My uncle just sent me this email:

Hi Andrew!

You told me once — but I forgot — which of the Mahler symphonies you hold in general high regard.  Would you recite that preference to me again?

Any particular recording?

You will be hard pressed to find any more complex of thematic and orchestrational development than the music contained in his 5th and 6th symphonies.

Also, the sheer beauty of the slow movements of these two symphonies is without rival in the orchestral literature.

They are both very long, so consider listening to movements 3 through 5 of the 5th, and then movements 3 and 4 of the 6th to get your feet wet. When given a chance to really listen to the intricacies of his textures, I guarantee you will be blown away. They are not background music.

I have a recording of the Czech Philharmonic performing the 6th. I have a few recordings of the 5th, including (I think) one of Berlin with Abbado which was my first introduction to the 5th.

The grand sonata form of the final movement of the 6th is in the opinion of many contemporary composers the greatest achievement in all the symphonic literature. It is a whopping 30-minute universe in its own right that takes motivic development in directions not seen since Bach.  In fact, the Brandenburgs were a major influence on Mahler. Unlike most late-Romantic composers, Mahler’s music is extensively contrapuntal within its gigantic orchestrations.

These two symphonies are entirely instrumental and are an excellent contrast to the choral works he created in other symphonies. The 5th and 6th are mainstays of professional symphony programs each year. As you can see, I am unable to stop writing about them. I have listened to each hundreds of times, and still return to hear new themes and complexities I’ve not picked up on before.

They are genuinely grandiose. Enjoy!!

Here we have Lollapalooza:  I had the live music phenomenon of my life a couple weeks ago in Chicago, at this very amazing festival.  The city and Perry Farrell did an extraordinary job; a fantastic weekend.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jane’s Addiction,  Ben Folds,  Snoop Dog,  Other Lives,  Fleet Foxes,  Cold War Kids,  Thievery Corporation,  Manchester Orchestra,  The Decemberists,  Andrew Bird,  Of Montreal,  and Santigold!

A few of the many bands I heard for the first time, over only three days.

For me, it was Jane’s Addiction that really catapulted what was an already-astounding festival into something truly rare.  Perry Farrell (creator of the festival back in 1991 as the Jane’s farewell tour), showed tens of thousands of stunned spectators how true performance art is delivered, as he resurrected their famous music with fresh authenticity — and utilizing all the band’s original members!  This powerhouse of rock gods, whose work has spawned countless other “projects” like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Porno For Pyros, featured near magic with the likes of David Navarro and the others.  At one point, a helicopter circled low over the huge audience, lit oddly to resemble a true unidentified object, as it shined intense, ultra-focused spot beams down into the crowd.  This and so many other nuances made the 90-minute show one of the more significant events I’ll probably see.

I was asked recently by a rather educated and artistic gentleman what chamber music is.  I had been throwing around the term, not realizing that a majority of the population is unaware of its meaning.

As I will be posting some chamber music soon, I thought to clarify what it is.

Wikipedia has a nice entry on the term, but I define it more loosely:  Chamber music is simply written for any combination of instruments, usually symphonic, but assembled in smaller groups than a full orchestra, often for 3 - 8 players.

Popular chamber music ensembles consist of:

the string quartet

woodwind quintet

brass quartet and quintet

X trio or X quintet, where “X” could be any instrument, and the others usually strings, such as a piano trio (piano, violin, cello), or clarinet quintet (clarinet plus string quartet), etc.

Wikipedia broadly suggests that a “chamber orchestra” can size up to 50 musicians… which I’d instead consider to be a full orchestra (the normal size of a symphony in Mozart’s time, for example, was quite small compared to the orchestras of today.. yet it was still a true “symphony orchestra”).  In any case, chamber orchestras probably don’t quite fit into the common perception of chamber music, which can be played “in any chamber”, or room.

It is worth noting that chamber music can be among the most expressive and complicated in the repertoire.  Indeed, size does not matter in the world of music, and chamber sounds can be as bold and moving as the grandest of philharmonic orchestras.

Some of the string quartets of Beethoven are notoriously difficult to both play and to understand, even for modern ears.  Yet also, some chamber music has such a profound influence, it pushes through a society like wildfire until everyone has digested it. The famous music used in Oliver Stone’s movie “Platoon” was originally scored for string quartet by Samuel Barber.  The uniquely scored and haunting Quartet For the End of Time by Messiaen demonstrates just how intimate a small collection of instruments can be, as the composer chose the medium to express his experiences as a POW in WW II.

The phenomenal Sonata for Violin and Cello by Ravel shows how only two instruments, when treated for the full capacity of their range and potential, can produce mind-bending music to rival anything else ever written, ever.

And of course, the solo Cello suites by none other than J.S. Bach remain a testament to the power of the single voice.

Chamber music is a great example of how it is often possible to do more with less.

OK, them Brits can be useful sometimes.

This is seriously waaaay cool, one of the most bangup shizzies i’ve seen in a looong time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kyNGVK-hI

Two different artists.  Blazing talent.

