Re: OT things of sad beauty

[André Donawa <andre@andredonawa.com>]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for sharing that.
It's a powerful piece, definitely pulls on my emotional strings.
Music, it's such a wonderful thing.
It can just grab you and take you away to another place and time.

Thanks again,

Andre

On Mon, January 5, 2009 6:50 am, Rick Walker wrote:
> My apologies for the plethora of off topic posts here at L.D.lately but
> I just feel really close and safe in this
> community and wanted to share with you all.   I'll knock it off,  if
> anyone is bugged by the OT nature of some of them.
>
> (((((())))))))
> anyway:
>
> I came back home tonight in a very  melancholic mood.
>
> The great Russian poet, Yevtushenko,  said,  "It's good to have a
> healthy melancholic attitude
> towards life."
>
> My father and I both loved that quote and both had a strong sense and
> love for things, melancholic
> in life and, particularly,  in music.
>
> Anyway,  I was missing my dad tonight, big time and wanted to share with
> you
> all some of my musical memories of his influence on both mine and my
> siblings' life.
>
> My dad was a clarinet player, professional,  in a small big band that
> toured around
> Texas during World War 2.   He loved orchestration and he had a very
> strong mentor
> in a university professor who turned him on to the world of Classical
> orchestral arrangement........
>
> ........He told my father,  "If you love Benny Goodman,  you have to
> come listen to this."
> and proceeded to show my father the score  and play for him, a recording
> of "Le Sacre Du Printemps" (The Right of Spring)
> by Stravisnsky.     He went on to teach him about classical music and my
> father fell in love with
> Bartok, Mozart, Stravinsky, Dvorak, Beethoven, Bach, Debussy, Ravel,
> Ralph Vaughn Williams,  Charles Ives, and
> Aaron Copland,  amongst many many  others.   He had an encyclopedic
> knowledge of Classical music which was
> amazing given his humble roots growing up in a small town in East Texas
> during the depression.
>
>   He,  along with a wonderful 3rd grade teacher ,  Mr. Balantine (who
> made us chill out every day for 30 minutes in school and gave a short
> lecture on the history of a different classical music
> composer giving me tons of knowledge for a child of 8/9 years of age)
> gave us an incredible education about classical music.
>
> Thinking about him,  I asked my wife if she had ever heard the
> exquisitely sad and beautiful, Aaron Copland 'Concerto for Clarinet'
> which was a piece of music that my father dearly loved and turned me
> onto.    I played clarinet myself , formally,  from the ages of
> 8-13 in the school orchestra....................that was, until,  I was
> seduced by the rebellious energy of Rock and Roll and started to
> teach myself how to play the drums at the onset of puberty.
>
> She said no so,  I found this marvelous and emotional clip of
> Michael Tilson Thomas conducting this beautiful sad piece
> with the amazing Richard Stotzman playing the lead clarinet.
>
> 'Andante'  section for 'The Concerto for Clarinet'   by Aaron Copland
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACO5DjpS8YM
>
> If you have a moment,  please listen to it
> I love it and I wish to pay homage to my wonderful and dearly departed
> father.
>
> If you enjoy this music and don't know Copland very much,  I"d highly
> recommend that you eschew the things he was most famous for
> (including things like the ballet for 'Billy the Kid")   and head
> straight for the masterful '3rd Symphony' and  , of course,
> 'Appalachian Spring'
>
> If you still want a bit of a melancholic fix......................look
> up 'The Lark Ascending'  by the 20th century British neo-classicist,
> Ralph Vaughn Williams (his 3rd Symphony is also a masterpiece of
> melancholia imho).
>
>


Andre Donawa
Barbados Guitar School
Woodside Gardens
Bay St.
St. Michael
Barbados
 11157
Tel: 246-228-2480 (Office)
     246 436 8294 (School)

http://www.andredonawa.com
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