SOUNDTRACK: KIAN SOLTANI-Tiny Desk Concert #880 (August 16, 2019).
I feel like listeners are more familiar with a violin than a cello. Violins are everywhere (they’re so portable), but cellos only seem to come out when you need a bigger string section. I have come to realize that I much prefer the sound of a cello to a violin The cello can reach some impressive high notes (check out about three minutes into the Hungarian Rhapsody) but its the richness of the low notes that really impresses me, Or maybe it’s just the historical value of Kian Soltani’s cello
It’s not every day someone walks into our NPR Music offices and unpacks an instrument made in 1680. And yet Kian Soltani, the 27-year-old cellist who plays with the authority and poetry of someone twice his age, isn’t exactly fazed by his rare Giovanni Grancino cello, which produces large, luminous tones. (He also plays a Stradivarius.)
I love Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody, and I love this one as well. What is it about Hungary that inspires such wild songs?
The Hungarian Rhapsody, by the late 19th century cellist and composer David Popper, traces its inspiration to similarly titled pieces by Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, but showcases a number of hot-dogging tricks for the cello, including stratospheric high notes, flamboyant slides and a specific high-velocity bouncing of the bow called sautillé. Soltani nails all of them with nonchalant elegance, backed with companionable accompaniment by pianist Christopher Schmitt.
He says that that piece was a very extrovert, out-there piece and so from this mode we take it more inward.
To prove he can make his instrument truly sing, Soltani worked up his own arrangement of “Nacht und Träume” (Night and Dreams) by Franz Schubert, replacing the human voice with his cello’s warm, intimate vocalizing.
It’s fascinating to think that this song was musically written for the piano and voice. But he has taken the vocal track and turned it into a moving (possibly better?) version on the cello.
His parents emigrated to Austria from Iran in the mid-1970s. He grew up in Austria and loved it as a locus of great classical music. But he also hold on to his Persian roots.
And in the Persian Fire Dance, Soltani’s own composition, flavors from his Iranian roots – drones and spiky dance rhythms – commingle with percussive ornaments.
This is a wonderful Concert and Soltani’s playing is really breathtaking.
[READ: September 1, 2019] Middlewest
I had heard of Skottie Young as the author of I Hate Fairyland (which sounds like a children’s book but is definitely not).
This book is also definitely not for children (although I see some people think it could be for YA readers).
Abel is a young boy who lives with his abusive father. His father, Dale, is a real piece of work. Abel’s mother left, so Dale blames Abel and is on him all the time.
As the first chapter opens, Abel has overslept his paper route (the second time in five years). His father is very angry even if Abel has been getting up at 4:30 every day for five years. As Abel is running late delivering the papers, his friends tell him to blow it off–it’s too late anyway, just go with them to play video games. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: YEASAYER-“Ecstatic Baby” (2019).
really enjoyed Yeasayer’s Odd Blood album, but I didn’t hear much about them after that. I had no idea they’d released four albums since then.
SOUNDTRACK: RA RA RIOT-“Endless Pain/Endless Joy” (2019).
In 2007, Ra Ra Riot released an album of chamber pop loveliness. There were strings and lots of soaring melodies. The songs were gentle and sweet and the lyrics were thoughtful.
I Just Read About That... 