Songs I Like

[PatC]

Can I play?

Dangerous Tango, I like it, it's kind of catchy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjZyUVAGuqs

Ray Buchanan - Wayfaring Pilgrim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSKqEmeONuU

 

[Olympia]

Can I play?

Dangerous Tango, I like it, it's kind of catchy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjZyUVAGuqs

Ray Buchanan - Wayfaring Pilgrim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSKqEmeONuU

Yay! The more the merrier. Thanks for these. The tango is heaps of fun, and I like the rendition of the song I've also known as "Wayfaring Stranger."

Here's a song sung in French by the international performer Esther Ofarim. I think it was actually written as a tribute to the actor shown in the video, Gerard Philipe, after his death. He was hugely popular on stage and in films, and he died of cancer before he was forty. Even if one doesn't understand the words, it's so plain from the melody that this song is as sad as can be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75H0E_b-LAU

 

[skatinginbc]

And Schubert's Great C Major Quintet, with the two cellos. I'm getting gooseflesh just writing out the title to that one. And I found a complete recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3tmFhrOgNk&feature=related

Speaking of musical modes and melodic progression, you easily called out the masterpiece of Schubert: the String Quintet in C major, which is lauded for its brilliant modulation and melodic development. I'm so impressed with the music database in your brain, literally a living encyclopedia. I also love Schubert's Unfinished Symphony No.8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mnrHf7p0jM). I have a hard time deciding who is the most poetic musician that ever lived: Schubert or Chopin? Chopin's piano concertos are poems (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaSnqXxTUxM&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_lELKeJUTw). Every note is beautiful.

Ray Buchanan - Wayfaring Pilgrim http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSKqEmeONuU

It reminded me of Fantasia's Summertime (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9MOJaHzm3A). And then it somehow--don't ask me why--brought my memory to Brooks & Dunn's Ain't Nothing 'Bout You (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLN8EWkYx1o), the first song of theirs that I listened to. I love Dunn's voice and accent.

Here's a song sung in French by the international performer Esther Ofarim.

Another beautiful song of hers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ8eLTb5Shw&feature=related).

 

[Olympia]

You're pretty good yourself as a living encyclopedia of music! (I personally think that you have more volumes in your inner encyclopedia than I do, by far.)

I love Fantasia's rendition of "Summertime" also. That was the first year I watched American Idol, and to me right away, this lady was the Real Thing, with a unique voice and an innate understanding of a song. (And that was in the same season as Jennifer Hudson!) I was so glad Fantasia won, though I feared even then that her rather feckless approach to life would hold her back. She just gave off a wounded vibe. I hoped (and still hope) that she would dip more deeply into Broadway and jazz, because I could see her as an heir to the likes of Nancy Wilson rather than as a pop diva.

I know what you mean about poetic composers. I couldn't choose between Schubert and Chopin either, though Schubert created in a greater variety of forms--and all those songs! I'd also compound your agonizing by adding several of the French composers to the list, like Ernest Chausson. Here is his Concerto for piano, violin, and string quartet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR9U6nhP7t4

And what about Mendelssohn? See, I'm no help at all. My feeling about music is that it's one area where that awful phrase "greed is good" actually should apply.

So now I'm listening to that Brooks and Dunn song you linked us to. I am not too familiar with country music, so this is new to me. I gather that Dunn is the lead singer? If so, I see what you mean about his voice and his accent. One thing I enjoy about country music is that a good voice is valued (unlike rock most of the time). Also, I like that a country song so often tells a story or at least delineates a character.

