Siergiej Rachmaninow

[pjotr]

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Denis Kozhukhin. He won the Queen Elisabeth in 2010.

Sergei Rachmaninoff was a very important composer in our family. We often listened to his music when the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels took place. In my parents house we then punt on simultaniously the Belgian TV and Radio. And when we were licky we would have stereo sound. Rachmaninoff was often played in Brussels, by vary good Russian, American, Japanese, Chinese or other pianists. We often agreed that Rachmaninoff was best played by a pianist of a Slav country, because of the Slavic soul of his music (eventhough he had Tartar background. We didn't know that back then)







pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siergiej_Rachmaninow
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elisabeth_Music_Competition
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Międzynarodowy_Konkurs_Muzyczny_im._Królowej_Elżbiety_Belgijskiej

[pjotr]

Classical music was always a dominant element in the household of my uprbringing. Next to Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Chopin, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Wieniawski, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bach, Dvořák, Czajkowski, Robert Schumann, Haydn, Händel, Mahler and Prokofjew were not far away. For some onvious reason the works of Richard Wagner and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were less appreciated and played. They were to German and Wagners personal ideas will have had something to do with that. His anti-semitism and pompous German mythological music was not in the taste of my parents. So no "The Ring of the Nibelung" nor "Siegfried". I missed the Requiem from Mozart though. Later I bough a very good version on cd myself.

[pjotr]

[pjotr]

What classical music was played at your parents house Bo., Tufta and Jeanne. Did they like classical music, was it appreciated in your home? And what composers do you like? Polish, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Rumanian, German, French, American, Baltic and Austrian?

[pjotr]

I like these one too:

[tufta]

Mar 5, 2013 19:21:17 GMT 1 pjotr said:

What classical music was played at your parents house Bo., Tufta and Jeanne. Did they like classical music, was it appreciated in your home? And what composers do you like? Polish, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Rumanian, German, French, American, Baltic and Austrian?

You open a very nice thread, Pieter! Like a door to the past. You made me think, try to recall, to re-create the long gone feelings from childhood - the atmposhere of homes of my parents and grandparents! You made me think - gee, what did they listen to? In some cases it was easy, in other - difficult. More - later, as right now - life beckons

[tufta]

Here are the hallmarks I recall. I don't remember my grandfathers, they died early and extremely early. I remember, and very well my grandmothers. One was very fond of ballet music, especially Russian, as at that time Bolshoy Theatre really meant something. She would be disappointed with the present ruin of the legend. She did try to infect me with love of ballet, but never succeeded. Her daughter , my mother, suspected that she was secretely in love with Wac³aw Ni¿yñski ;---)




She was also fond of Bulat Okudzhava and generally this kind of music, and she herself sung nicely



She loved “Kabaret Starszych Panów' – a phenomenon worth investigating if you are not yet familiar with



and 'Kabaret Dudek' – also very much worth learning more about, with a favourite song entitled 'Don't irritate the grandma' (Which song is in fact about censorship in communist Poland)



More later.

[pjotr]

Tufta,

You touched a sensitive point there. All my life I have been fond of dancing. From classical dance (ballet), to tribal dances, Afro-American (Broadway) dance, peoples dances (folk dance), to modern house, techno, hip hop, brake dance and the most modern forms of dance.

I wanted to dance as a boy like my sister did, but I wasn't allowed to dance, because my father considered it not to be healthy and suitable for a little boy to go to ballet, because only girls where dancing there. I think he was afraid that his son might become a homosexual, because most dancers happened to be and often(stil) are gay. But it is a fact that there were many hetrosexual dancers too, and even dance couples. To go away from the sexual orientation subject, I simply liked moving and dancing. But my ballet career was finished. After that like you I wasn't font of ballet. When I grew old I was a stubborn kid and teenager who hated the 'ballet', 'opera's', 'romantic movies' and classical music which was associated with ballet. (classical dance) That might have, on a subconcious level, with the fact that I wasn't able to dance as a young boy. I forget that fact and lived on to be a teenage boy interested in macho things like war movies, heavy weight boxing matches, wrestle mania, motor bike races and racing cars, heavy metal rock music and punk and after that techno, house and electro. This might have a Puberty reason. My adolescence period was a time of resistance towards the classical music, gypsy music, french chançon, European culture, taste and ideas of my parents. Being heavily focussed on the American and Australian culture of that time, which was rough, un-European in the American and Australian English accents, which were different than the sophisticated, snobish sounding Oxford English we were educated in and raised with. AC/DC the Australian hard rock band and the American Thrash Metal bands, Anthrax and Slayer were an example of that childish resistance. Later I made peace with that European culture and civilization and was able to appreciate classical dance again. Although I will never be a great classical ballet enthousiast. I am more fond of tribal and war dances:

Moluccan war dance


New Zealand war dance


Zulu dances


This is a very good film about a boy who wanted to dance

[pjotr]

But to go back to ballet and classical dance. I think about the Ballet Russes.



