The Whole Music Experience

peaceful photo by Patricia Herlevi With the holidays upon us and the year winding down, most people deal with stress overload. Add to that dealing with holiday crowds in shopping malls, traffic on the highways, and calamities that occur around the planet which I think has to do with all this stress rippling out. So unwind and relax to music. I'm going to get you started with suggestions from diverse music genres: Classical I suggest staying away from the wild Romantic Era composers with the exception of Tchaikovsky and listen to his ballets and sacred music (Rachmaninoff also has sacred recordings). For the most part, stick with chamber music such as string quartets, slower Mozart, Debussy , Ravel , Satie, Grie g , Sibelius, Aaron Copeland, and solo harp or cello recordings. Classical holiday music will either bring peace or strife depending on the person so use discernment and listen in to your feelings. Also try Renaissance polyphony such as Anonymous 4 or Stile Ant...

World/ Classical   Mario Adnet Villa Lobos   Borandá I had heard of Heitor Villa Lobos for many years while reviewing classical music, but I had not listened to any music by this Brazilian composer until the arrival of Mario Adnet’s Villa Lobos --a beautiful collection of vernacular classical and Brazilian popular songs performed by some of Brazil's finest musical talent.   While I’m not going to delve into history or give you biographical information of Villa Lobos, I encourage you to look up this fascinating early 20th century composer after listening to this stunning recording. As an homage to Villa Lobos, Adnet teams up with a Brazilian orchestra (Orqestra de Cordas), Edu Lobo, Milton Nascimento, Mônica Salmaso, Muiza Adnet, Paula Santoro, Yamandu Costa and members of the Adnet family. The result is upbeat performances such as Mazurka Choro and the opening track, A Menina Das Nuvens as well as, dreamy pieces, Tristorosa (sung by Mario Adnet ...

Dvorak Zigeunerlieder Songs and Duets Bernarda Fink, Genia Kühmeier and Christoph Berner Harmonia Mundi I was not familiar with Dvorak’s song cycles and duets prior to reviewing Zigeunerlieder .   I am familiar with Dvorak’s bigger works and I heard recordings featuring mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink in the past.   Of Dvorak’s smaller works, this recording features Gypsy Melodies sung by the young soprano Genia Kühmeier and accompanied on piano by Christoph Berner, Moravian Duets with the addition of Bernarda Fink and Biblical Songs sung by Fink and accompanied by Berner, who plays beautifully on this disc. According to the liner notes, Moravian Duets launched Dvorak’s career and attracted the attention of the esteemed composer Johannes Brahms who at the time was a member of a jury that awarded the Austrian State Stipendium “for young, talented, and impoverished musicians”.   Dvorak had composed the songs originally for his private mus...

Arcanto Quartett Quatuors à cordes Debussy, Dutilleux, Ravel Harmonia Mundi I have mixed feelings about Aracanto Quartett’s Quatuors à cordes . I’m a fan of the French Impressionist composers, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy so I enjoy hearing their string quartets. While the composers employed some dissonance in their quartets, they also provided harmonic release. I cannot say the same for French composer Henri Dutilleux’s suite, Ainsi la nuit in which the composers brings no release to his listeners. It’s as if listeners are trapped in a desert of dissonance and punished by the shrillness of strings. Similar to a cat which can meow sweetly or caterwaul, string instruments can also provide its share of tension while playing dissonant passages. Granted the composer set out to express darker emotions and even the words “unsettling anxiety and sombre violence” appear in the liner notes to convey part of what the French composer aimed at expressing—the experience of night...

The Cello Suites J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals And The Search For A Baroque Masterpiece By Eric Siblin Atlantic Monthly Press Possibly a literary equivalent of Francois Girard’s film, The Red Violin , Canadian journalist/writer Eric Siblin’s The Cello Suites blends mystery, with biographies that read as multiple narratives. Certainly this page turner transforms the stuff shirt-stiff wig image of J.S. Bach into a man of intrigue and the cello from a melancholic to a magical instrument. Siblin’s journey into the Bach realm began when his career as a pop music journalist was on the wane and he stepped into a concert hall where the mysterious Cello Suites were performed, all 6 of them. This journey led the author to Belgium, France, Spain, and even to discoveries in his hometown, Montreal. He learns cello, joins a Bach chorale camp, and explores the Cello Suites in depth—experiential journalism. While the readers are left hanging in regard to the suite’s origins, Siblin draws h...

