John Adams - Slonimsky's Earbox, for Orchestra

Ok, I understand that the static image placed on top of 13 minutes of music is causing major irritation with people. I've been flooded with demands to replace it with an image more representative of John Adam's evocative score.

Here's the result: http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/6640/alternatebackground.png

Happy listening!

Please watch in 480p: much better audio quality.
from Allmusic.com :

Russian-born Nicholas Slonimsky (1894-1995) was a well-known conductor, composer, musical theorist, and author. Perhaps his most lasting contribution to the world of music was as editor, for decades, of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. He also compiled The Lexicon of Musical Invective, a very humorous collection of negative reviews, sometimes quite vitriolic, that famed composers like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky received during their lifetimes. Adams got to know Slonimsky late in the latter's life in Santa Monica, California, and paid tribute to his memory in Slonimsky's Earbox, a quarter-hour work for large orchestra, that he composed in 1995 on a joint commission from the Hallé Orchestra and the Oregon Symphony. The work is dedicated to conductor Kent Nagano, one of Adams' most fervent champions, and was premiered by the Hallé Orchestra under Nagano's direction on September 12, 1996, at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

The particular aspect of Slonimsky's prodigious legacy that served as Adams' inspiration in this work was the book The Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. Although not one of Slonimsky's most famous efforts, it has influenced Adams in many of his compositions of the 1990s. Most of the musical material of Slonimsky's Earbox is derived from modal scales found in Slonimsky's compendium. In addition, Adams took some inspiration from the grand opening of Igor Stravinsky's Le Chant du Rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale), which is also very modal in its melody and harmony. Adams' composition is largely energetic and grandiose, combining some of the gestures of minimalism with the increasing contrapuntal complexity of his recent works and the sound world of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian music.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• John Adams
• Slonimsky
• Earbox
• Slonimsky's Earbox

[JETEYE2012]

Dude... whats with that stupid fucking picture on top of glorious music?

[Hamburgerphil]

@JETEYE2012 Who cares?

[adamsrj06]

@Hamburgerphil I care, it's really irritating

[Hamburgerphil]

@adamsrj06 I guess what I'm really getting at with the goofy picture is that the music by itself should suffice. Every youtube "music video" should feature obnoxious visuals, anything to make the 'viewer' become an active 'listener'. The sound is all that should really matter.

[AAceNo1]

@Hamburgerphil

I think it's fuckin' hilarious!

[bodinewilson]

That image is brilliant.  Ignore the philistines that claim otherwise.

[owencooper88]

@Hamburgerphil Or you could say it's the opposite of most videos on YouTube - i.e. they provide the visuals you want and overlay some obnoxious music.

[psyges]

The outrage over that photo is funnier than the photo itself

[stephencraigen]

I love both pictures. Just saying. Hell yeah motherfucker indeed.

[MuseDuCafe]

Ha Ha. ... the image, the music: no accounting for taste. Your choice is far less 'offensive' than many another image 'assigned / associated' with-to music.

Fun Exhumberant piece.

[slybear525]

please change that picture.

[KingKumaForever]

Random image? wtf take it off it ruins the music