Evening lizard people. It’s your friendly neighborhood Senor Weaselo getting to throw it back just a little to the “bands we like” genre of the usual Saturday Evening Post threads. Because fuck it, it’s Saturday night, let’s listen to some tunes! Well, except it’s not bands we like. Or bands I like. Actually, it’s “here’s a bunch of shit that I want to play with people.” So I give you Senor Weaselo’s To-Play List, chamber music edition.
This all started because we were writing about favorite Georges in music or entertainment, or something like that. And I posted this.
This is George Crumb’s Black Angels, for amplified string quartet. One of contemporary composer George Crumb’s most famous works, it is, for lack of terms, pretty fucking cool. First off, as I said, amplified string quartet, all four players have mics or pickups on their instruments. And if you look at the score, it gets pretty loud and screechy. So it gets really loud and screechy. There’s also a bit where the quartet has to play wine glasses filled with water to certain pitches, tam-tam, the violins and violists play their instruments like a cello and everyone bows at the nut (the end of the fingerboard) and fingers the notes essentially backwards, and the overarching theme of the piece is 7s and 13s. I first heard it freshman year in undergrad (I think) and thought it was the coolest thing, and I definitely would like to play it. Mr. Crumb is still alive, and my teacher gave me a notable story when he played in Mr. Crumb’s ensemble. They were on tour and stopped at a rest stop. Everyone got off and got whatever knick-knacks, and Crumb got a spoon and a plate. When my teacher asked why, it was because he liked the sound when he hit the plate with the spoon. So, as my teacher said, “He bought a sound.” Which is pretty cool.
Yes, there’s a fair bit of contemporary chamber music that only rarely you get to play. Or maybe one group plays every several years. Such as this:
Messiaen’s Quator pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) was written in 1941 in a concentration camp. S0 to them it could have been the end of time, the end of the world. Messiaen was a religious man (later working as an organist in Paris) and the “end of time” he references in the work is the Apocalypse. His use of time, of rhythm, and of unison, like in the sixth movement, drives the work, and I could probably use the last movement, “Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus” (“Praise to the Immortality of Jesus”) as a solo work, as it’s written for violin and piano. The instrumentation for the quartet is for the musicians who were at the camp: piano, violin, cello, and clarinet.
Let’s get all the dark stuff out of the way then. Like Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” quartet.
It’s one of the staples, I haven’t played it. Kind of as simple as that. There are other staples that I haven’t played, or only played a snippet of, like the Schumann Piano Quintet (I really like the second movement, but I’ve only played the first), or the Brahms B Major Piano Trio (I’ve only played the C Minor). Schumann’s the most famous of the piano quintets I haven’t played, since I’ve played Brahms, Dvorak, and Shostakovich.
Do you know what’s surprising? I haven’t played much Beethoven. Like almost any of the quartets—I played one of them and I learned an important lesson to not start it on an up bow. But there are others I want to play like the Razumovsky Quartet, especially the last two movements. But I am a fan of the late quartets, and among them two in particular.
From the Op. 132 quartet, there’s the third movement, “Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der Lydischen Tonart.” (“Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian tonality.) It’s a movement that basically says “thank God I didn’t die,” as Beethoven had an intestinal disorder the prior winter and didn’t die. It’s lengthy, but it’s also absolutely gorgeous.
On the other side of the late Beethoven spectrum, there’s the Grosse Füge. Originally the last movement to the Op. 130 quartet, Beethoven ended up spinning it into its own thing and adding a different finale to the B-flat Major Quartet. That finale is actually the last completed piexw Beethoven wrote.
Lastly to finish off the quartets with something completely different. The Helicopter String Quartet!
That’s right. String quartet, four helicopters with pilots, audio and video equipment, and technicians. It’s a silly piece that I have no chance of performing, which is why I would love to do so! Also, it’s technically a scene from an opera, which I’m not even going into but you can read about here.
Wait, there’s still sports on, right?
Yes there are! All times Eastern.
X Gonna Give it to Ya-FL
LA (Who are we? Who are we gonna beat?) Wildcats vs. Houston Renegades Roughnecks (in progress), FOX—Way to go, Menafee.
JV Hoops
Duke at U*NC (in progress), ESPN
BDSM State at Baylor (in progress), ESPN2—The battle of clear consent vs. none!
Kansas State vs. Iowa State, 8:00, ESPN2
Providence vs. Xavier, 8:00 FS1
Gonzaga vs. St. Mary’s, 10:00, ESPN
UCLA vs. Fat Dog for Midterms (Arizona), 10:00, ESPN2
USC vs. Arizona State, 10:00, FS1
Face-Punchin’
UFC Prelims, 8:00, ESPN
UFC Main Card, 10:00, ESPN+ streaming
Lastly, a BattleBots Byte: Season 5 is confirmed! Filming will be in April, tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday. Get someone you love (me?) robot combat tickets!
senor if you read aftermath, this was a superb post.
