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Tag Archives: music
Mr. Danger and Musical Bestiary
Ever since Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, musical creation has delighted in the zoo as extra-musical program content. Despite its Olympic gold medal in abstraction, music has the ability to evoke, to caricature, to imitate the animal world with the … Continue reading
¡Azuuuucarrr! *
For those who think with some justification that progress is a narrative subterfuge designed to induce enthusiasm as it drags us from alpha to omega, our culture offers sufficient examples of decay. Nobody sings like Gardel anymore, good movies are … Continue reading
Posted in Musical thoughts from Venezuela
Tagged Blaise Pascal, Celia Cruz, Frank Zappa, Gardel, music, Paul Desenne, Pierre Boulez, venezuela
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Alarm Will Sound
Wine always tastes better when the winemaker who guides us overflows with descriptions that connect our senses to the history of the soil, the wineries, the particular gastronomy. As a result, it is extremely boring to uncork without knowledge, to … Continue reading
Tell Them I Died
Not only because of the infinity of time that follows their deaths but for reasons pertaining to their work, composers are much better off dead than alive. Or rather, even alive they should appear dead and not bother anyone too … Continue reading
Posted in Musical thoughts from Venezuela
Tagged Bach, Brahms, composers, conservatories, Estevez, Mozart, music, Stravinsky, venezuela
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The Last Fantastique?
In the field of symphonic music, Japan and Venezuela share many things. In a huge collective effort, Japan built a self-sufficient symphonic universe, filling the privileged space of great concert music in the modern cities that were rebuilt after the … Continue reading
Posted in Musical thoughts from Venezuela
Tagged Berlioz, Carnegie Hall, Japan, music, Saito Kinen Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, Takemitsu, venezuela
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The Elder
The cuatro is enjoying indisputable prosperity. The recent North American and European tour of C4 (a core of three cuatristas – Glem, Molina and Ramirez – with prestigious guests) has rocked the halls, reaping the well-deserved fruits of an initiative launched … Continue reading
Posted in Musical thoughts from Venezuela
Tagged C4, cuatro, Fredy Reyna, Jorge Glem, joropo, music, venezuela
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Havana Wynton
The second request from the New York Philharmonic to go to Havana ran into administrative obstacles. The United States denied a first trip last year, arguing that the orchestra’s millionaire benefactors wanted to travel with the musicians just to drink daiquiri … Continue reading
Mondo Exotica
The most entertaining thing about recommending books is imagining the acrobatics that bibliophiles are obliged to perform in the Venezuelan desert of foreign currency in order to obtain foreign works. (Currency control has existed here for nearly eight years and … Continue reading
Form and Silence
In art, the formal value of presentation is taken very seriously. Frames, white walls and empty spaces exalt the significance of the contemplated object to the point that after Duchamp’s urinal, almost any trash that falls on a pedestal is … Continue reading
Posted in Musical thoughts from Venezuela
Tagged Abreu, art, concert music, Duchamp, John Cage, Joshua Bell, Malevich, music, Pascal Quignard, ritual, silence
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Uncertainty
For years I explained to my cello students the art of overcoming uncertainty on an instrument whose bowing and fingering parameters don’t seem to have precise boundaries. The bowed instrument beginner should anticipate the geometry of hand-position shifts within a … Continue reading
Posted in Musical thoughts from Venezuela
Tagged Abreu, art, cello, delinquency, El Sistema, music, venezuela
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PAUL DESENNE | PRESTISSIMO 