The Fine Art of Listening

Hooray, it’s Friday!

While Art Music is typically heard by sitting audiences, much of it is written in rhythms or forms that come directly from dances. Take the gavotte – a French dance, originally performed by peasants, and later adopted by the royalty (who added erotic kissing to the dance moves …) It has a distinct rhythm which makes it easy to identify.

This is a movement one of Bach‘s orchestral dance suites. It’s in trio form – which means there are two contrasting “songs” – the first ends at 1:15, and next you hear a second, contrasting “song”. When he second concludes, the first is played one final time. Trio is a simple but important form which is often heard in symphonies (minuet and scherzo movements), waltzes, and military marches.

It might be bloody miserable blazing outside, but at least the humidity is only 95%. It’s the kind of hot where the air feels so thick that going outside feels like walking into a curtain of steam.

If you haven’t seen the movie Lawrence of Arabia, I cannot recommend it enough. The exotic story, the gripping characters, and naturally, the brilliant film score by Maurice Jarre (who also wrote the gorgeous music of Doctor Zhivago.) Everything about that movie makes me feel hot to the core – but you can watch it indoors, in the AC, with a cool drink in your hand.

In this video, there are two very contrasting main themes – the wild, exotic sounds of Arabia, and the sweeping, lyric sound representing the legendary Englishman who became so powerful there. Try to ignore the fact that it isn’t politically correct, and just enjoy the music.

What the hell is a cakewalk? Is it the long, hungry walk you have to take in order to get to the cake store, or is it the long walk you have to take after eating cake to burn off the calories?

Louis Gottschalk is another one of those American composers that you rarely hear about, because, like the Boston Six, he was before Ives and Jazz. However, unlike the Boston Six, I’m willing to agree that Gottschalk isn’t exactly a true blue ‘Murican. He was born in New Orleans, but when he was 13, he traveled to Europe to receive musical training. When he returned to the US, he mostly traveled abroad, and ultimately got himself kicked out of the country because of a little hanky-panky.

Enough about him – his music is remarkable. 100 years before Copland and Bernstein made the Latin American sound popular in the concert hall, Gottschalk was living and inventing the style.

And, for the record, a cakewalk is a dance that originated with the southern American slaves.