Vladimir Ashkenazy in Sydney, Australia.

[Tod]

Great news. One of my favourite pianists of the modern era, Vladimir Ashkenazy is to be the Principle Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for 3 years from 2009.

He is also to conduct the SSO in a Rachmaninov festival in November this year. How lucky are we??? Haha... Happy days!!!!

click on the link for more detailed info:
http://www.sydneysymphony.com/page.asp?p=775

[Horowitz17]

did you now that he retired from public piano performance? By they way, you can say a mean or sarcastic thing with music.

[Tod]

did you now that he retired from public piano performance? By they way, you can say a mean or sarcastic thing with music.

Hi Horowitz. Yes unfortunately he has retired from public performance. What a shame I won't hear him play in person. Still I understand his conducting skills are pretty sharp, so looking forward to that.

How does one say a mean or sarcastic thing with music when there are no words spoken? You can with lyrics, but not the music surely. Maybe I'm wrong, I'd be happy to hear otherwise.

[Chris]

I especially love his playing of Chopin.

[Hollywood]

Vladimir Ashkenazy is also one of my favorites. Most of my Beethoven piano music cds are with him performing. My favorite performance is of Beethoven's piano sonata No. 23, Op. 57 ("Appassionata"- recorded in 1979), especially the Allegro, ma non troppo. Absolutely fabulous!

[JA Gardiner]

Hi Horowitz. Yes unfortunately he has retired from public performance. What a shame I won't hear him play in person. Still I understand his conducting skills are pretty sharp, so looking forward to that.

How does one say a mean or sarcastic thing with music when there are no words spoken? You can with lyrics, but not the music surely. Maybe I'm wrong, I'd be happy to hear otherwise.

Just listen to the raspberry Mozart gives to formulaic composers of his day in his A Musical Joke - the last few bars are as sarcastic as they come!

[Michael]

I don't know about sarcasm but I think Beethoven can be sardonic in some of his music especially when he is defeating expectations. I always see the second movement of Opus 31 No. 1 as a complete send-up. Brendel definitely
plays it four laughs in his first Philips set and he has given numerous talks about humour in B's music.
The "Intermezzo interrotto" of Bartok's "Concerto for Orchestra" introduces a theme that Shostakovich used in his "Leningrad" symphony, where it was supposed to represent the Nazis. Bartok mocks this theme with laughter in the strings , guffaws in the brass and woodwind and even a "raspberry" on brass. The whole thing lurches into a drunken development before the trio returns. I don't know if you could call this sarcasm but he is certainly having a go at either Shostakovich or the Nazis.

[Hofrat]

In the first movement of the G-major sonata opus 31 no. 1, Beethoven introduces a "musical stutter:" over and over again, the right hand reaches the down-beat a fraction of a second before the the left hand. Very sardonic.

In the famous "Song of the Flea," Beethoven instructs the pianist to thump with his thumb on two adjacent keys as if trying to squash the flea.

In the "Kadadu" variations, Beethoven writes one of his longest and most serious introductions. The build-up is intensive and one thinks that he is leading to a very serious theme, but Beethoven mocks us with that whimsical melody from "The Sisters from Prague!" When performed for the first time, the work was entitled "Introduction, theme and variations, and rondo," without identifying the theme in order to achieve the greatest mocking effect.

One can certainly mock with music and be sarcastic with music. And Beethoven can make us shiver with Fidelio with his music, and depict a rolling boulder (again in Fidelio), and lop off Egmont's head as he does in the overture by the same name.

[Sorrano]

Berlioz, in his Symphonie Fantastique, distorts the fixed idea theme in the final movement in a rather mocking way.

[Tod]

Well there you go. It would seem the quote I chose for my signature wasn't as true as I'd initially thought. From the examples given, and others I have considered also, I guess you can be sarcastic and mean in music. By 'mean' as in 'mean spirited' I guess poking fun at others expense is rightly considered mean, but it's not nearly as blunt as it can be with lyrics/ words.

There you go, I stand corrected and am happy to say so and will therefore now be on the hunt for a new quote for my signature.

Meanwhile, back to the original point of this topic....how cool to is it to have one of my idols working in Sydney, where I'll be able to go see him perform more than once. O.K. it might not be exactly in the capacity for which I so admire his work up to this point, though I believe his conducting is something to be admired and respected, but who cares...it's Vladimir Ashkenazy, live and in person in Sydney.

[Agnes Selby]

Ashkenazy

Tod, I join you in your delight of having Ashkenazy
here in Sydney.

Regards,
Agnes Selby.

[Peter]

I don't know about sarcasm but I think Beethoven can be sardonic in some of his music especially when he is defeating expectations. I always see the second movement of Opus 31 No. 1 as a complete send-up.

And the first movement Michael where Beethoven is mocking those pianists who can't keep their hands together!

[Michael]

And the first movement Michael where Beethoven is mocking those pianists who can't keep their hands together!

He does something similar in the short scherzo of the Spring sonata. At a performance, one critic was supposed to have said "Can't those two (pianist and violinist) keep time together?"

[Tod]

More exciting news.....I just got a new job at the Sydney Opera House working in the sound department, and my first gig there?.....assisting on the Vladimir Ashkenazy/ Sydney Symphony Rachmaninov Festival.....COOL!!!!!!!!

Talk about perfect timing!! Happy Days!!!!!!!

[Sorrano]

More exciting news.....I just got a new job at the Sydney Opera House working in the sound department, and my first gig there?.....assisting on the Vladimir Ashkenazy/ Sydney Symphony Rachmaninov Festival.....COOL!!!!!!!!

Talk about perfect timing!! Happy Days!!!!!!!

Good luck with that; that is fantastic!