The Music Listening Project: Recent Episodes
The Music Listening Project
In these podcasts I talk to musicians and listeners about what they are hearing in the music that touches and moves them.
In this episode, I listen to the African American composer's Lyric for strings and think about the difference between music that evokes emotions and music that works through them.
Brahms' second symphony is, as commentators agree, "serene, full of warmth, and brimming with optimism." The philosopher, Roger Scruton, writes that great music does not simply express a state - serenity, warmth, optimism – it interrogates it. In this podcast I explore his idea, and its – and the symphony's – profound relationship to life.
In this podcast I explore the idea that Dvorak redeems the problems of life – specifically the problem of his homesickness for Czechoslovakia – not by solving them but by turning them into music.
Commentators seem unable to praise the Finale of Mozart's 41st symphony enough, containing, "they say," the greatest 30 seconds of music ever written. I thought I'd work out why – and I'm not so sure I agree.
When I first rehearsed this music I could make no sense of it! So I made a podcast. Now I find parts of the Carol Symphony quite moving.
Journey to where no man has gone before or an early morning walk? Chamber music or symphony of gigantic proportions? Mark and Matthew listen to key moments from a work haunted by themes of joy, unrequited love and death.
Mark and Matthew listen to the first movement of Brahms' violin concerto and discover that, at heart, its depth and richness lies in the organic development of simple, musical ideas.
The opening pizzicato – the cork pops on a bottle of Prosecco – the brilliant Italian sunshine reveals the exquisite detail of Mendelssohn's mastery.
Mark listens to the first movement of Beethoven 7th Symphony with the conductor, Matthew Jones. What does it mean to hear a work for the first time?
In this podcast, I unpack the narrative that forms the opening of the Ninth Symphony's Finale, as Beethoven searches for "joyful sounds," a tune we can all sing – the Ode to Joy.
The slow movement of the A minor quartet is profound–but somehow difficult to discover without careful listening.
In this podcast, I explore ways in which Schubert uses music in the first song of his cycle, "Winter's Journey," to give the lyrics an angle, rather like a film score gives a scene an angle. The singer is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Gerald Moore on the Piano.
This is a podcast produced for a music class at Humber College. It speaks to Bob Dylan's switch, in Bringing It All Back Home, from purely acoustic instruments to the introduction of the electric guitar: from folk to folk rock.
Mark talks about the paradoxical relationship between the piano and orchestra in the opening movement of Brahms' 2nd piano concerto.
This is a podcast I created for a course I teach in music. In it I explore what sets the Beatles apart from their contemporaries in their first no. 1 hit.
I made this podcast for my "musical pioneers" class at Humber College. In it I compare Herman Junior Parker's original song, Mystery Train, released in 1953 with Presley's version released in 1955.
Mark is joined by Matthew, conductor of the EPO, to discuss musical development in the 1st movement of Shostakovich's 10th symphony: the composer's treatment of "dance," the conversation between simultaneous musical lines and the way the composer transforms melodies.
In his 1812 overture, Tchaikovsky tells the story of Napoleon's advance to, and retreat from Moscow, and the final victory of the Russians. He uses hymns, national anthems and folk songs to represent the main events. Mark asks whether it is the story that makes this music so compelling or the development of the musical materials themselves.
This podcast was recorded for a music appreciation class for non musicians at Humber college. In line with the Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra's upcoming "discovery" concert, it locates the baroque period in the broad history of western art music and focuses on Bach's "Erbarme Dich" from the St. Matthew Passion to illustrate the tension between the bass and soprano lines in baroque music.
Some thoughts on the driving rhythm and interweaving motives of Bach's 4th Brandenburg Concerto.
In a departure from the western art music genre, Mark contemplates the depth (or not) of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time" and Otis Redding's "White Christmas."
Mark Listens to Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, tracing its connection to Hans Zimmer's soundtrack to Dunkirk
Mark listens with Matthew to Stravinsky's Firebird suite and discovers how Stravinsky creates a musical image of the story presented in dance
Mark listens with violist Lea Kerstein, member of the folk-pop duo, Citizen Jane, to the first movement of Brahms' wonderful Bb major sextet op. 18, played here by the Stuttgart Soloists.
Mark and Mark discuss the nature of irresolvable desire and the famous "Tristan Chord" in Wagner's Prelude with the assistance of Wilhlem Fürtwangler and the Philharmonia's 1955 recording.
Mark listens together with the Canadian soprano, Betty Waynne Allison, to Bernstein's 1960 performance of the final movement of Mahler's fourth symphony (soprano Reri Grist) and reflects on the way Mahler paints a pastoral, yet disturbing, picture of a "child's view of heaven."
Mark and Matthew listen to The Philharmonia's 1957 recording of the first movement of Mahler's 4th symphony, conducted by Paul Kletzki, discovering the tension between the grace, beauty and simplicity of its dancelike themes and the metronomic insistence of its accompanying motives.
Mark listens with Professor Brady Polka to Brahms' third symphony and learns about Brahms' ability to evoke both a sense of completeness and continual development.
Mark listens to Rudolf Serkin's performance of Schumann's piano concerto in A minor, together with the renowned Canadian concert pianist, Arthur Ozolins.
Mark listens to Klemperer's recording of the first movement of Brahms' 3rd Symphony together with Matthew Jones, conductor of the Etobicoke Philharmonic, focussing on the composer's use of rhythmic displacement and resolution
Mark and Mark listen to the opening of Mozart's D minor piano concerto recorded by Jan Lisiecki, Christian Zacharias and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Mark and Matthew discuss Prokofiev's music, written to illustrate the strange tale of the fictional Lieutenant in Tzar Paul 1st's court – one of the first movie soundtracks.
Mark and Mark listen closely to a recording of the first movement of Vivaldi's concerto, Winter, from "The Four Seasons" with Alan Loveday (violin) and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner. They compare it, briefly, to a recording by a British ensemble, Red Priest.
EPO concertmaster Mark Whale, listens with fellow Humber Professor, Mark Reczkiewicz, to part of the first movement of the Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius's violin concerto in D minor.
Mark listens together with the EPO's new conductor, Matthew Jones, to a recording by the Baltimore Symphony orchestra and Marin Alsop.
Was Beethoven a revolutionary? Mark Whale and Matthew Jones, the Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra's conductor, listen closely to Beethoven's Eroica symphony to try to discover what the composer's revolution was.
Mark and Mark talk about Paul Hindemith's incidental music to the Christmas fairy tale, nutcracker-like, Tuttifantchen.
Join Mark and Jeff, the EPO's percussionist, in an intriguing discussion about the use of sleigh bells in the sleigh rides of Mozart, Delius and Anderson.
In this podcast, I talk to my brother, musician and teacher Rob Whale, about what it is that makes Stevie Wonder's song, "Sir Duke" at once "popular" and original.
Transcript https://docs.google.com/document/d/13SieJvJg4R3cvJt9Cu7nodx_taPd0cYp36c4xfLFbuk/edit?usp=sharing
In this short podcast I listen to opening music of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, performed by John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir with the English Baroque Soloist, and offer one possible answer to the question of why a piece written in German, 300 years ago, in celebration of Christianity, is 'worth listening to" by non-Christian, non-German speaking people, today.
Jonathan Crow, concertmaster of the TSO, listens with me to Heifetz's recording of Walton's violin concerto and shares his insight into the connection between the composition and Heifetz's distinctive sound.