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Mitch

12:02 AM

Oh... forgot pepper, egg, and cheese sandwiches. Those are awesome.

@skullpetrol @skullpetrol Dude. Two of you?

skullpatrol

yup

:-)

11 hours later…

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

10:42 AM

@Mitch You should create a "Match" sock-puppet.

And "munchies"

2 hours later…

RegDwigнt

12:48 PM

@Robusto Coming fresh from a symphony concert. The closing of an international music festival that takes place in this neck of the woods.

The German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra played Le Sacre du Printemps. The first time that I actually heard the entire piece performed live.

A phenomenal experience. And a phenomenally accessible piece, actually. Moreso than many a Haydn sonata. Moreso than lots of Tchaikovsky's stuff. I was genuinely surprised. Obviously I've heard and seen every note before, many times, but never like this.

So yeah. I don't know what the fuss is all about. Every note makes perfect sense. As a listener you're on the edge of your seat throughout. The forty minutes flew by like ten.

Anyway. With that preamble in mind, here's what I actually grabbed you for to say.

If you ever get a chance to see Kari Kriikku play live the Clarinet Concerto by Kimmo Hakola, drop everything and go. It will quite possibly be one of the most amazing things you'll have experienced in your entire life.

It's on YouTube and Spotify and whatnot, but I'm wary to link to those. The piece is utterly astounding in every particular in its own right even if you just listen to it, but that is no match for watching it.

There's quite a bit of choreography involved. For the soloist and the orchestra alike. It's a feast in more than one sense, and for many more senses than just the ear.

It's a full 40 minutes that explore and show off every last bit of what the clarinet can possibly do. It is unbelievable.

There's bits in there very reminiscent of Le Sacre. Polyrhythms, polyharmonies. There's crazy stuff and crazier stuff. Every combination of every note in every register with every other note in every other register.

There's a short step dance.

There's the bit where he has to play the instrument while singing into it at the same time.

Then suddenly there's a cadenza out of nowhere that's completely tonal and the sweetest thing you've ever heard.

And then he slowly deconstructs that sweetest thing bit by bit.

And then there's a Jewish wedding at the end, where the entire orchestra just goes nuts.

Sounds like I'm trying really hard to spoil it, but it cannot be spoiled. You have to experience it yourself. Words cannot do it justice. What I said just now isn't even the tip of the iceberg. It's the topmost molecule of water in the tiny snowflake that only just landed on the very tip of the iceberg.

Kari Kriikku is the name. Clarinet Concerto by Kimmo Hakola. Quite possibly the finest concerto, for any instrument, that I have ever heard.

RegDwigнt

1:15 PM

If you want a sneak peek, listen to the last five minutes of it, here's a direct link:

Kari Kriikku - Kimmo Hakola - Clarinet Concerto(2001)

►

At that point the soloist is actually off-stage. And the orchestra have to stop and call him back. And then what follows is a brilliant summary of the entire piece. All the different things he had to do for forty minutes, he now has to be able to pull them all off once more in a grand finale.

Mitch

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Or a sock-puppet with the name "I am a sock puppet".

Or to fool everybody, make the "I am a sock puppet" account the real account, and have the -other- be the sock puppet.

Or have one account be the sock puppet for itself.

You don't know that I'm not doing that now.

I don't know that I'm not doing that now.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt I will seek it out. From the names, can I assume the composer and performer are Finns?

Ah, I see from the link that they are.

I'm getting ready for a ride, but I will check it out when I get back.

Thanks for the tip. TTYL

OK, I lied, I did listen to the piece from where your link started. Very exciting and definitely fresh and unusual. Still, it reminds me very much of klezmer. Which is weird to hear coming from a Finnish source, but there you go. Fits perfectly. I will listen to the whole thing when I get back. Ciao for now.

4 hours later…

RegDwigнt

5:37 PM

@Robusto yes, and so is the current conductor of the orchestra. That my teacher plays in the viola section of.

I don't go to all the concerts, but I just had to listen to the Sacre.

Also, it's nice bookending the festival like that. I went to one of the very first opening concerts, the one where Lisitsa played 15 previously unplayed Tchaikovsky pieces. And I went to this last one. And I went to exactly nothing in-between.

You call it slacking, I call it efficiency.

I think this Wednesday I will need to tell my teacher to play louder. I couldn't make out her viola at all among all the brass and percussion.

Oh, but on a serious note, the principal flautist had some fucking magical instrument. When needed it would cut through all kinds of things a flute normally shouldn't be able to cut through, and quite often in the register where the flute is barely audible even by itself. I was amazed. She seemed to be able to just play arbitrarily loud at will.

Like, I'm not talking about Stravinsky, obviously they had four flutes there (six, technically), and they may as well have used sixty for all that it mattered.

But they started the concert with a much smaller orchestra, and played a classical piece by a local French-German composer from 1827 or something. There she was all on her own, and yeah, her instrument would cut through tutti like butter. They didn't have to diminuendo. It's like she had an amp on it.

skullpetrol

5:53 PM

@RegDwigнt how much did you pay for your ticket?

RegDwigнt

On more than one occasion I was like, who the fuck is playing the piccolo, there is no piccolo in the hall. It was all just her. And again, she wasn't even that high. Actually in that register the piccolo wouldn't be piercing at all.

@skullpetrol 35 Eurobucks.

I believe the prices start at like 18, with discounts for elderly and the like. If you study at a university or the local music school, you can even get in completely for free, if there's still seats left three days before the concert.

For that reason alone I've been considering taking up music studies.

skullpetrol

Go for it.

RegDwigнt

But yeah anyway. Whenever I go, I always pick a very specific seat right above the violin section. I am literally sitting above the stage looking at their sheet music. The harps are also right below me. And I see the conductor from the side, right in front of me. Maybe like 30 feet away. It's awesome.

But yeah that seat is obviously more expensive than sitting in the back in the parterre.

skullpetrol

Have you looked into an on-line way of taking up music studies there?

RegDwigнt

I don't think they do that, but I wouldn't take it if they did.

The whole point of going to a music school, well any school, but music school only tenfold so, is socializing. Talking to people. In person.

You can't do anything in music without knowing people. And that's where you get to know people.

skullpetrol

6:07 PM

I see.

RegDwigнt

And like, I'm not talking music industry producers. Though those too. I'm literally talking anyone at all. Composers, musicians, conductors, instrument makers, teachers, everyone.

It's a closed-off world. It's impenetrable from the outside. You have to know people to know people.

You need to show your face.

But yeah if I just wanted to save up on the tickets, I could sign up and never go I guess.

But it's not as easy as signing up for maths or business or computer science.

It costs a bunch, and they don't take everyone. There's entry exams.

And it's a lot.

So if you actually manage to go through it all and they take you, you might as well go study and not fuck it up.

Again, it's a closed world and they'll remember your name very well.

skullpetrol

Right.

RegDwigнt

Especially with a name like mine.