dysfunctional harmony
What a beautiful day for going to Berkeley and just hanging out at some music cafe…
Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic are quick on their way to having the most thought-provoking Shostakovitch cycle in years under their belt. As with previous installments, Petrenko continues to provide thought-provoking readings of Shostakovich’s most bizarre symphonies that simply burst with musicality.
This recording of the rarely-played Second Symphony is of particular note. Straight from his most militantly modernist period, complete with an atonal opera (The Nose) rooted in absurdism, this work sounds like something Schoenberg may have thought up in one of his most densely contrapuntal pipe dreams. Of special attention is the second movement Fugue, which provides a wonderful showpiece for the orchestra, weaving in and out channeling the young Shostakovich’s immense sarcasm.
The Fifteenth has a very different sort of modernism. Far more melancholy, far more nebulous in interpretation, it is not a particularly easy listen. On top of that, this is one of the most strange readings I’ve come across. The disturbing finale is taken a notch slower than I am used to hearing it. The narrow dynamic range (Naxos-trademark nowadays!) causes the slow movement manages to be less disturbing than I’d like until the climax and end, sadly. But overall it is a very thought-provoking recording. Then again, what technically decent recording of this nutty piece ISN’T?!
Don’t skip this one, but you may want to supplement it with Ormandy’s Fifteenth to get a very different interpretation of the work.
I saw Straight, No Chaser last night. I pray most of you will never have to suffer through a medley with “Moves Like Jagger”, LMFAO and Rihanna as I did.
I was forced to watch Tom Shadyac’s “I Am” in English class. When I heard Eddie Vedder’s (absolutely stupendously horrible) song “Society,” and my teacher started handing out lyrics…
Society, have mercy on me
Hope you’re not angry if I disagree…
Society, crazy indeed
Hope you’re not lonely without me…
Minimalist “War composer” Michael Philip Philip Philip Philip Annoyman.
Radiohead’s album The King of Limbs is hardly an easy listen. Probably their most bizarre and introspective work yet, its dense textures of overlapping muffled electronics never fail to make my spine tingle. But it also contains one of their most simple, heartfelt of songs, in this slow ballad, entitled Codex.
kyledjohnson Asks:
dysfunctional-harmony Said:
“Come to lunch some day,” he suggested as we groaned down in the elevator.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Keep your hands off the lever!” snapped the elevator boy.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. McKee with dignity. “I didn’t know I was touching it” [cue knowing smile].
“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”
… I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.
“Beauty and the Beast… Loneliness… Old Grocery Horse… Brook’n Bridge….” [erotic photography???]
Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning “Tribune” and waiting for the four o’clock train.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, “Chapter II”
O_O
kyledjohnson replied to your photo: I was forced to watch this in English class. Ugh….
Isn’t DiCaprio slated to play Gatsby in a remake of this. I think this older version was alright — it had a lot of the motifs & symbols that the book had. The characters are supposed to be shallow archetypes. It’s the downfall of the 20s lifestyle.
It’s still a horrible movie. XP The prose style is half of what makes that book so beautiful. Where’s the color symbolism tho? O_o And it was both overacted and overly dramatic. *knock knock crash—AAAGHHH!!!!*
I personally think the novel was more about the nature of man in general than simply in the 20’s. It’s really what divides authors like Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Ellison from those like Sinclair Lewis and Richard Wright.
Yet another trip to the library bookstore taken…
(The Left Hand of Darkness was on the recommendation of my boyfriend Aaron. But I’m thoroughly enjoying That Hideous Strength and Empire of the Sun at the moment, so it shall have to wait.)
I was forced to watch this in English class. Ugh. Why does she always show us the worst movies? First Hocus Pocus, and now this? Yeesh. Anyways, here’s my review:
There honestly is not a single aspect of Fitzgerald’s magnificent novel this movie picks up on. The characters are all shallow archetypes, devoid of nuance or ambition, even Robert Redford, which is a shame, because he was capable of so much more. Even as a period piece it fails, essentially an empty shell vaguely in the shape of a snazzy party. The score only inflames the movie’s problems, replacing all of the nebulous, melancholy rumination of the original for cheap shocks akin to that of a B-grade drama. This is just another bad movie rework.
