David DalleDavid Dalle on CKCU-FM 93.1 in Ottawa, Canadahttps://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ckcu.gifCopyright by Radio-Carleton, Inc.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/index.html2024-03-14T18:00:00ZDavid Dalle 2024-03-14: 30 for 30 with the double-reeds of Ustad Bismillah Khan and The Master Musicians of Jajouka! Also, just released Utsav Lal!https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64389.html2024-03-14T18:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64389.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Continuing my year-long celebration of 30 years on-air at the mighty 93.1 with a look at 30 of the most significant albums in my musical evolution. Today two albums which introduced me to my deep and abiding love of double-reeded instruments. Of course Western music has double-reeded instruments, most well known are most commonly orchestral instruments--oboe, bassoon, English horn etc. There are a number of more obscure double-reeded instruments in archaic folk European traditions, and of course there are the Highland bagpipes of Scotland. The orchestral instruments I knew and loved as part of the larger orchestra, I was unfamiliar with the more obscure folk instruments, and sure I love the bagpipes, but they are definitely niche. At CKCU there is a small studio adjacent to the on-air studio--guests and live music are sometimes in that studio. Back in the mid-90s it was also set up with a CD player and turntable and headphones, where volunteers could listen to the huge library at CKCU. As a Carleton student, I would spend hours listening to music from that library, and that is where I first listened to the Master Musicians of Jajouka's famous 1992 album "Apocalypse Across the Sky" on Bill Laswell's label "Axiom". The back of the album had the group sitting down at the entrance of a cave, with half the group playing drums and half playing the double-reeded ghaitas. The group has three different styles, either the ghaitas, or the lira flute, or singing and the stringed gimbris, all with the dense, powerful drums. There is also a women's group with women singing with drums. But the album opens up with the ghaitas, and what a revelation it was! These piercing, incessant, wailing instruments reach deep into your core and grab your spirit and bring you wherever they go. Musicians use a circular breathing technique which allows them to play the instrument continuously, forever it seems! Their endurance can be incredible. It is no accident that the ghaitas form the foundation of the most intense and powerful Sufi music in Morocco. They open the door to the divine and take you there! Just a few years after I first heard this album, I would make the first of two trips to Morocco, where I heard so much music, including the ghaitas. The ghaitas were like the pied piper to me, I would follow processions through the winding Medinas of Fes late at night helpless before them! I also got a chance to see the Master Musicians of Jajouka here in Ottawa at the Bluesfest, when it used to be much more adventurous.
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<BR>The other double-reeded album was another surprise for me. In the mid-90s I was already listening to Indian classical music and familiar with many instruments, listening to Ravi Shankar and Shivkumar Sharma and others. I would go to Vaishali's Super Store on Wylie Ave., an Indian grocery store just off Carling (it's still there, across from the Cineplex). Back then, they had hundreds of inexpensive Indian cds in no discernable order, and I would scoop up many of them. One album just had a headshot of an handsome Indian man wearing a Karakul hat, Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party "Shehnai Recital". I did not know what the shenai was (no smartphones back then!). There were no liner notes or pictures or descriptions of a shehnai. I took it home and started listening to it. The drones start with this double-reeded instrument, then the solo shehnai comes in with a long, sustained note. Such a beautiful, rich sound, I was mesmerized! The tabla join and this raga unfolds with interplay between the solo shehnai of Bismillah Khan and the accompanying shehnais of his party. The shehnai instantly became my favourite Hindustani instrument and I picked up every album of his I could. Bismillah Khan was the first to introduce the folk instrument shehnai into classical music, and he lived a long life (1916-2006), but I never had the chance to see him perform, and the shehnai remains an uncommon instrument in classical music. I have yet to hear one live in concert. But I listen to the shehnai all the time, and this first album I heard remains one of my favourites.
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<BR>These two albums are very significant. In the following decades I always sought out double-reeded instruments, from China, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran, Armenia, Spain, Italy, wherever I can find them. Let them pierce your heart too!
