Deadsplinter Up! All Night: it aint beethoven mamma

but it sure bounces

16/3/21 farscythe 29

anyways its now officially closer to friday than it was yesterday so i figures we might as well get the party started (me being overcaffienated has nothing to do with it….probably)

ludwig von vulfpeckhoven

*bounces*

wait..what was the theme again?

anyways thank you for supporting deadsplinter

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29 Comments

  1. Probably my favorite Beethoven piece, right up there with the 2nd movement of the Moonlight Sonata:  7th Symphony, 2nd Movement.  His deafness was almost complete at this point so he wasn’t feeling particularly cheery, but damn did he pour it out on the page.

     

  7. If we’re gonna do longhair music, then you better be prepared for me to bring the opera.  I was started on my lifelong love of opera (especially opera buffo) by my grandfather’s 78 rpm records of Caruso and of course by Bugs Bunny.  Some men learned to strut from John Travolta’s entrance in Saturday Night Fever, but I got my swagger from il Barbiere.  I’m pretty sure Bugs is conducting the orchestra in this clip.
     

      • you know….i know most of the famous opera songs pretty well….but ive never actually sat down and watched one
        i should probably rectify that at some point

        • Best to start by watching one of Mozart’s Italian operas.  Cosi Fan Tutti or Marriage of Figaro.  The stories are good and the music moves right along.  I went to see Wagner’s Parsifal, which is one of my favorites, and with intermissions it was almost six hours.  Fortunately, there are sections that are good for napping in between the parts where all hell breaks loose.

    • My first real exposure to opera (that wasn’t Bugs Bunny or Gilligan’s Island riffing on Carmen), was at the Aspen Music Festival.  I was assigned as the 2nd engineer at the opera house to record one of the performances of La Boheme.  It completely blew my mind and I was hooked.  After that was The Magic Flute, Carmen (for real), and a few others.  I live close enough to a major music city that there are tons of opportunities to see operas and symphonies, but Mrs. Butcher’s pain levels go through the roof in the evening which put a real cramp in our pre-covid dating life, so the best we could do was a quick dinner about once a month.

  12. Since it’s Two-fer Tuesday, let’s start with a little Rigoletto:
     


     
    but then move on to Beethoven:
     

     
    And finally, so I guess this is “Three-fer Tuesday”, the best performance that I’ve ever seen of “Ode an die Freude”, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, which is officially or maybe unofficially the EU’s anthem, and why not, since Germany’s footing the bill for lots of it:
     

    • And the strange thing is that Germany has a national anthem, which was for decades, “Deutschland Über Alles,” (Germany Above All”) but they took out the “über alles”-nish of it and it became the “Deutschlandlied.” That means “Germany Song.” Here is the sanitized, modern version of the German national anthem, which even this is seldom heard:
       

  15. Perhaps trite and overdone, but this one’s always been my favorite of the Beethoven pieces:


    It’s obnoxious and not great, most times when you hear it…
    But when you hear it done *properly* it’s gorgeous, and flows like water over the keys.
    Another great version, barely/mildly less smooth here;

     
    I love the piece, because it was one of the first songs I realized I could use to hijack my brain, and sync up my heartbeat/ nervous system, if I was overly stressed & couldn’t fall asleep.
    The 3/8 “waltzy” swing of the beat allllllways slows my heartbeat down, and the circular movement of the song–with those two parts that eventually wind back down *into* the waltzy/heartbeat rhythm–mean that even if my brain *does* try to wind back up, the slow repeating rhythm eventually calms it back down and overrides the stressors.
     
    I DEFINITELY  need to be listening to a good, smooth, cleanly-played version of the song, for it to have that “reset button” effect…
    But if I CAN hear that kind, it’s an “instant relaxation” song.
     
    Sort of like this album:

     
    This one ended up in our classroom, when I worked at the Pre-K Autism Day-Treatment place. 
     
    It became one of my go-tos, as a “morning arrival music” album, OR a “getting back from the Gym/Playground” choice….
    because with the soft melodies,  smooth vocals, and smooth playing–where Nora just seems to glide from note to note vocally *and* as a keyboardist, it calmed the busy little bodies in our room, and brought all the kiddos (and me, too, tbh!😉), right back into a relaxed state.
     
     
     

    • The other album which was my go-to, if the Nora Jones got vetoed😉;


       
      Because like hers, this one was also really great at hijacking tiny nervous systems, overriding over-stimulated little brains, and bringing *down* the activity in the room, until all the kiddos & staff were playing calmly & quietly😉😁😈
       
      Most of the other folks in the room never noticed, but we had a few performing musicians who were staffers there, and THEY knew exactly what I was up to when I’d hustle over to the CD player, as soon as the kids started getting overly wound up😉🤣
       
       

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