Accelerando Podcast - Ideas about music and the classical music profession

99. Sprezzatura

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99. Sprezzatura

00:00 / 00:15:37

The Italian word, sprezzatura, was invented in the sixteenth century by Castiglione, a writer. His book: The Book of the Courtier describes the perfect courtier, and uses the word to define and group the qualities that exemplify him. The word is popular today in fashion, and is useful to musicians who also strive to please their listeners. In today’s podcast we explore musicians that display these qualities in particular. Ben Ratliff’s book Every Song Ever explores a number of artists and sprezzatura.

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98. Encore: The Trouble With Auditions

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98. Encore: The Trouble With Auditions

00:00 / 00:12:33

Daniel Kahnemann wrote about how we make decisions, and he won s Nobel Prize for his work on Behavioral Economics. With his passing last week we are thinking about his impact, and contribution to the world. When I began this podcast in April 2022 it was Kahneman who inspired this first episode. If his book could change the way Major Baseball Leagues choose their players, maybe Major Symphony Orchestras could follow suit.

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97. One Note

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97. One Note

00:00 / 00:16:43

Composers often use a single repeated note in a piece of music, and it usually tends to get the attention of the audience in a particular manner. Sometimes it’s soft, other times loud, but it’s always persistent. Today we talk about some well known pieces that use the One Note

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96. The Brandenburg Concertos

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96. The Brandenburg Concertos

00:00 / 00:19:47

It seems appropriate to post a podcast about the masterpieces Bach dedicated on the same date (March 24) a little over three hundred years ago, 1721 to be exact. They were first published in 1850, one hundred years after Bach’s death. The original scores were passed down haphazardly, we don’t know where they went after the Margrave of Brandenburg died. The pieces were not listed among his belongings, or to whom he left them. Fortunately, many years later, a student of the composer came across them, and eventually gave them to Princess Ann Amalia. After that we have a clear lineage, but some drama occurred during the second World War as a librarian flees Berlin in an attempt to save the precious relics of Bach’s legacy. Today’s episode dives into the music in the hopes you will listen further. It’s also a week where Bach’s memory is celebrated worldwide with spontaneous concerts in subways and other venues. The trend began in 2010 when Dale Henderson played all six cello suites in the subways of New York City. He invited others to join and the next year he had 2 cellists join him. In 2012 he had 13 musicians playing in the subways. In 2013 there were 40 in New York and 3 in other cities. In 2014 there were 77 in NYC, Canada, Germany and Taiwan. The next year thousands of musicians in 150 cities joined the celebration. In 2016 the party was extended to multiple days. This year we’re playing from March 21-31. You can take part in the fun by attending a performance or playing Bach in honor of his birth 334 years ago. I hope you enjoy the episode. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/

95. Muzio Clementi, The Composers’ Composer

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95. Muzio Clementi, The Composers' Composer

00:00 / 00:15:46

Muzio Clementi was respected and praised by most of his contemporaries, especially Beethoven. Mozart paid respects by quoting or borrowing some of his themes, as composers did often in the classical era. Mozart may have been envious of Clementi’s technique and the two were put side by side on a Christman Eve’s concert type competition in Vienna. No winner was declared and it seems the purpose was to delight the audience and the Emporer. After, Mozart told his father Clementi was talented, but nothing special. One wonders if he was a bit intimidated by the older keyboardist. In time Clementi would instruct pianists that would influence the best players in the world.

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94. A Guy Walks Into Three Violin Shops In Cremona

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94. A Guy Walks Into Three Violin Shops In Cremona

00:00 / 00:14:13

The three violin makers that shaped the violin we know today lived in Cremona in the late seventeenth to the mid eighteenth century. Amati, Stradavari and Guarneri Del Gesu may have influenced each other and their influence reaches violin makers today. David L. Fulton collected twenty eight fine Cremonese instruments and published several documentaries about fine violins. The documentaries feature prominent violinists of today playing and talking about Amati, Stradavari and Del Gesu (The nick name for Guarneri because of the cross on his label). The first, Homage (2008) won a Juno Award. The second is Violin Masters: Two Gentlemen of Cremona (2010). We hear some clips from that documentary in today’s episode. It won an 2012 Emmy in the Historical Documentary section. A third film Transcendence: A Meeting of Greats (2014) won an Emmy for Best Director. Fulton published a book documenting all his instruments The Fulton Collection- A Guided Tour (2022).

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93. Page Turning

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93. Page Turning

00:00 / 00:18:50

The seemingly easy and mundane task of turning another’s pages can be difficult at times or amusing. We look at a few comic skits where the page turner is the souce of jokes. We also take a deeper dive into those that take it seriously. Finally we see how technology assists in the effort, another DIY.

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92. Boccherini: Our Hero Among Cellist Composers

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92. Boccherini: Our Hero Among Cellist Composers

00:00 / 00:20:45

The music of Luigi Boccherini is some of the most elegant and refined of the era that emerged out of the Baroque and eventually arrives at the Classical Era. Boccherini lived in this in-between time. He began writing polyphonic music and switched to homophonic writing after he met Sammartini. Both Sammartini and Boccherini were composers of the Galante Style. A few others of note were two of J.S.Bach’s sons. The Galante Style music was simpler, predictable if you will, and focused on melodies that were singable, or memorable. Boccherini is special, especially to cellists, because he developed cello writing: his chamber music works give the cello interesting lines and his own virtuosic playing an outlet. He was a composer/cellist in the Spanish court for a large part of his career, so we even refer to him as Italian/Spanish. If you’re looking for new pieces from the old eras, look to Boccherini. His works are played less, but you can find a lot of very fine Chamber Music, Symphonies and Cello and Violin Concertos. He includes guitar and castenets in a few works.

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91. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century

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91. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century

00:00 / 00:14:17

Some people say we live in a gig economy. And its certainly true for musicians who gig, and have always gigged. But its different now than fifty years ago when industries hired locally and everything was run like a factory, because today you can choose to be infungible, one of a kind. There are so many tools at your fingertips that can help you market yourself, and create your own path. Today we talk about the first steps to becoming a leader, and its not what you imagined.

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90. Opera Supertitling

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90. Opera Supertitling

00:00 / 00:16:03

Opera is the art form that incorperates everything from complex stage sets to lighting and effects. In Italian “opera” means “work”. And Opera is a lot of work. It has drama, ballet, singing and instrumental music. Its “the works” alright. When supertitling came on the scene in the 1980’s, some Opera companies and fans that pushed back. You wonder: in an art form that embraces everything innovative, why wouldn’t the new idea be loved by everyone. Today we talk about the first supertitles, the trend and how it may change art going forward. Michael C. Heller’s Essay in Just Beyond Listening dives into Supertitling for those wanting in-depth history on the subject.

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"Accelerando" : Italian; to get faster gradually. (invigorate, stimulate, animate)