‘Harmony of the Spheres’ van Joep Franssens - weldadig mooi!
April 24th, 2013‘Harmony of the Spheres’ van de Nederlandse componist Joep Franssens is een op teksten van Spinoza getoonzet vijfdelig werk voor gemengd koor en (alleen in het middelste derde deel) kamerorkest. Meer informatie over dit werk vind je o.a. hier. Wat Franssens er zelf over heeft gezegd vind je hier en voor een diepgaande, muziekwetenschappelijke analyse klik je hier.
Een prachtige kerngedachte van Spinoza, die Franssens nadrukkelijk gebruikt in begin- en slotdeel van z’n ‘Harmony of the Spheres’, licht ik er nog even uit:
“Animi tamen non armis, sed amore et generositate vincuntur.”
(”Niet door wapens, maar door liefde en edelmoedigheid worden harten gewonnen.”)
Weldadig mooi!
‘Kathy’s Song’ wonderfully covered by brilliant singer Sarah Jarosz
April 12th, 2013Ever since her beautiful debut album Song Up In Her Head I’m a great admirer of the young and fabulous American singer/songwriter Sarah Jarosz. Last week I was struck by her touching recent live performance of Simon & Garfunkel’s Kathy’s Song, recorded at The Troubadour in Los Angeles.
The lyrics:
I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls.
And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England where my heart lies.
My mind’s distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you’re asleep
And kiss you when you start your day.
And a song I was writing is left undone
I don’t know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can’t believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme.
And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you.
And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I.
KITLV presents a streamable free collection of popular music from Indonesia
March 28th, 2013
KITLV / Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies has put online a substantial collection of popular music from Indonesia. Thousands of songs from the 20th century - traditional, popular and locally inspired - are freely available and can be streamed through a renewed media library. The added contextual data and images of the original records make a collection that was previously hard to find, into a unique source for contemporary and cultural history of Indonesia. Click here to try out this music collection.
Vidya Vandana & Shankar Tucker: ‘Rang Lo’ (a song in the spirit of Holi)
March 28th, 2013
The rough translation of the song:
“This is the story of a girl, restless in thought, who wants to take the road less traveled. A girl who refuses to let her feet touch the ground and desires independence from the path that was chosen for her. She packs her belongings and wants to fly, away from her constraints and bonds. She wants to let her thoughts fly with her through a path like the one a kite takes in the wind. On her journey, she sees the world shimmering with color and all things living, dancing and singing to the tune of freedom.”
‘Stink’, a blues-rock classic
March 28th, 2013The album Stink by Canadian band McKenna Mendelson Mainline, released in 1969, is a classic. It’s been one of my favourite blues-rock albums since my high school days. The songs are full of energy and some of them are very straightforward* in evry way. On YouTube I’ve tracked them all down and put them one after another below here, in the same order as on the album. Enjoy! 
* Let me add that the word ’straightforward’ might be interchangeable here with ’sexist’ or perhaps even ‘male chauvinist’, choose as you like. Also, when I started liking this music, as a 14 year old in 1978, I never could have imagined writing a footnote like this some 35 years later.
Kala Ramnath Full Concert (April 23rd, 2006 - Utrecht, The Netherlands) - Enjoy!
March 12th, 2013On 23 April 2006 I filmed Kala Ramnath’s concert at RASA in Utrecht/The Netherlands. Since then I published a lot of this concert in separate parts. Finally I’ve now uploaded the complete concert on my YouTubechannel.
Kala Ramnath/violin; Satyajit Talwalkar/tabla; Celine Wadier/tanpura
00:00 - 57:48 Raag Madhuvanti
58:13 - 1:27:40 Raag Dinki Puriya
1:27:54 - 1:39:45 Composition in Raag Des
It’s great to be able now to play this fabulous concert in one go! (Yes, fans/admirers of Kala, you should really thank me for this upload ) And for the first time you can now enjoy Kala’s complete Madhuvanti in this concert, which is a great bonus!
