Ravel's composition, "Daphne et Chloe," is one of the most beautiful pieces that I've ever heard.
It's construction is a three scened ballet fit within one act. Although originally it was suppose to be a ballet with a musical score, the music has long outlived the ballet as the piece is usually performed solely as an orchestral score.
The piece's reference to nature, "sunrise," brings a new perspective the sounds of nature that people like Messiaen and Stravinsky did.
check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrOJcEHXYWM for a video of one of the pieces.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Watchmen: Alan Moore and David Gibbons
I have never read any comics until I picked up "Watchmen."
After hearing all the hype - about that graphic was the most important comic of all time, about how the ideas in that book espouse truths and insights in modern western society that before then have not been spoken of - I just had to give it a shot.
Aesthetically, the Watchmen novel is a book within a book, within another book (Watchmen --> Under The Hood --> Tales of the Black Freighter). All this combines into an interweaving story that illustrates the vigilantes of old and new with the Black Freighter serving as an allegory to the bigger Watchmen universe.
A lot can be talked of how Gibbons' artistic renderings of Moore's plot is just as important as the story itself. Gibbons' use of color and shadow to depict the destruction of New York, his imagination that led him to create Dr. Manhattan's creation on the moon show the true marriage of pictures and text. But as time as an issue, I will focus more on the literal themes of Watchmen that Moore espouses.
The story starts off with the death of a once powerful superhero which signals the end of the hero era. This theme is reminiscent of Nietzsche's "Jesus on the Cross" in which the moment of crucifixion starts the rise of post-modernity/nihilism. The death of the superhero in the Watchmen starts off a wave of an anti-superhero sentiment that spreads across America - the rise of post-modernity, the rise of the ego/individual that negates the powers of the almighty, or in the case of the Watchmen, rejects the eyes of the watchers.
Moore's take on the concept of peace is one that can only be brought through a mutual enemy. The novel is set in the Cold War period in which the world is at a stand-off between two nuclear powers that are prepared to play a zero-sum game. To deter those two countries from destroying one another and in result annihilate the world, another superhero creates an enemy that's out of this world in hopes that the two opposing Cold War states would bind together to destroy the alien enemy.
Read the book before you watch the movie. For a genre that's always placated as one that's for kids and teenagers, Watchmen is definitely a graphic novel for adults with its heady themes and gruesome images.
After hearing all the hype - about that graphic was the most important comic of all time, about how the ideas in that book espouse truths and insights in modern western society that before then have not been spoken of - I just had to give it a shot.
Aesthetically, the Watchmen novel is a book within a book, within another book (Watchmen --> Under The Hood --> Tales of the Black Freighter). All this combines into an interweaving story that illustrates the vigilantes of old and new with the Black Freighter serving as an allegory to the bigger Watchmen universe.
A lot can be talked of how Gibbons' artistic renderings of Moore's plot is just as important as the story itself. Gibbons' use of color and shadow to depict the destruction of New York, his imagination that led him to create Dr. Manhattan's creation on the moon show the true marriage of pictures and text. But as time as an issue, I will focus more on the literal themes of Watchmen that Moore espouses.
The story starts off with the death of a once powerful superhero which signals the end of the hero era. This theme is reminiscent of Nietzsche's "Jesus on the Cross" in which the moment of crucifixion starts the rise of post-modernity/nihilism. The death of the superhero in the Watchmen starts off a wave of an anti-superhero sentiment that spreads across America - the rise of post-modernity, the rise of the ego/individual that negates the powers of the almighty, or in the case of the Watchmen, rejects the eyes of the watchers.
Moore's take on the concept of peace is one that can only be brought through a mutual enemy. The novel is set in the Cold War period in which the world is at a stand-off between two nuclear powers that are prepared to play a zero-sum game. To deter those two countries from destroying one another and in result annihilate the world, another superhero creates an enemy that's out of this world in hopes that the two opposing Cold War states would bind together to destroy the alien enemy.
Read the book before you watch the movie. For a genre that's always placated as one that's for kids and teenagers, Watchmen is definitely a graphic novel for adults with its heady themes and gruesome images.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Kryszztof Penderecki
After watching The Exorcist this weekend again, it reminded me of the first time I listened to the compositions of Penderecki. After all, it's only fitting that a man of such terror driven (musical) ambitions would create certain segments of the aural world for that truly horrifying film.
His piece, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, was a piece that is one of the most memorable compositions I've ever heard. The 52 stringed instrument arrangement is not played as a normal arrangement where the start and finish are defined, but at times, the orchestra were asked to play at random places of the song and also to play on unusual parts of their instrument (e.g.: for the violinists, they were asked to play on the opposite side of the bridge). All of this created an aural world that wreaked of novelty, but at the same time, resulted in a primordial composition that sounded like the cries and screams of the victims of Hiroshima.
Many artists have since then taken cues from that piece such as Radiohead's Climbing Up the Walls from OK Computer and Jonny Greenwood's soundtrack for There Will be Blood.
go to this link for a sample of this piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfBVYhyXU8o
His piece, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, was a piece that is one of the most memorable compositions I've ever heard. The 52 stringed instrument arrangement is not played as a normal arrangement where the start and finish are defined, but at times, the orchestra were asked to play at random places of the song and also to play on unusual parts of their instrument (e.g.: for the violinists, they were asked to play on the opposite side of the bridge). All of this created an aural world that wreaked of novelty, but at the same time, resulted in a primordial composition that sounded like the cries and screams of the victims of Hiroshima.
Many artists have since then taken cues from that piece such as Radiohead's Climbing Up the Walls from OK Computer and Jonny Greenwood's soundtrack for There Will be Blood.
go to this link for a sample of this piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfBVYhyXU8o
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Stanley Donwood
I first heard about this post-modernist painter when I was listening to Radiohead's seminal album, Kid A.
It turns that he's been a long-time collaborator with Thom Yorke (the frontman for Radiohead) for quite some time now. Full evidence of this collaboration came with Donwood doing the cover art for Yorke's solo album, The Eraser.
The woodcut pieces (linocut technique) that Donwood did for Yorke's solo album was truly impressive in that the originals for the visuals were cut from wood and then pasted onto a 2d medium (e.g. paper). The separation between the black and whites is then more visibly seen as the more protruding and shortened crevices create more depth.
For more information and his pieces, go to: www.slowlydownward.com
It turns that he's been a long-time collaborator with Thom Yorke (the frontman for Radiohead) for quite some time now. Full evidence of this collaboration came with Donwood doing the cover art for Yorke's solo album, The Eraser.
The woodcut pieces (linocut technique) that Donwood did for Yorke's solo album was truly impressive in that the originals for the visuals were cut from wood and then pasted onto a 2d medium (e.g. paper). The separation between the black and whites is then more visibly seen as the more protruding and shortened crevices create more depth.
For more information and his pieces, go to: www.slowlydownward.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)