Here the two great Dutch choreographers of the 20th century

[pjotr]

Tufta,

The taste of your Polish grandmother is typical of that old Varsovian, delicate, refined, 'aristocratic',
the blunt rude communist savages would call it 'bourgeois', sophisticated, well mannered, educated people who were cosmopolitan, french oriented, and in the same time fond of Russian ballet, classical music, art and culture, next to the Polish, Italian, French and English one. The generation that grew up with Shakespreares Hamlet in the Theatre, Verdi's and Mozarts opera's in the Opera house, Italian and French cinema and the Russian Bolshoy Theatre, because the Russians were the masters of ballet in that period.

In can understand the secret love of your grandmother for Wacław Niżyński (1889 – 1950), because he was a Russian danseur and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century.


Niżyński and daughter, 1916

Cheers,
Pieter

[pjotr]

[pjotr]

I like the live concert atmosphere of this video (It reminds me of concerts of our own Gelders Orkest in the concert hall of Arnhem)

[pjotr]

(This music reminds me a little bit of Sergei Rachmaninoff, but that would mean he inspired Rachmaninoff, because this work is of 1875, and Rachmaninoff was born in 1873)

[pjotr]

And here a few Polish female composers.

[pjotr]

Polonaise "A Farewell to the Homeland" ('Pożegnanie Ojczyzny')






Anyone familiar with Godowsky knows that he is a revered composer of immense talent. His original cycle "Java Suite" consists of 12 exquisite pieces, which are what he calls "musical travelogues - tonal journeys". They paint descriptive scenes in Java as he experienced it in his travel to the Far East.

In 1925, Godowsky wrote: "The Island of Java, called "The Garden of the East," with a population of close to forty millions, is the most densely inhabited island in the world. It has a tropical, luxuriant vegetation; marvelous scenery and picturesque inhabitants; huge volcanoes, active and extinct; majestic ruins and imposing monuments of many centuries past."

Godowsky goes on to say that it was the native music of the Javanese, in the heart of Java, at Djokja and Solo, that made the most profound impression on him. It is thus fitting then to choose a piece that was inspired by Djokja and Solo to showcase the incredibly ingenious way in which Godowsky assimilated the flavours of Java into this set of compositions. As Godowsky astutely noted, "All Javanese music is in duple or quadruple time; triple time does not exist. Its sameness of beat and its monotony of pulsation have a lulling, hypnotizing effect; its polyrhythms, syncopations, triplet-figures and manifold passage-patterns help to stimulate interest."

I hope you are as entranced as I am by this beautiful piece, "In The Kraton". It is performed by Indonesian pianist, Ms Esther Budiardjo, whose native roots bring an undeniably intricate, delicate and insightful interpretation to this piece. This is perfection.

Please rate if you enjoyed this, and do support the artistes involved.

Composer: Leopold Godowsky
Performer: Esther Budiardjo
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Godowski
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Godowsky

[pjotr]

And now the Modern or Post-Modern Polish composers

Zbigniew Preisner (original name Zbigniew Kowalski)

[pjotr]

What I found out today is the fact, the reality and the important phenomenon of a rich classical Polish music world. I did not know before this weekend that there were and are so many Polish composers and so many good ones. What is great to find out is that the Polish classical music is a bridge, a Synteza of all the great European classical music. Not only does it breathes, shines and flows the old Polish influence of the few famous Polish composers and Polish culture, it also links with the great German, Austrian, Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Russian, Baltic, French, Italian and Scandinavian (Grieg) classical music. I consider Polish classical music to be in the heart or the core of the classical music in general. I have to admid that I sometimes confused some pieces of Music of Beethoven, List and Robert Schumann. I see now that Chopin influenced some great Polish composers, but that he was inspired and influence by Wojciech Żywny, Józef Elsner, Julian Fontana, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Carl Maria von Weber, Franz Liszt, Ignaz Moscheles, Felix Mendelssohn, Niccolò Paganini, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Hector Berlioz, Vincenzo Bellini, Ferdinand Hiller, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Franz Schubert.

