I hear complains in some social media about Christmass becoming just a commercial feast for buying stuff and that there is no actual celebration or mention of Christ getting born and religious stuff like that and I am thinking “since we did away with the whole thing, instead of consumerism, why not go into some metal fantasy stuff”? It is definitely more fun and less damaging that being told to go out and buy stuff and be “content”.
So here is the music version of the answer to the question: “What if the three Biblical Magi where actual wizards? Wouldn’t that be fun?” … quite so
“They came across the western sea
With powers greater than needed
The wizards commanded the lightning
Every creature knelt in for their will
But they wielded the black stone with evil
And their evil was cast back on them
Damned to praise god forever
'til his son was born to deliver”
Quite the tale and with a better guitar solo than most Christmass carols…
They also have their own “Tale of Creation”, arguably better than Genesis (the book, not the prog band), but I’ll leave it for another time. Merry Blackstonewielderismass
But I liked this thread … even though I have nothing really to chat about, I just have some memories, and I am too tired to write them down … and I have this link:
Thank you. I have always loved that song—such a great match of melody and lyrics. And what good timing, as I’m already feeling rather nostalgic. An old running friend is coming to town for a class reunion (his, not mine), and my brother and I are going to have lunch with him on Saturday.
Which was awesome and, as far as I could tell, flawless (I couldn’t even follow the notes well enough with my eyes to be 100% certain, even though the score was on the screen. Wow).
Many amazing child prodigies exist today, especially on piano, which I think is due to much more extensive early training than in the past. I ran across Dovgan about a year ago, but never got around to exploring her work. She was 11 in that video and had already won a string of competitions. She is 17 now. Her control and complete confidence are especially extraordinary at that age. Her speed is world class.
BTW, I don’t think she is singing where you marked it. Many pianists have counting tricks to keep track of repetitions of a phrase or figure. Other orchestral instrumentalists do this too with long repetitions, because the music marking in the bar resembles a very wide H with a number above meaning to repeat the previous bar X number of times. So there is no music to read; you have to count.
Recently, I was looking at performances of Bartok’s “Mikrokosmos” piano exercises and ran across two other astounding child pianists.
Ben Lepetit is a German-speaking prodigy who started at age 3. I couldn’t find a definite age on him, but according to one commenter, he was 11 in this performance, from 6 years ago, of one of Chopin’s hardest etudes—Op. 25, #12 (Ocean)—played here at world-class speed:
This is his performance of Mikrokosmos v.6, #142. Although posted 6 years ago, I think it was recorded earlier, because he looks like 8 or 9 years old. The over-under playing is really difficult:
I don’t know what has become of him; he seems to have disappeared.
Another amazing prodigy is “Forte Yuliana” (her real name is Yulianna Beziazychna), a 10-, going on 11-year-old Ukrainean. Here she is at 9, a year ago, performing another difficult Chopin Etude, #14 (although I don’t think she handles the ending very well):
She is even more impressive (as an old 9 or young 10) in this rendition of Mozart’s Concerto #23 (1st movement):
I didn’t mark it since I didn’t make the video.
As far as I can tell, she is singing along the orchestra part. It is a cool sounding part that could make anyone sing along and, as you said, it also helps with timing.
Sorry, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was thinking of a poster adding a gloss, but of course this is a link.
I looked at it again, and I don’t think she is singing. Because the passage is very fast, I think she is counting (or articulating) beats. Argerich does this too. Doing this helps to keep the rhythm steady. Otherwise, facile performers are tempted to let it rip and speed up, while less facile performers benefit from the focus it gives. Young players on other instruments instinctively do the same thing by foot tapping, especially in complicated rhythms, but that is frowned upon, and pianists obviously can’t tap their feet. Now, a pianist who did sing, annoyingly so in some cases, was Glenn Gould (you can even hear it a little in some recordings), but usually in slower, lyrical passages.