They call them nathan flutebox lee and beardyman.  That’s right.

poem by Frank O’Hara

Blue windows, blue rooftops

and the blue light of the rain,

these contiguous phrases of Rachmaninoff

pouring into my enormous ears

and the tears falling into my blindness

for without him i do not play,

especially in the afternoon

on the day of his birthday.  Good

fortune, you would have been

my teacher and I your only pupil

and I would always play again.

Secrets of Liszt and Scriabin

whispered to me over the keyboard

on unsunny afternoons! and growing

still in my stormy heart.

Only my eyes would be blue as I played

and you rapped my knuckles,

dearest father of all the Russias,

placing my fingers

tenderly upon your cold, tired eyes.

Rachmaninoff died just three days short of his 70th birthday, which was April 1.  He remains a favorite of mine.


 

The sound clip below is an exercise to test all the possible resolutions I can justify from a major-minor 7th chord, a.k.a. the “dominant 7th chord (V7)”.  In all of music, probably no chord has had greater harmonic use over the centuries than this particular sonority.  It contains the interval of a tritone, which is quite unstable, giving it the forward-moving sound that the ear expects to resolve into a more stable harmony.

But what is it really capable of?

The vast majority of the music literature resolves this chord back to the tonic, a fifth below.  Thus a V7 built on G will resolve either to a C Major or c minor chord.

Also common are “deceptive” resolutions to the sixth scale degree… C Major allows a resolution to a minor, and c minor can substitute A-flat Major.  Also very traditional.  So, that’s four unique chords that can be resolved by the same major-minor seven chord.

The clip below uses the same seventh chord to resolve to twelve unique chords.

“Modal mixing”, a.k.a. borrowed chords helps to explain why a sound that is not part of the home key can be interjected effectively, as it has the same tonic and is merely borrowing the rest of the chord from the parallel key… C Major and c minor are parallel to each other; same tonic (c) but different harmonies.

So I considered taking the two deceptive resolutions above, and merely substituting the parallel sound.  This allowed a-flat minor and A Major into the mix.  That’s now six chords.

The other six came from the truly wonderful phenomenon of tritone substitution.  This splendid technique, taken to new heights (if not introduced by) the Romantic composers of the 19th century, and enhanced greatly by 20th century Jazz, suggests simply enough that any two chords with the same tritone may resolve identically.  In the dominant 7th case, a chord removed by one tritone thus shares the same tritone… i.e. a G7 chord has the tritone of B-F, and so does a C#7 chord.   The unstable tritone is still present, and thus a sense of resolve is accomplished regardless the other notes of the chord.  Thus the C#7 resolves to all the 6 chords already mentioned.  And our original G7 chord then resolves to a whole new set of 6 chords.

I first starting thinking about this last August when I studied a work by Chopin, and decided last night just to line all the resolutions up in a row to see if in fact they all work.  I think they do, and this opens up a lot of harmonic possibilities.  It basically means that any dominant seventh chord can resolve to half of the keys/chords in tonal existence.  Really, that’s quite amazing, and they don’t usually teach that in college. (There are, in fact, resolutions even beyond these 12 within the literature of Chopin and other Romantics, but I am unable to explain them theoretically at the moment.  One might be tempted to say that they can resolve to truly anything.)

Click here for the string of 12 resolutions using the same V7 chord.  Every other chord will be identical, but each resolution will be unique.

sigh. this is the tough part of trying to keep a decent site up and running, functional with all these gadgets. it can all work perfectly, then something outside your control, like Adobe releasing new Flash players to computers around the world, breaks all the hard work.

Anyway, i am almost disappointed that it is fixed, since i started working on another method of delivery that put things more in my control.  but it too was time consuming, so.. another day.  i’ll accept this bandage for now.

for the 6 of you that visit and listen to my website each decade, you should now be back in business!

the best of holidays to everyone,

Andrew

I have learned that the new Flash 10 player for web browsers has changed enough that it is not backwards compatible with the music streaming software on this site.  So, if you are trying to play music and see no controls, hear nothing, etc.. this is the reason.  I am not sure when this will be fixed; there are hundreds, if not more, web owners having the same problem recently.  Adobe is taking no blame, unfortunately, so the solution may be hard to come by in the near term.

Flash 9 still works, however.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

What do you get when you cross a live all-night jazz club with a chess tournament?

Then of course, you must mix in a ping pong court.

Add a bar and a bunch of Scrabble playoffs.

Complete the concoction with a large pool hall.

Finally, put the odd creation underground, and adorn it with a very chilled out dog that sleeps next to you on big lounge sofas.  What do you end up with?

Anyone?

The answer, of course, is Fat Cat, one of New York’s more unique and enjoyable dwellings, located quite conveniently in Greenwich Village, near a fantastic Thai restaurant (Wild Ginger) and numerous other late-night getaways.

Fat Cat keeps the party going until 5am, 7 nights a week.

Oh, and did I mention shuffeboard?!  I don’t think I did!!

6 years ago today, I was sitting in an apartment just across the Hudson river from New York City, thinking about what had happened 7 years ago today.

click here for the improv

Kate and I share our office at the New York Institute of Finance, 17th floor of Tower 2.

The view from the Staten Island Ferry, just outside the terminal, during 2001.

more pix