[pjotr]

The composers who influenced Chopin next to the Polish folk music

[pjotr]

It is great to see how music evolves in time. How musicians and composers influece eachoter, and use that influence to create their typical own kind of music. All those composers that inspired Chopin were great, and the composers and musicians that were inspired by Chopin were great in their music and the perspective in music they created. There is an incredible variety in classical music, but the Romantic classical music will stay my favorite musical genre in classical music. I am less into baroque or post-mondern a-tonal music. Rachmaninow in my taste and musical selection stands next to Chopin, List, Dvořák, Robert Schumann, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach (one of the few baroque musicians I like), Haydn, Händel, Prokovjev, Czajkovski, and Berlioz. And all those great Polish composers of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque (17th century), 18th and 19th century, and 20th century are linked to that today.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Polish_composers

[pjotr]

[tufta]

Pieter, I would say my road to appreciation of the so called 'classical music' was very similar to yours. Apart from one point - even during the peri-adolescent negation of music older than myself I did not stop to like organ music. Thanks for posting links to various music, I will listen to them all gradually, while reading the posts in our forum - watching the pictures and so on. I think you are right that it is quite easy to get fascinated with the evolution of music! It's alarming how charming it is do be a... music fan, to borrow something from The Who

[pjotr]

Tufta,

There is a link between us and that is the fact that I never abandoned liking organ music. Because the greatness of the Bach organ was always comparable to the synthesizer music and Hamond organ I appreciated in Pop music. I made a deep and profound journey in Pop music which started as a 7 or 8 year old boy with the Pop music program Avro Top Pop on the Dutch television and which lasts until today. It started with the soul, disco, Funk, Symphonic rock, rock 'n roll, hard rock, Punk rock, New Wave of the second half of the seventees and early eightees, and continued with the New Romantics/British Blitz and Glam rock, eightees electro and disco, synthy pop, Break dance/rap/hip hop, reggea/sca, heavy metal.

As an 8 year old I was fascinated by Blondy, the Pretenders, Amanda Lear, the Police, U2, Madness, Eart and Fire, Diana Ross, Queen, David Bowie, Roxy Music, the Talking Heads and etc. I Had Kiss records as a kid next to Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd. Real boy and male bands. The Doors, Jimmy Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Nina Hagen, ACDC, Black Sabbath, the Cult, the Cure, Simple Minds and Joy Division-New Order followed.

For a long time I only watched and listened to Pop music via the television and radio. For a long time I only had a radio cassette recorder and taped dozen´s of BASF, TDK, Sony and Philips cassettes of 60 minutes or 120 minutes with music I copied (taped) from the radio. Fairly late. On my 18th year I bought my first Hi-fi stereo installation with radio, double cassette deck, long player and cd player. Before that I played singles and LP's on my parents stereo, when they weren't home. Since then I played my own records and singles and cd's in my room. I remember that my first audio CD was of the speedmetal or trashmetal band Slayer, the album "South of Heaven". I also played the record of the Polish hard rock band Turbo a lot on my stereo in my room.

I was a night owl (couche-tard in French), played music all evening and late at night. (when the other family members slept), listening to night radio, cassette tapes, lp's, singles and audio cd's. Next to that I went to pubs which played rock 'n roll, rock and hard rock music and ofcourse to discotheques, because I loved dancing. And the pretty girls were to find in the disco. The pubs were more masculine, male places.

Listening to music I always drawed a lot and made water colors (gouaches). Memories about cities and landscapes appeared on paper, guided by the music. I am really fond of night radio, because you had and have good radio dj's and presenters who have a good musical taste at night. In this 'obscure', dark world of the night I created my own world of sound, images, drawings, gouaches and collages. (mixed media) I didn't know about the big city world of culture, music, concert halls, professional contemporary (fine) art and the world of the musicians, artists, theatre people, dancers and other bohemiens I would meet in Amsterdam, The Hague and Arnhem later on. It was my own world. I was a member of the Pop culture generation. The color tv, LP, CD, Hi-fi, video clip, ecclectic, cross over/fusion generation. I was an unusual hard rocker who was fond of in the same time of some rock, rock 'n roll, Punk/new wave, hip hop and electro. Most heavy metal fans were dull, simple minded, one sided, reactionary (in musical sense) guys. I liked tough, rough and fast music. I was a speed freak, like the song of Motörhead.

But somewhere in nmy subconcious the old music, the classical music, the gypsy music, the folk music and the french chancon stayed. The Who was a band which was in my corner of music of the Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, the Doors and the Velvet Underground. Rock 'n roll and rock has been the dominant music in my life, but it was always accompanied by the other music forms. You could call me ecclectic in my music taste, not dogmatic, like many hard rock, pop music or hip hop fans, who only like their style of music.

My culture can of that teenage and student years can be described as fin de siecle style, very close to New Wave, and close to the atmospher of Dead Can Dance and the Cocteau Twins. But I did not know their music back then. I discovered them in my Arnhem student years (1992-1995: from my 22 until my 25th)

Cheers,
Pieter