Musical Notes

[poliphilo]

Thing about the Beatles is there's no filler. Take Revolver: every song is doing something interesting and every one is a classic. During those magical years of the mid sixties those four guys couldn't put a foot wrong. They're experimenting and every experiment comes off. It's avant-garde and it's hummable. 

Michael Moorcock in one of the Jerry Cornelius books calls them "the poets of paradise."

And this is a call to vicarchori: the year is (still) 1670 and a harpsichord virtuoso is giving a little concert at an evening soiree. We're in Southern France and the musician is Italian. Any suggestions for pieces he might be playing?

Thanks!

Comments

[upasaka.livejournal.com]

Bernardo Pasquini's keyboard sonatas would be "the new thing" amongst Italians. Girolamo Frescobaldi's Toccatas and dance movements. circulating through Europe in manuscript, as were Michelangelo Rossi's. If the musician was from Naples or it's environs, he would undoubtedly have some music by Giovanni Maria Trabaci in his repertoire; the other composers were Romans but more internationally known. Italian music was much more drama - driven than French music at that time, and Italians were often very interested in exploring bold harmonies and distant key relationships. French music of that era was much more formal, intellectual, and didactic.

[upasaka.livejournal.com]

And Revolver is my absolute favourite Beatles album.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that's just what I wanted to know. My guy is a Neapolitan, so we'll have him wow the audience with some Trabaci.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Mine too.