 

[Olympia]

Double post: As I'm paying bills, I'm listening to my favorite part of Rimsky Korsakov's orchestral suite from his opera Le coq d'or. It's amazing that the first part is just up and down the scale for awhile, five notes, yet how he forms them into a narrative that moves forward and draws you into a magical setting alive with color and light! You just know that something astonishing is happening all around you. How does he do that? *imagines Mao Asada skating to it*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j-vQPVQBOc&feature=relmfu

 

[skatinginbc]

I'd also compound your agonizing by adding several of the French composers to the list, like Ernest Chausson. Here is his Concerto for piano, violin, and string quartet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR9U6nhP7t4

Another masterpiece, the best piano sextet ever! :agree: That live recording seems a little off-balanced to me. I mean the piano somehow overwhelms the violin in some places. Here is another one, stereo recording, that I enjoy better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-uwugKe3xU.
Of course, speaking of French composers, how can we not mention Ernest Chausson's student Claude Debussy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvFH_6DNRCY)? and Mao Asada's performance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=327n8Gue9Ic)?

I'm listening to my favorite part of Rimsky Korsakov's orchestral suite from his opera Le coq d'or.

And of course, his famous Scheherazade (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lEx0ytE_0&feature=related) and Michelle Kwan's performance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9cLvnlxFBY&feature=related).

Some more early 20th century (or late 19th century) composers:
Sergei Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecRu6R3qwV4) (Cohen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZQPywIi1gw&feature=related)
Giacomo Puccini's Tosca (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_pg-DKBeZ0&feature=related) (Kwan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtCqLJddNQ) and Turandot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fYvVRLPVcs)(Arakawa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xzGdVragbo)
Igor Stravinsky's Firebird (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WsqK1mCGeY) (Rochette: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZqWXBhJXck)

I wonder why Dvorak's music has not been used for skating yet? His famous New World Symphony (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tkWvHj0GU4&feature=relmfu) is arguably one of the top 10 best symphonies ever written.

 

[Olympia]

I'm not sure I realized that Debussy was a student of Chausson. He certainly did his teacher proud. Among other things, he did some deliriously lovely chamber music, along with everything else he did. (Speaking of chamber music, let's add Faure to our list.) Thanks for the alternative rendition of the Chausson, and the video of Mao skating to Clair de Lune. Her style is so compatible with French music, isn't it? I always envisioned Michelle skating to French music as well. They both have the lightness and lyricism for it.

Back to Jewish music...I thought of two composers who drew from Jewish liturgy. One is I think early baroque: Solomone Rossi. His works sound like Monteverdi or Schutz, but if you listen carefully, they're in Hebrew. Iluvtodd, I wonder whether your choir has ever performed any Rossi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86YhKN19daQ

More modern is Ernest Bloch. He wrote a ceremonial piece called the Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh), for baritone cantor, chorus, and orchestra. Here's one part of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1uiUpRn7HY

 

[skatinginbc]

I'm not sure I realized that Debussy was a student of Chausson.

Sorry, not really teacher-student, they were more like patron-guest. I was told that Chausson, who was older and very wealthy, was a patron of Debussy and often invited him to be his house guest.

Back to Jewish music...I thought of two composers who drew from Jewish liturgy. One is I think early baroque: Solomone Rossi. His works sound like Monteverdi or Schutz, but if you listen carefully, they're in Hebrew. Iluvtodd, I wonder whether your choir has ever performed any Rossi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86YhKN19daQ

It reminds me of Thomas Tallis as well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9BnqgvHCNw&feature=related).

 

[Olympia]

I love the idea of Chausson being a patron. He must have loved music so much that he didn't just want to take part in it himself, he wanted all the most promising people to have a chance to take part as well. I know he didn't live long, but he left some beautiful music for the rest of us. Have you ever heard his vocal piece, Poeme de l"Amour et de la Mer? Sublime. That whole bunch of late-Romantic French composers is so tantalizing, even some of the more obscure ones like Vincent D'Indy. His Symphony on a French Mountain Air (I think it's really a piano concerto in structure) is so exhilarating. Hmmm...who could skate to that first movement...(Do I have a one-track mind?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y6hDP18WD8

Another of my favorite French piano concertos is Saint-Saens' Fifth. (Yes, the thought of a skater comes to me with this music also. Well, it would have the virtue of uniqueness, as well as giving many possibilities for tempo changes and emotional shading.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOn8P3ODsCI