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<BR>The 30 for 30 albums we've heard so far (in order of appearance):
<BR>1. Lustmord "The Monstrous Soul" Side Effects
<BR>2. Ludwig Van Beethoven/Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan et al. "Symphony No. 9" Deutsche Grammophon
<BR>3. Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote" Realworld
<BR>4. Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski "Unchained" Dux
<BR>5. The Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar "Apocalypse Across The Sky" Axiom
<BR>6. Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party "Shehnai Recital" EMI India<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Master Musicians of Jajouka, Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party, Frederic Chopin/Geza Anda, Frederic Chopin/Sviatoslav Richter, Utsav Lal.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Mar. 14https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-03-13T18:00:00Z30 for 30 with the double-reeds of Ustad Bismillah Khan and The Master Musicians of Jajouka! Also, just released Utsav Lal!David Dalle David Dalle 2024-03-07: Iranian singer Maliheh Moradi's "Our Sorrow" which addresses the injustice women face in Iran today. Sarathy Korwar "Live in Mumbai".https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64294.html2024-03-07T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64294.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Iranian singer Maliheh Moradi studied tombak and singing from an early age and later attended the Tehran Conservatory of Music, where she studied with such musical titans as Shajarian, Parisa, Hossein Alizadeh and others. She is an accomplished classical Persian singer but she had to face the heartbreaking choice too many Iranian women are forced to make: her country or her freedom. Women are only allowed to perform publicly in Iran as members of an ensemble but there must be at least three females and one male singer present. And no one female can be heard over another, for that would be considered as displaying too much independence. She had no path open as a solo singer--the pinnacle of Persian classical music--in Iran, so she emigrated to the United States. She has since pursued her solo singing career. Her new album "Our Sorrow" is a collaboration with santur player and composer Ehsan Matoori. They delve into the difficulties, injustices, and contradictions of being a woman in Iran and created nine songs with beautiful, evocative poetry. An example is the ninth song "A Tale of Sorrow":
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<BR>"We reached the end without ever starting,
<BR>Our feathers scattered, without ever flying,
<BR>Forgive us, forgive us, oh luminous face of love.
<BR>Recognize me, I’m a sorrowful tale,
<BR>I’m a dark legend about a burdened night,
<BR>Bitter, gloomy, shattered, poisoned,
<BR>Oh friend! Have you recognised me? This is me.
<BR>We reached the end without ever starting,
<BR>Our feathers scattered, without ever flying."
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<BR>We will hear the album with some Persian and Canadian compositions mixed in.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Maliheh Moradi & Ehsan Matoori, Afarin Mansouri, Fjola Evans/India Gailey, Parisa, Anna Thorvaldsdottir/Nordic Affect, Sarathy Korwar.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Mar. 7https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-03-06T19:00:00ZIranian singer Maliheh Moradi's "Our Sorrow" which addresses the injustice women face in Iran today. Sarathy Korwar "Live in Mumbai".David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-29: Black History Month bonus Leap Day show: Florence Price Encore; part three of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Julius Eastman.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64202.html2024-02-29T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64202.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we have a bonus Black History Month show! This is only the 2nd time in 30 years I have had five programs in February, the last time was 1996! For this extra Leap Day show, we will have an encore of Florence Price with her 2nd Violin Concerto and part three looking at the music of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. I am also continuing my yearlong celebration of 30 years on-air with 30 of the most significant albums in my musical development, today with Julius Eastman.
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<BR>Price's 2nd violin concerto was composed in 1952 just a year before her unexpected death. It was never published nor performed and was unknown until it was found in 2009, in a collection of her manuscripts discovered in a home where she used to reside. Since then, it has been published and received several performances and recordings. We will hear a live recording made with violinist Randall Goosby with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Perhaps this work represents her late style--it is in a single, rhapsodic, movement, with many sudden and unexpected changes in mood and character. It must be wonderful for a violinist to play, and it is certainly wonderful to listen to.
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<BR>The third album by Baba Commandant is probably his funkiest, though still showing Afrobeat and 70's Mandingue influences all joining with traditional Burkinabé music.
