Maurice Ravel wrote “La Valse” as a commission by the famous ballet choreographer, Sergei Diaghilev (who also commissioned the Rite of Spring, and many other famous early 20th century pieces.) Diaghilev rejected the music, saying “It’s a masterpiece, but it’s not a ballet. It’s the portrait of a ballet.”

Indeed it is a masterpiece. There’s plenty of clichéd waltz material here, but it’s presented as a parody. It doesn’t play like the countless standard 18th century European waltzes. It’s more like a drunken dream about going to a posh party and getting swept up in the music and dancing. Imagine approaching a large European manor home. You can hear the distant music inside, you see the fancy dresses and carefree partygoers. You enter the home and are overwhelmed by the music and the rhythm. You dance and dance, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes with your lover, sometimes by yourself. Eventually the champagne kicks in, and everybody starts getting wild and out of control. The music, and the party, end abruptly and you are thrown out the front door. 9/10 would waltz again.

A piece of music, written about a piece of music? That’s sooooo meta …

To dovetail off of yesterday’s post, music has to be in the present in order to exist. Organized dots on a page are not music – it doesn’t become music until it exists either as imagined or real vibrating air molecules, heard by a human. The harsh reality of this is, sometimes great music can be sitting dormant in books (or even a person’s brain), waiting to be heard by others. Take, for example, Edward Elgar‘s Cello Concerto.

The concerto received one of the famously worst premieres in music history – all thanks to an inconsiderate conductor who didn’t allow for enough time to rehearse the piece. When it was first performed in 1919, the orchestra did so poorly that the piece instantly fell into obscurity. It wasn’t until 1960 – 25 years after Elgar’s death – that the piece exploded in popularity due to a particularly stunning performance by Jacqueline du Pré (about whom a film was recently made.)

A twist of circumstances, a poor decision by a person in control, and history can be changed. It might not be fair, but it’s life.

note: this cannon makes music AND war.

Blogging: some days the words flow from a never-ending stream of genius and awesomeness; other days, I end up blankly staring at my screen, watching the worst of YouTube, desperately looking for inspiration. (the same thing can happen when it comes to music composition, by the way!) When I’m stuck, the first thing I do is search for historical events that happened on the day of the post. So what happened on June 30? The Tunguska Event – and no, I had never heard of this until today’s web search.

Basically, the Tunguska Event was a meteor that struck the middle of Siberia in 1908 and caused a massive explosion that leveled 2,000 sq. km of forest (and caused no known human casualties***).

.. a big BOOM … in Russia … eureka! I’ve got it! I’m a genius!

Tchaikovsky‘s 1812 Overture is the most famous musical BOOM. It was written in 1882 to celebrate Russia’s victory over Napoleon in 1812. As far as the music is concerned, it’s not the most amazing piece ever written; I’d venture to say that it’s one of Tchaikovsky’s tackier contributions to the Art Music canon (pun intended). I’m not saying it’s bad, but compared to his 6th symphony or to his opera Eugene Onegin, the 1812 Overture is a hodge-podge collage of nationalistic sentimentality, including some ridiculously long, melodic sequences (like the one that starts at 0:52 and ends at 1:39 – yes, 45 seconds of descending tetrachords …), and, of course, cannons!

This is why I’m posting just the finale, not the whole piece. You can listen to the whole thing if you want, but trust me, it’ll just be a long wait until the cannons come out. Here’s what you’re hearing:

• 0:03 La Marseillaise, the French National anthem, representing Napoleon of course
• 0:40 the first of the cannons!
• 1:39 A Russian Orthodox Hymn (O Lord, Save Thy People)
• 1:45 Church Bells celebrating the Russian victory
• 3:14 God Save the Tsar, the Russian National anthem at the time (spoiler alert – God doesn’t save the Tsar)

*** if it did cause any human casualties … what a totally metal way to die!