variations on ‘happy birthday’
I checked out a few new CDs at the library (plus one I already had — I need to remember I have Mahler’s 2nd, and it’s Mahler’s 3rd I’d like to listen to….) and so far the ones I’ve listened to area terrific! I’m listening to some Prokofiev piano concertos right now (mmmm…. virtuoso….) But the one I’m particularly happy about is a Gidon Kremer cd.
Gidon Kremer is my favorite violinist. He leads a group called The Kremerata Baltica and they are just amazing. Possibly my favorite cd that I own right now is one of his group playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, intermixed with Piazolla’s Four Seasons (the cd is titled Eight Seasons and I highly recommend it — but as soon as you buy it, get a new case for the cd, because the one it comes in, while interested product design, will quickly scratch up your cd)
Anyway, this particular Kremer cd is basically a compilation of fun variations. Not the really well known ones, like Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini or Elgar’s Enigma Variations. But some really fun ones. The main collection on the cd is 11 variations on the ‘happy birthday’ theme! Just really fun to listen to. The variations are in the following styles:
- Joseph Haydn
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Johannes Brahms
- Robert Schumann
- Antonin Dvorak
- Poka / Valse
- Early film-music
- Ragtime
- Tango
- Czardas
I like the last six the best. I don’t know which one is my favorite though. The cd also has a very humerous mish-mash of several Mozart pieces (plus some more modern folk music, I believe, unless these folk music melody’s actually originated with a Mozart melody, and I’m just unaware of that) called McMozart’s Eine Kleine Bricht Moonlicht Nicht Musik, by ‘Teddy Bor’.
There is also a set of variations on “Auld Lang Syne” that are done in the style of a few well known pieces. Eine kleine Nichtmusik (Mozart), Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven), Chaconne a son gout (I don’t recognize this one), and Hommage to Shostakofiev (which is the first time I’ve seen Shostakovich spelled this way). The Shostakofiev variation, I discovered, merges the Auld Lang Syne theme with Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto (I recognized this on my own, thanks very much…)
The disc I haven’t listened to yet is a 2-disc set of Saint-Saens’ piano concertos. Should be good!