It is a crashing thing; a delight beneath fingertips pressing light-heavy over ivory keys, a conversation between clouds coming to life, a minor-key clash-roll of thunder preceding the deceptively pretty patter of rain before the beautifully riotous cacophony of mountain storm.
Atonality has never appealed.
But ordered disarray — ranging from rolling-start mezo-piano to pianissimo possibile near-silent rainsong to forte fortissimo lightning storm sudden-stop — especially when it mimics nature so soundly…
Yes.
Alan Hovhaness’ Mountain Dance No. 2: It’s long been my favorite piece to play.
for the 2021 April A-to-Z Blogging Challenge: letter H
My theme for this year’s challenge is Music as Muse.
You’ve got to love music and piano to have written this so that those of us who don’t have a musical background can still appreciate, imagine, and hear what you’re describing. Thank you!
Windy recently posted…Fisher Girl Hooks Inspiration
The link will take you to a YouTube video if you want to listen. I studied piano for 12 years and made a (partial) living from playing piano for 10.
Lovely! I could fish in this kind of weather, well the calm part! Reminds me of my daughter’s dance recitals. Thanks for sharing your love for the piano and language!
I just learned something new about you today. I’m listening to the piece now. I prefer a stable tonic-dominant-tonic form myself, but this was interesting. One of the wonderful things about studying music is discovery, after all.
I learned this piece when I was in high school. At the time, I thought one of the best things about it was that by practicing the stormy parts, I could drive my asshole brothers out of the house. (Speaking of ‘discovery’.) 😉
Thank you for sharing this. Beautiful.
I never heard of him before… Wikipedia gives somewhat different information in different languages (English vs Dutch), but clearly an interesting composer to learn more about, and for what I understand also someone who was the first in his family to do a music career (similar to Julio Iglesias). I am impressed how you can describe music in words the way you do – your words are a composition too!
Gunilla (galeriaredelius) recently posted…Knitting needles
I believe he was strongly influenced by Jean Sibelius; his style is somewhat eclectic and the way he mixed his musical cocktail was a bit more ‘shaken’ than ‘stirred’. 😉
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