 

[skatinginbc]

It's funny that you put Vincent D'Indy and Saint-Saens together--They didn't get along and hated each other. D'Indy, after becoming its president, kicked Saint-Saëns out of Société Nationale de Musique, a society founded by Saint-Saëns himself to promote French music.
Saint-Saëns' piano concertos are very exciting to play, very dramatic. His fast and rhythmic sections always make me feel like jumping off the piano stool. And the sad sections, if you play them really slow and pay attention to each note, are the saddest music--crying deep sorrow. He grew up without a father. Both his children died in the same year, and he literally abandoned his wife. He was outspoken and had many enemies. I guess his life was a drama in itself. Besides music, he was also an accomplished scientist in various field. I think he must be a genius, with an exceptionally high IQ. He was of Jewish descent. I don't know if that played any role in the animosity between him and D'Indy, who was anti-Semitic.

Speaking of analyzing each note, Chopin's piano concertos are simply poems. I don't know how to describe it. The best I can say is that every note is so beautifully arranged--so beautiful.

Do you remember Mathman once mentioned the judging scandal in 1980 International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw? This is Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 performed by Dang Thai Son, the winner of that event (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GiPiGCE4s5s#t=196s) . And this is performed by Ivo Pogorelic, who caused the controversy due to his "openly provocative style of interpretation and behavior on the stage" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DkLyZJiUhZE#t=140s). What do you think? If I were a judge, I would have been in the group of judges that found Pogorelic's playing unacceptable. "An immense talent gone tragically astray"--I kind of agree with that.

 

[iluvtodd]

Olympia, I am familiar with Salomone Rossi & Ernest Bloch! My choir hasn't sung either in the context of a synagogue service, but I did get to sing Rossi's "Barechu" in a Jewish music course that I took @ Gratz College (a college in the Phila. area for Judaica studies). One of my favorite Judaica music CDs is a Judeo/Baroque one that includes Rossi's "Barechu." I was thrilled to find it, as I have always loved it since I was introduced to it in that course. I love Baroque music in general, anyway!

 

[Olympia]

I'm so jealous (in the nicest possible way) of you two, who have sung or played such wonderful music. I just looked up "Barechu." BC, you have to listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz7c9f_TjKU

I also love Baroque music, especially early Baroque like Schutz, Monteverdi, and Gabrielli.

No kidding, there's a college named for the Gratz family? It makes sense, because wasn't Rebecca from Philadelphia? That's such a wonderful story, how Scott heard of Rebecca from Washington Irving and may have been inspired by her as he created Rebecca of York in Ivanhoe. Yes, I am a romantic.

BC (you lucky duck, playing Saint-Saens), I think I read somewhere that Saint-Saens was equal parts unpleasant and brilliant--probably in my favorite book about music, Harold C. Schonberg's Lives of the Great Composers. I have a vague memory of Schonberg's recounting an incident where Saint-Saens as a boy played by sight a piano transcription of something amazingly complicated like Tristan und Isolde? It's interesting that he and Faure, two of the longest-lived great composers, pretty much coincided in terms of lifespan, living from the early 1800s into the 1920s. I think Schonberg pointed out that one of them met Rossini in his youth and Gershwin in his old age. Wow. I don't remember reading anything about D'Indy, but I'll go back and check. Phooey on him if he allowed anti-Semitism to color his actions like that. I'll still love Symphony on a French Mountain Air, I suppose, seeing as how I do love large swaths of Wagner. Many artists create works that are bigger and warmer than they are as people. As Geoffrey Rush's character says in Shakespeare in Love, "it's a mystery."

I remember Math talking about the judging scandal. I'll check out your two tapes and compare.

 

[iluvtodd]

Yes, Olympia, Gratz College is named for the Gratz family, a prominent Jewish family back in the day. Rebecca Gratz was part of that family, and she did many wonderful things in her lifetime - starting the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society for needy Jewish women and the first Jewish Sunday School in America - The Hebrew Sunday School Society (back in 1838).

