CD Review: Henry Cowell - The Banshee

The piece I chose to review is The Banshee, composed by Henry Cowell. This piece requires the performer to pluck, scrap, and flick the piano’s strings in order to produce different sounds on the instrument. Henry Cowell is one of the leading composers of this type of piano music.

The first recording I reviewed was that of Henry Cowell in 1963 playing some of his compositions for string piano (as he calls it) on his album, “Piano Music”. Since he is the composer of the piece, I immediately thought that this is how he intended for the piece to sound. After hearing different recordings of it, I came to realize that this is a piece that can sound differently with every recording. He isn’t as dramatic with his dynamics as some of the other performers I listened to, but he almost makes a recognizable melody while scrapping the piano at the end.

The second recording I reviewed was Chris Brown on his CD, New Music: “Piano Compositions By Henry Cowell”. The main difference Mr. Brown and the other performers is that his glissandos are faster and higher pitched. It brings different character to the piece. He was able to achieve more overtones with each glissando. Dynamically, this recording is very quiet compared to the other recordings. It could be the volume of his recording, but his articulation of scraps and glissandos are not as harsh as the other two performers. An added bonus to the piece in the creaking of the floor Mr. Brown is standing on. It helps set the ambiance of a banshee being in the performing area.

The third recording that I review was of Sorrel Doris Hayes on her CD, “Piano Music of Henry Cowell”, released in 2006. Her rendition of The Banshee had the biggest dynamic contrast. She began the piece quieter than the other two performers, which made the climax more dramatic. Her recording also contained more glissandos rather than scraped individual notes. Unlike Mr. Cowell’s recording, a melody was less evident towards the end of the piece.

Here's link to yet another recording of The Banshee set to a weird movie that I did not use for the paper just in case you're interested to hear it. Unfortunately, my three recordings are on CDs and I don't know how to put them up here, but I believe its the same recording of Henry Cowell playing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYsvsaIRIM8

CD music review : Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 mvt 1

For my cd music review I chose mvt 1 of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No 2. The first recording I listened to was of Rachmaninoff performing his concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra. This recording was made in 1929 by RCA. I have actually played this piece in a symphony before so it was really neat to hear the piece performed as Rachmaninoff intended. The tempo is brisk to say the least. His use of expression was amazing the sound quality was a little muffled since it was such an old recording so sometimes the pitch seems to waver a bit in the strings but I am assuming that is due to the sound quality.

The second recording I listened to was of George Vakhnadze performing the concerto with the Tbilisi Orchestra. The tempo seemed to drag a bit especially in the beginning, and while the sound quality really allowed the orchestra’s sound to surpass the quality of the first recording I thought at times the brass were too heavy. Also it seemed that pianist made a few errors and the lower notes did not come across as well as in Rachmaninoff’s recording. Rachmaninoff accented the base of his runs in a lot of places which this performer did not do. Also the end of the movement seems to lose momentum because the tempo is slowed down drastically.

The third recording I listened to was of Val Cliburn performing the concerto with the RCA Symphony Orchestra. This recording the soloist also took more time in the beginning than first recording but I don’t think it took away from the piece. The pianist also played with a more flowing sound than the second recording. The orchestra was more in tune and didn’t detract from the soloist. Overall I think that Cliburn’s expression and technique were more true to the piece than Vakhnadze. His performance just seemed to have more emotion and even though his approach to the piece is not identical to Rachmaninoff’s I think the piece was executed very well.

Donna Lee

Donna Lee

By Miles Davis

Eddie Asten/MUSIC 516

I choose the bebop tune “Donna Lee” because I like the tune, and because I thought it would be easy to find multiple recordings of the tune. The tune was actually written by Miles Davis although Charlie Parker is usually given credit for its authorship.

The first recording I found was by bassist extraordinaire Jaco Pastorius. Jaco and drummer Rashied Ali performed “Donna Lee” live on December 14, 1984 following a four-day workshop at Martinique. Several of Jaco’s bass students joined in during the recording. The sound quality of the recording is not the best, but it is still an incredible performance.

A trio did the second recording I found of “Donna Lee”. The musicians were Aladar Page on bass, Gusztav Csik on piano, and Geza Lakatos Pecek on drums. I have never heard of any of these musicians before, but they were great! After playing the traditional form of the tune everyone took a solo and was fantastic! At the end, the pianist played by himself and went through several styles, then back to the top with everyone. These guys played as well as anyone I have ever heard.

