http://archive.org/details/Birds_63
pcast047 Playlist
=====================================================================
English Commentary – le commentaire français suit
My next few montages put aside our ongoing Lenten series and concentrate on the coming of Spring in a few days. Along with Spring, the birds will come back from their winter migration and it is thus a good time to bring up a subject that has been well exploited by composers, that of birds.
Birds manifest themselves in som many ways, and our montage uses two examples from Saint-Saëns ' Canival of the Animals as boolends: the Aviary, home of so many birds that are evoked by the chirping flute, and the Swan, floating majestically as a cello on a pond created by a piano duo. We could have added the scene from the barnyard with hens and chickens, or the cuckoo, but we have so many more examples to showcase...
Respighi wrote his suite Gli Ucelli (the Birds) in 1928, in which Respighi transforms five characteristic keyboard pieces from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into a genial suite for orchestra. I chose one example for the montage (the hen), but I offer you a YouTube clip of the whole suite, in this vintage performance by the Chicago Sympohony and their wartime conductor, Belgium's Désiré Defauw :
Olivier Messiaen, who has already been the subject of two posts this month - one on his spiritual compositions, the other as an organist and today in his other passion, as an ornithologist. Indeed, even as he served during the Second World War, he would ask to get the early morning watch so he could observe birds... He has written a good number of pieces (mostly for solo piano) on birds and bird calls, and one such set are his "small sketches", played today by Montreal-based pianist Louise Bessette. In my French commentary, I included a clip of another work Oiseaux Exotiques, this one for piano and winds.
Ralph Vaughan-Williams most played piece is probably The Lark Ascending, and it is featured today along with evocations of the Nightingale (by Alyabyev), seagulls (by Mathieu), the magpie (by Rossini), more swans (by Tchaikovsky)and swallows (by Josef Strauss).
Another bird, this one without feathers, is the legendary Alto-Saxophonist Charlie Parker, and I chose two live performances of Parker favourites from the Royal Roost in New-York City.
I think you will love this music too!
=====================================================================
Commentaire français
Nos trois prochains montages mettent de côté la thématique du Carême et embrassent plutôt l'arrivée du printemps. Pour commencer, célébrons le retour des oiseaux de leur migration annuelle, un sujet tant exploité par nos compositeurs...
Notre montage usera du Carnaval des animaux de Saint-Saëns comme une paire de parenthèses: la volière évoquée par les gazouillis de la flûte, et le cygne, violoncelle flottant sur une mare de pianos. J'aurais pu ajouter les coqs et poules et le coucou, mais il y a d'autres exemples à échantillonner...
Respighi s'inspire de pièces pour piano du XVIIe siècle pour une suite - comme ses danses anciennes pour luth - mais cette fois Gli Ucelli (les oiseaux). J'ai choisi la poule de cet ensemble, et vous suggère une performance de Désiré Defauw et le Chicago Symphony dans le commentaire anglais.
Olivier Messiaen, qui fut l'pobjet de réflexions à titre de compositeur spirituel et d'organiste nous revient comme ornithologue. En effet, Messiaen a observé les oiseaux toiute sa vie, et a tenté d'évoquer leur splendeur et leurs chants dans maintes compositions. Dans notre montage, je vous offre l'intégrale de ses peites esquisses d'oiseaux (interprétées par Louise Bessette) et ce clip YouTube de son oeuvre pour piano, vents et percussions, Oiseaux Exotiques.
D'autres exemples d'oiseaux musicaux: l'alouette (Vaughan-Williams), le rossignol (Alyabyev), les mouettes (Mathieu), la pie (Rossini), d'autres cygnes (Tchaïkovski) et les hirondelles (Josef Strauss).
Notre dernier oiseau, celui-ci sans plumage, est le saxophoniste alto Charlie Parker, croqué sur le vif dans deux prestations à partir du Royal Roost de New-York.
Bonne écoute!
No comments:
Post a Comment