David Dalle
Thursday July 7th, 2022 with David Dalle
More Bombino! Music and Beyond with the Bennewitz Quartet and one of the greatest Indian musical dynasties.
Today we will look at some upcoming concerts starting tonight and later during the week with the Music and Beyond festival which continues until July 17th. The festival often forms lasting relationships with musicians who return often. The Bennewitz Quartet is one of these, a stellar quartet from the Czech Republic who will be performing six concerts in total of three programs starting this afternoon. They feature two performances each with an afternoon and evening encore. They play their Czech specialties Smetana, Dvorak, and Erwin Schulhoff, as well as Mozart, Haydn, and Bartok.
I post links to the evening encores, but note all three programs are featured earlier in the afternoon as well.
Today 5:00pm
https://musicandbeyond.ca/tc-events/bennewitz-quartet-i-repeat-3/
Friday 7:30pm
https://musicandbeyond.ca/tc-events/bennewitz-quartet-ii-repeat-3/
Saturday 7:30pm
https://musicandbeyond.ca/tc-events/the-bennewitz-quartet-and-arsentiy-kharitonov-repeat-le-quatuor-bennewitz-et-arsentiy-kharitonov-reprise/
We will also hear members of the Imdad Khan gharana, one of the most important lineages of instrumental music in Hindustani music of the last 150 years. Last week we heard the great Ustad Vilayat Khan, grandson of the founder Imdad Khan. Today we will hear his other grandson Ustad Imrat Khan, and next week we will hear his great-grandson Ustad Irshad Khan, who will be performing at the festival next Friday:
https://musicandbeyond.ca/tc-events/irshad-khan-ensemble-3/
| However, we will start with another concert taking place tonight, the electrifying Nigerien guitarist Bombino will be performing at the Bluesfest tonight at 9pm! We heard one side from his double-lp "Live in Amsterdam" last week, we will hear another side today.
https://ottawabluesfest.ca/artists/#/artist/bombino |
| Midiwane Bombino - Live In Amsterdam - Partisan Records |
| Tar Hani Bombino - Live In Amsterdam - Partisan Records |
| Chatahat Bombino - Live In Amsterdam - Partisan Records |
| Hamet Fanta Damba - Fanta Dambu du Mali vol. 3 - Bolibana |
| Llima Msafiri Zawose - Mbotela - Tate Music Group |
| Africa Msafiri Zawose - Mbotela - Tate Music Group |
| It is Mahler's 162nd birthday today, and I could not resist playing some Mahler... I brought in some recordings of symphonies, but I don't have the time to squeeze in a Mahler symphony with everything else today! July is chamber music in Ottawa anyway, so here is Mahler's sole existing contribution to chamber music, his dark and rich single movement for a piano quartet, composed when he was only 16, yet it hints at the worlds contained in his symphonies. |
| Klavierquartett Gustav Mahler/Gidon Kremer, Oleg Maisenberg, Veronika Hagen, Clemens Hagen - Kremerata - Deutsche Grammophon |
| We hear the Bennewitz Quartet performing one of their favourite works, the dramatic and tragic 1st quartet by Bedrich Smetana, considered the father of Czech classical music. His 1st quartet was from late in his life, and he subtitled it "from my life", with autobiographical snippets of his life informing the four movements, In Smetana's own words:
"The first movement: the love of art in my youth, the romantic atmosphere, the inexpressible yearning for something that I could neither express nor imagine, but also a kind of warning of my future misfortune... The second movement, in the style of a polka, reminds me of the happy days of my youth when I composed scores of Czech dance tunes and was known as a passionate dancer myself... The third movement recalls the happiness of my love for a girl who later became my dear wife. The fourth movement depicts the realization of the power of national music; the joy that my chosen path leads to success, until the catastrophe brings everything to a brutal end; the beginning of my deafness, a look into a bleak future, a tiny ray of hope, but the memory of the beginnings of my career nevertheless continues to be painful." |
| String Quartet no. 1 in e minor 'from my life' Bedrich Smetana/Bennewitz Quartet - from my life - Coviello Classics |
| Ustad Imrat Khan was a master on the sitar and surbahar, the latter a specialty of his, which was not played by his brother Vilayat. Ustad Imrat Khan passed away in 2018, but his legacy is continued by his five sons including Irshad Khan who will be performing in Ottawa at the Music and Beyond festival next Friday (we will hear him on next week's show).
https://musicandbeyond.ca/tc-events/irshad-khan-ensemble-3/ |
| Raag Basant Mukhari - Alap & Jod Ustad Imrat Khan - Bahar of Surbahar - SCI |
| Bol Sarathy Korwar - More Arriving - Leaf Label |
Subscribe to David Dalle