Happy Monday, friends!
Here are a few things that have caught my interest recently.
Here are a few things that have caught my interest recently.
- TikTok Duets Are Reviving the Exquisite Corpse (from Wired)
When you think about it, yeah, TikTok could be just a big surrealist art project, right? - Did they mention the music? by John Rutter
I often forget what a good writer Rutter is. Here, he unpacks all the intricate musical connections in the royal funeral. - Listen: Cantus Arcticus by Einojuhani Rautavaara
This piece of music (a concerto for birds -- what?!) caught me totally by surprise this past weekend. I loved every minute and have been listening to it ever since. This is a link to a recording with score, but I would probably encourage just listening first.
Some things to consider as you listen:
- the Finnish composer Rautavaara is considered the successor in some ways to Jean Sibelius
- Ralph Vaughan Williams dedicated his Symphony No. 5 to Sibelius ("without permission")
- Vaughan Williams also wrote a "Sinfonia antartica" (Symphony No. 7)
- I think there may be a pre-existing affinity between the harmonic languages of Rautavaara and Vaughan Williams, but is it amplified here with some direct quotations of Vaughan Williams's "Sinfonia"?
- All the birds you hear were recorded north of the arctic circle.
Later,
-David