I love Saint Saens music. One of the pieces I really enjoy is the music that was used in the soundtrack for "Babe," with lyrics ("If I had Words"). This is coming from a soundtrack "nut!"

 

[Olympia]

Yes, Olympia, Gratz College is named for the Gratz family, a prominent Jewish family back in the day. Rebecca Gratz was part of that family, and she did many wonderful things in her lifetime - starting the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society for needy Jewish women and the first Jewish Sunday School in America - The Hebrew Sunday School Society (back in 1838).

I love Saint Saens music. One of the pieces I really enjoy is the music that was used in the soundtrack for "Babe," with lyrics ("If I had Words"). This is coming from a soundtrack "nut!"

I just looked up the Babe song on YouTube. It's the melody from the last movement of his third symphony, the "Organ Symphony." That's the part played by the organ. I agree, it's a wonderful stirring tune...even when sung by mice! I have to mention another piece that Saint-Saens actually planned words to when he wrote it, the lovely aria from his opera Samson and Delilah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwynxOAoKjo

In French, it's "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix," literally "My heart opens at thy voice," but I think it's usually called "My heart at thy sweet voice" in English. It's one of the tenderest songs in opera, though of course the woman was lying through her teeth at the time. The vile seductress.

Remember that great program Rochette skated to Samson and Delilah? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB2N7aDEN9M

 

[dorispulaski]

For that matter, D&W skated to Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S65MXD3XHvQ


It's just very good music to skate to.

 

[Olympia]

It sure is, Doris!

There's a lot of lovely stuff in French opera. Here are two duets, both coincidentally same-gender duets (soprano/mezzo, and tenor/bass), and both are set exotically: India and Ceylon, respectively, I think. One is the Flower Song from Leo Delibes' opera Lakme. The other is "Au Fond du Temple Saint" from Georges Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. Don't know if they are skiable by an ice dance duo, but as an exhibition piece for a singles skater or for an ensemble in a pro ice show, some inventive skating could be designed around them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf42IP__ipw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tLrPVkfCIQ

 

[dorispulaski]

Here's a bunch of songs that I used to love to blast on the car stereo during my commute. They all take me on a trip to different times in my life.

Paul Simon
Late in the Evening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57RIlznOpDM

Al Stewart
Time Passages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLJGIcWA8Ck

Chicago
If you Leave Me now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlKaVFqxERk&feature=related

Dire Straits
Money for Nothing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwDDswGsJ60

Dire Straits
Sultans of Swing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo-J1wf2KHc&feature=related

Mamas & the Papas
California Dreamin'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0UcQDUR-fU

Simon & Garfunkel
The Sound of Silence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqGP6p0mNc8&feature=related

Janis Joplin
Piece of My Heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzy_BEzlHWI

 

[Olympia]

That's a great road map, Doris. I'd put a certain amount of Paul Simon in mine as well.

 

[iluvtodd]

Ah, Al Stewart's Time Passages! it, along with Song on the Radio!

Olympia, I have the Saint Saens' Organ Symphony (at least part of it, if not all of it) on a CD. It's glorious!

 

[Olympia]

Isn't it wonderful? I love that first movement, so intense, with such--well, movement! It almost speeds up my heartbeat as I listen to it. Funny; I don't really know anything about the other two symphonies. The third one seems to get all the spotlight. And it can't be easy to perform, just logistically: they have to lug an organ into the performance space.

Is anyone else here a fan of the singer-songwriters of the 1970s?

Jim Croce: I Got a Name
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcqauC49Xmc

Dan Fogelberg Leader of the Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsocZrEcp0Y

Fogelberg again: Longer Than
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Go6I2_PpBU&feature=related

Oh, heck, we have to have at least one John Denver. This is Calypso, in honor of Earth Day last week
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35x_rwyBh-8