In the past few days, I've run through a varied range of musical experiences, and I'm wondering what they tell me.
On Tuesday afternoon my wife and I attended the last in a series of lecture/concerts on Chopin and Liszt, given by the brilliant pianist-composer-conductor-lecturer Gil Shohat. This session was devoted to the "demonic" Liszt, and the major guest performer was the brilliant Israeli pianist Dorel Golan, who, as usual, played magnificently. In the end, however, I decided that I'm not a big fan of Liszt. His pieces seem to me to wander all over and to depend too much on fantastic piano technique. See if you can play this! At a recital, I'd be happy to hear one piece by Liszt, but not a whole program.
Later that evening I has a flute lesson. I played 2 duets with my teacher. One is by Kaspar Kummer hardly a household name among music lovers. The duet is kind of vapid when you only play one of the parts. Together it sounds fine. But there's a lot of pointless running around in it. I worked on it for a month or more, and I learned a lot by doing that, but I was glad to get it behind me. Then we played the first part of a sonata by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, which is a much more interesting piece of music (too interesting, my teacher said). He was surprised that we managed to stay together from beginning to end, because the rhythms are complicated, and the parts seldom come together. But I played it too slowly. So that's a summer project.
Since I'm a grownup, my teacher more or less lets me call the shots, and I've been playing duets with him, because I love it. Also, he's so good, that he pushes me upward. His tone is enviable, and hearing him while I play helps me improve my own sound.
Then, on Wednesday night, I went to the Yellow Submarine, a venue known to Jerusalem pop and jazz fans, to hear my friend and teacher, Stephen Horenstein lead a group of musicians he calls the Lab Orchestra in an intense new piece called Tabular Rasa. The piece ranges from slow, melodic, tonal passages to cacophonous noise, from tranquility to intense anxiety, from clean solo passsages through discordant ensemble passages. I don't know whether the performance was recorded, but I can't imagine enjoying a CD of it as much as I enjoyed seeing it develop with a mixture of spontaneity and planning.
Finally, last night, we went to a screening at the Cinematheque of two short films about Oriental Jewish musicians, from Egypt and Iraq, who, against all odds, maintained their traditions here in Israel, during the 1950s, when it was almost suppressed by lack of government support and indifference and hostility on the part of the Ashkenazi public. One of the featured musicians was the Egyptian-born Felix Mizrahi, and among the most moving scenes was his visit to an oud-maker in Cairo, where he plays on a lousy Chinese violin with a wonderful young oud player. The communication and mutual appreciation of the two musicians was inspiring.
How fortunate one is to be able to hear and play so many different kinds of music.
On Tuesday afternoon my wife and I attended the last in a series of lecture/concerts on Chopin and Liszt, given by the brilliant pianist-composer-conductor-lecturer Gil Shohat. This session was devoted to the "demonic" Liszt, and the major guest performer was the brilliant Israeli pianist Dorel Golan, who, as usual, played magnificently. In the end, however, I decided that I'm not a big fan of Liszt. His pieces seem to me to wander all over and to depend too much on fantastic piano technique. See if you can play this! At a recital, I'd be happy to hear one piece by Liszt, but not a whole program.
Later that evening I has a flute lesson. I played 2 duets with my teacher. One is by Kaspar Kummer hardly a household name among music lovers. The duet is kind of vapid when you only play one of the parts. Together it sounds fine. But there's a lot of pointless running around in it. I worked on it for a month or more, and I learned a lot by doing that, but I was glad to get it behind me. Then we played the first part of a sonata by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, which is a much more interesting piece of music (too interesting, my teacher said). He was surprised that we managed to stay together from beginning to end, because the rhythms are complicated, and the parts seldom come together. But I played it too slowly. So that's a summer project.
Since I'm a grownup, my teacher more or less lets me call the shots, and I've been playing duets with him, because I love it. Also, he's so good, that he pushes me upward. His tone is enviable, and hearing him while I play helps me improve my own sound.
Then, on Wednesday night, I went to the Yellow Submarine, a venue known to Jerusalem pop and jazz fans, to hear my friend and teacher, Stephen Horenstein lead a group of musicians he calls the Lab Orchestra in an intense new piece called Tabular Rasa. The piece ranges from slow, melodic, tonal passages to cacophonous noise, from tranquility to intense anxiety, from clean solo passsages through discordant ensemble passages. I don't know whether the performance was recorded, but I can't imagine enjoying a CD of it as much as I enjoyed seeing it develop with a mixture of spontaneity and planning.
Finally, last night, we went to a screening at the Cinematheque of two short films about Oriental Jewish musicians, from Egypt and Iraq, who, against all odds, maintained their traditions here in Israel, during the 1950s, when it was almost suppressed by lack of government support and indifference and hostility on the part of the Ashkenazi public. One of the featured musicians was the Egyptian-born Felix Mizrahi, and among the most moving scenes was his visit to an oud-maker in Cairo, where he plays on a lousy Chinese violin with a wonderful young oud player. The communication and mutual appreciation of the two musicians was inspiring.
How fortunate one is to be able to hear and play so many different kinds of music.
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