Last, I found a performance of “Donna Lee” by the Charlie Parker Quintet featuring Miles Davis on trumpet, Charlie Parker on alto saxophone, Bud Powell on piano, Tommy Potter on bass and Max Roach on drums. I could not find the date of the recording, but it was live, and it was from long ago. It was in black and white and these guys were very young. There were piano, trumpet and saxophone solos, but no drum solo. Again, this was a great performance. As all great jazz musicians do, it was amazing to hear how these great players communicated with each other and played off of ach other.

I found all three of these recordings on you tube by googling the name of the tune "Donna Lee". All three of these videos and many more came up in case anyone would like to try it.

CD Review - Grad Keyboard Skills

The piece I have chosen to review is the Erlkonig, D. 328 by Schubert.

The first recording I chose was titled Great Artists of the Century – Schubert: 25 Lieder with artists Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake. In this recording from 2005, the running bass line is sometimes uneven at the beginning of the piece. As the piece continues it becomes more connected, flows better and is much less choppy. For much of the piece, however, it is still the choppiest of the three recordings. This pianist uses the greatest amount of dynamic contrast of the three. The moderate tempo falls somewhere between the tempo choices of the other recordings. This is, in my opinion, the most successful recording of the three because of the good balance between the voice and the piano as well as the greater dynamic range.

The second recording was Prima Voce: Legendary Voices with artist Alexander Kipnis. It was recorded in 1995 and is the oldest of the three recordings. The sound quality of this recording makes it sound older as well. One major difference in this recording is that it is in a different key than the original piece. Of the three recordings, this one has the fastest tempo and the running bass line is the most connected and even. However there is not as much dynamic contrast as there was in the first recording and the balance favors the voice instead of the piano. Even in the piano solo sections, the piano takes more of a backseat in this recording.

The third recording was found on a cd titled, oddly enough, Songs Without Words. The artist is Murray Perahia and it was recorded in 1999. As the title indicates, there is no singer. Something is lost when the piano player has to play both the melody and bass lines. Something has to go and it ends up being bits and pieces of the bass. This makes piece lose some of its driving motion. This recording also has less of the sense of urgency that is more present in other recordings. This may be due to the limitations of the piano, with its shorter, faster decaying tones, trying to imitate the longer, driving notes of the voice. It could also be due to the slower tempo, as this recording has the slowest tempo of the three.

Concert Review 1 (for Keyboard Skills 3)

Saturday, September 26th marked the annual Arts by George event at Mason. The purpose of Arts by George is to celebrate the arts at Mason to raise funds for scholarships and performances. Beginning at 5pm, guests were invited to enjoy a multitude of musical performances, including a vocal studies showcase, interactive jazz sessions with the GMU Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Professor Jim Carroll, and small chamber ensembles such as piano solos, flute trios, string quartets, and jazz combos. These musical performances were well complimented by dance, paintings, sculptures, and video, which were all on display throughout three floors of the performing arts building. One nifty feature which spanned the entire day was the use of a marimba and gong. A group of about four Mason percussion students took turns playing everything from Bach chorales to improvisation on the pentatonic scale on a Marimba that was positioned at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor. This served as background music as guests mingled and enjoyed hors d'œuvres and wine. Then, five minutes prior to each performance, a gong, positioned on the fourth floor, was struck to signal that a performance was about to begin and guests were directed to the various performance spaces.

The highlight of the festival, for me at least, was the inaugural performance of a new orchestra, the American Festival Pops Orchestra, under the direction of Mason’s own Professor Anthony Maiello. The orchestra, which included many Mason faculty members, and even some students, presented a fabulous display of musicianship and artistry. Following a brilliant opening overture-type piece composed by Mason graduate student Vincent Oppido, the orchestra accompanied the guest artist, Tony Award-winning Brian Stokes Mitchell. Mitchell’s Broadway credits include “Man of La Mancha,” “Kiss Me Kate,” and “Oh, Kay!” The audience, myself included, thoroughly enjoyed his full baritone voice on many Broadway and jazz favorites and standards such as George Gershwin’s "'S Wonderful,” “Take the A Train.” The evening closed with Mitchell’s second encore, “The Impossible Dream,” for which he is famous. His regular backing group also played with him and the orchestra and included a pianist, bassist, and a drummer. The pianist, in particular, impressed me with the way he altered his accompaniment style to fit with the orchestra. He also arranged one of the songs himself, which was performed without the orchestra. This gave the talented pianist a chance to show off more of his well-developed solo style. According to Mitchell’s on-stage commentary, he often plays with just these three musicians, and sometimes with just the pianist, whose name I unfortunately did not get. Watching Brian Stokes Mitchell in one of these different settings (without a full orchestra) is something I would like to see in the future.

