It should not be a surprise to any regular reader of this blog that I consider Beethoven's chamber works to be his most significant compositions, and his piano sonatas in particular to be among those where my connection to Beethoven is strongest. Beethoven's final piano sonatas are breathtaking in their beauty and inventiveness and, perhaps, … Continue reading The Friday Symposium: Beethoven Swings
Tag: Friday Symposium
The Friday Symposium: A Cocktail for the End of Time
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth .... … Continue reading The Friday Symposium: A Cocktail for the End of Time
The Friday Symposium: Collapse the Light Into Earth
At some point in the 1980s or early 1990s, rock musicians began to abandon functional harmony--the idea of building music around a tonic chord or key. Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana is a good example of this. Drawing on a wide range of inspirations, such as The Pixies and Sonic Youth, Niravana began charting … Continue reading The Friday Symposium: Collapse the Light Into Earth
The Friday Symposium: Music and Cocktails for the Last Days of Summer
The last days of summer don't mean as much as they used to these days. While some, no doubt, will board their last train back to the City on Monday afternoon, or otherwise brave the traffic and the dreaded LIE, come Tuesday morning I will still find myself seated here, 100 miles from the office … Continue reading The Friday Symposium: Music and Cocktails for the Last Days of Summer
The Friday Symposium: Thomas Tallis and White Châteauneuf-du-Pape
On this edition of the Friday Symposium, we go even further back in music history to motets composed by Thomas Tallis. One of my Desert Island Discs is certainly the Tallis Scholars' recording of Spem in Alium, along with other Tallis compositions. https://open.spotify.com/album/69n01dGwqZ5d5b1GITfP7G?si=I9ki400PSXy2UlHN957LzA One of the most complex and ethereal compositions of its or any … Continue reading The Friday Symposium: Thomas Tallis and White Châteauneuf-du-Pape
A Gertus History of Music 