“Once you’re all done with writing, can we play this section?” - Notities bij een ragaklasje
March 10th, 2013Bovenstaande video toont een ragaworkshop in New York, verzorgd door topvioliste Kala Ramnath. Westers klassiek geschoolde muzikanten brengt zij wat beginselen bij van de alap, de openingssectie van een ragaperformance. De workshopdeelnemers dienen door haar gespeelde frasen op het gehoor na te spelen. Wat de muzikanten te doen staat is duidelijk: goed luisteren en dan op je instrument imiteren wat je hebt gehoord.
Niet wat we horen, maar vooral wat we zien vind ik opmerkelijk. De muziekstandaard, het attribuut voor de neus van de deelnemers, wordt nadrukkelijk in het proces van luisteren en spelen betrokken. Stilzwijgend dirigeert de lessenaar het klasje telkens naar het papier, naar lege notenbalken die uitnodigen tot noteren-vastleggen-lezen wat men hoort. Voor de workshopdeelnemers is de muziekstandaard een zwijgzame bondgenoot die een interventie mogelijk maakt tussen wat ze te horen krijgen en wat ze vervolgens gaan spelen.
De muzikanten pogen steeds te noteren wat ze horen, zoals zij dat blijkbaar gewend zijn in een muzikaal leerproces. Deze schriftgerichte benadering ‘wringt’ met de voornamelijk op orale overdracht gerichte methodiek binnen Kala Ramnath’s Indiase ragatraditie.
Dit ragaklasje vertoont een zekere fixatie op notatie en klampt zich zo vast aan vertrouwde mores en (Westerse) methodieken. Is dat verkeerd of een probleem? Nee hoor, helemaal niet, maar - zoals gezegd - er wringt wel iets: een zo sterke drang tot noteren en lezen valt niet alleen op, maar doet in een ragasetting nogal wezensvreemd aan. Tegelijkertijd levert het natuurlijk ook wel weer een boeiend kijkspel op.
LA’s Allah-Las… triplekker!
March 8th, 2013Ook in Nederland inmiddels razend populair, deze triplekkere back to the 60’s-muziek van de Allah-Las uit Los Angeles.
A ‘dutchie’ with Alan Lomax in Spain
March 7th, 2013In an interesting blog Dutch musicologist Evert Bisschop Boele wonders about a not by name mentioned ‘dutchie’ in John Szwed’s biography of ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. It concerns a person from The Netherlands who was travelling with the famous American songhunter to Spain in a period “just after the war”.
Alan Lomax in 1952, with a local from Aragon/Spain
The exact date isn’t mentioned, but I presume “just after the war” means 1952 or 1953, being the years when Lomax visited Spain and recorded there. I didn’t know about a Dutch person travelling to Spain with Lomax at the time. Very interesting!
After concluding it wasn’t and couldn’t have been Jaap Kunst (1891-1960) Bisschop Boele ends his blog asking “Who is he? Who?” Well, I’d like to give it a shot. I think the person involved here might be Bernard IJzerdraat (1926-1986). In fact, I can’t think of anyone else. Let me try to explain this.
In the early fifties Bernard IJzerdraat was in his twenties and a well known figure in the Dutch gamelan scene. His group Babar Layar was very popular in Holland. The group played Javanese gamelan music for radio and television, recorded an LP on the Philips label and toured succesfully throughout Europe.
Bernard IJzerdraat on kendang (drum), leading his group Babar Layar
In his writings Lomax refers only twice briefly to his companion, first as “a young man who specialized in Javanese gamelan music” and then he writes: “I did not know that my Dutch travelling companion was the son of the man who had headed the underground in Holland during the German occupation.” This quote immediately reminds me of Bernard IJzerdraat’s father, Bernardus IJzerdraat (1891-1941). In the early stages of World War II Bernardus IJzerdraat was one of Holland’s prominent figures of the Dutch resistance. He’s known as the founder of De Geuzen, the first Dutch resistance group. He was arrested and shot by the Germans in 1941, together with 17 others, including three Communists involved in the February Strike.
Bernard’s father Bernardus IJzerdraat, famous man of Dutch resistance
Knowing these facts and reading what Lomax says about his young Dutch fellow traveller without revealing a name, I think the unknown ‘dutchie’ could be Bernard IJzerdraat, gamelan specialist and son of a war hero.
So far my educated guess. I might be wrong here of course. Anyone else having thougths on this? If so, please let me know.