Dvorak's Song to the Moon

Song to the Moon, from Rusalka. 

I was browsing the—usually annoying, but surprisingly interesting—feed from YouTube, when I stumbled on this soprano aria from 2018.  I'll try and link it here, but I've had bad luck doing that the past few times I have tried. [Succeeded!]

Apparently it's from his opera Rusalka.  It just knocked me flat; it was so lovely.  The girl entreats the moon to remind her lover that she waits for him.  Near the end, she practically screams at the moon to not disappear!  I can certainly sympathize; you don't want the one to whom you're talking to start walking away,  or disappearing!

I would say that this aria is as deeply moving as Strauss's fourth Last Song: Im Abendrot, though it is much more diatonic. 

I read the synopsis of the story on Wikipedia, and it is essentially identical to that of The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Andersen.  'Rusalka' means, essentially, water spirit in Czech, and except for some details, the story follows that of the Andersen fairy tale.  It ends in tragedy, which—I believe—was the original Andersen ending. 

Not surprisingly, the best performances of the aria is by those who were native speakers of Czech, or at least those who understood the language.  When Rusalka scolds the moon for disappearing, Dvorak's setting is very angry.  That's probably appropriate, considering that Rusalka is the child of The Water Sprite, a powerful spirit.

https://youtu.be/Us_F2xLJgKI?si=BdZOIjP3NoTlaFGi

Paul McCartney: A Wonderful Christmastime!

When U was living with my parents, in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), I can't remember very much of what the Beatles—post breakup—were doing.  I probably didn't really know.  (Actually, I thought Imagine was post-breakup, but it might not have been ...)

Then, when I got here, I was confronted with a lot of McCartney and Wings-type music, a little of which I really liked ('Uncle Albert, Admiral Halsey' - type songs, and Band on the Run), but a lot of which I didn't care for.  John Lennon's early songs I rather liked, but not the Double Fantasy songs, for the most part.  But that was close to half a century ago; I heard Wonderful Christmastime just yesterday, I believe, and I thought: wow, what a great song!

Some of these late McCartney songs really show us, in clear focus, what McC could do: very musical, highly whimsical songs. 

Lennon, in contrast, thought in very edgy musical terms.  If Paul declared that something John wrote was a little too conventional or formulaic, we have reports that John would rewrite it.  ("Here come old Flattop," the opening phrase of Come Together, was a case in point.  I recently sangthis with a Karaoke machine, at wedding, andpeople looked at me crosseyed.)

You can easily see how Lennon and McCartney, together, could moderate each other's tendencies, to produce essentially perfect pop songs, which is what the fans wanted.  The fans who still deplore the fact that the band broke up don't realize that the vast majority of Beatles fans just would not like Lennon/McCartney songs now.  It's impossible. 

The Concert on the Roof, which was their last live broadcast, was (in my view,) brilliant.  You might think: why couldn't we have more of that?  Well, those songs were mostly written when they were in their teens, or were just parodies of their early songs.  They had had breakups, the frustrations that they wanted to express were very individual.  There were "You never give me your money," - type frustrations, which united them, but a lot of what they wanted to express would probably not found echoes in what the others wanted to express.  Or they probably didn't want to express some of those feelings at all; after all, they were English.  They were quite capable of expressing their feelings, but I'm sure they had rather not.  Perhaps in allegorical form, but it might have struck them as just too much work. 

(I can't resist deploring the murder of John Lennon.  Can't say anything more than that.)

Well, all McCartney's post-breakup music awaits my attention.  I would not be able to persuade anyone who wasn't already an ardent Beatles fan about what an amazing band they were.  Listen to the music, I'd say; if it doesn't grab you, give it up. 

Archie

Dancing In the Street

Just set the record straight, this song, Dancing in the Street, was sung by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and reportedly reached no. 4 on one of the charts in the USA, and rose a little higher, I believe, in the UK.  Then it was covered by all sorts of acts, not least David Bowie and Mick Jagger.  Wikipedia has a full list of the artists who covered the song. 

The song was written by a trio of composers Marvin Gaye, (who incidentally did one of the cover versions), William Stevenson, and Ivy Jo Hunter. 

Ït was a culturally significant song, because it was used as a kind of Civil Rights anthem in the sixties.  (I wasn't around at that time, and can't attest to just how much of an anthem it really was.)

In many ways, it is a joyous song.  The theme of dancing in the streets has connotations of great celebration, in most English-speaking countries, even beyond the simple description of actually Dancing in the streets; the kind of universal rejoicing called for at the end of a war, for instance.  (Incidentally, there is a brilliantly sardonic song composed by Ed McCurdy, called Last night I had the strangest dream in which this phrase—Dancing in the Street—is invoked ɓrilliantly.)

I feel, however, that the song has a sort of static feel, as though it isn't going anywhere.  It doesn't need to; it's a celebration!

Why doesn't it move?  I think it has to do with the so-called flattened leading note.  The flattened Leading- Note makes the tune sound as if it's in a medieval mode.  Tunes in modes typically don't modulate to other keys, but it's the modulation that gives the feeling of motion.  By the simple expedient of putting the tunein a major key, it will immediately sound as though there the potential for movement.  On the downside, there will have to be movement now.

The Beatles

OMFG: What is wrong with this country, that they have to figure out who is the best at something?

I studied mathematics, and we have a subject (within mathematics, of course) where we study the whole concept of 'more than', and generally 'better than'.  (A more fundamental idea is that of 'better than, or just as good as'.)

Well, it was soon pretty clear that many things that are celebrated as 'the best' something-or-other simply did not make sense to receive that title.  It's not that they were not the best.  It just didn't make sense. 

The Beatles were an amazingly talented group.  They were excellent at live shows; in fact, they gave some of the most greatly enjoyed live performances on record.  There's a lot of news reports of the fabulous Beatles performances, though of course they were nowhere as well-attended as, say, Taylor Swift shows today.  But there were at least two problems that I can guess.

Firstly, they were never satisfied with the music quality of their live shows.  The records they made were put together with a lot of effort, often recorded up to twenty times, just for one song!  They listened to tapings of their live shows, and they were horrified at the poor quality.  I'm not saying they should have been satisfied; but John, in particular, hated how they sounded.

Secondly, those live shows took a lot of energy.  There was a lot of clowning around, and their traveling accommodations were primitive at the time, and they had to put a good face on it, for the next audience. 

Musically, they fit very well with each other.  They had been together since they had been around 17, 18; it isn't any surprise at all that they were impatient with each other by the time they were in their thirties.  At that point the only authority they knew was that of George Martin, their producer; when Paul imposed his perfectionism on them, it was all too much. 

Many faithful Beatles fans felt betrayed when the Beatles broke up.  But get serious; you couldn't expect those four men to have stayed together much longer.  I bless them for the magic they did give us. 

Archie

The Greatest Guitarist

Guitarists seem to be judged based on playing electric guitars.  And on playing melodies. 

I prefer to hear the picking sounds of Bob Dylan,  Paul Simon, Peter, Paul and Mary, and James Taylor.  There's no doubt that Jimi Hendrix and company enriched our sound world considerably.  But it seems just a matter of opinion whether it is they, or the guitarists who played principally acoustic instruments, who gave us most enjoyment.

Arch.