Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 4

It has been said many times again that I overuse my fondness for the use of Rachmaninoff and his music especially his 2nd Piano Concerto in my posts. For that, I am not sorry.

Today I am going to be talking about Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto exclusively the Second Movement, Largo in C Major. I didn’t really connect with the first and the third movement, but something with the second movement, spoke of value and understanding to me.

Take a listen.

The piece starts off with a reflective passage that almost reminds me of the music of Robert Schumann. The theme is introduced with the piano, later played by the orchestra. The theme varies onto counterpoint revealing the original theme mixing forms and textures. Pure emotion is expressed by Rachmaninoff in the quiet contemplative nature of something mystical. The music does get somewhat angry in the middle with loud fortes and crescendos but then softens to reticent. I get a sorrowful reverberation that moans whilst telling a sorrowful yet strong story. The theme really embodies inner struggle on a primarily minor feel but with a light and high-spirited mood. Very nostalgic and disconsolate in a good way. The piece continues glorifying all things musical and virtuosic, but the piece ends fading away into complete darkness. A longing memory fading away in the recesses of the mind, peace and longing for a place that will never ever come back. It all lays in the nostalgic memory of the holder. In Rachmaninoff’s case, his home, Russia.

My Problem With the Contemporaries

If it isn’t the biggest problem that I have, is my problem with the contemporaries. Now since this is a music blog, contemporaries are more or less about music and some about society dribble dabble which transcends through many different styles of music and culture.

Since culture is essential to the collective identities of every single person alive, it is ambiguous to say that all of contemporary music is an anomaly which reflects modern culture. Whether the culture is a collective national or a personal orgin, there are many inconsistencies with the so called music reflecting the cultures of the day. I as say often in my other posts about the importance of individualism, music is reflected more onto the collective cultures than personal of origin. Time does move always forward and never stops for nothing. It is us that causes our minds to stop and go as we please.

Whilst as time goes on and on, people yet to understand from what musicially, comes before them. I’ve heard many people express their disgust for contemporaries of today and frankly, I have quite the same opinion. I don’t have a problem with the industry nor the many cogs and gears that run it, it’s the collective ignorance of today’s music listeners. I love to point out to my various colleagues about the music of the past, but they always seem to turn a blind eye. When I explain to them that music was way more organized and popular in a sense where everyone got along, they go along as well.

Music today is heavily political to only swoon the masses to do accomplish their hidden agenda. Don’t believe me? There is a bias and stigma against all types of music, especially Classical.

 

 

The Morality of Music

Most people get their morals from a variety of places: Religion, Spirituality, Philosophy, Ethics. What doesn’t really surprise me is that most approach morality through music. Music in itself is its own language that anyone can understand, but only the select few can have the ability to speak and create it. This of course only applies to the greats of those before our time. But can we extract morality from music itself? The answer is yes.

Each person’s interpretation of the world is in itself the most contrasting and unique facet of humanity. Without the inspiring ideas derived from those who were lucky to get their ideas into the mainstream, this world would cease to exist. In my interpretation as a musician, both ideas of the mind and of sound are equal to each other. To understand the many wise words of the enlightened requires us the person to be trained into understanding the means of linguistics and syntax. Learning to speak, read and write are all things mandated when we are in school. It is second nature to all of us, to me writing this and for you the reader, reading this.

Understanding ideas of the sound are a bit trickier to understand. Those of us with the ability to hear are given no apparent rule to follow to. Since we cannot teach how to hear, we can also assume that it is impossible to learn how we listen to things such as musician. For classically trained musicians, we are taught indirectly how to listen for certain patterns and notes. We can infer a pattern of symbolism in repeating passages in order to assume a meaning or idea, but doing so limits what our minds can do when absorbing music. This is why this is so hard to understand this concept. There is a distinguishing boundary between the realms of the mind and the feel but in musical morality, ideas perceived in mind correlate with moods formed with the heart. We as humans are amazing enough to decipher the moods of certain pieces of music without having to process it mentally. A majority of people think naturally that music written in minor is sad and mournful. I personally think that minor is the most beautiful mode of music. In encompasses such feelings of introspection, contemplation, nostalgia, and realism. It allows me to derive a morality that cannot be formed into mere words for someone to understand because in the end, not every single person is alike in nature and we are all different in our own ways.

Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue?

As I was waking up today, I heard the song, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by the band Queen playing over an interlude when the local news were cutting to commercial. I thought to myself for a second, I’ve never heard this song in its full form before and I wanted to hear this song from beginning to the end.

Contemplating and carefully examining this song, I felt a sudden connection to an older piece of music to which both pieces share, indirectly and directly. That piece of music from which I am comparing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The most obvious observation of the two is that they both share the word “Rhapsody”. Both pieces of music have scattered patterns, different sections, and sporadic rhythms and counter melodies which seem to weave in and out to reach musical balance. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody changes keys and meter a couple of times implementing a sporadic feel. Also a change in mood from the contemplative beginning to the very melancholy mid section to the equal strophic end, incorporates all the aspects of what classical rhapsodies do when they change textures.

Rhapsody in Blue does the exactly the same thing. Maybe you can’t hear an omitted sound because of the sheer range of the orchestra, but the piano speaks in episodes when it solos. The section of music before the introduction of the theme also has that rich spontaneous feel that all rhapsodies share.

Here is another video I found that sums my points up. It is the same name of this post.

I swear, I just found this video right now without knowing of its existence.

Mind Blown.

 

The Act of Becoming Acquainted with a Master

I’m somewhat back again, my schoolwork has been getting up with me.

In the last week, many good things have been happening to me, especially on a day that was supposed to bring bad luck, Friday the 13th. Yes according to modern folklore and the many superstitious around this world, Friday the 13th is the most feared day in all of the calendar. In my case, it was one of my most luckiest (if you happen to believe in luck). In fact on this very unlucky day, I had the chance to become acquainted with one of my heroes, Musician heroes, that is. That person is none other than the virtuosic genius pianista,  Valentina Lisitsa.

Valentina Lisitsa in my opinion is THE best pianist of our time. Her sheer ability, technique, and emotion is what makes her standout amongst the other virtuosos. She can turn any piece of music, whether it would be a Chopin or Rachmaninoff piece, into something unheard by our generation. Her angelic textures and her exquisite technique will melt any heart that dare witnesses her prowess at the piano. I first heard Valentina’s music seven years ago, when I was 12 years old. It was within her music that I started to develop my own repertoire. I can say that because of her, I have understood the complexity of piano playing, in and out. I have nothing more to say, let the music speak for itself:

Val, you truly are the Queen of Rachmaninoff.

The Forceful Contention of Music

Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.

Franz Lizst

Lang Lang and Pharrell – Happy

Yesterday as almost the entire world was watching including myself, the 57th annual GRAMMY Awards took place Sunday in Los Angeles, CA.

(Photo : Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Besides the actual awarding of the awards and the other mush in-between, what makes the Grammys unique is the collaboration of different musicians from completely different genres and fields. What really caught my attention was the collaborative performance between Pop/R&B Singer Pharrell Williams and Classically Trained Concert Pianist, Lang Lang of Pharrell’s hit song, “Happy.” Just off the back, there are contrasting colors and textures between the music of Pharrell and Lang Lang, but somehow agrees musically in the performance:

Most people at school today when talking about this specific performance had no idea who the guy playing the “crazy piano” with Pharrell was. What’s very interesting though is that many of my colleagues seemed to enjoy this hybrid of classical virtuosic piano of Lang Lang with the loose feel-good mental opulence of Pharrell. Two contradicting styles of music, suddenly make sense.

Today in another post by the website “Music Times,” a reflection on Lang Lang’s performance boasts slight observational ignorance:

Since it is the Grammys, a performance would be incomplete without some star guest performances…pianist Lang Lang added his own flare to the song with a somewhat oddly placed piano solo.

Most musical brain-children who are most familiar with music written in the current time or in the modern age are going say something very similar to the musically biased Music Times. Since all of the music that you hear in the present is a product of the music industry, they then focus all their attention to industry leading professionals. They may be untalented and unskilled, but yet again the focus of this industry is purely on the monetization of music. I can hear Rachmaninoff’s words echo……….

