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).

Lang Lang and His Piano Story

As the year is quickly approaching its end, it’s about time to look back at what it brought us and what footprint it will leave for the next years to come. It’s always curious to watch how new talents are born and developed as you realize that that’s one of the magic parts of the humanity – the process art is transferred from one generation to another.

A lot has happened in music this year and there’s no easy way to enumerate all the happenings or to draw a certain conclusion to it. So I gave up this idea and instead decided to focus on some outstanding gifted people who made music and world a better place this year, in a way. Let me finish this year’s blogging with a post about a very talented pianist Lang Lang.

The funny thing is that most of the great-to-be musicians had been  professionally rejected at some point in their careers. And only those who had hope and true devotion to their passion managed to overcome the rejection and become what they wanted to be. Lang Lang admits to have been inspired for playing piano by Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 that he saw in the popular Disney cartoon “Tom & Jerry”. But the aspiring kid was told that he lacked talent and was expelled from a piano studio. Lang Lang didn’t give up though, and continued on his way. By the age of 13, he won a few competitions and could already play most advanced pieces by classical composers. And the adventure began.

His career proceeded in Berlin and Vienna Philarmonic, he was featured in such magazines as The Times, The New Yorker, Gramaphone, Esquire, Vogue, People. By now, Lang Lang has performed at all possible honorable events, including BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, Philadelphia Orchestra 100th Anniversary, The YouTube Symphony, White House State Dinner, numerous dignitaries with world’s leading presidents, Nobel Prize ceremonies, 2008 Summer Olympics, Grammy Awards and many more.

Lang Lang travelled the whole world with his music and is said to have a very powerful charisma. He is one of those who easily promote classical music by just performing it in a very charming manner. This year became a real milestone for the musician – Ban Ki-moon announced him a United Nations Messenger of Peace. This role, according to Lang Lang himself, is way more important and noble than just being a first-class performer.

Danse Macabre

This month will end in a holiday that is full of mystery and darkness. The famous Halloween that came from the United States is now celebrated far beyond the borders of this country. It has already created certain associations for us in terms of dressing, atmosphere and, of course, music.

But some music pieces have earned the title of ‘most Halloween’ ones. Danse Macabre composed by the great French composed Camille Saint-Saens is definitely one of the Halloween’s main themes. What can be more related to this holiday than the “Dance of Death”? The score was created by the great composer in 1874 and was based on the popular French superstition according to which the last walk to other world was a special ceremony equal for everyone, no matter whether you were rich or poor, or what your status had been. The art genre that was born from it typically looked like a long dance to the grave with people from different social layer, popes, emperors, common people – to prove the vain of human glories.

The piece first started as an art song and was later expanded to a tone poem. The motif somewhat reminds of composer’s “The Carnival of Animals” and each instrument has its theater role – xylophone for bones’ rattling, oboes for crows, etc. Though not received well from the very beginning, Danse Macabre soon became pretty popular. Especially its arranged versions like Liszt’s and Horowitz’ piano arrangements, Lemare’s arrangement for pipe organ and others.

12 Cellos in Paris

Paris, the city of people in Love. The city of beautiful romantic stories. The city of creativity, fashion, music and art. I’ve visited it recently for the first time in my life and was so mesmerized that couldn't but dedicate a small post to it :)

Before proceeding to the music of Paris, let me write a couple of facts here that surprised me about this little charming paradise.

1. Paris the name of which derives from an old tribe Parisii is also known as “the city of lights” – but it is not explained by the big amount of lighting in the streets or at the bridges over Seine (90% of them are lit) but rather by the big number of intellectuals that live there.
2. Surprisingly, neither the Eiffel Tower nor the Louvre are the city’s most visited sights. Disneyland Paris is! 13 mln tourists annually (compared to ~5 mln visits for Eiffel or Louvre).
3. French baguette is not just an association with Paris but its symbol that has its very strict measurements: 65 cm in length and 6 cm in width – otherwise, it’s not a French baguette!
4. By the time of the great revolution, only 15% of the citizens spoke French as a native language – 75% didn’t! Maybe that’s why + a massive inflow of immigrants is the reason why you can hear/see such a mixture of various nationalities in the streets of Paris.

Paris would not be the city of art if it wasn’t the home of some of the world’s most outstanding composers. To start the list with the names of Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Faure, Lully, Ravel, Saint-Saens is just a warm-up! Those are the natives, and what if we start remembering how many music pieces have been dedicated to Paris during the lifetime. Here is a lovely tune for 12 cellos that was created in the love for this city as well. The wonderful thing is that you can be just strolling in the center of the city quietly and come across a professional musician just sitting out there at the corner and playing his beloved instrument for you.

Paris, I’m already in love with you and I’m surely coming to see you once again!

Guantanamera Arranged for Guitar

Cuba, ‘the island of liberty’, so original and exotic in its essence, is a highly patriotic country. So would be its music, it seems. But surprisingly, the song that is often perceived as a truly national tune of the country does not have so much of patriotism about it, if you dig deeper. “Guantanamera” (Spanish for ‘girl from Guantanamo’), both Cuban and international hit, is about a province girl and a romantic relationship – that’s how it began.

Cuban Grannies Smoking Cigars

The music of the song is now a decided matter – in 1993 Jose Fernandez officially won the battle being now called both composer and the first promoter of the song (mostly through his radio shows). But in terms of the lyrics, there is still a lot of arguing. Some say that originally it was a story about Fernandez himself and a girl that brought a sandwich to one of his radio shows and who he felt platonic love for. According to other version, Garcia Wilson, who claimed to be the song’s co-composer, also had a romantic story but the girl turned him down.

The original lyrics, however, are not to be heard in the song today. What we enjoy is the adaptation of 4 verses (stanzas) from various poems by Jose Marti, Cuba’s national hero and independence fighter. Maybe at least this sole fact adds up 80% of patriotism to the song and all the original versions stay in the shadow. Guantanamera soon received the unofficial status of the national anthem, the symbol of unity, and was even used as a ‘peace-maker’ during the missile crisis. The most successful recording of the famous song is attributed to The Sandpipers and is based on the song’s adaptation by Pete Seeger.