The Organ Symphony

Let's listen to the theme from Babe (both in and out of the city), i mean the thing they play at the French Pavilion at Epcot, i mean that Fitzgerald/Keeley song, i mean the Organ Symphony, i mean the Symphony (avec Organ), i mean Camille Saint-Saëns' 3rd and last (or 5th if you count the 2 he threw in the trash can) symphonic work that's technically four movements squashed into two, and features 6 hands and 2 feet worth of virtuosic keyboard shenanigans that everybody uses in some project they worked on at some point. It might be the most famous work from the Romantic period you might vaguely recall hearing somewhere sometime. That's pretty high praise for the barren wasteland of music that happened between Beethoven's 5th and Strauss' Also Spracht Zarathustra in the minds of 20th century pop culture. Ugh, that lame old emotionally chromatic sap is so passe. Except John Williams. Total innovator, that guy. Give me the musical Xanax of Lorde or Billie Eilish any day, am i right? (Oh sarcasm, how i adore thee. I like Lorde and Eilish, but you have to admit they are $500 worth of amphetamines away from exciting).

He dedicated it to his friend who happened to have the same name as Franz Liszt, because he was Franz Liszt, but he died. It's a very Lisztian piece that continually transforms and reuses its thematic material, in this case plainsong themes from liturgical masses, many also spracht by Liszt himself.

Sadly, i don't think Earl Grant ever did a recording of it, so i guess we'll have to settle for Ormandy and E. Power Biggs.

I don't want to spoil the classic cinema for you, but they don't turn the porcine shepherd turned Spuds McKenzie savior into breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Next

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho
Read more

Pat Benatar - Seven The Hard Way

Image
I don't know about you, but i love Pat Benatar. Yes, that's also her debut album with the single most underrated song in the universe (My Clone Sleeps Alone) in the background, but that's just a generic non-self-titled debut album. We're jumping ahead to her 6th album, Seven The Hard Way, because that, ladies and gentle germs, is how you kalaidescope a concept. Not one, not two, not three, but 4 protien-packed layers to this metaphor. You don't really need to know the overly complicated rules of Craps to know that A) it's gambling, B) "the hard way" refers to rolling doubles, so good luck rolling two 3.5s, and C) you're going to lose, one way or another. It's a joke, but more importantly, it's Pat Benatar and the roll out is Sex As A Weapon, so the innuendo is not intended to be subtle. Wait wait wait, that's only 3, Bottle, where's 4? You're right, last but not least, side B opens with Seven Rooms of Gloom, a Holland-Dozier-Hol
Read more