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<BR>I first heard the music of composer Julius Eastman with a 2014 recording featuring two of his pieces, performed on four pianos by four Polish pianists and released on a Polish label--an unexpected source for one of the most obscure and fascinating American composers. Eastman was born in 1940 and lived an uncompromising life as a militantly Black and gay activist. This certainly made his life in the rarefied, almost exclusively white career of a contemporary composer very difficult. You can read and hear a lot more of his incredible music in my three part special from 2019:
<BR>https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41649.html
<BR>https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41770.html
<BR>https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41880.html
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<BR>His music was in the minimalist tradition, but it is perhaps the most maximalist minimalist music! Full of huge, thick textures from the four pianos, extremes in dynamics, power, and emotion. If we have time, we will hear both works from the album, "Evil N*" from 1979 and "Gay Guerrilla" from 1980. The former is music of seething, righteous rage, music for Black Lives Matter from 45 years ago! The latter is music of incredible strength and fortitude. This 2014 album is the most recent on my list of 30. When I first heard this album it took my breath away, I listened to these pieces constantly for weeks, opening up a whole new world of music.
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<BR>The 30 for 30 albums we've heard so far (in order of appearance):
<BR>1. Lustmord "The Monstrous Soul" Side Effects
<BR>2. Ludwig Van Beethoven/Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan et al. "Symphony No. 9" Deutsche Grammophon
<BR>3. Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote" Realworld
<BR>4. Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski "Unchained" Dux<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band, Pale Tioionte, Kambire Tiaporte, Da Gboro Ale, Orchestre Yamba Yamba Beto Ba, Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo-Emilia Sitarz, Bartek Wasik with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski, Florence Price/Randall Goosby, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 29https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-28T19:00:00ZBlack History Month bonus Leap Day show: Florence Price Encore; part three of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Julius Eastman.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-22: Black History Month: the Symphonies of Florence Price; When the sun goes out-music of unbearable beauty and spirituality.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64109.html2024-02-22T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64109.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we finish the cycle of Florence Price's symphonies with her 4th symphony composed in 1945. You can listen to her 1st and 3rd symphonies on the two previous shows. Her 2nd symphony is currently lost, though perhaps not lost forever. Her 4th symphony as well as many other unknown manuscripts were found in a house in Illinois in 2009 which Price had used as a summer home six decades before. I am so happy it was found, as this is my favourite of her three extant symphonies. It has thoroughly rich and dramatic orchestration, highlighting so many different instruments, demonstrating her mastery of the orchestra. It also features several Black spirituals interwoven in the symphonic texture. It definitely places her in the pantheon of major American symphonic composers. This recording, like the other two symphonies we heard, is by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Canadian conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin. They are coming to Ottawa and performing this symphony at the NAC on April 18th, however, it is sold out.
<BR>https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/33729<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Bill Withers, Florence Price/Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Ralph Vaughan Williams/Academy of St Martin In The Fields, Sir Neville Marriner, Johann Sebastien Bach/Pablo Casals, Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal, Kasse Mady Diabate with Toumani Diabate and Bassekou Kouyate, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 22https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-21T19:00:00ZBlack History Month: the Symphonies of Florence Price; When the sun goes out-music of unbearable beauty and spirituality.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-15: Black History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; part two of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64022.html2024-02-15T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64022.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>We continue this month's look at the symphonies of American composer Florence Price and Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. You can look at the playlists and listen to the two previous shows to learn more about them. Florence Price composed nearly 300 works. Sadly, her second symphony has been lost. Her fourth symphony, as well as many of her other works were only found in 2009 in a house which she used to live in, over six decades earlier, so there is hope her second symphony will someday be discovered. Today we will hear her third symphony. This work was completed in 1940 and is very different from her first symphony. Her first symphony was quite indebted to Dvorak's 9th symphony, but her third is more original and a bit more modern than the first. Its mysterious opening makes me think of Wagner's Parsifal, however it soon becomes her own music, rich in mid-century American imagery and is full of solos from various instruments. The second movement was described as "majestic beauty" in the Detroit Free Press after its premiere in 1940. The third movement, like in all her symphonies, is based on the West African "Juba" dance. The fourth a brilliant scherzo. This symphony is full of life, beauty, and drama. It is clear, she deserves a place as a significant American composer.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Florence Price/Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band, Yan Kuba Saho, Super Biton, Rail Band.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 15https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-14T19:00:00ZBlack History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; part two of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-08: Black History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; new music from Mali; African Cup of Nations finalists.