Hear three themes get made over!(Maybe a sneaky way to peek into an imagination like no other?)

You'll probably know the composer(s?) who created our themes -- and why I've made a group out of these themes

Norwegian Chamber Orchestra players (Per Kristian Skalstad, violin; Hanne Skjelbred, viola; Ole Eirik Ree, cello; Kenneth Ryland, double bass; Ole Christian Haagenrud, piano) delivered the second of our themes -- in an NCO chamber series called "Feel Good." [Watch on YouTube.]

(1) A familiar-to-us "Introduction" and "Theme" for flute and piano
(As we've heard, this stand-alone work gets a gorgeous "Introduction")

[Theme at 3;15] Alexander Korneyev, flute; Emil Gilels, piano. Melodiya, recorded in Moscow, 1958
[Theme at 3:01] Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute; Robert Veyron-Lacroix, piano. EMI, published 1959
[Theme at 2:46] Emmanuel Pahud, flute; Eric Le Sage, piano. Valois, recorded in the Salle de Châtonneyre (Switzerland), February 1994

(2) A theme for piano (+violin-viola-cello-double bass) quintet
(I've cheated and tacked on a "Variation" -- so we get to hear the piano!)

Alexander Schneider, violin; Michael Tree, viola; David Soyer, cello; Julius Levine, double bass; Peter Serkin (age 18), piano. Vanguard, recorded in New York City, 1965
Smetana Quartet members (Jiří Novák, violin; Milan Škampa, viola; Antonin Kohout, cello); František Pošta, double bass; Josef Hála, piano. Supra­phon-Denon, recorded in the House of Artists, Prague, Oct. 11-14, 1983
Berlin Philharmonic soloists (Guy Braunstein, violin; Amihai Grosz, viola; Olaf Maninger, cello; Janne Saksala, double bass); Yuja Wang, piano. Live performance, Salle Pleyel, Paris, Mar. 20, 2011 [from the Yuja Wang Archives]

Finally, (3) A haunting theme for string quartet --

Tokyo String Quartet (Peter Oundjian and Kikue Ikoda, violins; Kazuhide Isomura, viola; Sadao Harada, cello). RCA, recorded in Richardson Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, Sept. 19-22, 1989
Brandis Quartet (Thomas Brandis and Peter Brem, violins; Wilfried Strehle, viola; Wolfgang Boettcher, cello). Nimbus, recorded in the Concert Hall of the Nimbus Foundation, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, Wales, Mar. 2-3, 1994
Kodály Quartet (Attila Falvay and Tamás Szabo, violins; Gábor Fias, viola; János Devich, cello). Naxos, recorded in the Unitarian Church, Budapest, Oct. 8-11, 1991

by Ken

Anyone who happens to have kept tabs on these theoretically weekly posts knows that we're simultaneously immersed in an almost uncountable number of musical inquiries. Today I propose to begin cleaning up an unforgivable breach of Sunday Classics conduct. It dates back [link tk] to when I was taking note of the very musical transformations we're listening to "up-closer." But back then, I merely mentioned that we'd heard them all before and left it at that -- without providing so much as a link!

This isn't how we normally do business in this department. Wherever possible, I try to take advantage of our basic format opportunity: to actually hear stuff that comes up for discussion, or even just mention, not just yammering.


WHAT WE HEARD ARE ALREADY TRANSFORMATIONS --
NOW LET'S GO BACK TO THEIR "SOURCE" FORMS

The nature of those "sources" -- three songs -- is obviously how these themes have come to form a group. And as we hear them, we're also going to hear the final transformations that were wrought on them. I'm going to try to keep the chatter to a minimum, so it'll be (I hope) mostly listening and hearing.