SOUNDTRACK: JENNY LIN-Tiny Desk Concert #160 (September 6, 2011).
Jenny Lin is an amazing pianist. So it’s slightly disconcerting that she is playing these beautiful pieces on a Korg keyboard.
The write up says
It’s rare to see a world-renowned pianist willing to make such a sacrifice, but that’s how strongly Lin feels about getting the music out there, knowing that (with even more downsizing) folks could watch her perform this Tiny Desk Concert on their iPhones.
And while I wouldn’t think that a great pianist would have a problem playing an electronic piano, I had to wonder if the keyboard weight impacted her at all. It sure doesn’t seem like it.
She plays five pieces altogether. And they are all modern pieces. I don’t know a lot about Shostakovic, but the blurb says that Shostakovich, inspired by Bach wrote his own set of Preludes and Fugues in all 24 keys in 1950. I would have guessed they were Bach, but you can hear differences in his more modern style (and not just because of the keyboard). The notes are fast and furious (and beautiful).
I don’t know Federico Mompou at all, but the blurb says “Barcelona-born Federico Mompou was a contemporary of Shostakovich’s, but that’s where the comparisons end. In the 1960s, he completed four volumes of piano music he called Musica Callada, or “Silent Music.” Mompou’s sound, [features] austere beauty and emphasis on the spaces between notes.” And you can really hear the way the notes ring out (I’ll bet even more so on a grand piano).
The final song is an arrangement of Gershwin’s “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” which has been “souped up by the late American virtuoso pianist Earl Wild. His arrangement turns the Gershwin song into a kind of stride-jazz extravaganza.”
Watch Lin’s hands fly around the keyboard. It is hard to comprehend. I don’t know which hand I am more impressed by.
It’s amazing to be able to watch a master so closely.
The setlist:
- Dmitri Shostakovich: Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in A minor, Op. 87
- Dmitri Shostakovich: Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in A major, Op. 87
- Federico Mompou: Musica Callada — Nos. 1, 15
- Gershwin (arr. Earl Wild): “Fascinatin’ Rhythm”
[READ: November 22, 2015] The Sea of Monsters
Clark really liked the first graphic novel and asked me to get the rest. So I did. And then I had to see how the story continued, too.
Book two of the graphic novel series (also with art by Attila Futaki) begins with Percy at home. He is told he shouldn’t return to Camp Half -Blood, but his mom won’t say why. At “regular” school, he is still picked on, but he now has help from a huge boy known as Tyson. The bullies make fun of Tyson too, calling him a retard, but Percy sticks up for him. [The one problem with the graphic novels is they have to edit down so much, there’s no real introduction to Percy’s school or to Tyson].
On the next page, though, we learn that the bullies are actually demons and that Tyson is able to fight them off because he is …a cyclops. (It must be very hard to create a cyclops–visually, they are just so wrong–where do you put that eye? Do the normal eye sockets still exist? I always find them disconcerting to look at). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 