The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt – they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.

For my spiel on this, click here.

If someone cannot understand the complexity of a classical virtuosic pianist without actually experiencing the of passion that it entitles to, they cannot understand music in a passionate way. It’s really that easy blatant. Take this into consideration, if all modern-day composers butchered the reputation of the piano by making simplifications and introducing something not to heavy for the listener to somehow be constituted as the “limit of pianism”, then they are doing something wrong. Yes to the mind of the commoner people will think that Lang Lang’s extravagant playing is odd, but it is merely the full utilization of this very powerful instrument. People need to create from the heart, not from the head!

Again, reflect on Rach’s golden quote. It really means a lot.

The HARD Way or the Hard Easy Fun Way

Within countries that separates culture, language, style and customs also lies the same about music education.

Today I am going to be talking about the two relevant countries that contrast when it comes to music education, Russia and the United States. Yes, these countries have been feuding since the late 1940’s and still today. On a musical aspect for example, we can say that Russia has produced more and more and more classically trained musicians than any country in the world and we can then say that the US has produced many Jazz, Pop, Rock, musicians than anywhere in the world. Besides quantitative figures, there is a big difference when learning music, especially in these countries.

United States

• Fun
• Nonchalant
• Focused wholly on playing
• Teachers are nice
• Parents don’t push you to practice
• There are no competitions
• You learn at your own pace
• There are fun methods to learning music i.e. apps, fun books, videos
• It does get hard at conservatory level but is fun

Most products of this education don’t do anything with their education when they grow up.

Russia

• Not fun at all.
• Focused on expression and technique.
• Very stressful
• Teachers are not here to make friends.
• Corporal Punishment is the norm
• Parents make you practice all the time
• COMPETITIONS, COMPETITIONS!
• You have no say in what you learn
• You learn music the “Russian School of Piano” way.
• There is nothing easy about music education in Russia.

Most products of this education usually become professional musicians or become music teachers in schools.

You can have it the HARD way or the hard easy fun way.

Choose wisely…

A Song Tells a Story

Some often listen to music more or less than others (especially myself). We listen to what we want, when we want and as frequent as we want. Some prefer classical, some prefer jazz. Whatever it is we listen to, it reflects our inner soul and being. A contemplative person such like myself would prefer the soft echos and fortes of classical music, opposed to A “cool cat” whose character is desultory would probably prefer more energetic styles of music. It is just the way it is.

But does music reflect onto our inner being?

I certainly think so. The best example in my opinion is the heart wrenching and excogitated sounds of Romantic and Neo-Romantic Classical Music. This music asserted in my perspective is different for someone who has no connection to it. For an example, I had one of my favorite pieces of music, Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto playing in my house to the max. I literally drone the whole piece and open all the windows, making sure to let all the neighborhood understand the impression of such a great composer whose impact still prevails regardless of time’s demise. One day a neighbor knocked on my door and asked me blatantly, “Why do you listen to such depressing music?” Do I seem depressing? I don’t think so. Maybe the underlying impression of the piece is written in a minor key, but has no idea that my explicit interpretation is not on the surface but way farther. I see it as a contemplative and relaxing piece of music that’s inner message is yet to be interpreted in a way that we all hold unique. Rachmaninoff is not for amateur listeners because there is a whole lot of complexity that must be deciphered. When someone then finds their message within a piece, then one can say that a song does tell a story.

It’s your unique story that makes yourself shine in the best way possible, and the best vassal of this is music.

Valentina Lisitsa – Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Recorded live on May 22nd, 2010 in Leiden, Holland.

There is nothing much about this piece except that it is completely awesome! Those beginning chords are sure to captivate any soul who dares to listen to them. The feel of a gypsy and romantic tale come flowing out of Lisitsa’s take of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Taking the word romantic literally this time, this piece is played like a love poem. From the sweet and soft textures to the happy and fast rhythm near the end shows that this piece is one of a kind played by a one of a kind virtuoso. I always enjoy Valentina Lisitsa’s technique for piano and overall feel. It certainly brightens up my day.