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63919.html2024-02-08T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63919.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we will start a cycle of Florence Price's symphonies. Florence Price composed four symphonies and almost 300 works, including concertos, orchestral works, songs, and pieces for solo instruments. Price was born in 1887 in Arkansas and was taught music by her mother. She was a prodigious music student, performing piano at the age of 4 and composing by the age of 10. After high school, she attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She ended up in Chicago as part of the Great Migration north in the late 1920's. She continued her studies in instrumentation, composition, and organ, as well as other studies. In the 1930's she began achieving success as a composer, and her first symphony, composed in 1931-32, won a prize. It was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, becoming the first major orchestral work by a Black American woman performed by a major orchestra. This work is in a traditional Romantic idiom with four movements, and it was heavily indebted to Dvorak's 9th symphony which shares the same e minor key. Dvorak's famous work was composed in 1893 while he was director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. He had become familiar with Black American Spirituals from a Black student at the conservatory, the composer Harry Burleigh, who sang these Spirituals to him. Dvorak was convinced the true American school of music would come out of this Black tradition. He was also influenced by Native American music, which he found similar to Black American music, most likely in shared pentatonic scales. All these elements were developed in Dvorak's 9th symphony, and they are also present in Price's symphony. However, Price did add her own unique voice, such as the third movement (in all her symphonies) was a Juba, based on a West African dance with body and hand clapping, which was brought over during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and practiced on plantations. Price was well regarded, especially in Chicago, but she died in 1953 and her music fell into total obscurity. Many of her compositions, including her fourth symphony, were only discovered in 2009 in an old house in Illinois which Price had used as a summer home. Saved from oblivion, her rich quintessentially American symphonies are worthy of standing alongside those of other canonic American composers such as Aaron Copland.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Florence Price/Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Bounaly, Yelemba d'Abidjan, King Wasiu Ayinde Marhshal I, Fatai Rolling Dollar, Namian Sidibe.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 8https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-07T19:00:00ZBlack History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; new music from Mali; African Cup of Nations finalists.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-01: Black History Month with the first of a three part look at Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote".https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63824.html2024-02-01T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63824.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>During Black History Month we will be hearing from many Black artists, including a 3-part look at Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant (stage name for Mamadou Sanou). Baba Commandant was a singer and donso n'goni player. The donso n'goni is a 6-string harp, superficially similar to the kora, traditionally played by hunter societies in Wassoulou and Mandingo cultures in West Africa: Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Guinea. Baba Commandant had his own band which played a unique style fusing Afrobeat, Funk, 70's Mandingue guitar, and traditional Burkinabé Mandé music. Tragically, he died aged only 50 last November from malaria in his home town.
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<BR>We will also continue my look at 30 of the most significant albums for my musical development for my 30th year on-air at CKCU. Today we feature the great Senegalese drummer Doudou N'Diaye Rose and his astonishing 1992 album "Djabote". He leads 50 drummers and 80 singers. The power, richness, and beauty of this album took my breath away when I first heard it 30 years ago. It still does.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band, La Famille Dembele, Oumou Sangare, Djiguiya, Fulgence Compaore, Doudou N'Diaye Rose.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 1https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-31T19:00:00ZBlack History Month with the first of a three part look at Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote".David Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-25: Silent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango; Taraf Syriana, and more!https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63724.html2024-01-25T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63724.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>On today's show we will be looking at several Canadian albums which showcase how cultures move around, interact, and create something new. The first album we will look at is "Silent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango" by the Payadora Tango Ensemble. This 2023 album takes poetry mostly written during the 1990's by a group of women, all Holocaust survivors, and residents of Toronto's Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. It was a form of therapy for these aging women who experienced unimaginable horror in their youth. Some of the poetry is also by Molly Applebaum, who wrote a memoir based on her diary about being hidden in terrible and abusive conditions during the Holocaust in Poland. She emigrated to Canada in 1948 and is 93 now. I thought it was an interesting concept to set these poems to Tango music, but I had not realized that Tango music was very popular in Poland during the interwar period from 1918 until 1939. Polish Tango was mostly composed and performed by Jews, and had influences from Klezmer. This entire fascinating world was driven into oblivion by the Holocaust. Most of the music is by Canadian violinist Rebekah Wolkstein, but there are also some compositions by Artur Gold, one of the most popular composers of Polish Tango during the 20's and 30's. He was murdered in Treblinka in 1943.
