The word music in a combination with the word Sunday means just one: Time to #SadSunday post. However, the day passed so fast, but in a little weird, and different way. What was the same was our beautiful afternoon walk in nature, which was great. What was different was the lack of focus. The concentration needed to prepare something to bring the music selection for today lacked. When the thoughts went in another direction I could not hear music in my mind. A thing that will not be solved today nor tomorrow or the day after it occupied the space where usually my musical vibes are situated. Empty space...that is not good. Not even one chord or note resonated there... Until I decided to forget about the everyday worries and let my soul be filled with some beauty. And this is what you are going to experience if you click that play button in the following video. With the eyes closed the experience is even more powerful. Try it.
Source of the video.
Sea, ocean.. some would call it a huge lake, or salty water..
What is true is that it is a mass made up of many small droplets, which becomes more powerful when they are together. They can’t just dry out, evaporate or disappear. The power of the sea is shown through this musical work too, composed by one of my favourites composers from the age of Impressionism. Claude Debussy. If you have time to listen to the whole performance, you can enjoy the performance of Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by the great master Claudio Abbado.
Source from where this ocean is coming
However, as you know, my love for one particular instrument, the piano, will lead us to another water connected topic, ocean. Composed by Maurice Ravel, A Boat on the Ocean is the third movement of the suite Mirrors. It is written for piano and this particular movement is dedicated to one of his painter friends, Paul Sordes. The piece is extremely hard to play, with all the passages that evoke the waves of the ocean and a boat that sails upon them. Pretty dramatic work and maybe a sad destiny that awaits that small boat in the mercy of angry ocean...?
Source of the performance
Another piano piece, around the same mass made of many droplets, called water. This time it is not impressionism, and it is not so sad or dramatic. The piece is written by Franz Liszt, the great Liszt who made the life of piano students more difficult but as well more interesting. The music we are listening to here, The Fountains of the Villa d'Este, is one of the movements of the third piano suite Years of Pilgrimage. With the very fast scale passages, that the Hungarian pianist Kocsis Zoltan plays here, we can hear that this style will open the door to Debussy and Ravel kind of composing, having strong features of impressionism already. Not so sad for the #SadSunday, however, this day was already weird, as I mentioned in the beginning of the post.