Classical Music & Chess

You certainly find some top notch videos, Mr. Bardamu.  Thanks for the post.

Actually, not to put too fine a point on it, I should thank everyone for their video posts because they have been entertaining and informative.

By the way, Mr. Bardamu, if you're interested in more Glenn Gould there is the traditional documentary Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould and also Glenn Gould on Television: The Complete CBC Broadcasts, 1954-1977, both available from Amazon if not Amazon Netherlands.  Naturally, you have to have an All Region DVD player capable of handling NTSC encoding (American standard) as well as PAL (European standard).

Best to you,
Bob

I guess if I had to rank my all-time favorite interpretations of the Sibelius Concerto, I'd have to go with:

1. David Oistrakh
2. Joshua Bell
3. Leonidas Kavakos
4. Itzhak Perlman

Bell's playing is so evocative and sweet, very dreamy, but not so Finnish... slightly dissatisfied with some of his glissandi... still amazing on the whole...

Banana nah, banana nah, banana nah,
Banana nahhhh! Banana nahhhh!
Banana nah, nah, nah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We got a couple a nut-breds out there, don't we? 

Great performance there ChessPlayingDude47 by Joshua Bell..the violin sings...that is always good...Sibelius rocks

Edvard Grieg - Peer Gynt Suites - 1 and 2

  Koli

Great interview with Simon Rattle...one of the greatest conducters and the Valse Triste wonderfull

Thanks for posting the Bartók, Mr. Bardamu! Of all the string quartet repertoire I've rehearsed, this is one of the most challenging pieces I've had the pleasure of getting to know... The only Bartók I've never played is the Fifth - maybe someday! Some of the other really challenging pieces (on viola) for string quartet: William Walton (A Minor) (1944-47) and the Beethoven C# Minor, Op. 131 (particularly the Presto fifth movement and the Allegro seventh movement).

Bartók 4 is a brilliant work indeed. Interesting, too, that one of its primary compositional cells is the same as Berg used as the basic cell for his opera, Lulu.

There is much to listen for in this rich, harmonious work. Enjoy, all.

Garth Knox demonstrates some suspicious bow technique here. This guy here would probably go for a few unconventional gambits or even cheat when you're not paying attention...

There's a viola joke in here somewhere, guys; and all these years, my viola professor admonishing my less-than-straight bowing, jeez!

 Here is some soulful music for the times when you play Petrov's Defense... 

 cellist: Fyodor Luzanov (1919-1989) (if you "Luzanov" games of chess, maybe you become great cellist instead...)

 composer: Boris Vladimirovich Asafyev (1884-1948)

http://muswrite.blogspot.nl/2011/12/schoenberg-verklarte-nacht-transfigured.html

Beautiful!! An amazing streichsextett!!

One of my favorite pieces to play for string trio (a violin, a viola, and a cello) is violin virtuoso Sitkovetsky's 1984 arrangement of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations. Bach bases the variations on the bass line and chord progression of his opening Aria. The variations express a wide variety of moods: sadness, tragedy, whimsy, joy, and triumph; furthermore, they are meticulously thought-out, embodying mathematical patterns that only careful analysis can reveal, like a chess grandmaster staying up late at night! Every third variation (in the series of thirty) is a canon following an ascending intervallic pattern: thus the third variation is a canon at the unison, the sixth variation is a canon at the second (meaning that the second entry begins the interval of a second above that of the first entry), the ninth variation is a canon at the third, and continuing this way up to the twenty-seven, a canon on the ninth. Final variation (thirty) is not a canon at the tenth, but rather a grandiloquent jocular quodlibet which has its basis in various German songs, including "Kraut und Rüben haben mich vertrieben, hätt mein' Mutter Fleisch gekocht, wär ich länger blieben" ("Cabbage and turnips have driven me away, had my mother cooked meat, I'd have opted to stay") - just how I felt about my mom's cooking too! For more info on the quodlibet (closing variation):http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/BWV988-Quodlibet%5BBraatz%5D.htm

The opening aria, which returns (da capo) after the quodlibet, is itself a gorgeous, floridly ornamented melody—a slow sarabande that bookends the variations with a mood of peaceful, mature equanimity.

Furthermore, the other variations, between the canonic ones, have also been patterned as genre pieces of various types, and of a lively tempo, among them three Baroque dances (4, 7, 19); a fughetta (10); a French overture (16); and two ornate arias for the right hand (13, 25).

Donald Tovey, in Essays in Musical Analysis, says of the Variations, “not only thirty miracles of variation-form, but…a single miracle of consummate art as a whole composition.”

I'll get the opportunity to perform this Sitkovetsky arrangement - in its entirety! - on July 8th at a local art gallery and am looking forward to it! To me, this is the one of the ten pieces I'd have to take with if I were stranded on a desert island and could only listen to ten works of music!  

Please enjoy the well-conceived interpretation of Sitkovetsky, himself, along with Gérard Caussé on viola and Mischa Maisky on cello!

Ditto!! Leading to even more inspired works of grand chamber music like the Op. 29 Septett Suite, the Op. 45 String Trio, and the Op. 47 Phantasy for Violin and Piano.

Oh my, is that Kim Kashkashian!, one of those most pleasurable interpreters!? Yes, it is.

Here is the Schoenberg Op. 45 - so seductive, so impassioned!

Does it make you cry?

Why must everyone play this work so violently and not play it to bring out its rich lyrical qualities?

She plays here again with Pogossian, and de Saram on cello, but gosh, where's the rest of it? This is only an excerpt! Unfortunate...