Track of the Day

[neversay]

Maybe I'm late to the party with this one:

Recomposed by Max Richter - Vivaldi - The Four Seasons, 1. Spring

Official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLDvbnK_Sqk

With imagery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaCib0B8T24

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5xbuJuQsTVheVZvX2AJVIv (better audio)

Breathtaking IMHO. Those layers. A brutal ending that leaves you wanting more.

Share a piece of music that moves you.


(Apparently, it has been used on The Crown which I refuse to watch)

[bungeejumper]

LOL, is it me, or are half the male principals of that orchestra clones of each other? A very odd sensation, they look so much alike, and they all have their hair cut the same way (apart from the balding one, who doesn't).

I am generally suspicious of rewritten baroque masterpieces, but hey, maybe that's just a post-traumatic response to the time when I was forced to sit in a beautiful French church while a decent youth orchestra reconfigured Vivaldi's guitar concerto into a delta blues? Everything is worth a try, glad it works for you. Enjoy.

BJ

[neversay]

LOL, is it me, or are half the male principals of that orchestra clones of each other? A very odd sensation, they look so much alike, and they all have their hair cut the same way (apart from the balding one).

I am generally suspicious of rewritten baroque masterpieces, but hey, maybe that's just a post-traumatic response to the time when I was forced to sit in a beautiful French church while a decent youth orchestra reconfigured Vivaldi's guitar concerto into a delta blues? Everything is worth a try, glad it works for you. Enjoy.

BJ

Quite. The video is deeply distracting (if not disturbing) and the remix is undoubtedly more 'pop' than 'purist'. The use on The Crown was almost the nail in the coffin!

I just wanted to start a thread where fellow Fools pay it forward with a piece of music that will add a bit of colour to the gray winter days.

Any offerings?

[bungeejumper]

From the infallible Wikipedia:

Richter's recomposed version of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, was premiered in the UK at the Barbican Centre on 31 October 2012, performed by the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by André de Ridder and with violinist Daniel Hope.[35] Although Richter said that he had discarded 75% of Vivaldi's original material,[36] the parts he does use are phased and looped, emphasising his grounding in postmodern and minimalist music.[37]

And now for something completely different. My great hero Jordi Savall playing one of the very greatest pieces for viola da gamba. (The predecessor of the cello, and yes, it does have seven strings.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylpOO-7cyt0&vl=en
Chocolate cake for the soul. I could listen to this stuff all day.

BJ

[neversay]

From the infallible Wikipedia:

Richter's recomposed version of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, was premiered in the UK at the Barbican Centre on 31 October 2012, performed by the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by André de Ridder and with violinist Daniel Hope.[35] Although Richter said that he had discarded 75% of Vivaldi's original material,[36] the parts he does use are phased and looped, emphasising his grounding in postmodern and minimalist music.[37]

And now for something completely different. My great hero Jordi Savall playing one of the very greatest pieces for viola da gamba. (The predecessor of the cello, and yes, it does have seven strings.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylpOO-7cyt0&vl=en
Chocolate cake for the soul. I could listen to this stuff all day.

BJ

Now that's what I'm talking about!

[Itsallaguess]

Sticking with the strings theme then -

Clint Mansell Symphonic - The Fountain (Live @ Prague) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlJZzTJwz5s

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[neversay]

Thanks @itsallaguess. I'll look these up on Spotify and listen on some good headphones. I can't listen properly and use my eyes at the same time. (Is that just me? )

All genres welcome.

[Itsallaguess]

Thanks @itsallaguess. I'll look these up on Spotify and listen on some good headphones. I can't listen properly and use my eyes at the same time.

I'd actually recommend you doing that in this instance, as Spotify have the complete 'Fountain' OST (official sound track) listing in really high studio-quality, and it's one of my favourite soundtracks..

If you search Spotify using 'clint mansell fountain ost', then that should get you there...

It's a great film too, by the way, for anyone interested...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[servodude]

Thanks @itsallaguess. I'll look these up on Spotify and listen on some good headphones. I can't listen properly and use my eyes at the same time.

I'd actually recommend you doing that in this instance, as Spotify have the complete 'Fountain' OST (official sound track) listing in really high studio-quality, and it's one of my favourite soundtracks..

If you search Spotify using 'clint mansell fountain ost', then that should get you there...

It's a great film too, by the way, for anyone interested...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

and a very good graphic novel (written when Darren Aronofsky couldn't originally get the film made)

I saw Clint Mansell perform his soundtrack work a few years ago, and several times with the Poppies back in the day; he's changed a bit

-sd

[Mike4]

From the infallible Wikipedia:

Richter's recomposed version of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, was premiered in the UK at the Barbican Centre on 31 October 2012, performed by the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by André de Ridder and with violinist Daniel Hope.[35] Although Richter said that he had discarded 75% of Vivaldi's original material,[36] the parts he does use are phased and looped, emphasising his grounding in postmodern and minimalist music.[37]

And now for something completely different. My great hero Jordi Savall playing one of the very greatest pieces for viola da gamba. (The predecessor of the cello, and yes, it does have seven strings.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylpOO-7cyt0&vl=en
Chocolate cake for the soul. I could listen to this stuff all day.

BJ

Wonderful, thank you. And I don't normally like chocolate cake.

What a curious way of holding the bow. My violin teacher would have had a fit!

[servodude]

What a curious way of holding the bow. My violin teacher would have had a fit!

We called that German bowing when I was a young double bass player
- the frog is much wider and it feels wrong if you're used to pressing towards the string
- sd

[Mike4]

What a curious way of holding the bow. My violin teacher would have had a fit!