Senor, I have to ask. Is there a classical instrument that makes you bleed like a guitar can make you bleed?
Just wondering because I bled all over a really nice guitar tonight.
Left hand pizz practice can do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIu0VPKmn40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9jyXD5yWA
The orchestra sings to your mind. The guitar talks To your heart. Maggot Brain is my best example.
You’re a goddamn inspiration Senor!
UCLA is flat smothering Arizona.
Rotostar; a jaucouzi for your tit.
Here’s another photo of my sandwich:
Smoked meat!
Schwartz deli, superb. Their mustard blend is so good. I am very jealous.
Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles makes the best pastrami sandwich ever. This sandwich is its equal, yet they are different. As explained to me by the guys at Schwartz’s, their smoked meat is brisket from the chest of the cow, which is spiced and smoked overnight. The smoked briskets are steamed before serving. Pastrami, as they explained it, is a brisket from the leg meat.
Langer’s pastrami and Schwartz’s smoked meat are both fucking amazing.
I think you got fed some bullshit. There is one full brisket on a steer consisting of a point cut and a flat cut if you separate them. There is no such thing as leg brisket. They may be using clod which is similar but cut from the shoulder, and are just describing it badly.
Eulers have 43 PP goals on the season, pretty sure that’s more than the total Red Wings goals for the season.
OK it’s like 50% as many goals.
I always forget that James Adomian has a podcast where he just does impressions for the whole thing, but that’s what you get when you don’t use soundcloud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agDyxmKITbQ
The Documents!
Holtby’s given up 7 goals on 18 shots. Seems bad.
He’s drunk; it’s okay.
Flyers legit blowing the Caps out of the water at 6-1 now
Didn’t you predict 10-0?
Basically nailed it.
The metro division has been consistently dumb this season, except for the hilariously bad Wings
More like the LOiLers amirit
Shopping. Smgdh
https://youtu.be/hZw23sWlyG0
It’s all good until some ass sticks a dick in your mouth
No one could be cruel and heartless enough to do something like that!
— Jeffrey Epstein
Three sheets to the wind.
See, I interpreted the push-forward-with-surprised-look as someone giving her a bit of a how’s-your-father from behind
On the one hand Duke won due to, yet again, two brutally bad calls that benefited them, which is an outrage.
On the other hand, UNC and world-class hypocrite Roy Williams lost because of those calls so really, life goes on.
https://youtu.be/VExw77xJsBQ
Another great George
Every time an Eli Valley piece makes it to my timeline, I’m both amazed by what he can do and concerned with maintaining my sanity while staring directly at his eldritch terrors.
That’s a weird toilet.
We are not here to judge your fetish.
I wish you wouldn’t call her that.
Look, there’s a history there. She’s called me worse.
There I go again-sticking my nose into other people’s toilets.
I want to see the poop cam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyhJ69mD7xI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z-GwdaKrn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFVuuRxM2VU
@Viva LA Tabula Raza, I’m Rolling with it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izGwDsrQ1eQ
No one ever talks about Sir John Brillo Pad’s contribution to modern cookery. smgdh…
That’s way better than the intended joke.
Flyers who most recently lost 0-5 to the fucking Devils are up 3-1 in the second against Washington. This season is so stupid.
Sorry. 4-1. Sure, why not
HOT SPACE ACTION!
Glory Hole Pointer Girl is one of the most under-rated super heroes in the Jack Kirby pantheon.
Man, at the beginning there I thought this post was going to be about different Musical Georges, like Thorogood, Lowell, Harrison, Michael, and Boy. Nice headfake!!
Fun story. One of my best friends, I met my junior year in college when I was hanging out with his GF in NYC. I actually met her at CBGBs and we were roommates the year after. During that year, we went to a Slaughter and the Dogs show at CBs and he was crowdsurfing during the second or third song and got straight dropped on his back. He was screaming like an idiot cause he hadn’t eaten or slept, we cabbed it to the hospital where we weren’t supposed to check him in with his fake id (duh) and he got prescribed muscle relaxers and promptly forgot the next week.
https://youtu.be/5jZddq_JLy4
HOT APE ACTION!!
Ape’s near you want to fuck.
1-800-ASimian
Obligatory: OOK OOK!
?itemid=6220033
Happy Brass Nipples Saturday.
Those were certainly simpler times.
It’s more expensive to pierce a brass nipple.
But once it’s done, it’s FOREVER
Just gotta have the right tools.
Houston clearly stole their uniforms from the Washington Sentinels.
Are they playing at the U of H Cougars stadium? I saw Pink Floyd there in April 1977 on the Animals Tour, when it was called Jeppesen Stadium. I was tripping my balls off on some really good mushrooms, and it was raining for most of the show. The inflatable pig blew my mind. The stadium was in a bad area, and two of our complement were jumped, robbed, and beaten while trying to find their car after show. Good times!
RIP Kirk
Yep.