Author: Don

Some pianistic fun from Jakob Ludwig F.M. Bartholdy.

I don’t have a translation, but I doubt that you really need one.

Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman weren’t the only keyboardists of note back in the golden age of prog rock. There was Rod Argent, for instance.

James Huneker: “I never thought I should live to hear Arnold Schoenberg sound tame, yet tame he sounds—almost timid and halting—after Ornstein who is, most emphatically, the only true-blue, genuine, Futurist composer alive.”

My father liked marches and played lots of recordings of pipes and drums and John Philip Sousa. I got sick of them. Nevertheless, this medley did catch my ear, and years later I tracked it down.

I could easily post all of Gentle Giant, and perhaps I eventually will. They were the best of all progressive rock bands (you can disagree, but you’re wrong), and of course I never heard them on the radio. This is from Three Friends.

Giacomo Rossini is best known for a series of overtures and the operas that accompanied them. Late in his life he wrote several sets of small-scale pieces collectively known as “Péchés de vieillesse,” or “Sins of Old Age.” These included a variety of playful piano music. Years later Ottorino Respighi orchestrated a number of the latter as the score to the ballet La Boutique Fantasque. Instead of picking out individual sections, here’s the whole thing.

Who is the best guitarist no one has heard of? One possibility is Kyoji Yamamoto of the Japanese band Bow Wow.¹ The vocals are exceedingly average, but that doesn’t matter when Yamamoto shuts his mouth and plays. “Silver Lightning” is from their 1977 second album, released a year before Van Halen’s first. If you’re impatient for pyrotechnics, skip to 2:35.

There were two Kaleidoscopes, one American, one British, both on the borders of psychedelia and prog rock, each very different from the other. This song is from the wacko California ensemble that gave the world David Lindley.

From the Swedish-speaking region of Finland. The translated lyrics are here.

The barcarolle is to Fauré what the nocturne is to Chopin.

Featuring Stevie Coyle: “Fortunately, not even several years of playing Folk Masses every Sunday could quash his musical spirit….”

Metal is timeless, and every age has its version. Distorted guitars are helpful but not essential. Attitude is what matters.

An innocuous little set of variations on a simple tune, performed by the pianist who kick-started the Alkan revival a half-century ago.

From the first Klezmer album I ever bought, with a cover by R. Crumb.

“The Funky Western Civilization” may be the obvious choice for Tonio K., but I like this one, too.

The “Chant de Roxane,” from Karol Szymanowski’s opera King Roger, transcribed for violin and piano by Paul Kochanski.