London Symphony Orchestra Valery Gergiev Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet LSO I discovered Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s music for Romeo and Juliet while I was researching one of the composer’s piano concertos for an article. I was immediately captivated by the composer’s musical themes, his edgy orchestration and accessibility. London Symphony Orchestra’s (led by Valery Gergiev) live recording of Romeo and Juliet marks also my second listen to this phenomenal work. The live performance does the incidental music justice, though I would still love to see dancers performing the ballet to this score. When I listen to classical works I have this tendency to search for influences or for possible disciples (informal or formal) of the composer. The question in my mind while I listened to this version of the ballet score revolved around Leonard Bernstein’s score to Westside Story . As you know, Westside Story based itself on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as well, though only ...

Freiburger Barockorchester Rene Jacobs Mozart Symphonies Nos. 39 and 40 Harmonia Mundi I came across information about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s connection to the Vienna chapter of the Freemasons recently and I wondered about the brotherhood’s influence on the magical aspects of Mozart’s repertoire. Mozart joined the Freemasons (was initiated into the brotherhood) in 1784 at the age of 28. As someone not versed or even knowledgeable about the Freemasons outside of the fact that the brothers practiced metaphysics, the only conclusion I reached was that the opera The Magic Flute definitely had metaphysical symbolism. And I also noticed over the years that music scholars would refer to the architecture of Mozart’s compositions. That statement now makes more sense in the light of the Freemason connection. Sound healers, music therapists, and psychoacoustic practitioners, including the founder of psychoacoustics Dr. Alfred Tomatis (French ear, nose and throat doctor) have also...

London Symphony Orchestra Live Valery Gergiev (Conductor) Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 LSO Russian Late-Romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff composed music for listeners with strong hearts and the ability to run the gamut of emotions within the course of a single symphony or concerto, as in Piano Concerto No. 3 , for example. While the movie, Shine gave the impression that a musician dealing with an emotional imbalance (that includes a lot of musicians), would suffer insanity performing Rachmaninoff’s technically and emotionally-challenging music, I believe the movie’s sentiment gave the wrong impression. While Rachmaninoff couldn’t be called an average man by any stretch, he also did not spend his time in a sanatorium and he composed music that excited plenty of sane people. So why would his compositions drive anyone over the edge? On the contrary I find the classical works of Russian composers (Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, etc), emotionally stimulating and invi...

Jon Manasse (Clarinet) & Seattle Symphony Mozart and Spohr Clarinet Concertos Harmonia Mundi I leap at the chance to review Mozart (1756-1791) recordings because as far as healing music goes, Mozart’s falls at the top of the list. I became a fan of Mozart in recent years because I had to grow into his music and experience life fully before this repertoire made sense to me. Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major K622  is one of my favorite classical music pieces, if not one of my favorite all-around music pieces period. The second Adagio movement inspired another one of my favorite concertos, Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major (which is mostly reflected in the second movement). Both Mozart and Ravel were master orchestrators and employed instrumental voices to their fullest capabilities. As a former Seattlelite, I felt pleased to discover a Mozart recording with Seattle Symphony on board and Maestro Gerard Schwartz at the helm. Guest soloist Jon Manasse seems...

Copland Greatest Hits RCA Victor (1991) Grieg: Peer Gynt with Barbara Hendricks & Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra Esa-Pekka Salonen CBS Records (1989) I sometimes recommend that friends, colleagues and students to peruse their libraries classical music collection. European and Western classical music has a vast catalogue that ranges from medieval to contemporary times, with many genres and eras. I certainly cannot afford to buy every classical recording that strikes a chord with me (pun intended), but I can check out recordings from the library and also read music reference books such as The Rough Guide to Classical Music. One recent rediscovery, was the work of American classical composer Aaron Copland. We have all heard fragments of this composers work, from the American beef industries "eat beef" (not this vegetarian), commercials with Hoedown from Copland's ballet Rodeo and we have all heard passages from Appalachian Spring as Americans living in the...

Gustavo Dudamel & Simòn Bolìvar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela Beethoven 5 & 7 Deusche Grammophon The connection between Venezuelan youth and Beethoven might not seem an obvious one at first. Imagine, a youth orchestra comprised of children once at-risk, but now leaving an impression on international classical music lovers. Conductor Gustavo Dudamel (25 years old at the time of this recording), revealed his connection to the Great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven in the liner notes. "As a six-year old, Gustavo Dudamel's favorite game was to line up his toy soldiers in orchestral formation to conduct them in an imaginary performance of Beethoven's 5th Symphony . By the time he was twelve, he was conducting his local youth orchestra. Two years later he had his own chamber orchestra. At 17, he became chief conductor of the Simòn Bolìvar Youth Orchestra…" According to the liner notes, Dudamel grew up in Barquisimeto, the capital of the state of Lara....