Jing-reed's Musings from Thailand

Eine kleine Nachtmusik in Fractal Form

     [click for full size]

The Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525 was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1787. The work is more commonly known by the title Eine kleine Nachtmusik. The German title means "a little serenade," though it is often rendered more literally but less accurately as "a little night music."

     1  Allegro
     2  Romanze (Andante)
     3  Menuetto (Allegretto)
     4  Rondo (Allegro)

Somewhat surprised yesterday, while in the process of creating a new fractal image in Mandelbulb 3D, to suddenly be presented with Mozart's 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik'.  There was no doubt in my mind, that this marvelous piece of music, which I had listened to countles times over the years, had mysteriously been transported into fractal form.

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May 21, 2011 — Thailand, 7:00 p.m.

It is now a bit past 7:00 pm local time in Thailand, well past the hour when Harold Camping promised that the rapture would begin here in our specific time zone.  And nothing out of the ordinary has happened in the 5 time zones ahead of ours, Australia, Japan, China, etc.
 
Mr. Camping, I am sorry to report that: the gigantic earthquakes you predicted haven't occured, no believers have been noted floating heaven-ward, Jesus has failed to put in an appearance, and the trumpet blowing angels haven't so much as farted.

Guess it is time for you to begin your  "Countdown to Backpedaling".  [You did it before in 1994, so undobutedly you know the process.]



I know this is a repetition on my part, but people have been using the Bible to predict the end of the world for as long as there has been a Bible, and they've never been right. Never.  The history of the Christian church is filled with stories of great disappointments that occur when communities get hoodwinked into believing the rapture is at hand. Many scholars of the Bible claim that biblical passages about the End of Days are poetry, not meant to be taken as actual predictions. Not everyone listens to intelliignent people, however, and so, come tomorrow, a goodly number of folks will be confused and disappointed to wake up to an ordinary Sunday.

Interesting article in the Washington Post "If the end of the world is not on May 21, what will Camping’s followers do?"


Nonetheless, I think we SHOULD celebrate this day.
Celebrate life and the ongoing beauty of this planet we are blessed to call home. 
Celebrate the human family in which we are privileged to claim membership.
[And hopefully the perennial doomsayers will crawl back into their holes. ]

So guess I will open a bottle of wine, curl up with a new book purchased specifically for the occasion, "The Religion Virus: Why We Believe in God: An Evolutionist Explains Religion's Incredible Hold on Humanity" and listen to some Mozart.

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  Requiem de Mozart - Lacrimosa - Karl Böhm - Philarmonica de Vienna

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The Genius of Mozart

In January of last year I posted about 'The Making of Amadeus' and added: "I was first introduced to the music of Mozart at the tender age of four by my father. Hence it has been an integral part of my life for more than seventy years."

I just discovered the BBC's 'The Genius of Mozart' posted on YouTube [in 18 parts] and watched it in its entirety.  I won't attempt to compare the two filmed versions of Mozart's life, they are both excellent in quite different ways.  But 'The Genius of Mozart' is sure to please anyone who truly loves his music.  Charles Hazelwood, the British musicologist, in both word and with his piano, makes the music of Mozart come alive and vibrant.

"The Genius of Mozart" constitutes a powerful retelling of Mozart's life, beginning with his childhood as a travelling musical prodigy and ending with his tragic death at the tender age of 35. Every aspect of the film has been given thorough thought, so as to ensure an accurate historical reconstruction. Inspirational performances from the main actors and actresses foster captivation, while regular narrative interjections from the popular composer and conductor Charles Hazlewood brings an insightful, educational dimension.

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Mozart - Violin Concerto No. 5

In Salzburg, Austria, in 1775, a 19-year-old composer named Wolfgang Mozart had spent most of that year composing five violin concertos. The fifth, in A major, was completed on this day in 1775.

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major ('Turkish') K. 219  
   Conductor: James Levine
   Violinist: Itzhak Perlman

Part 1 Allegro Aperto

 

Part 2 - Adagio
Part 3 - Rondeau, Tempo di Menuetto

The Making of 'Amadeus'

 

Amadeus is a 1984 drama film directed by Miloš Forman. An adaption of Peter Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the film is based very loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the later half of the 18th century. The film was nominated for 53 awards and received 40, including eight Academy Awards [including Best Picture].

'The Making of Amadeus' provides a background look at how this extraordinary film became a reality. Having been filmed in Czechoslovakia before the collapse of communism, it was anything but easy.  And it is perhaps one of the only films in which the major actor was not a specific person, but rather the music. More than the just the history of Mozart the person, it is the story of how his music was created, sometimes note by note.  Seeing Amadeus is a film experience in every sense of the word and more than deserves that often overused title 'masterpiece'.  

I was first introduced to the music of Mozart at the tender age of four by my father. Hence it has been an integral part of my life for more than seventy years.  I know that he would have loved this film as much as I did on first viewing, and do today - more than 20 years and many, many viewings later. It is an extraordinary work of art.      

     The Making of Amadeus  1 of 6

    Part 2 

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5 

    Part 6 

W.A. Mozart - Konzert in A für Klarinette und Orchester KV 622 [Clarinet concerto in A major]

 

This Clarinet concerto was one of Mozart's final completed works, and his final purely instrumental work [he died only months after its completion]. The concerto is notable for its delicate interplay between soloist and orchestra, and for the lack of overly extroverted display on the part of the soloist [no cadenzas are written out in the solo part]. The second movement [adagio] was popularized by the film Out of Africa. 

