Automatic Vacation Response

I will be away for a week in gorgeous Dorset, southern England, camping with my family and a local group. Feel free to come in and peruse around. I have had to activate the comments moderator for obvious reasons. I will be incommunicado for seven days. No mobile phones, or television, just a couple of good books, my wife and children's company and songs by a campfire with the rest of the troop.

The scrobbler below works in the same way an Ipod or an mp3 player does. Just press play, sit back and enjoy. There are 200 songs covering a wide range of genres, from R&B to pop, from modern Brazilian music to jazz and blues.


Bye, bye for now.

Killer Opening Songs (Chopin 'Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor Op 66' & Etude in C minor 'Revolutionary' Op 10 No 12)

Classical music has bequeathed the world some of the most beautiful melodies known to man, but it has failed in its duty to provide it with Killer Opening Songs. This, in no way, is a shortcoming of the genre but a technological misfortune. LPs, cassettes and CDs did not exist when compositions by Haydn, Bach and Mozart prowled concert halls all through Europe. That is why it is left to people like yours truly, to figure out which song would open a record by someone like Chopin, for instance. Nocturnes or polonaises? Neither in my opinion. I think that had Chopin had the opportunity to choose the introductory song to an album he would have gone for one of his études or his Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor Opus 66. And that is precisely the song that I will be uploading today on the blog. But not on its own. What do I mean? Well, my dear, just what I wrote. I will be uploading two Killer Opening Songs today. And if you think that’s cheating, yes, it is, and wait until you see the surprise I have for you two weeks hence.

You see, alongside the Fantaisie-Impromptu I had to include also the Polish musician’s étude in C minor ‘Revolutionary’ Opus 10 No 12, purely because it is a demanding piece, technically speaking, and also because of the feelings that it awakens in me. Chopin wrote this étude when Russian troops were about to crush the ‘November Uprising’ in Poland in 1831 and his patriotic feelings towards his fellow countrymen are as strong as they can be, especially taking into account that the musician was living in exile at the time. The inclusion of the Fantaisie, on the other hand, carries a sentimental motif. This was one of two pieces (Lecuona’s ‘La Comparsa’ was the other one) that my father always used to play as soon as his piano practice was over. And I grew up listening to both.

So, despite classical composers like Schubert and Tchaikovsky not having been able to release albums à la Rolling Stones, I promise to make up for that and every now and then suggest what to me would be the ultimate Killer Opening Song of a particular classical musician's oeuvre. And of course, my dear fellow blogger and reader, your opinion counts, too.







Copyright 2008