Mr. Rogers Introduces Kids to Experimental Electronic Music by Bruce Haack & Esther Nelson (1968)

in Education, K-12, Music, Television | May 2nd, 2014


Exper­i­men­tal elec­tron­ic musi­cian and inven­tor Bruce Haack’s com­po­si­tions expand­ed many a young con­scious­ness, and taught kids to dance, move, med­i­tate, and to be end­less­ly curi­ous about the tech­nol­o­gy of sound. All of this makes him the per­fect guest for Fred Rogers, who despite his total­ly square demeanor loved bring­ing his audi­ence unusu­al artists of all kinds. In the clips above and below from the first, 1968 sea­son of Mr. Roger’s Neigh­bor­hood, Haack intro­duces Rogers and a group of young­sters to the “musi­cal com­put­er,” a home­made ana­log syn­the­siz­er of his own invention—one of many he cre­at­ed from house­hold items, most of which inte­grat­ed human touch and move­ment into their con­trols, as you’ll see above. In both clips, Haack and long­time col­lab­o­ra­tor Esther Nel­son sing and play charm­ing songs as Nel­son leads them in var­i­ous move­ment exer­cis­es. (The remain­der of the sec­ond video most­ly fea­tures Mr. Roger’s cat.)

Although he’s seen a revival among elec­tron­ic musi­cians and DJs, Haack became best known in his career as a com­pos­er of children’s music, and for good rea­son. His 1962 debut kid’s record Dance, Sing & Lis­ten is an absolute clas­sic of the genre, com­bin­ing a dizzy­ing range of musi­cal styles—country, clas­si­cal, pop, medieval, and exper­i­men­tal electronic—with far-out spo­ken word from Haack and Nel­son. They fol­lowed this up with two more iter­a­tions of Dance, Sing & Lis­ten, then The Way Out Record for Chil­dren, The Elec­tron­ic Record for Chil­dren, the amaz­ing Dance to the Music, and sev­er­al more, all them weird­er and more won­der­ful than maybe any­thing you’ve ever heard. (Don’t believe me? Take a lis­ten to “Soul Trans­porta­tion,” “EIO (New Mac­Don­ald),” or the absolute­ly enchant­i­ng “Saint Basil,” with its Doors‑y organ out­ro.) A psy­che­del­ic genius, Haack also made grown-up acid rock in the form of 1970’s The Elec­tric Lucifer, which is a bit like if Andrew Lloyd Web­ber and Tim Rice had writ­ten Jesus Christ Super­star on heavy dos­es of LSD and banks of ana­log syn­the­siz­ers.

While Haack­’s Mr. Rogers appear­ance may not have seemed like much at the time, in hind­sight this is a fas­ci­nat­ing doc­u­ment of an artist who’s been called “The King of Tech­no” for his for­ward-look­ing sounds meet­ing the cut­ting edge in children’s pro­gram­ming. It’s a tes­ta­ment to how much the coun­ter­cul­ture influ­enced ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion. Many of the pro­gres­sive edu­ca­tion­al exper­i­ments of the six­ties have since become his­tor­i­cal curiosi­ties, replaced by insipid cor­po­rate mer­chan­dis­ing. What Haack and Nel­son’s musi­cal approach tells me is that we’d do well to revis­it the edu­ca­tion­al cli­mate of that day and take a few lessons from its freeform exper­i­men­ta­tion and open­ness. I’ll cer­tain­ly be play­ing these records for my daugh­ter.

via Net­work Awe­some

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mr. Rogers Takes Break­danc­ing Lessons from a 12-Year-Old (1985)

Mr. Rogers Goes to Wash­ing­ton

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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When Neil Young & Rick James Created the 60’s Motown Band, The Mynah Birds

in Music | May 1st, 2014

The lega­cy of Rick James, who died in 2004, may be for­ev­er entwined with Dave Chappelle’s insane imper­son­ations and MC Hammer’s use of “Super Freak,” but there is anoth­er major star whose one­time asso­ci­a­tion with James has been obscured in music his­to­ry. I’m talk­ing about Neil Young, who once played gui­tar in a Toron­to R&B group called The Mynah Birds, the first most­ly white band signed to Motown Records in the mid-60s. The band’s lead singer? A young AWOL Amer­i­can sailor who went by the name of Ricky James Matthews, lat­er Rick James. Before James went full-on funk and Young invent­ed folk-rock, the two con­nect­ed in this pro­to-super­group that includ­ed, writes rock his­to­ri­an Nick War­bur­ton, “sev­er­al notable musi­cians who lat­er found fame with the likes of Buf­fa­lo Spring­field and Step­pen­wolf.” “It would be a gross over­sight,” writes War­bur­ton, “to view the group as mere­ly a foot­note to Rick James and Neil Young’s careers.”

It would also be a mis­take to con­sid­er The Mynah Birds a minor league out­fit. As you can hear above in “I’ve Got You In My Soul” (top), “It’s My Time” (above—co-written by Young and James), and “I’ll Wait For­ev­er” (below), this was seri­ous rock and roll, with a loose, garage-rock jan­gle and raw, soul­ful vocal melodies. The Mynah Birds were also, accord­ing to Jim­my McDo­nough, seri­ous show­men. McDo­nough describes their onstage pres­ence in his Neil Young biog­ra­phy Shakey:

The Mynah Birds—in black leather jack­ets, yel­low turtle­necks and boots—had quite a sur­re­al scene going…. Those lucky enough to see any of the band’s few gigs say they were elec­tri­fy­ing. ‘Neil would stop play­ing lead, do a harp solo, throw the har­mon­i­ca way up in the air and Ricky would catch it and con­tin­ue the solo.’