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<BR>The other album we will focus on is by Taraf Syriana, an ensemble of musicians from Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Moldova and elsewhere. Most of them now reside in Montreal. Their self-titled 2022 album features a meeting of Arabic, Romani, and Eastern European music--mostly instrumental with a few songs sung by Romanian Dan Armeanca and Syrian-Canadian Ayham Abou Ammar.
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<BR>All this and a lot of other wonderful music!<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Payadora Tango Ensemble, Henryk Gold's Orchestra, Yiddish Glory, Pablo Ziegler, Taraf Syriana, Frederic Chopin/Robert Goldsand, Jerzy Petersburg/Mieczyslaw Fogg, Ali Jihad Racy & Simon Shaheen, Ahmad Al Khatib & Youssef Hbeisch, Gilad Atzmon Orient House Ensemble.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 25https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-24T19:00:00ZSilent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango; Taraf Syriana, and more!David Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-18: Yiddish Glory, lost Jewish songs of WWII, with guest Professor Anna Shternshis. Farewell to Rashid Khan.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63621.html2024-01-18T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63621.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>A special show today as I am joined by guest Professor Anna Shternshis, who is Professor of Yiddish studies and the director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. She was instrumental in recovering lost songs from Soviet ethnomusicologist Moisei Beregovsky, who wrote down hundreds of new Yiddish songs in the Soviet Union during WWII. These songs were written mostly by amateurs, Jewish soldiers in the Red Army, Jewish wives and mothers working on the home front, as well as refugees and survivors of Nazi terror in Poland and Ukraine. Beregovsky hoped to publish these songs after the war, but he was swept up in Stalin's 1952 anti-Jewish purges and sent to the Gulag, where he died thinking the songs were lost forever. In the late 90's, some unmarked boxes were found in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in Kiev. These contained mostly handwritten copies of the songs. Professor Shternshis and Russian musician and Slav expert Psoy Korolenko collaborated in the recovery of these songs. Some had music written, but most were just lyrics. Many of these recovered songs were constructed, sometimes using popular Soviet Yiddish tunes from the 1920's and 30's, and with a few interesting and unexpected choices like a song by Alfred Schnittke. Eighteen of these songs were recorded and released in the album "The Lost Songs of World War II" by the ensemble Yiddish Glory, in 2018. They will be performing these songs at the NAC Fourth Stage next Thursday, January the 25th.
<BR>https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/35483<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Yiddish Glory, Mieczyslaw Weinberg/Quatuor Danel, Ustad Rashid Khan, Anand Gopal Bandopadhyay, Jyoti Goho.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 18https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-17T19:00:00ZYiddish Glory, lost Jewish songs of WWII, with guest Professor Anna Shternshis. Farewell to Rashid Khan.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-11: In the Throes of Love, Sufi music from Sindh and Punjab, Bachhttps://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63533.html2024-01-11T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63533.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we will hear a lengthy set of music, bookended by the two sides from the 2022 compilation "Ishq Ke Maare - Sufi Songs From Sindh and Punjab, Pakistan". This compilation was compiled from 2013-16 in a variety of places: shrines, living rooms, and remote rural areas by Arshia Fatima Haq. It features Qawaali and other forms of Sufi music, mostly unknown musicians united in their desire for mystical union with God. "Often, the songs unfold into an organic recursion of longing, isolation, and despair, only to be redeemed by an almost erotic promise of union with the divine entity. The singers themselves are 'ishq ke maare' - in the throes of love." -Arshia Fatima Haq<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Ustad Aacher and Company, Kalyam Sharif Qawwali Troupe, Meeh Wasaiyo, Fatah Daudpoto, Jai Raam, Basheer Haidara and Nazira Bano, Johann Sebastien Bach/Alice Harnoncourt, Walter Pfeiffer, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Ramazan, Johann Sebastien Bach/Christopher Hirons, Monica Hugget, Catherine Mackintosh, The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, Shazia Tarannum, Babu, Sain Juman Shan and Fakirs, Ghulam Arshad, Unknown singer, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 11https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-10T19:00:00ZIn the Throes of Love, Sufi music from Sindh and Punjab, BachDavid Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-04: 30 for 30. Celebrating my 30th year on CKCU with 30 of my most significant albums.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63434.html2024-01-04T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63434.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>2024 marks three decades for me on-air here at CKCU! To mark the 30 years, over the course of 2024 I will be featuring 30 of the most significant albums in my life. Since these are albums which have been crucial to my musical development, they will be biased towards older albums.
