This really does make me think of little people dancing.

NOW it’s officially the start of the holiday season.

I mean, it’s not Christmas till the Norwegians start building their train display in Union Station. That’s just facts.

Incidentally! In the Norway pavilion at Epcot, there’s a ride called the “Maelstrom.” It’s a flume boat ride with a couple small drops, and just as you’re being turned around by the evil troll to go over the second hill (of course there are evil trolls; don’t you know anything?) you can hear the first movement of Grieg’s Peer Gynt. You know, the really serene opening bit. Ironically enough. Nobody does details like Disney!

The Piano Concerto in A minor is perhaps the best-known work by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843–1907).  Composed in 1868, the concerto’s first perfor-mance took place in 1869 in Copenhagen.  As Geoff Kuenning writes, “It has since become a favorite with audiences worldwide, and with good reason, for from the unforgettably dramatic opening cadenza to the sweepingly grand final chords, the concerto is filled with invention, originality, and sparkle that cannot help but please the ear.”

The soloist in this video is Valentina Lisitsa, whom I first became aware of through YouTube.  In this performance, which took place in December 2008, Valentina is accompanied by the Seoul Philharmonic under the direction of James  Judd.  This collabo-ration reminds me of a comment by Sarah Chang about music being the one and only universal language: we have a concerto by a Norwegian composer, played by a Ukrainian/American pianist and a Korean orchestra, conducted by an Englishman.

Part 1 includes most of the first movement.  Part 2 begins with the cadenza that concludes the first movement and continues with the lyrical second movement, which always calls to mind – my mind, at least - the great outdoors of Grieg’s native Norway.  Part 3 begins with the end of the second movement, and moves without pause into the third and final movement.  I invite you to note especially the beautiful flute solo which begins at the 3:35 mark, followed by a lovely duet between the piano and first cello.

I hope you feel as I do, that this concerto by Grieg is a joy from beginning to end.  Clearly the audience at this performance in Seoul felt that joy, as they invited Valentina Lisitsa back onstage for four (!) encores, which we will hear in our next post.

Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 7.30pm

Symphony Hall, Birmingham +44 (0)121-780 3333

 John Wilson  conductor
Leon McCawley  piano
CBSO Youth Chorus  

Elgar: Cockaigne 15′
Grieg: Piano Concerto 30′
Holst: The Planets 48′ Listen
requires Real Player

Midland composers have always aimed high. Worcestershire lad Edward Elgar dreamed of making it big in the capital, and it shows: his Cockaigne overture positively glitters with the pageantry and bustle of Edwardian London. Gustav Holst, meanwhile, headed for the stars! His Planets suite isn’t just famous for great tunes like Jupiter and Mars; it’s a tremendous musical odyssey towards the infinite, written for a super-size orchestra and filled with sounds of jaw-dropping strangeness and beauty. Amidst all this grandeur, Grieg’s ever-popular Piano Concerto offers gentler charms – but with Leon McCawley at the keyboard, it will be every bit as spectacular. www.cbso.co.uk

Gracias a casualidades uno siempre encuentra algo interesante. Así de simple, estás en el coche, en tu casa, andando por la calle, hablando con alguien… da igual el contexto porque siempre es un buen momento para encontrar algo interesante, algo que te guste, aunque nunca hayas oído nada parecido.

Pues gracias a una de esas casualidades, mientras estaba esperando en el coche a que mi madre volviera. Encendí la radio y puse Radio Nacional de España de Música clásica y nada más ponerla acababa de empezar una obra para piano y orquesta, desde el primer momento en que empecé a escucharla me encantó, así que seguí escuchándola disfrutando de lo que escuchaba.

Así me llevé los cerca de once minutos que duraba la obra, al final de la misma tenía unas ganas tremendas de que acabara, pero también de que no, para poder así seguir disfrutando de esa maravillosa obra. Pero como todo en esta vida, terminó. Por lo que subí bastante el volumen para enterarme de la obra cuando el comentarista lo dijera.

Con tal mala pata que en el momento en el que dijo el autor entró mi madre… Por suerte me había enterado de donde era el artista, de Noruega, y que era una obra para piano y orquesta.

