NOTE: Following this week I will be on a road trip following much of the route of the Lewis & Clark expedition, so I will not have posts on this site for the weeks of 9/18, 9/25, 10/2 and 10/9. The next post -- following my comments and rating for Dussek's Fantasia and Fugue for piano -- will be for the week beginning 10/16. Of course, the Lewis & Clark expedition took place from 1804 to 1806, and they and their Corps of Discovery launched from St. Louis, MO, in May of 1804. Therefore, for this week, I thought I would listen to a piece composed in that year, and I choose from this list on Wikipedia, HERE. I was completely surprised to find a woman's name on the list, Isabella Colbran, so my original plan was to listen to her work "Cavatina di partenza"; however, I could not find a recording. Therefore, I chose the next piece listed on the inventory, Jan Ladislav Dussek's Fantasia and Fugue for piano. I'll listen to the piece this week and then post my comments and rating before departing for my trip. Just FYI: I have seen the Lewis and Clark exhibits at the St. Louis Arch, so my trip will begin and end in Bismarck, ND. I had originally planned to start and end in Pierre, SD, but air travel was significantly more affordable to fly into and out of Bismarck, so that will be my starting (and ending) point. From Bismarck, I will travel through ND to Montana, and then on to Idaho, Washinton, and Oregon -- all the way to Astoria on the coast where the Lewis and Clark expedition beheld the Pacific Ocean. From there, I will circle back through Boise, Idaho, on my way to Yellowstone National Park, followed by Custer State Park and the Badlands in South Dakota. From there, I'll visit Pierre and then return to Bismarck. It promises to be quite a trip! Iffin you're inclined to follow along, I'll be posting pics on my Instagram travel account, @65goingon66, an account I began when my wife and I drove most of historic Route 66 one year ago. So, as promised, I'll listen to and post comments about Dussek's work this week, and then I'll see you again in mid-October. Stay tuned! ;-) Regarding Dussek's "Fantasia and Fugue": As you know from my comments above, I chose this piece because it was composed in 1804, the same year in which Lewis and Clark began their journey to explore the new land owned by America (purchased from Napolean) and to find a northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean. I've listened to the piece a few times this week, and to be honest -- I'm not a fan. The opening "Fantasia" seems very amateurish, like something a student in a composition class might write to impress a teacher. It's nothing but arpeggios and pounded chords alternating with very uninteresting pianissimo notes -- predictable in its forced melodrama. In case you're unfamiliar with musical terms, an arpeggio is "a broken chord, or a chord in which individual notes are struck one by one, rather than all together at once. The word 'arpeggio' comes from the Italian word 'arpeggiare,' which means 'to play on a harp.' ('Arpa' is the Italian word for 'harp.')" FYI: That information on "arpeggiare" and its meaning "to play on a harp" was new to me, and I discovered it HERE. There are also variations of an arpeggio too, if you will, sometimes played with thirds and/or base runs that do nothing more than play the notes of chord singly -- but throughout the Fantasia, there are no lyric melodies, no interesting harmonies, no innovative variations of musical forms. It's like whisking eggs. Have you ever heard an experienced baker whisk eggs to fold into the ingredients of a favorite recipe? An adept baker can whisk up a storm! That's what Dussek has done. He's whisked up a storm in the opening five minutes of his "Fantasia and Fugue," but that's all he's done. He's just whisking eggs. And the fugue? The fugue begins at 5:52 in the YouTube video I linked above, and it is a fugue, I grant you that. There is a short, banal melody introduced by singular notes in the treble clef which is then repeated with lower, harmonizing notes in the 5th and 9th measures, and so on, and it all plods along fixedly. The prevailing dynamic of the contrapuntal composition is "ff" ("play it loud") followed by "pp" ("play if soft") and then "ff" ("play it loud again"). I suppose if Dussek's fantasia was "whisking the eggs," then his fugue is "kneading the bread" -- nothing too exciting and innovative, just routine work that has to be done. As you can see from my rating below, I was not enamored by Dussek's work. However, I do think that this fugue might actually sound good on the harpsicord with Lurch playing it as background music to the antics of the Addams family? What do you think? Now I'm off to pack for my big adventure coming up as I prepare to follow the trail of Lewis & Clark and their Corps of Discovery. You can follow along on Instagram by checking out my travel account @65goingon66 (an account I started last year when my wife and I got our kicks travelling historic Route 66). I'll be back with more classical music as of October 16.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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