[school-discuss] France + U.S. = love, love, love

[mike eschman <meschman@etc-edu.com>]

etc ... broadcast details : 03/15/2003

The only place these days where France and the U.S. live in
harmony is in this broadcast.  I have Gershwin paired with Balzac.
I have Fitzgerald in bed with Ravel.  And Stravinsky, who loved
Paris and New York.  It's all about Men, Women, Love and Dancing.

So, if you're tired of anger, yearning for Love or ready to dance,
stick around.  If politics just won't let you be, there's something
here for you as well, Gulliver's Travels.  The Schumann Symphonies,
Piano Concertos and the Manfred Overture are here to remind us that
melody is essentially hopeful.

Channel 1.

Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift

    1699 - Gulliver's first voyage
    1715 - Gulliver's final return home

... I had been for some Hours extremely pressed by the Necessities of Nature;
which was no Wonder, it being almost two Days since I had last disburthened
myself. I was under great Difficulties between Urgency and Shame. The best
Expedient I could think on, was to creep into my House, which I accordingly
did;
and shutting the Gate after me, I went as far as the Length of my Chain would
suffer,
and discharged my Body of that uneasy Load. But this was the only Time I was
ever guilty
of so uncleanly an Action; for which I cannot but hope the candid Reader will
give some
Allowance, after he has maturely and impartially considered my Case, and the
Distress I
was in. From this Time my constant Practice was, as soon as I rose, to
 perform that Business
in open Air, at the full Extent of my Chain, and due Care was taken every
Morning before
Company came, that the offensive Matter should be carried off in
Wheel-barrows, by two Servants
appointed for that Purpose. I would not have dwelt so long upon a
Circumstance, that perhaps at
first sight may appear not very momentous, if I had not thought it necessary
to justify my Character
in point of Cleanliness to the world; which I am told some of my Maligners
have been pleased, upon
this and other Occasions, to call in question.

Schumann : Manfred.

If I could only have one piece of romantic music on a desert island, how it
feels to lose a love,
there are orchestras in the promised land ...

Byron's poem tells of Manfred's remorse over the death of Astarte; he seeks
death as release from his torments.
He encounters characters, spirits, and the shade of Astarte. Unrepentant, he
dies rejecting salvation.
Schumann informed Liszt, who presented the premiere of Manfred in Weimar in
June 1852, that it "should not
be advertised as an opera, Singspiel, or melodrama, but as a 'dramatic poem
with music.'

Schumann : Symphonies - Piano Concerto

Well, just listen to these.  Beautiful melody and invention.  Knowing too
 much about Schumann will just make you
constipated.



Channel 2.

Balzac
A Woman of Thirty

Balzac spent 16 years to write this book -trought 1828 to 1844. The narrative
is focused on French
social life in the beginning of the 19th century.  Julie's bad marriage and
desire for love illuminates
the problems surrounding the emancipation of a woman.

Porgy and Bess (1934).
by George Gershwin.

In 1926 George Gershwin read Porgy by DuBose Heyward, a native of Charleston,
South Carolina, and immediately
wrote to the author suggesting that they collaborate on a folk opera based on
the novel. In 1934, after years
of correspondence, George and Ira Gershwin joined DuBose Heyward in
 Charleston to write the opera.

They settled for the summer at Folly Beach, located on a barrier island about
ten miles from Charleston, where they
could observe the Gullahs, an isolated group living on adjacent James Island
who became the prototypes of the Catfish
Row residents. Heyward's contributions included the lyrics to Summertime and
My Man's Gone Now.  When it was completed
in July, 1935, the 700 pages of music represented Gershwin's most ambitious
creation and his favorite composition.

This broadcast features three seperate, compelling performances of the work :

Gil Evans - Miles Davis, the finest work for a large group to come out of the
"Cool" era in Jazz.
Louis Armstrong - Ella Fitzgerald.  Like Mardi Gras on Broadway.
Oscar Peterson Trio. (For a quite nite with your favorite companion.

Channel 3.




This Side of Paradise.
F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise" is about life at Princeton
among the post-World War I "lost generation." Published in 1920,
when he was twenty-three, the novel made Fitzgerald an icon of the
Jazz Age.

Ravel : Daphnis & Chloe.

In 1912, Maurice Ravel set the pastoral love story of "Daphnis and Chloe" to
music in the form of a ballet.
The tale follows the developing love between a goatherd, Daphnis, and a
shepherdess, Chloe. They need an old
man to explain to them that "kissing and embracing and lying naked on the
ground" would help them deal with
their emotions.

Daphnis is captured by pirates and soldiers, Chloe is kidnapped twice. Many
suitors hinder their romance. But
eventually Daphnis and Chloe marry.


Stravinsky - The Fairy's Kiss.

a love letter to the Russia of his childhood - The Fairy's Kiss lovingly
adapts more than a dozen songs and piano
pieces by Tchaikovsky. The action of the ballet depicts a child kissed by a
Fairy; later, on his wedding day, he
is carried off to the Land of Eternal Dwelling.

Stravinsky - Pulcinella.

a ballet based on music by the eighteenth-century composer Giovanni Battista
Pergolesi, with
set designs by Pablo Picasso, based on the characters of the
 sixteenth-century commedia dell'arte.

Stravinsky approached the material with a light hand, scoring the ballet for
 a scaled-down orchestra
of the pre-Classical style. Twentieth-century effects emerge as a slightly
overripe instrumental combination,
unlikely dissonance, and distended harmony. The commedia dell'arte atmosphere
openly invades the music as a
slapstick duet between trombone and double bass.

enjoy!

mike eschman, etc ...
"Not just an afterthought ...
http://www.etc-edu.com



--
in the time it takes to answer that question, i could have made another audio
book!

-------------------------------------------------------

-- 
in the time it takes to answer that question, i could have made another audio 
book!