Compare and Contrast

[BaalChatzaf]

compare this:

with this

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited July 12, 2011 by BaalChatzaf

[syrakusos]

Jews and Gypsies (... but where did those Germans come from?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bQmT1EM0Eg

Myself, as my father's family was Sioilian and my mother's Hungarian, I have to post a link to Vittorio Monti's Csárdás. The second half of this is not so interesting. (And the one from the Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra / "Live in Athens 2009" is technically the more proficient, but it lacks spirit.)

This raises an aesthetic issue. Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody and Tschaikovsky's First Piano Concerto are among those pieces you get to know, even if you never have to play it.

. I never saw a better performance. Technically. But I question whether she could dance to it. And that's the point. Music is essentially a holistic experience of mind body and soul and this performance is all mind, but only mind. It's why you can have your kid do arithmetic to Mozart: they won't be jumping up and down. And there's nothign wrong with that. The problem for me is the performance of Romantic works as if they were Classical. Edited July 12, 2011 by Michael E. Marotta

[BaalChatzaf]

Jews and Gypsies (... but where did those Germans come from?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bQmT1EM0Eg

Tzeegonie! In Hungary Klezmer Jews and Roma musicians often made music together. There was a kindred spirit. Both the Roma and the Jews are diaspora people. Never at home (quite) in any place they find themselves.

As to the Greek and Jewish dances, the Jews and the Greeks had a love-hate relation going all the way back to Alexander and the Ptolomies. Mostly it was love. Many intelligent Jews were smitten by the logic of the Greeks and bought into it. Even the Rambam (Moshe ben Maimon) invoked The Philosopher (Aristotle) in his book written for Jews who converted to Islam. The books was Guide to the Perplexed. He used Aristotelian tropes to defend the principles of Judaism. R. Judah Halevy wrote-- beware the tree of Greek learning. It has beautiful blooms but its fruit is not nourishing.

In spite of the cruelty of Antiochus (which produced a revolt in the Holy Land that gave us Chanukah). In spite of that, Jews have a soft spot in their hearts for the Greeks.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited July 12, 2011 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Jews, Tzeegonie (Gypsies) and Violins. What is the nature of the bond that the Klezmer Jews have to the violin and the Roma musicians to the violin. It seems these two peoples have a thing for the violin.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Reidy]

One explanation I've seen is that when you have to pack up and flee they're easier to carry than a piano.

[syrakusos]

One explanation I've seen is that when you have to pack up and flee they're easier to carry than a piano.

As are a few other instruments.

Itzakh Perlman plays klezmer; actually, a montage with a nice segue from Perlman jamming with street musicians (perhap) to him with the Klezmer Conservatory.

Here in Southeast Michigan, we have the largest Arabic community in America. We have Arabic TV and radio. I love their rock 'n' roll: the abstractions are so pure. More later.

[Selene]

Which one is Zero Mostel?

[syrakusos]

One explanation I've seen is that when you have to pack up and flee they're easier to carry than a piano.

My brother and I started with the piano, but when we got to the third grade, we got to pick other instruments for school. (It was city wide with Cleveland Public.) When he chose the violin, there was some back and forth among the grown ups because the violin was considered a "gypsy" instrument. (Obviously, we never knew any Chinese Dragon Mothers.) But they relented on the grounds that the Cleveland Orchestra had a bunch of them all up front.

[BaalChatzaf]

Which one is Zero Mostel?

With Itzak Perlman front and center, who needs Zero Mostel. Zero was probably back at Anitzcheka feeling sorry that he was not a Rich Man.

Ba'al Chatzaf