Late night music.

[chaggle]

Just heard this after a very long time.

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[bindeweede]

Thanks Chaggers - quite my cup of tea. :)

I stumbled across this and quite like it. Nothing great, but a decent performance of Siloti's transcription of "The Swan" from "The Carnival of the Animals" (Saint-Saëns).

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No, not a swan in sight, but it still calms me in totally daft times. :y

[bindeweede]

In total contrast - Eva Cassidy, January 1996.

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[bindeweede]

And contrast again. The nostalgic piano music of Eric Satie combined with artwork by Edouard Leon Cortes. For me, absolutely wonderful. I hope others will enjoy.

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[Tom_I]

Try this if you haven't come across Gisela João before. She's a modern-day fadista, and has become incredibly popular in Portugal.

Fado is a traditional Portuguese music genre, generally performed with just voice and acoustic instruments, particularly the fado guitar. It's usually mournful in character, expressing resignation, loss, melancholia and longing. Not exactly cheerful stuff, but worth a listen.

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[bindeweede]

Thanks for that - a voice I find very attractive and I'll be searching for more of her recordings.
I did come across this - the same song and recording, but with Portuguese text. I find the sound of the language quite beautiful, and the way the vowels elide - is that the right word? - quite fascinating.

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[bindeweede]

A fave Rach/Prel. Not great sound, or performance, but it has something....

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[Tom_I]

Du Var Främling Här Igår.

Sound familiar? You'll probably recognise it, though, as it's a cover of "I Close my Eyes (and Count to Ten)", best known from its recording by Dusty Springfield, though the Swedish words are completely different.

Dusty's version is great, but if anything I prefer this one, sung by Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who had a successful solo career before she joined Abba.

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[Tom_I]

And for something completely different, a good performance of Bach's catchiest fugue, if that's not a contradiction in terms. It's based on a Dutch folk song.

Nice socks, too. Stick with it until 0:40, and you'll see what I mean.

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[Tom_I]

And while I was looking for the last video on Youtube, I came across this brilliant version of the complete Fantasia and Fugue BWV 542 by the Moldovan accordionist Stiuca Nicolae. It reminded me of street musicians I once saw in Cologne playing Bach organ works using an accordion, saxophone and tuba. Not for purists, I suppose...

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[Tom_I]

I couldn't quite believe this when I stumbled across it on Youtube.

I'm a big fan of Liszt's transcriptions of songs by other composers. This one, of Schumann's song "Widmung" (Dedication) is one I particularly like.

So here's this young American guy called Matthew Griswold. In jeans and a vest, he looks like he's on the way home from the gym, and has blundered into the piano shop by mistake, but decides to give the new Steingraeber grand a road test.

I thought it was going to be toe-curlingly awful, but actually it's a nice performance of this lovely piece. There's some rather dodgy camera work, though.

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[Tom_I]

Piano duets can be fun to watch, if played well.

Here are the Dutch brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen playing the Allegro from Mozart's sonata for piano, four hands K.521. They moon and swoon a bit too much for my liking, but the fingerwork is terrific.

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[polomint38]

My late night music, Chris Eccleston, reciting Evidently Chicken Town by John Cooper Clark, with a bit of Bill Shakespeare thrown in from the film Strumpet.
If you don't like the the "F word" don't listen.

Spoiler:

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[Tom_I]

I've just accidentally come across a name from the past - Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková, born 1927. I bought an LP of her playing Bach keyboard concertos in the 1970s, but never knew anythng about her. Apparently she died in September this year, aged 90.

Her style is a bit "old school" compared to modern tastes - I think she must have been influenced by Wanda Landowska, who was instrumental in reviving interest in the harpsichord in the early 20th century. What I didn't know was that as a teenager she was imprisoned by the Nazis in Terezin, then in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Of her family, only she and her mother survived.

There's a Wiki article here which gives some details.

Here's Bach's Concerto BWV 1056, with some photos.

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[Tom_I]

A great perfomance of the slow movement of Schubert's second piano trio by the French group Trio Wanderer, featuring the wonderfully named pianist Vincent Coq.

This was used as one of the central musical themes in Stanley Kubrick's 1975 film "Barry Lyndon".

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