WEEK OF 080505 PLAYLIST: LISZT // ZELENKA // BACH
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor (S.178)
I'm curious to hear more Liszt, since he was quite a frantic piano player. He tends to stab all over the keyboard, in an impressionistic way. Sometimes I wonder what his flourishes have to do with the general program of the pieces he plays; it's almost as though he becomes distracted by his own flamboyance. It's not my favorite type of music, but it is certainly idiosyncratic. Artists should always push the boundaries of what distinguishes them from all else.
Zelenka: Sonata No.2, Sonata No. 5
I recently went out to lunch with a Biochemist, Chikashi Toyoshima, the Hitchcock Lecturer last week, invited by my mentor. While walking back from the faculty club, I said to Toyoshima, "Sydney tells me that you enjoy going to the symphony. I know it's an unfair question to ask someone to narrow their favorites down to a single composer, so perhaps instead let me ask if you have anything you enjoy so much that you might recommend?" He chuckled and paused a bit, as we tarried amongst the oaks along the creek, and upon reaching the Campanile, said that he tends to enjoy the composers that haven't had as much publicity (oh, he's after my heart!), and thus wanted to recommend the composer, Zelenka, a contemporary of Bach, who is particularly cherished by oboe players. I later went to go look him up. Zelenka wrote a lot of music with vocals, which I simply cannot endure, but I found these sonatas to be quite splendid.
Bach: Flute Sonata in B minor (BWV1030)
I haven't listened to Bach much. I don't know why I selected this; I acquired a bunch of pieces randomly, and then selected this one out of them, for not being too fluffy. The lighthearted pre-Beethoven music annoys me with its splendor; it's largely a music for rich society. Beethoven was remarkable for his wagging the rich society that supported him with his desperation and melancholia, often imperceptibly placed amidst the same splendor of the Classical and Baroque period, although sometimes as spasms of violence, as if to be a gesture (like we moderns raise the "middle finger") of derision to his frivolous patrons. This Bach piece didn't move me much, and I found myself preferring the Zelenka.