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<BR>This week, we will hear from two of these albums. The first is from the Welsh electronic musician Brian Williams, who records under the name Lustmord. His 1992 album "The Monstrous Soul" was the 2nd album of his that I heard (the first being "Heresy" from 1990). I loved both albums, but, a sign that my show would be unusual, is that I used the entire 6 minute ominous, repeating opening track from "The Monstrous Soul" as my theme for the first six months of my show. It made more sense when the show began at 2am rather than now at 2pm, but we hear it today for nostalgia's sake!
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<BR>The main feature today will be one of my favourite works of music, arguably my favourite piece of music. I fell in love with Beethoven's 9th as a teenager. However, this is not that first, generic, recording of the 9th that I first heard, this recording is with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert Von Karajan. This was the first great recording of the 9th I listened to, and is still one of my favourite performances.
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<BR>There have been oceans of ink spilled about Beethoven's 9th, and I certainly can't summarize everything here! But I will comment on one less discussed aspect of the 9th symphony. Beethoven was a revolutionary, radical composer, and his 9th symphony was his most radical work. It is, without doubt, the single most influential piece of music in the last 200 years, but the 9th was and remains divisive among many music lovers. It is the radical choral finale, the infamous "Ode to Joy", which has split many listeners. Ironically, since the text of Friedrich Schiller's poem calls for unity and the brotherhood of man (I apologize, Schiller was an 18th century poet, it was standard to refer to all humanity solely in male terms). From its legendary premiere in Vienna, 200 years ago in 1824, the choral finale has divided listeners.
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<BR>This split has continued to the current day. In general, more conservative music listeners had trouble with the choral finale, while more liberal listeners found the choral finale to be the greatest moment in music. But here is the unusual thing--for most of those listeners who dislike the finale, almost all of them will sing the highest praises of the first three, instrumental, movements. For example, when I was working on my music degree, I had a professor tell me the first movement was a supreme example of sonata form, but the finale was terrible voice writing. This was a common complaint, how unnatural and difficult the vocal writing is (perhaps why Verdi did not like the finale). But what a bizarre complaint! The world of great music is mostly very difficult to perform as well!
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<BR>This odd situation has led to another strange story. A persistent myth has arisen that Beethoven had been seriously thinking of an instrumental finale instead of the choral finale. This suited the listener who thought the first three movements were perfection, but could not grasp the finale. This idea was made popular around 1850, when a viral pamphlet was published stating that Beethoven had intended an instrumental finale. I believe this had significant, unexpected, repercussions. For example, Brahms' first symphony, composed only a few years later in 1854, had a large dramatic finale with a main melody very reminiscent of the "Ode To Joy". I cannot believe that was an accident, that, at least subconsciously, he was "fixing" Beethoven's 9th with this instrumental end. To the most bold, open, and radical composers in the 19th century, Beethoven's 9th, particularly the "Ode To Joy", was an overwhelming revelation which set them on a path, not to compose derivative copies of Beethoven (like too many of Brahms' attempts), but to try and envision where Beethoven was headed. This included composers such as Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, and Bruckner. Beethoven had dreamed of setting Schiller's poem to music since he was a young man, and the music had already been preordained in his Choral Fantasia from 1808 (rarely heard, but wonderful, piece which sounds like a draft for the "Ode To Joy"), so it was hardly a whim that Beethoven composed the "Ode To Joy". So sit back, and be thrilled by the journey from the violence and drama of the first movement, the relentless Totentanz of the scherzo, the impossible, escapist utopia of the adagio, to all be rejected in the finale with the irresistible call to seize Earthly, real joy in this life! Beethoven's 9th.