Frederic RzewskiI suspect the microphone you see in front of Lisa isn’t turned on, as the voice part is barely audible.
My discovery of Rzewski’s (zheff-skee) music is thanks to Sarah Cahill’s radio program Then and Now on KALW. I’ve included my own archive recording of this piece because the video above has improperly recorded audio, and I consider this work to be very important. It is a piece by a living composer, played by a wonderful performer, incorporating passages of a work of tragic literature by a noted historical figure.
Demands on the pianist include speaking, whistling, laughing, humming, sighing, moaning, whispering, snapping, slapping, and the use of a bicycle horn. Present in the work is a fluency in many genres and techniques — including fugue, impressionism, post-romanticism and poly-tonality — all serving to illustrate and highlight the text. Also quite effective is the combination of finger drumming on the keyboard lid, shaking and hitting the piano, and whispering, during passages where Wilde addresses his vivid memories of time spent with “Bosie.”
When I listen to certain film composers, it is sometimes immediately apparent they are fans of Ravel’s music. While Ravel himself didn’t consider Boléro an important piece, it has “gone viral” somewhat — probably due to the catchy rhythm that drives it relentlessly forward. When I heard Ennio Morricone using that rhythm in a sound track, it was an immediate cue, and a natural choice for a remix against Boléro. I also think any “warhorse” piece which has been over-played or misused is fair game.
Boléro became Ravel’s most famous composition, much to the surprise of the composer, who had predicted that most orchestras would refuse to play it.[3] It is usually played as a purely orchestral work, only rarely being staged as a ballet. According to a possibly apocryphal story, at the premiere a woman shouted that Ravel was mad. When told about this, Ravel smiled and remarked that she had understood the piece.[6]
Imagine in your mind the villain from Diva (1981) — but instead of polka music, he’s listening to Boléro over and over… while he merrily commits terrible violence. The guns, brass, vocals and signature whistling are courtesy of Morricone. The ending was difficult, as I’m combining two separate recordings of Bolero; it has to have a “big finish” — a.k.a. fortissi-issi-issi-issi-issimo. One trick employed here is substitution sleight-of-hand; the “jump cut” out of Morricone is made possible by the two chords which lead to the “coda” in Boléro. Also, in the development I wove the theme onto itself to provide additional interest, since everyone knows the piece so well.
When I heard Lang Lang’s live performance of Balakirev’s Islamey at Tanglewood, I was a little shocked. The piece is a well-known but seldom played tour de force in the virtuoso repertoire. He certainly got people’s attention that day. I think he was given an opportunity to fill a gap left by someone else unable to perform, at the last minute. I could not hear anything even slightly off. He did not take any simplifications — none of three “ossia” alternates for near-impossible passages. In fact, he appeared to add notes, if anything. However, he was never pressed for time.
Let’s watch that first - it’s not at Tanglewood; he’s apparently at an A&E studio. Starting at 6:00 until the end, the piece is unrelenting. He seems to play the ending a bit faster here, but remains in command. An amazing accomplishment for one so young.
Next we get a glimpse inside a new Chinese film score collaboration with Tan Dun, which pleases Lang Lang in its marriage of Asian music, piano, percussion, and a “Lady Hamlet” story of operatic scope. I didn’t catch the name of the film or release date; I’ll have to seek it out.
The next set of videos are about his Deutsche Grammophon release, “Memory.” During a visit to Mozart’s home he spends some time with one of Wolfgang’s keyboards. He performs the virtuosic Horowitz transcription ofLiszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2 –- a piece Lang Lang always dreamed of playing himself ever since watching Tom perform it in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Then we have some Mozart, some Schumann and some of Chopin’s Sonata #3 in B minor. He talks about his relationship to these works, misconceptions about Liszt and the difficulty in Mozartian control. Then he tells about almost quitting piano after being “fired” by his private teacher in Beijing. Thanks to a public school teacher’s insistence that he play, he got back in the saddle. He is excited to record the Sonata as his first major Chopin piece.