un-boring church music

I attended a church service at which I’d assumed there would be piano. I was wrong. There was organ instead. Now, no matter how scary I think piano is, organ is much, much worse. Just making my hands move independently took me a while. Making my hands and feet...no, I don’t even want to go there.
This service was composed of both traditional Bach-like tunes and hymns by modern American composers like David Haas. Although the hymns were led by a rather sub-standard singer, the organist was an excellent player. One really good thing I noticed about his playing was his tempos. Although he did have the tendency to slow down as the verses progressed, he started the hymns at good, alive tempos (necessary to keep the choir from dying).
One cause of this slight tempo issue might be his unusual use of harmonies and ornamental runs. In the first verses of each song, the organist played the traditional harmonies and chord progressions. As every organist I have ever heard plays the same exact harmonies, this definitely gets boring. However, in the final verse of the hymns, this organist used new harmonies and strange chord progressions I had never heard before. These new harmonies were very interesting, though I didn’t always prefer them to the originals. He made no technical errors—I was just not very fond of some of his musical choices. For instance, in “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” which traditionally is played using the harmonization of Ralph Vaughan Williams, he played the third verse with almost completely new harmonization. I didn’t think that it had the same fulfilling qualities as Vaughan William’s version. But I am picky—and I doubt anyone else noticed at all. However, no new harmonization occurred in any of the modern pieces, such as David Haas’ “Here I Am, Lord.” But generally I prefer Haas’ music to be played on the piano rather than on the organ; I feel that the piano lends itself to gentler emotion, and more pliable rhythm, than the organ does.
Overall, the organist added a lot to the service—where would church music be without the organ? Also, I really appreciated the fact that he took the time to write new harmonies for some of the tunes. Even if there were a few strange chords, he showed a great care and interest in reviving this music, which is usually so boring that no one even notices which song they’re singing.

Concert Review

On Saturday night, September 12, 2009, I went to go see Mike Gordon at the State Theater in Falls Church, Virginia. Mike Gordon is a bassist and vocalist who is most noted for his work with the renowned rock band Phish. Gordon is also an accomplished banjo player, pianist, guitarist, percussionist and blues harpist. He has also had award winning success in documentary filmmaking. Though Mike Gordon is an efficient and talented pianist, he strictly played bass, guitar and lead vocals. The rest of his band consisted of guitarist, Scott Murawski, percussionist, Craig Myers, keyboardist, Tom Cleary and drummer, Todd Isler.
For the most part, Mike Gordon’s music is a psychedelic rock pop with shades of bluegrass and folk. The keyboardist, Tom Cleary, played mostly accompaniment for the whole show by playing behind the melodies of the guitar and bass. There were a couple of songs where the keyboards were prominent. For instance, they did a cover of “Aint Wastin Time No More” by the Allman Brothers which Cleary had a dominant role in. However, Cleary’s main role in the band was to play psychedelic tones to give the music the full acid rock effect. His psychedelic tones also gave full effect to the light show which was a pleasant addition to the music being played. During one of the songs in the middle of the set, Cleary had a keyboard solo which went on for about 2 or 3 minutes. At some point in the middle of the solo, Cleary stood up out of his chair and started to play more aggressively while building up the tempo. The music was at its height and so was the lighting effects and then finally, after a heavy dosage of keyboards, the band breaks back into the chorus and the crowd, as one would imagine, applauded enthusiastically.
The show went on for about 2 and half hours including 2 encore songs. Overall, I enjoyed myself while listening to Mike Gordon and his band mates, including Tom Cleary. What made this experience different was that I was strictly listening and watching the keyboardist which would be the first time I have ever done so at a rock concert. Usually, I just watch and listen to the guitarist so that I can pick up some things to play for myself. Focusing my attention more on the keyboardist has probably made me a better keyboardist or at least more knowledgeable about the instrument itself.