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Lustmord, Ludwig Van Beethoven/Janet Perry, Agnes Baltsa, Vinson Cole, José van Dam, Wiener Singverein, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan, Bara Gisladottier & Skuli Sverrisson, Msaki x Tubatsi, Ebo Taylor & The Sweet Beans, Nemours Jn-Baptiste, Kassav, Le Groupe Haiti Cherie, Bonga, Ali Farka Toure, Iftin Band, Franco et le TPOK Jazz.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 4https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-03T19:00:00Z30 for 30. Celebrating my 30th year on CKCU with 30 of my most significant albums.David Dalle David Dalle 2023-12-28: My favourites from 2023.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63354.html2023-12-28T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63354.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we are taking a look back at my favourite releases from 2023, and I know there must be so much great music I have missed. Here is the list in no particular order:
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<BR>-Frank Hovat/Odin Quartet "From Oblivion to Hope" I Am Who I Am
<BR>-Fanny Mendelssohn/Kristin Henneberg, Andreas Hartmann, Susanne Rasbach "Fanny & Felix" Mendelssohn Haus
<BR>-Kayhan Kalhor & Toumani Diabate "The Sky Is The Same Colour Everywhere" Real World
<BR>-Sissoko, Segal, Parisien, Peirani "Les Égarés" No Format
<BR>-Constantinople & Marco Beasley "Il Ponte Di Leonardo" Note1 Music
<BR>-Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily "Love In Exile" Verve
<BR>-Emerson String Quartet, Barbara Hannigan "Infinite Voyage" Alpha Classics
<BR>-Lubomyr Melnyk "The Sacred Thousand" Jersika Records
<BR>-Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru "Jerusalem" Mississippi Records
<BR>-Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Bjarnason "Atmospheriques" Sono Luminus
<BR>-Anna Thorvaldsdottir/Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Eva Ollikainen "Archora/Aion" Sono Luminus
<BR>-Derrick Skye "This Place" Independent
<BR>-Robert Goldsand "The Lost Recitals" Marston Records
<BR>-Galeet Dardashti "Monajat" Independent
<BR>-Pharoah Sanders "Harvest Time" LuakaBop
<BR>-Afarin Mansouri "Dancing with Love" Canadian Music Centre
<BR>-Mohammad Motamedi & Rembrandt Trio "Intizar "Songs of Longing" Just Listen Records
<BR>-Atlantis Jazz Ensemble "Celestial Suite" Marlow Records
<BR>-Hailu Mergia "Pioneer Works Swing (Live)" Awesome Tapes From Africa
<BR>-Frank Horvat/SHHH!!! Ensemble "An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene" Leaf Music
<BR>-Ali Farka Toure "Voyageur" World Circuit
<BR>-Ruiqi Wang "Subduing The Silence" Orchard of Pomegranates
<BR>-Igor Levit "Fantasia" Sony Classical
<BR>-Malleus Trio "On/Off" Independent
<BR>-Danish String Quartet" Prism V "ECM
<BR>-Alice Ping Yee Ho/Christina Petrowska Quilico "Blaze" Canadian Music Centre
<BR>-The Good Samaritans "No Food Without taste if By Hunger" Analog Africa<BR><BR>This broadcast featured The Good Samaritans, Malleus Trio, Plena Libre, Hailu Mergia, Sissoko, Segal, Parisien, Peirani, Kayhan Kalhor and Toumani Diabate, Constantinople & Marco Beasley, Afarin Mansouri, Galeet Dardashti, Mohammad Motamedi & Rembrandt Trio, Ruiqi Wang, Alice Ping Yee Ho/Christina Petrowska Quilico, Frederic Chopin/Robert Goldsand, Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily, Anna Thovaldsdottir/Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Eva Ollikainen.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Dec. 28https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2023-12-27T19:00:00ZMy favourites from 2023.David Dalle David Dalle 2023-12-21: Winter Solstice: A journey from darkness to light. Bach's final word and Busoni's answer.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63290.html2023-12-21T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63290.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we have my annual Winter Solstice program, which is a musical progression from darkness to light, echoing primaeval traditions which have passed on down through millennia. Humanity has always railed against the dying of the light with festivities, celebrating with food and music!
