Twentieth Century

Ólafur Arnalds Meets Steve Reich

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There’s something about Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds’ 2013 ambient track, No. Other, that reminds me of the music of Steve Reich- specifically, Reich’s 1979 Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards. It isn’t that the notes or rhythms are even remotely the same. It’s more about the general atmosphere which emerges from the two works. Both unfold with a gradual, hypnotic inevitability. In both, long, sustained, static tones in the middle register give us the sense of floating …

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The Buggles and Laurie Spiegel: Art Meets Technology, Circa 1979

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Nostalgia for the past and anticipation for the future, with its promise of both excitement and peril…These are themes which seem to sum up New Years. They are also the themes which underlie the classic rock song, Video Killed the Radio Star, by the British New wave band, The Buggles. Released as a single in September, 1979 as the disco era was fading rapidly into the Synth-pop sounds of the 80s, the song’s lyric suggests a sense …

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Francis Poulenc: Four Motets for Christmas

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Francis Poulenc’s Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noël, completed in 1952, are inspired by four scenes from the Nativity story. The first, O magnum mysterium, captures the awe and mystery of the birth of Jesus, and praises the Virgin Mary with a hushed reverence. The second, Quem vidistis, asks the shepherds, “Whom did you see?” The third, Videntes stellam, transports us to the serene, starlit night through which the Magi travel, bearing their gifts. The final motet, Hodie Chistus natus est, is a …

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Fritz Kreisler’s “Preghiera,” Performed by Andrés Cárdenes

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Preghiera, written in the style of Martini, may not rank among early twentieth century violinist Fritz Kreisler’s most well-known compositions. But it is undoubtedly one of his most beautiful and soulful miniatures. Written in 1911, Kreisler falsely attributed this piece to the eighteenth century Italian composer Giovanni Battista Martini (1706-1784). In an elaborate hoax, he frequently performed “newly-discovered” works of old composers, miraculously found in dusty old libraries and monasteries. In 1935, on his 60th …

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Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto: The Greatest C Major Riff of All Time?

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Musician, teacher, and producer Rick Beato shares some interesting insights into Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto in a recent video at his channel, Everything Music. He calls this passage from the first movement “the greatest riff of all time written with only the white keys.” It’s a stream of notes which seems as fluid and inevitable as any jazz keyboard riff- an unrelenting, anticipation-building, virtuosic romp, completely in white-key C major until one stray G-sharp sneaks in at the last …

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New Release: Anne Akiko Meyers’ “Fantasia”

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Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers’ newly-released album, Fantasia, opens with a beautiful, shimmering Scandinavian soundscape. Written in 2015, the Fantasia for violin and orchestra is one of the final works of Finnish composer, Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016). In his early days a composer of 12-tone music, Rautavaara is best known for the mystical neo-romanticism of later pieces such as Cantus Arcticus (“Concerto for Birds and Orchestra”) and Symphony No. 7, “Angel of Light. Meyers talks about her commission of the fifteen-minute-long elegy and her …

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The Louisville Orchestra: Five Historic Recordings

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What ingredients are required to develop and sustain a flourishing professional orchestra? Vision, ambition, dedication to the community, and at least a modicum of “big league” thinking, to name a few. The early years of the Louisville Orchestra offer a case in point. Shortly after its founding in 1937, the ensemble’s first music director, Robert Whitney and Louisville mayor, Charles Farnsley, “conceived an adventurous plan to make the commissioning, performance, and recording of new works …

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