One of the things I love the most about my job is getting to introduce people to different pieces of music. I've gotten a little jaded about certain pieces. The ones that are so ubiquitous in our culture that they are remixed, beatboxed, and have terrible cuts used in tv commercials. Sometimes I forget to sit down and really listen to the piece and appreciate it. Listening to music with my students and seeing the joy and excitement in their faces as they hear the music, excited to know what comes next, helps me remember just how special music is. If you do anything enough, I suppose it can become ordinary, and I want to try and guard against that.
I've decided that my second blog of the month this school year is going to share a piece of music that I love and talk a little about why I love it and why I love this particular recording.
This time, it's the Debussy Violin Sonata. I personally haven't played a great deal of French music, but I love listening to it and it's something I want to explore more in my playing. Claude Debussy was a composer who lived in the early 20th century and is to classical music what Claude Monet was to visual art. His compositions are lush, colorful, and imaginative.
I've decided that my second blog of the month this school year is going to share a piece of music that I love and talk a little about why I love it and why I love this particular recording.
This time, it's the Debussy Violin Sonata. I personally haven't played a great deal of French music, but I love listening to it and it's something I want to explore more in my playing. Claude Debussy was a composer who lived in the early 20th century and is to classical music what Claude Monet was to visual art. His compositions are lush, colorful, and imaginative.
I love how quietly and simply this movement starts, almost calmly, before it takes on a greater sense of urgency and sweeps us into a beautiful world of color and rapidly changing sound textures. The sheer variety of sounds and characters produced by the performers is incredible, as is the speed with which they transition from one to another.
Around the 2-minute mark, I imagine that there's a conversation between two characters as the violin switches from the low register to the high register. Soon after, the opening theme comes back in a nod to traditional ternary form.
I think my favorite moment in the piece, however, is at 3:57 in this recording. It's exultant, exotic, and just perfectly gorgeous as the climax of the movement.
I love this recording of Joseph Szigeti and Bela Bartok. Bartok is better known these days as a composer than a pianist, but I find his interpretations powerful and always interesting. I love Szigeti's violin playing. He can change moods faster than the blink of an eye, and his energy is always on the edge of bursting out into wildness. I never get tired of listening to these two play together.
I hope you enjoy this short movement from Debussy!
Around the 2-minute mark, I imagine that there's a conversation between two characters as the violin switches from the low register to the high register. Soon after, the opening theme comes back in a nod to traditional ternary form.
I think my favorite moment in the piece, however, is at 3:57 in this recording. It's exultant, exotic, and just perfectly gorgeous as the climax of the movement.
I love this recording of Joseph Szigeti and Bela Bartok. Bartok is better known these days as a composer than a pianist, but I find his interpretations powerful and always interesting. I love Szigeti's violin playing. He can change moods faster than the blink of an eye, and his energy is always on the edge of bursting out into wildness. I never get tired of listening to these two play together.
I hope you enjoy this short movement from Debussy!
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