Así que, nada más llegar a casa, encendí el ordenador y me puse a buscar. Al principio me lié mucho, porque creía que el comentarista había dicho Liszt, pero al final no era. Así que fui más bruto y busqué simplemente: “concierto piano orquesta noruego”. Con la fortuna de que esta vez sí encontré al autor. Era Edvard Grieg. Así que con esa información, abrí Spotify y empecé a buscar. Hasta que la encontré, esta parte no me llevó mucho tiempo.

Por lo tanto, aquí tenéis una magnífica obra, espero que os guste tanto como a mí, son tres movimientos, todos magníficos, pero el que escuché fue el tercero, así que ese os dejo.

Enlace obra en Spotify

I’m still waiting for the editing report on my first novel, a psychological thriller set in the English countryside.   That’s one of the things in trying to get a book published  – you end up spending ages waiting each step of the way.  For me, the waiting is the worst bit.  It feels long and drawn out, and I tend to get impatient and worry about what might happen next.  

In the meantime, without having a definite time frame to work in, I don’t think I can continue with the most recent novel (another psychological thriller set near the Dorset coast), so I’ve made extensive backup copies of the first fourteen chapters and hope to return to the story sometime next year.  I’m working on something entirely different while I wait for the editor’s report - my student days at Dartington College of Arts in Totnes, Devon, where I studied music and classical piano.  

I’m also spending a lot of time at the piano, playing works by Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg and Liszt.

HDtracks에서는 DRM이 없는 96khz/24bit의 HD 음악 파일을 판매한다. 평소 눈팅만 했는데 오늘은 베스트셀러 중에서 미리듣기를 해보다가 결국, 그리그의 피아노 협주곡을 구입했다. 노르웨이의 크리스티안산 심포니 오케스트라가 협연한다. 구글링을 해보니 노르웨이 지명 Kristiansand의 한글 표기를 ‘크리스티안산드’로 하는 분들이 있는데 ‘크리스티안산’이라고 해야 한다. nd에서 d는 적지 않는다. 예를 들면, Aasmund는 ‘오스문’으로 표기한다.

구매의 모든 과정에서 구글 크롬 브라우저를 사용했다.

구매화면에서는 당분간 미국 거주자에 한정해서 판매한다는 메시지가 뜨지만 페이팔로 지불했더니 별 다른 말 없이 무사히 진행되었다. 지불과정이 넘어가니 다운로드 매니저(자바 프로그램)가 뜨면서 다운로드가 시작되었다.

다운로드가 끝난 폴더를 살펴 보니 flac 파일들과 고해상도 PDF로 된 라이너 노트가 동봉되어 있다.

Nachdem dieses Blog in den letzten Tagen ziemlich in die Hohn & Spott Ecke abgerutscht ist (die Freiheitsstatue unserer Republik, möge mir verzeihen) folgt mal wieder etwas Musik, und da ich gegen diese Gitarrenfetischisten ankämpfen muss Klaviermusik.

Spanish pianist Alicia De Larrocha has died. When I was about ten, I recieved a CD of Romantic classics. Totally cheezy album art (it was called Dreams of Love: The Ultimate Romantic Piano Collection) and packaging, but it was really good for me at the time. It was my first exposure to some of the biggest solo piano standards of that period, and definitely reinforced my love for rubato and the pedal-heavy virtuosity of that literature.

One of the tracks was Alicia De Larrocha playing one of Grieg’s Lyrics Pieces. I remember imagining what she might look at. Alicia De Larrocha is one of the greatest names ever; it is stacatto in the given name and a precipitando in the double r building toward a climax. I imagined that she was thin, with dark hair and an inscrutable expression that spoke to the depth of emotion that she accessed to play her music.

Of course, De Larrocha was a short woman that looks like she could be a cool granny. But still I feel like we have a connection, and I am sorry to hear that she has passed.

（以下wikipediaより）
グリーグはノルウェーの民族音楽から着想を得て、国民楽派の作曲家として注目された。
卓越したテクニックのピアニストとしても著名で、自作を携えヨーロッパをたびたび演奏旅行している。
「北欧のショパン」と呼ばれることがある。