Dear lovers of music, mystery, and meaning,
✊ If you’re like me, you’ve never heard of Kjempevise-slåtten (The Ballad of Revolt) by Harald Sæverud (1897-1992). It was written by the Norwegian composer upon seeing a Nazi presence in his homeland.
✊ If you’re like me, you’ve never heard of Kjempevise-slåtten (The Ballad of Revolt) by Harald Sæverud (1897-1992). It was written by the Norwegian composer upon seeing a Nazi presence in his homeland.
At the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert on Friday morning, guest conductor Tabita Berglund explained,
“We get this tune out whenever there is injustice, or there’s something not quite right.”
The ovation from the audience was immediate—before a single note was played.
Kjempevise-slåtten was originally written for piano, but you can find the orchestral version on Spotify
The music eventually settles into an inevitable populist drive, and, for me, it brought to mind other “resistance” pieces like Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Wikipedia) or, in a fictional context, the haunting civic marching band scoring to the end of the first season of the Star Wars television series Andor, Forming Up/Unto Stone We Are (YouTube).
🎹 In other music, I want to draw your attention to Mark Edwards’s Via Bach project on YouTube. The scope of this project is just incredible.
"Via Bach" is a project to release free video recordings of the complete keyboard works of J.S. Bach over the course of 500 weeks. Led by harpsichordist Mark Edwards, the series will release a video every Wednesday, beginning on August 27th, 2025 and ending with Bach's 350th birthday on March 21st, 2035.
The project started with the only piece it could have. And by the time you read this, the sixth video should be out, Prelude and Fugue No. 6 in D minor, BWV 851, from the Well-Tempered Clavier.
Along with the music, Prof. Edwards is releasing commentary on each piece the same week. I was delighted to learn about this, and I hope you’ll join me in following along for the ... checks notes ... next 494 weeks of Via Bach.
🥁 RIP Jack DeJohnette (Jack DeJohnette, Revered Jazz Drummer, Dies at 83, NY Times gift article).
Johnette was asked about how his trio with Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock enured for 30 years:
“I think because we play every piece as if it were new for the first time. Prepare for the unexpected, and go with it.”
Until next week,
-David
-David