin concerto has already become. Like the previous concertos (presumably), the 4th one is based on a sonnet (again presumably) written by Vivaldi himself. The good thing about program music like that is that it is meant to evoke the extra-musical in our perception – close your eyes, take a listen and you will hear the beautiful snowblasts howling out there.

Next comes Chopin’s “Winter Wind” (Etude No.11). That is actually not an entertaining piece but a music study for solo piano. It is aimed at training a musician’s left hand flexibility and right hand dexterity, to make brain hemispheres work neatly together. But to a common listener it’s a very easy-listening  soft music piece. A bit gloomy but mesmerizing.

I was also planning to talk a bit about Schubert’s “Winterreise” (ger. ‘winter journey’), a song cycle on the basis of Muller’s poems, but decided to skip it and rather focus on a contemporary music work that is on my list of winter music. I’m referring to the “Winter Etude” for classical guitar by a Russian composer Kirill Voljanin. I ran across his video on YouTube where the author is performing the piece himself:

Maybe that’s because of the successful combination of the soothing ‘warm’ melody and the beautiful visuals (I love sand art!) that made me stick to the screen for a few minutes and grab my mug firmer.

Stay warm!

We Three Kings Carol

Back, inspired and renewed – a happy Hi and the first opening post of 2014! What I love this winter time for is the great amount of holidays it’s filled with – so many festivities during the winter period – Christmas, New Year’s, St. Valentine’s, and so on and so forth – and all within only two months – you can hardly close one holiday when the next one is already at the door – the lovely winter!

Comparing the fun secular holidays with religious ones, I’ve always found the latter more mysterious. Probably because they have a longer, memory-embedded tradition behind and are always charming to re-discover every year. Right now we are at the threshold of one of such holidays that is called Epiphany and falls for Jan 6 this year. If Epiphany doesn’t sound too familiar to someone, the other popular name for it is Three Kings.

Three Kings

The Bible puts it that after the birth of Jesus three mighty kings – Casper, Melchior, and Balthazar – saw the Star of Bethlehem and came to visit the great king bringing him presents of myrrh, frankincense and gold.

The most successful carol featuring this story was written in 1857 by John Henry Hopkins Jr and is called “We Three Kings” (“Three Kings of Orient” originally). Hopkins used to work as a journalist, lawyer, rector at church and a music teacher. Back at his time it was quite uncommon for a composer to write both music and lyrics for a carol, but Hopkins did both. He actually composed this song only for himself and his family and friends to enjoy. But everyone liked it so much that they ‘forced’ him to publish the work and it soon reached people far out of the Unites States (first of all to the UK) and became one the most popular Christmas Carols.  

The original carol’s melody takes you back to the Middle Ages, sounding sad and wistful. But as it often happens with songs as popular as that, it brought about lots of curious arrangements, sometime quite unexpected instrument- and genre-wise. You may even hear music arrangements in the style of hip-hop (which, I must admit, sound unexpectedly good).