Glass Harp-Toccata and Fugue in D minor-Bach-BWV 565

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The sound of glass music is unmistakably unique. Ever since this art has been performed, the audience has always found it surprisingly intriguing.

The inventor of the glass harmonica,Benjamin Franklin, after listening to the sound of musical glasses, wrote with much enthusiasm "...it's tones are incomparably sweet beyond those of any other".

Robert Tiso is a classical guitarist and has been playing glass music since 2002. His instrument is known as the glass harp or more commonly musical glasses, and consists of 39 stem glasses of different sizes and shapes, fixed to a wooden base and tuned by adjusting the quantity of water each one contains.

The sound is produced simply by rubbing the moistened fingertips along the rims, this friction causes the vibration that makes the glasses resonate.
With this ethereal sound Robert Tiso performs a wide repertoire that includes many classical masterpieces by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky.... and more contemporary compositions by Morricone, Pink Floyd...

All carefully chosen to suit the sound and arranged to express the potential possibilities of the glass harp. An exciting and curious concert for all kinds of audiences that gives the opportunity to see a live performance of a 300 year old musical tradition almost forgotten by modern times.




Toccata and fugue in D minor by J. S. Bach
played on glass harp (musical glasses) by Robert Tiso
グラスハープ
Bach's most famous organ piece arranged for glass harp.

Free sheet music for this can be found here: http://www.classical-scores.com/free/...

A theory has recently (1981) been put forth that J. S. Bach did not write this piece. A brief summary of the supporting evidence for this theory can be read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata_...

To listen to a good organ version watch Kurt Ison, Sydney Town Hall.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FXoyr...

Or Karl Richter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd_oIF...

Also arranged for symphonic orchestra for the famous Walt Disney cartoon "Fantasia" in 1940. Can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1z12_...

A very interesting version with a bar-graph score (midi sequencer score) gives you a visual idea of the voicing of this piece. watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9b...

Rainer Maria Rilke’s ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO

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Male torso, marble (perhaps Parian), from the island of Miletos, "Severe" early classical style. c 480-470 BC. The Louvre, Paris. Photo © R.M.N./H. Lewandowski

            Rainer Maria Rilke’s ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO

We never knew his head and all the light

that ripened in his fabled eyes. But

his torso still glows like a gas lamp dimmed

in which his gaze, lit long ago,

holds fast and shines. Otherwise the surge

of the breast could not blind you, nor a smile

run through the slight twist of the loins

toward that center where procreation thrived.

Otherwise this stone would stand deformed and curt

under the shoulders' transparent plunge

and not glisten just like wild beasts' fur

and not burst forth from all its contours

like a star: for there is no place

that does not see you. You must change your life.

Translated by Edward Snow

ARCHAÏSCHER TORSO APOLLOS

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie en Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du musst dein Leben ändern.

“Dedicated to my great friend, Auguste Rodin”
from Neue Gedichte, 1908

 

Rainer_Maria_Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke arrived in Paris in 1902 as a young man of 26, and within his first two days in the new city sought out the sculptor Auguste Rodin. 

Three years later, he had become Rodin’s secretary, and a devoted student of the great artist’s work. 

His observation of Rodin’s method led Rilke to write what he called Ding-Gedichte: “thing poems,” hard and definitive. Everyday selfhood would be transformed into the fiercely conclusive world of things. In the fall of 1907, Rilke also discovered the paintings of Paul Cezanne. “Making real,” in the manner of Cezanne and Rodin, became for him the task of art.

Rilke published the first book of his Neue Gedichte (New Poems) in 1907. He wrote the second volume, which contains “Archaischer Torso Apollos” (Archaic Torso of Apollo), in about a year, beginning at the end of July 1907; the book appeared in November 1908. (We give the sonnet in German at the end of this essay.) Both books of New Poems draw on objects, people, and creatures that Rilke saw on his walks through Paris; a panther at a zoo, the cathedral of Notre Dame, a blind man in the street. 

The poet fixes his imagination, with great concentration, to the physical world. In “Archaic Torso,” Rilke directs his gaze toward a powerful but fragmentary artwork, the Torso of Miletus in the Louvre. The statue looks back at the poet, and at us, with tremendous intent: the artwork itself guides the poet’s awareness. Rilke’s earlier work depended on his sensibility; his shifting, exploratory moods gave rise to memorable poems. Here, by contrast, the poet claims to inherit insight from the object he describes. In “Archaic Torso”, Rilke’s insistence on the objective is, as his translator Edward Snow comments, “disconcerting” and “almost ruthless.” A near-compulsive force drives the sonnet to its urgent, surprising conclusion.

Jazz Tube - An Archive Of Jazz On Video

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http://www.jazztube.com/


An archive of jazz on video...

"If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing." - Art Blakey






*orig post date Sep 6 2010

The Manuscripts of Emily Dickinson

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Detail from currently the only authenticated photograph of Emily Dickinson in existence, taken by William C. North ca. 1847 when Dickinson was 17 years old

The Manuscripts of Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson had a very creative relationship with paper.

She often jotted down single lines and raw snatches of poetry on whatever materials were close at hand. Her writing materials range from slit open envelopes, such as "The way hope builds his house" (AC 450) shown here, to scraps of wallpaper and a chocolate wrapper. It is impossible for any transcription of these fragments to capture the important details of how Dickinson originally laid out her poetry on the page.

“The way hope builds his house”, Amherst Manuscript # 450

“Necessitates celerity”, Amherst Manuscript # 540