And finally, we have a long, long Master Class — starting with a lovely gift. He talks to the lucky six, amd the first two play some Mozart. Then number three has difficulty starting out, so Lang Lang gets right into phrasing and dynamics but without intimidating the young lady. In fact, she is quite relaxed and so is he — and they get quite a bit done. He even mocks her shoulder movements, but does it in such a good-natured way it doesn’t seem to put her off. Then back to number two, a very young boy of 6 or 7 years who does quite well. Then a brave youmg lady starts playing Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata — and doesn’t get too far because Lang Lang has a lot of interpretive suggestions for her. I don’t have to see much more to tell that Lang Lang is very well-suited to this high calling, generously sharing his talent and valuable time with the next wave of promising young students. I salute him, the young pianists, and the parents who managed to raise not just good children, but future guardians of the Lisztian flame.
I would be remiss not to mention Lang Lang enjoys “Rock Star” status in China — and has for seeveral years. I’m not sure exactly how large of an impact the Lang Lang phenomenon will have on the future of classical music, but I don’t doubt it will be huge. Ask me again in 10 yearrs. Did I mention he has a fan site? Yes he does, and it’s beautiful and tasteful at first glance.
I’ve been following developments like GigaStudio (see below) for years. It was only a matter of time before a service such as this became available.
I wonder how much effort is spent tailoring each simulated performance, and whether the tailoring is captured and modeled as “training the robot conductor?”
An intelligent robot conductor gets better and better at performing unfamiliar music, as you train it to better perform specific music.
This requires modeling composers. This clip (the second part) is the result of teaching a robot conductor to better perform Beethoven. Note: the human in the video only sets the tempo and cues starts and stops. All of the difficult robot training must be done beforehand.
You don’t want its Beethoven training to make all its performances more Beethoven-like. You want to break down the Beethoven training as training in the Classical and Romantic styles. This way the training common to the Romantic style will improve its performance of unfamiliar Romantic music. What is unique to Beethoven, such as sudden muscular, peasant-like sections for example, blend in with the general training. Given the same music, if you don’t say Beethoven those sections aren’t quite so muscular or peasant-like.
Then you can play with scenarios like “pretend the conductor has been lied to and thinks piece X was written by composer Y in style Z.” All of these questions are moot, since I’m quite sure the process and results are heavily guarded secrets. Proprietary technology with a combination of “intelligent training” and manual labor.
Film music rates – per minute (five minute minimum)
The prices are high, but not unreasonable for such quality. They do give estimates, which is where they may share savings when the “intelligent training” reduces the manual labor for a given piece. Conversely, if you hand them an intellectual exercise in opaque experimental notation you will no doubt pay for it.
They also have a call for scores, which they may decide to program at a future concert. They don’t say whether accepting your score for a concert gives you anything other than exposure. The “performance right” of your work is their valuable (and presumably costly) intellectual property. They do say they won’t do anything without your permission — so if you are that rarest of breeds, the symphonic composer, it doesn’t hurt to send them a copy of your symphony.
Fauxharmonic Orchestra 20090520 Beethoven Symph. no 1 mvt. 1
Today you can have excellent sampled sound driven by your music production software — and use the Fauxharmonic service to record your masterpiece with the money you earn selling that commercial jingle or karaoke pop version of whatever aria Andrea Bocelli is singing lately.
Giga is joining Garritan. We’re excited about this and proud to own some of the best sampling technologies on the planet. One of our goals is to provide the best music-making tools possible to our users, and acquiring the Giga technology helps us to achieve this…
We are evaluating how to incorporate Giga technologies in our future products. We will extensively develop the Giga technologies and take them to the next level. The Giga software product line ended in the summer of 2008, but we plan to continue the legacy of these products in new forms…
We realize that many Giga users have a great deal invested in Giga libraries. It is our hope that those who invested in Giga libraries will be able to continue to use them in our future products. Owning the Giga format puts us in the ideal position to provide native solutions for Giga files…
Garritan will continue to offer its libraries based on ARIA and the open SFZ format. For the foreseeable future, many of the real-time performance tools from Giga can fit into ARIA’s modular architecture.
Very difficult going in places, this book makes the snake eat its tail in the most rigorous manner possible.
Starting with 5 unassailable axioms — and delightful side-trips to Bach, Escher and Lewis Carroll — Hofstadterillustrates the core reason why powerful systems all have the “incompleteness” problem.
20100228 at 23:36 
Frederic RzewskiI suspect the microphone you see in front of Lisa isn’t turned on, as the voice part is barely audible.
Lisa Moore
Oscar Wilde