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<BR>This year, unusually, Bach will begin the journey from darkness with his final fugue from The Art of the Fugue. In his later years, Bach became interested in composing works which would be a culmination of his musical art. For choral music, it was his Mass in b minor; for organ music, it was his Clavier-Übung III; and for Bach, music science at its most abstract and theoretical, the Art of the Fugue, which had no particular instrumentation specified. The Art of the Fugue was the apotheosis of the central part of Bach's music: counterpoint and fugue. It was composed as 14 fugues and 4 cannons in d minor all using the same principal theme, exploring Bach's range of contrapuntal and fugal techniques in increasingly complex pieces, culminating in the final fugue. This final fugue is a quadruple fugue, meaning it has four themes which are used in separate, but linked, fugues. The first is the principal theme of the art of the fugue, appearing here in a slow, aching, searching fugue, which leads into the second fugue, a much quicker, insistent theme with dotted rhythms. This second fugue builds in intensity, rising until the third theme is announced, Bach's famous namesake motif, B-A-C-H, which, in German notation is B-flat, A, C, B natural, a wonderfully twisty chromatic theme. Bach used his motif many times, but most famously here, in his grand final fugue, it is presented most insistently, again building in dramatic momentum, towards what will be the fourth fugue, which combines the first three themes in the apotheosis of the fugue, by history's greatest master: the B-A-C-H theme plays as countersubject in the bass to the second theme in the treble, rising...
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<BR>...and there's the rub. Bach's greatest fugue stops in mid-phrase, unfinished. Even though I know it is coming, this abrupt ending still almost makes me gasp, it is nearly painful. This is why this work by Bach begins this year's journey from darkness. We don't know why it was left unfinished. In the manuscript, his son C.P.E. Bach writes that, as his father was working on this fugue, he died. However this claim is considered fanciful by modern scholars as the manuscript is in Bach's hand, and it is known that Bach's health and eyesight was failing in his final year, so it is extremely unlikely he was composing the Art of the Fugue on his deathbed. It has also been claimed that Bach purposely left the final fugue unfinished, as a challenge to future generations to complete it, but that strikes me as a completely anachronistic modern idea. It is most likely the simplest reason, Bach put the work aside, declined in health and never had the opportunity to return to it.
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<BR>There have been numerous completions of Bach's final fugue, but today we will hear the most extravagant and exceptional, Ferruccio Busoni's "Fantasia Contrappuntistica" from 1910. Busoni took Bach's final fugue and enveloped it in a massive fantasy, starting with a "Preludio corale" on the chorale "Allein Gott in der Hoh sel Ehr", Bach's final fugue only starts almost 10 minutes into the music. Busoni did not present Bach unaltered. He expands on the harmony in ways that did not exist in Bach's time, and adds new fugal entries so the number of voices changes from the consistent four of Bach's original. Busoni completed the third unfinished fugue of Bach's quadruple fugue, but instead of going right into the fourth fugue, he adds an intermezzo which he gives the dynamic marking "mystically". This is followed by three variations, then a cadenza, before leading into the fourth and final fugue of the quadruple fugue, followed by a hectic coda which brings the whole enormous edifice to an end. This has always been one of my favourite works, as it is for the wonderful pianist Igor Levit as well. It is the centrepiece of his new recording "Fantasia". He writes "For me this recording of the Fantasia Contrappuntistica represents the final destination of the journey that I have been undertaking in terms of my repertory in recent years... This piece is the utopian embodiment of Busoni's Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music--to that extent the idea of the freedom implied by improvisation remains tangible throughout the whole piece...These are works that can address questions of life and death because they use the piano as a medium, not just as a piano." Igor Levit's stunning recording matches his ambition, perhaps equaling John Ogdon's magnificent one. For Bach's original we will also hear Grigory Sokolov's peerless recording on the piano, an expansive and intense performance.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Johann Sebastien Bach/Grigory Sokolov, Alban Berg/Igor Levit, Ferruccio Busoni/Igor Levit, New Orleans Klezmer All Stars, The Pogues, Chucho Valdes, Grand Ballet de Martinique, Ara Ketu, Kekele, Itzhak Perlman with Brave Old World, The Klezmatics, The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra, Klezmer Conservatory Band.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Dec. 21https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2023-12-20T19:00:00ZWinter Solstice: A journey from darkness to light. Bach's final word and Busoni's answer.David Dalle