WMV Music Web Log

The Brahms 175th birthday concert went well! Here are links to the songs op. 105:

Wie Melodien

Immer leiser

Auf dem Kirchhofe

And here are the songs with viola Op. 91:

Gestillte Sehnsucht

Geistliche Wiegenlied

I think he would have been pleased. An audience member was heard to remark about Karyn Friedman in astonishment, “What is she doing here? She sounds like Kathleen Ferrier!” Well, life is funny like that, isn't it.

Betty Hauck was in great form too. We get to play some more tomorrow, with Ben Redwine, at a house concert for major supporters of WMV. We are doing Schumann, Bruch, and Mozart Trios, and some other stuff. Some of this we recorded with Pierre Sprey at Mapleshade Studios, just before a fire in the studio put our CD on hold. Well anyway, we know this music very well.

Sally McLain delivered an absolutely knock-out premiere performance of Dina Koston's work "For Solo Violin". The audience was spellbound, including me. It was achingly beautiful. Here is the recording.

Labels: Brahms 175th birthday concert

Rehearsal in Fredericksburg with Karyn Friedman yesterday. Here are the Brahms Op. 105 songs:

Wie Melodien
Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer
Auf dem Kirchhofe

Labels: Brahms Op. 105, Karyn Friedman

I just gave away two books on aesthetics - I had had enough of them. However, it must have jogged my thinking. One of the books is an attempt at a Christian basis for aesthetics. Very tedious! And some foolish attempts to define "bad" or anti-social, or anti-Christian art. However, I do agree with some parts of it.

All the various artistic enterprises base themselves on a spiritual stance, which is the foundation of the relevant aesthetics. That is, aesthetics talks essentially about the relation between art and spirituality.

Two relevant (approximate) quotes: "You ask if it is good music. I answer, good for what?" (Pete Seeger). "It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you've got to serve somebody" (Bob Dylan). You can see this worked out obviously in any aesthetic sphere. Good to make money, good to advance a career, good to sell something, good to avoid offense, good to pander to the corporations, to the owning class, to the middle class, to the working class, or to the poor.

Or good to encounter the depths of the human circumstance, to share some love with our brothers and sisters on the planet. Or to stand up for the human species and testify about what is truly good about us. Or to reflect seriously on what it is we really are, before we all redissolve into stardust. My own aesthetic is fundamentally religious - I want to be shook to my core. Aristotle quite agreed!

One more thing: I don't think you can have it both ways.

Labels: aesthetics, spirituality