Bartok - Musiques nocturnes

[andhow04]

this is from a concert a couple of weeks ago.  here is the whole program:

Medtner - two fairy tales, op.20
Quentin Kim - Sonata in g# minor
Franck - Prelude, Chorale n Fugue
INTERMISSION
Debussy - Masques / D'un cahier d'esquisses / L'isle joyeuse
Bartok - Musiques nocturnes
Messiaen - petites esquisses d'oiseaux


This is from the Out of Doors suite... bartok himself excerpted it many times.  i used it partly to set up the messiaen, since they have the naturalist element in common, but harmonically bartok is easier to understand.  i inadvertantly rearranged a couple of bars, but bartok told a student once that that was ok... that the different birds and insects and frogs sing whenever they want to...
enjoy!

[ramseytheii]

What a fantastic program.  It really jumps off the page and makes one want to listen.  I love this Bartok piece, and you play it so sensitively.  When the themes are combined at the end, I actually experienced shivers.  I could picture it all, so seamlessly.

Thank you for putting real effort towards real music, and introducing the Audition Room to your work.

I love it best, when the piano sounds good, and I am engaged.  I wish all my colleagues were the same, and didn't rejoice at the worst recordings, that seem to get so much traction these days.  The pernicious influence of American Idol, perhaps.  It's a shame - we should value the beautiful over the deliberately bad.

Thank you.

Walter Ramsey

[andhow04]

well thanx for the nice words!  ppl comment on whatever they want i guess... hehe...

the end part, where he combines the peasant pipes with the nature hymn is my favorite part.  i played this piece slightly ditzy tho with those two other bars!

in the recital this one went without applause into the messiaen... people complanied afterwards and some even thought i had skipped the messiaen.  they thought the bartko was really long, i guess... should i have put something in the program? like don't applaud?

but stil, maybe an audience should be kept guessing once in a while,. otherwise isn't it all so predictable?!

[birba]

You are really good!  I have nothing else to say.  It's such a high level of artistic acheivement when you can create such an atmosphere and sustain it like you did.  You really paint a picture here.  In a way, it's sort of a shame to pair it with anything else, unless you're doing the whole suite.  Not a good idea to couple it with Messiaen.  Besides nature, in general, I see no connection.  And, besides, this night music is so unique and you play it so beautifully, it has to stand by itself.  Unless, like I said, you play the whole suite.  Messiaen, too, is so particular and has such a singular language, it gets tainted, so to speak, if you don't set it off by itself.
Get what I mean?  Maybe because this music really speaks to me.

[andhow04]

You are really good!  I have nothing else to say.  It's such a high level of artistic acheivement when you can create such an atmosphere and sustain it like you did.  You really paint a picture here.  In a way, it's sort of a shame to pair it with anything else, unless you're doing the whole suite.  Not a good idea to couple it with Messiaen.  Besides nature, in general, I see no connection.  And, besides, this night music is so unique and you play it so beautifully, it has to stand by itself.  Unless, like I said, you play the whole suite.  Messiaen, too, is so particular and has such a singular language, it gets tainted, so to speak, if you don't set it off by itself.
Get what I mean?  Maybe because this music really speaks to me.

that's so nice, thanx.  the program as a whole was sort of experimental, witht he first half being more "worked-out" motivic music, and the second being more "impressionist", by which i mean not just turn of the century french but music thats trying to paint a picture, like you said, and has more to do with spontanaeity and imagery than strict formal things.

also, i thought of the second half slightly programmaticaly, as if we moved from the academic study of the first half into a wild, overgrown fantasy (symbolized by l'[isle joyeuse) in the second half.  on this fantasy island, the bartok was the music of the night, and the messiaen was the music of the dawn, in my imagination.

messiaen often wrote in times of day in his bird pieces, and he didn't do it in these, but i think the bright chords make it easy to think of a soft dawn where the birds are waking up one at a time.

sorry you didn't like it!  youre bnot alone.  but that's what i get when i get all experimental!
 

[furtwaengler]

First off, thank you, thank you, thank you for choosing to learn and perform this great piece. I cannot describe how greatly I esteem Bartok in music history, and this piece contains those elements of Bartok such as in the sonata for 2 pianos and percussion and the violin sonatas, the folkish melodies and a deep sense of the macabre. You played it so beautifully. Programming it between the Debussy and Messiaen is pure genius.

Pure genius would describe the whole program. In time I hope to comment on it more.

[furtwaengler]

Not a good idea to couple it with Messiaen.

I just want to say, I posted my comments above before reading any of the other comments, and then was amused to read this in Birba's comments. My comments were not a reaction to his, but...I love how different minds think differently. I love hearing these pieces together for what it's worth, and when I think programing I'm often thinking of it in this way. Ah well...

[birba]

Reading your reasoning behind the programming was very interesting.  And I guess it could be interpreted as a sort of night-dawn progression.  But I just feel it's like the black and silver oils of a painting running off the canvas and tainting the bright yellow, green, and vermillion of another.
But, of course, no one denies your mastery at the coloring of each one!
Anyway, enough of this and I want to know where the Franck is.

[furtwaengler]

Anyway, enough of this and I want to know where the Franck is.

This is exactly why I posted these messages, which were then removed by the moderators (Ha, I did not mean to be annoying; I find it annoying when concerts are broken up! )

Medtner - two fairy tales, op.20 no. 1 and no. 2)
Quentin Kim - Sonata in g# minor
Franck - Prelude, Chorale n Fugue
INTERMISSION
Debussy - Masques / D'un cahier d'esquisses / L'isle joyeuse
Bartok - Musiques nocturnes
Messiaen - petites esquisses d'oiseaux
encore: Chopin - Polonaise in A-flat, op.53 "Heroic"

[birba]

What a dumb head!  Sorry.

[andhow04]

First off, thank you, thank you, thank you for choosing to learn and perform this great piece. I cannot describe how greatly I esteem Bartok in music history, and this piece contains those elements of Bartok such as in the sonata for 2 pianos and percussion and the violin sonatas, the folkish melodies and a deep sense of the macabre. You played it so beautifully. Programming it between the Debussy and Messiaen is pure genius.

Pure genius would describe the whole program. In time I hope to comment on it more.

you are too kind!  this is one of my alltime favorite bartok pieces, and i love most of his music.  perhaps the only thing i lvoe more, is music for strings percussion & celeste.

there's a quality in his music that is like philosophy, except that it can't be put into words!  there's a quality of someone who is just speaking purely through the music!  this piece in particular, where he maps out a large form, but abandons himself in the details, is a treasure.

that said it's very hard and in truth, you need a good piano to play it right.  this was a good piano, by all measures.

[birba]

Have you ever done the two piano and percussion sonata?  One of the highlights of my life!!

[andhow04]

no, never, but would love to!  i think if u are not in school, it is hard to find the people able but also willing to do it...

[pianovirus]

I just came across this accidentally and loved it so much that it made me log in to say thanks, after a long time (even had to search for my password  ). Truly wonderful, captivating playing, andhow04! And thanks also for sharing your thoughts behind the recital program - very creative, unique!

[andhow04]

I just came across this accidentally and loved it so much that it made me log in to say thanks, after a long time (even had to search for my password  ). Truly wonderful, captivating playing, andhow04! And thanks also for sharing your thoughts behind the recital program - very creative, unique!

you are too kind!  the video is coming soon.  i just got it myself, but have to figure out how to rip it, separate it, etc

thanks again