During this time of social upheaval, isolation and personal unrest, music can perhaps serve as a balm, to provide healing and comfort. The arts can provide us with inspiration, so that we can build an ever more harmonious society. Youtube can be a great outlet to escape from it all. Here are 5 diverse classics to give pause and mediate on.
William Grant Still (1895-1978)
“Summerland from Three
Visions”
Althea Waites, Piano
William Grant Still’s piano piece “Summerland” is the perfect pause for your day. It is music of the imagination. Its gentle lilt and singable tune calls to mind the peace found in nature during the summer months; for me, perhaps at dusk, gently swaying on a hammock, when a certain stillness takes over the landscape. For William Grant Still, a pioneering African-American composer, it is also a glimpse of the eternal summertime of heaven. Where does it take you? The close-knit and spacious harmonies of the piano envelop the ear with warmth and shimmers. I love the tenderness in this performance by Althea Waites.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Menuet from Le Tombeau de Couperin
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Piano
A snappy dresser and collector of books, records, vases, trinkets and more, Ravel, was a real dandy who was just as fastidious in his compositions as in his appearance. Very private with his personal life, he paradoxically loved company and was the consummate host, having dinner parties and gatherings with groups of friends in the Japanese inspired gardens of his small home outside of Paris, Le Belvédère. Fresh fruit from his garden, served with a dollop of cream, was a favorite dessert. This tastiness and modest pleasure make me think of the “Menuet” from Le Tombeau de Couperin. Written as a movement in the genre of a baroque tribute piece, Ravel’s refreshing harmonies are just as sweet as a fresh, juicy pear from his garden on a summer evening with friends.
“I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today”
Randy Newman (1943)
Performed and Arranged by Nina Simone (1933-2003), Voice and Piano
Nina Simone is miraculous. Featuring one song is really impossible. There is this authenticity in her music making that encapsulates all that she went through, from the pains of racism, injustice and abuse, to the glistening beauty, skill and clarity in her piano playing, to the thunderous spirit of justice in her stunning voice. An exceptionally gifted child, she was on track to have a career as a classical pianist, only to be rejected from The Curtis Institute of Music due to racism. She devoted herself to the causes of The Civil Rights Movement, performing moving tributes to Martin Luther King, Jr. (“Why? The King of Love is Dead”) and a powerful cover of Dr. Billy Taylor’s anthem “How I Wish I Knew What It Felt like to be Free”. I picked this song, “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today”, her cover of a Randy Newman tune, which showcases a hallmark of her style using tuneful baroque and classical style figurations and ornaments – in a popular song. She plays with a silky sweet tone and her powerful vocals, rife with bittersweetness, resonates deeply. Her live performance of“My Baby Just Cares for Me” at Montreux is stupefying in skill and ingenious in conception. As an activist and musician, she inspires us to pause, reflect and then act together in making a society that is more just.
Amy Beach (1867-1944)
“A Hermit Thrush at Eve”, Op. 92, No. 1
Alan Feinberg, Piano
The birds wake me up before my alarm. I actually don’t need to set an alarm, with the lockdown, social distancing, and such. But if I did, I wouldn’t need to, because the birds in the trees make such a racket! I actually love it though. I don’t care too much that they start singing at like 4:30 AM. The French composer Messiaen called birds “God’s own musicians”. Amy Beach, who is regarded as perhaps the first American female composer to receive major notoriety, beautifully set her impressions of one of these soaring creatures just two years after the 19th Amendment was ratified. As we approach the centennial of the culmination of women’s suffrage, perhaps this mystical work can serve as inspiration, giving wings to an idea, thought, or dream that you would like to bring to life.
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Ciaccona, from Partita in D Minor, BWV 1004, transcribed for Lute
Thomas Dunford, Lute
Regarded as an absolute masterpiece, of not just music, but human achievement, the D minor Chaconne (Ciaccona in Italian) has served as muse, refuge, inspiration, healer, motivator, transcendent companion, and more. Its reoccurring bass line and chord progression with variations, grows in intensity. Stunning beauty is revealed, evoking a sense of wonder and the lilt of baroque dance, when the darkness of minor is eclipsed with glowing warmth of D Major. J.S. Bach masterfully weaves a story here, taking along each listener on a journey.Where is your journey currently taking you? Maybe it is time to take stock and see if I’m content on this path or if I would have greater peace elsewhere. Composed originally for violin, the dazzling and poetic Thomas Dunford rouses the senses and spirit with artistic magnificence in his arrangement on lute.
With performances and recordings acclaimed and featured by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Gramophone, New York Classical Review, Fanfare and more, Carl Patrick Bolleia has performed throughout North America, Europe and China at venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, le poisson rouge, Philharmonie de Paris, Merkin Hall, NJPAC, Bargemusic and Spectrum. He is acting as coordinator of piano at William Paterson University and is pursuing the Graduate Diploma in Historical Performance at The Juilliard School. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts from Rutgers University in Piano Performance.
