Choro September 11, 2007
Posted by Tom Moore in : agua de moringa, brazil, brazilian, chorinho, choro , add a comment
Água de Moringa. Saracoteando (Strolling) - CD 8021
This charming disc, a personal favorite, is as good an introduction as any to the Brazilian genre of music known as choro, just as deeply part of Brazilian music as samba, but not very well-known outside the country’s borders. Choro (or chorinho, as it is sometimes known, with a playful and affectionate diminutive) is perhaps what ragtime might have been in the USA had it not been extinguished by jazz based on blues and the 32-bar popular song. Choro is an instrumental music based on origins in popular dance (waltz, mazurka, polka, schottische, tango), and thus has a three-part form (think of the alternating strains in the Maple Leaf Rag), and sophisticated melodies and harmonies. Its origins are in the groups of players (flute, guitar, ukulele) that would stroll the streets of Rio de Janeiro playing their adaptations of the latest dance music in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the tradition continues unbroken from that day to this. The last decade has seen choro gain widespread popularity among musicians and listeners in their twenties and thirties, so it’s not unusual to see fans at crowded downtown bars enjoying tunes written before their parents were born.
Duke’s own graduate student Thomas Garcia produced a dissertation on choro (find it via the linked list to Duke dissertations on the Music Library webpage), and he has since collaborated on an excellent book on the subject with Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour, Choro: a social history of a Brazilian popular music (Indiana University Press) - ML3487 .L58 2005
Lura September 7, 2007
Posted by Tom Moore in : Cabo Verde, Cape Verde, Lura , add a comment
Lura, M’bem di fora.
Cape Verde is a set of islands 300 miles west of the African continent, unhabited until it was colonized by the Portuguese as part of their explorations in the fifteenth century. Like other islands (Ireland, for example) there are more islanders living in diaspora than on the islands themselves, with half a million Cape Verdeans in the USA alone, many of them settling, with other Portuguese, in maritime communities in Massachusetts. Cape Verde was part of Portugal until gaining its independence in 1975.
Culturally, ethnically, and linguistically Cape Verde (Cabo Verde in Portuguese) is mixed, with the population’s roots stemming from Portugal (including Sephardim fleeing persecution on the continent) and Africa, as well as other European countries. The official language is Portuguese, but a creole is commonly spoken, which adopts vocabulary from Portuguese, but uses it in a non-Portuguese syntax.
Music from Cape Verde is a rich brew of these elements, and gained widespread popularity with the recordings of Cesaria Evora. Lura is a Cape Verdean from Lisbon, and M’bem di fora (2006) is a simply beautiful album, with a direct and open acoustic sound supporting Lura’s vocals, sung in Creole. If you already know Brazilian music, the music you hear on this disc shows a family resemblance, combining the lyrical and melancholic elements of Portuguese music (with its Moorish influences), with African suppleness in its cross-rhythms. And the liner includes complete texts with English translations.
You will want to listen to this CD over and over again. Don’t miss it.
CD-14130
Delectable Telemann September 6, 2007
Posted by Tom Moore in : Musique de Table, Tafelmusik, Telemann, Uncategorized , add a comment
Georg Philipp Telemann, for generations, got no respect from German musicologists. He wasn’t Bach, and for Germans, that was a grave sin. Never mind the fact that during his long life he was internationally-known and loved, and published dozens of his works to rousing success, both in Germany and France. In the last two decades musicians have been rediscovering the delights of this fluent master of a variety of styles, from French to Italian to Polish.
One of my favorites among his works is the lovely and galant Double Concerto for Flute, Violin and Strings from the Tafelmusik. You can hear this on the complete box from Brilliant Classics (CD-14959). For more information on the Tafelmusik, see my essay here.
The Musician’s Alphabet September 2, 2007
Posted by Tom Moore in : Susan Tomes, Uncategorized, essays , add a comment
Tomes, Susan. A Musician’s Alphabet. Faber and Faber, 2006.
Occasionally serendipity (also known as browsable, open library stacks) will turn up a gem which you would scarcely happen upon otherwise. This charming little book, both brief and small (19 cm), contains 26 essays by Susan Tomes, a British pianist, the first woman to study music at King’s College, Cambridge, is one of those thoroughly professional and successful musicians who nevertheless are only known to a tiny circle of
music lovers, and has a string of recordings for Hyperion with chamber music groups Domus (a piano quartet) and the Florestan Trio. Tomes writes regularly for the Guardian (she has a blog at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/susan_tomes/), and her essays in the Musician’s Alphabet are journalistic inasmuch as they are free from jargon and footnotes, and written for the general reader. However they are far from the journalistic in that they are richly ruminative and usually deal with issues which, even if they may be of interest primarily to musicians, are timeless rather than timely. J is for Job (not a proper),
where Tomes thinks about the contradictions of parents who support children through years of musical training, only to discourage them when they, not surprisingly, want to make a life in music. Tomes notes “In Britain, no artist is considered to have a proper job…..In Britain a proper job means regular hours and regular pay. Better still, you should be seen to be at work….”. In X is for the Unknown, she ponders the vast expanse of interpretation which lies beyond the simple notes on the page (what you get in a MIDI output of a computer-produced score) and concludes that “the known, enduring qualities of great music need enormous quantities of unknown, unknowable ingredients to make them whole”. And in considering Zen, Tomes the perfomer tells us that “it is possible to experience the collapse of the intellectual space separating musician from music”, and indeed for much of the book she explores the obstacles standing in the way of getting to the core of the music, whether practical, technical, emotional or intellectual.
An insightful book, which you may feel tempted to devour in one sitting….like a tempting box of chocolates, but without the effects on your waistline.