We called that German bowing when I was a young double bass player
- the frog is much wider and it feels wrong if you're used to pressing towards the string
- sd

Never mind all that, I've just noticed the fingerboard is fretted!!!!!!!!!!

[Stompa]

Never mind all that, I've just noticed the fingerboard is fretted!!!!!!!!!!

I was rather puzzled as to why some of them appear to be skewwhiff. But it seems they're a DIY job:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-b3f5u8pnk

which must be a bit alarming if they move mid-concert!

[servodude]

I was rather puzzled as to why some of them appear to be skewwhiff. But it seems they're a DIY job:

The other aspect to this is it you're going to the bother of playing a Viola de Gamba you're likely not in equal temperament
- which is a whole other rabbit hole
-sd

[Stompa]

The other aspect to this is it you're going to the bother of playing a Viola de Gamba you're likely not in equal temperament
- which is a whole other rabbit hole

That's intriguing, and I guess would explain the rather unexpected appearance of the 1st fret.

[Mike4]

Never mind all that, I've just noticed the fingerboard is fretted!!!!!!!!!!

I was rather puzzled as to why some of them appear to be skewwhiff. But it seems they're a DIY job:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-b3f5u8pnk

which must be a bit alarming if they move mid-concert!

Amazing, how charming!!

I LURVE luthering. I was cruising in Brum in my canal boat a few years back and rounded a bend to see a whole panoply of violin, viola and cello shells hanging on a washing line on the bank, next to a moored boat. I slowed to gawp, and the owner of the boat hailed me expressing huge interest in my lovely 1935 3 litre side-valve diesel. So I moored up and spent a delightful six hours talking vintage diesels and stringed instrument making. He explained to me how a sudden fall in instrument quality in around 1900 was eventually traced to the use of artificial varnish rather than the sap-based varnish he makes for his own instruments. All fascinating stuff as my grandfather used to make violins as a hobby.

[bungeejumper]

What a curious way of holding the bow. My violin teacher would have had a fit!

We called that German bowing when I was a young double bass player
- the frog is much wider and it feels wrong if you're used to pressing towards the string

Thanks for the nice comments, all. Yes, the viola da gamba is a pretty strange beast, and (in this size) it does have a sort of human-emotion tone to it. Not for nothing did Marin-Marais call his gamba suite La Voix Humaine.

In this size, did I say? Yes, gambas came in a viola-ish size, a cello-ish size and a double bass-ish size. Which was pretty impressive, considering that none of those had been invented at the time.

One thing you might have noticed is that there's no spike at the bottom to support this heavyweight beast. You balanced it on your knees - which made you look a right idiot if it was the viola-sized gamba (which was also played vertically). The larger gambas could also be slung from a belly strap for playing during church processions and so forth.

Jordi Savall's bow hold would definitely have earned you minus points if you'd tried it on a violin. He's using a baroque hold, with the fingers in completely different places from a normal cello. But then, I can't quite figure out what sort of bow he's using, because it looks a lot like the modern Tourte bow, which was only invented about 100 years after that music was composed.

Your proper baroque bow had a convex stick, rather than the concave stick on a modern bow. More like a miniature longbow, in fact! The modern Tourte bow with the concave bend is much tighter and more consistent, and it doesn't bounce about so much, which is why it had completely taken over by the 1830s. These days, a professional cellist will sometimes pay more for his bow than his whole cello. They're a fussy bunch.

I don't know why the bottom frets have that triangular sliver added to them, but this particular player is the uncontested world's finest exponent, and I'm pretty sure he has enough money to have been able to specify it that way. I suspect it's probably because the bottom three "drone" strings are quite slack and they don't behave quite so predictably as the higher ones, and being a little bit flat on the open string position adds a bit of grunt to the effect?

If you think this is a weird sort of fingerboard, try the theorbo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=eVabz8LneI4 - sorry about the ads.

Keep 'em coming!

BJ

[bungeejumper]

spent a delightful six hours talking vintage diesels and stringed instrument making. He explained to me how a sudden fall in instrument quality in around 1900 was eventually traced to the use of artificial varnish rather than the sap-based varnish he makes for his own instruments. All fascinating stuff as my grandfather used to make violins as a hobby.

It was also due to the decline in the quality of the trees! One of the reasons why Stradivarius and Guarneri and all the Italian boys made such fabulous instruments was that they had access to wood that had been grown during a particularly dry period lasting several decades, and the timber they used just had some really divine characteristics. Modern fast-growing trees can't begin to compete. Well, that's what they say.

But there are things we still don't know about how Guarneri and the boys operated. Somebody in Hungary once conducted an experiment where they dismantled a modern violin and soaked it in various salts, and then glued it back together and waited a few years for the shrinkage to start creating tensions inside the violin's body. The result was said to have sounded really appalling for the first six months, but then to have turned really fine. Could this have been the old masters' trick?

I don't know why the Hungarians didn't patent the method, though - maybe the instrument went back to sounding awful again?

BJ

[Mike4]

If you think this is a weird sort of fingerboard, try the theorbo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=eVabz8LneI4 - sorry about the ads.

Keep 'em coming!

BJ

How lovely! I went to a concert in Oxford a few years back by a talented Asian lad (whose name escapes me) playing a similar if not identical instrument. Thoroughly enjoyable.

What an intimidating load of strings though. And there was me finding six a bit troublesome, with some arthritis and no strength in my little finger and it keeping clicking and hurting when I try to do the 'spider' exercise.

Now where is my ukulele...?