Julian Bliss is a British clarinetist, child prodigy and clarinet designer. He has performed both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, notably with his teacher Sabine Meyer, noted clarinetist from Lübeck, Germany. 

     Julian Bliss plays Mozart clarinet concerto [Adagio]

New Mozart Pieces Unveiled

New Mozart Pieces Unveiled

SALZBURG, Austria (AP) -- Technically demanding and at times furiously paced, two newly identified Mozart works unveiled Sunday are helping scholars complete their assessment of the maestro's very early achievements. The childhood creations – an extensive concerto movement and a fragmentary prelude – provide yet more proof the Salzburg native was a true prodigy. And maybe a bit of a showoff. .....

Mozart — Requiem

Mozart - Requiem - Lacrimosa

La Chapelle Royal, Collegium Vocale
Orchestre de Champs Élysées   Dir. Philippe Herreweghe

The requiem was Mozart's last composition, and is one of his most popular and most respected works. There has been a debate over how much of the music Mozart managed to complete before his death, and how much was later composed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

At the time of Mozart's death on 5 December 1791 he had only completed the opening movement (Requiem aeternam) in all of the orchestral and vocal parts. The Kyrie (a double fugue), and most of the Sequence (from Dies Irae to Confutatis), is complete only in the vocal parts and the continuo (the figured organ bass), though occasionally some of the prominent orchestral parts have been briefly indicated, such as the violin part of the Confutatis and the musical bridges in the Recordare. The last movement of the Sequence, the Lacrimosa, breaks off after only eight bars and was unfinished. 

Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem. Amen

Note: this YouTube posting has had over two million, three hundred thousand [2,300,000]  hits !

And for those, like myself, addicited to the music of Mozart, there is an incredible web site in Germany, MOZART-TURM DEUTSCHLAND, which has a complete listing of his music available for listening on line or downloading as MP3 or WMA files.

The Clothes They Stood Up In — Alan Bennett

Was talking with a Thai/Falang friend (Thai  since he was born here, but falang [foreigner] since he spent many years in California and gradutated from UCLA).  One of those rare Thai who actually enjoys reading as a passtime. We were discussing my father's near obsession with the music of Mozart, and Jumraht suddenly recalled that he had a book that I might enjoy reading, "The Clothes They Stood Up In" by Alan Bennett.  I was familiar with Alan Bennett primarily due to his brilliant stage play "The History Boys", which later became one of the best films I have seen. 

 

"The Clothes They Stood Up In" are all Mr. and Mrs. Ransome have left when they return to their London apartment after spending the evening at the opera. That's because they've been robbed -- well, or more precisely burgled, for as Mr. Ransome points out, people are robbed, premises are burgled.

"The Clothes They Stood Up In" has many of the hallmarks of Bennett's brilliant writing. It is concise, to the point and a wonderful read.  Contains a gentle wit which occasionally becomes hilarious.  

As for the Mozart, well the firrst few pages detail Mr. Ransome's obsession:

The ransomes had been to the opera, to Cosi Fan Tutte [or Cosi as Mrs. Ransome had learned to call it].  Mozart played an important part in their marriage. They had no childrem, and but for Mozart would probably have split up years ago.  Mr. Ransome always took a bath when he came home from work and then he had his supper.  After supper he took another bath, this time in Mozart.  He wallower in Mozart; he luxuriated in him; he let the little Viennese soak away all the dirt and disgustingness he had to sit through all in his office all day.  ....

On a normal evening though Mr. Ransome shared his bath with no one, Mozart coming personalized via his headphones and a stack of complex and finely balanced stereo equipment that Mrs. Ransome was never allowed to touch.  She blamed the stereo for the burglary as that was what the robbers were probably after in the first place. . . .

"The Clothes They Stood Up In" did  in fact remind me of music of Mozart — a bright surface which is but a part of the profound depths of emotion.

Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622

One of the most beautiful, and sublime, compositions of Mozart is the Adagio from his Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622.

Mozart wrote the Clarinet Concerto, his last instrumental work, in October of 1791, only two months before his untimely death. Indeed, Mozart was a major factor in helping to establish a solid place for the clarinet in the orchestra. Mozart's love of the clarinet developed during the time he spent in Mannheim in 1777 and 1778. His admiration of the instrument grew even more when he met the brothers Anton and Johann Stadler in Vienna who were both virtuoso clarinetists.

The concerto is frequently described as 'autumnal' due to the lyrical Adagio and the emotive passages in minor keys in the outer movements. It was also one of Mozart's final completed works, and indeed his final purely instrumental work. The concerto is notable for its delicate interplay between soloist and orchestra, and for the lack of overly extroverted display on the part of the soloist (no cadenzas are written out in the solo part).

The concerto has only a quiet orchestral background allowing the clarinet to truly shine. Instead of oboes, Mozart decided to score the work with flutes along with 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings. However, an interesting aspect of the concerto is that Mozart gave the bass line primarily to the cellos without the support of the double basses. This increases further the serenity of the work.

Mozart originally wrote the work for basset clarinet, a special clarinet championed by Stadler that had a range down to low C, instead of stopping at E as standard clarinets do. Most clarinets could not play the low notes which Mozart wrote to highlight this instrument.

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jiri Belohlavek  — 

Julian Bliss, basset clarinet

17 year-old Julian Bliss is an alumnus of the prestigious Indiana University School of Music, where he studied under Howard Klug. He now continues his clarinet studies with Sabine Meyer at the Musikhochschule Lübeck in Germany. 

Julian Bliss plays Mozart clarinet concerto (Adagio)