Things That Go Bump in the Night
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Let WNYC keep you company as you dispense candies to trick-or-treaters, and keep watch for ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night...
For openers, pianist William Bolcom plays his own “Graceful Ghost.” Not too scary. But just wait! Nothing sounds spookier than the theremin. Remember those movies like “Spellbound,” where the soundtrack featured what sounded like a banshee on dope? The queen of this exotic instrument, Clara Rockmore, plays the Berceuse from Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Hardly the kind of lullaby to put a kid to sleep with! Camille Saint-Saens’ “Danse macabre” portrays Death as a fiddler playing a dance while tapping out a rhythm on a tombstone. Jorja Fleezanis fiddles while the Minnesota Orchestra follows Eiji Oue’s ominous baton.
This evening’s pièce de résistance is what Leonard Bernstein describes as “the first psychedelic symphony in history.” Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic as they portray the opium-induced fantasies of a lovesick youth who sees himself at a grand ball, wandering through menacing fields, encountering an executioner’s scaffold, and finally witness to a Witches’ Sabbath ...all in pursuit of the unattainable beloved. A great performance of an astounding composition, “Symphonie fantastique,” written by Hector Berlioz when he was only twenty-six.
For openers, pianist William Bolcom plays his own “Graceful Ghost.” Not too scary. But just wait! Nothing sounds spookier than the theremin. Remember those movies like “Spellbound,” where the soundtrack featured what sounded like a banshee on dope? The queen of this exotic instrument, Clara Rockmore, plays the Berceuse from Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Hardly the kind of lullaby to put a kid to sleep with! Camille Saint-Saens’ “Danse macabre” portrays Death as a fiddler playing a dance while tapping out a rhythm on a tombstone. Jorja Fleezanis fiddles while the Minnesota Orchestra follows Eiji Oue’s ominous baton.
This evening’s pièce de résistance is what Leonard Bernstein describes as “the first psychedelic symphony in history.” Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic as they portray the opium-induced fantasies of a lovesick youth who sees himself at a grand ball, wandering through menacing fields, encountering an executioner’s scaffold, and finally witness to a Witches’ Sabbath ...all in pursuit of the unattainable beloved. A great performance of an astounding composition, “Symphonie fantastique,” written by Hector Berlioz when he was only twenty-six.