This is a far cry from the scruffy, earnest Young of Har­vest or CSNY or even the Les Paul-wield­ing jam-rock­er of Crazy Horse and his 90s grunge revival peri­od (and more recent Psy­che­del­ic Pill). But the folky leads in his gui­tar work with James’ band hint at his lat­er incar­na­tions.

Is it a stretch to imag­ine James fronting a band of white Cana­di­an rock­ers? Young remem­bers the dri­ven Amer­i­can singer—who crossed the bor­der to avoid his draft assignment—as “a lit­tle bit touchy, dominating—but a good guy.” He also told McDo­nough that James was drawn pri­mar­i­ly to the sound of the Rolling Stones, and brought the rest of the band around: “We got more and more into how cool the Stones were. How sim­ple they were and how cool it was.” James had them play “Get Off My Cloud” and “Satisfaction”—before the braids, cocaine, and sequins, Rick James “fan­cied him­self the next Mick Jag­ger.”

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the band, U.S. author­i­ties caught up with James, Motown shelved the tapes, and they were nev­er released. Discouraged—Young told MOJO Mag­a­zine in 1995—he “moved instead towards acoustic music and imme­di­ate­ly became very intro­spec­tive and musi­cal­ly-inward. That’s the begin­ning of that whole side to my music.” Young got in his hearse and head­ed for the States, James did his stint in the Navy, and the rest is, well, you know…. But the sound of The Mynah Birds lived on, per­haps, in at least one Neil Young song. His 1967 “Mr. Soul” with Buf­fa­lo Spring­field, below, is clas­sic six­ties rock and soul with a riff lift­ed right from the Stones.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Great Sto­ry: How Neil Young Intro­duced His Clas­sic 1972 Album Har­vest to Gra­ham Nash

Neil Young Busk­ing in Glas­gow, 1976: The Sto­ry Behind the Footage

See Neil Young Per­form Clas­sic Songs in 1971 BBC Con­cert: “Old Man,” “Heart of Gold” & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” Performed by John Cale (and Produced by Brian Eno)

in Music, Poetry | April 30th, 2014

I’ve only known a few peo­ple of Welsh her­itage, and most of them have, at one time or anoth­er, looked for a way to pay trib­ute to their com­par­a­tive­ly exot­ic ances­tral home­land. Some start going by their unusu­al vow­el-inten­sive mid­dle name; oth­ers sim­ply start read­ing a lot of Dylan Thomas. The Gar­nant-born Vel­vet Under­ground co-founder John Cale, who spoke no lan­guage but Welsh up until mid-child­hood, took it a step fur­ther when he record­ed 1989’s Words for the Dying, his eleventh stu­dio album. Though it con­tains a few short orches­tral and piano pieces, it has more to do with words than music — words writ­ten by Cale sev­en years ear­li­er, dur­ing and in response to the Falk­lands war, that use and re-inter­pret Thomas’ poet­ry, most notably his well-known vil­lanelle “Do not go gen­tle into that good night.”

At the top of the post, you can watch one of Cale’s live ren­di­tions of this piece, per­formed two years before Words for the Dying’s release with the Nether­lands’ Metro­pole Ork­est.

Just above, we have anoth­er, per­formed in 1992 at Brus­sels’ Palais des Beaux Arts. The album enjoyed a re-release that year, and again in 2005, mak­ing for anoth­er musi­cal vic­to­ry not just in the illus­tri­ous and adven­tur­ous career of John Cale, but in the equal­ly illus­tri­ous and adven­tur­ous career of its pro­duc­er, Roxy Music found­ing mem­ber, artist of sound and image, and rock musi­cian-inspir­er Bri­an Eno. Though col­lab­o­ra­tion has famous­ly put Cale and Eno at log­ger­heads, it has also led to this and oth­er cre­ative­ly rich results; their 1990 album Wrong Way Up, whose cov­er depicts the two lit­er­al­ly look­ing dag­gers at one anoth­er, gar­nered strong crit­i­cal respect and spawned Eno’s only Amer­i­can hit, “Been There, Done That.” And as for their team effort on Words for the Dying, need we say more than that it made the year-end top-ten list of no less a lumi­nary of alter­na­tive artis­tic-rock cul­ture than Cale’s one­time Vel­vet Under­ground band­mate Lou Reed?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dylan Thomas Recites ‘Do Not Go Gen­tle into That Good Night’ and Oth­er Poems

Antho­ny Hop­kins Reads ‘Do Not Go Gen­tle into That Good Night’

Dylan Thomas Sketch­es a Car­i­ca­ture of a Drunk­en Dylan Thomas

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Listen to “Brian Eno Day,” a 12-Hour Radio Show Spent With Eno & His Music (Recorded in 1988)

in Art, Music, Radio | April 29th, 2014

brian-eno-recording-studio

In ear­ly 1988, visu­al artist, rock pro­duc­er, and “non-musi­cian” musi­cian Bri­an Eno came to San Fran­cis­co. He’d made the trip to put togeth­er “Lat­est Flames,” a “sound and light instal­la­tion” using his own music and “tele­vi­sion as a radi­ant light source” to “cre­ate a con­tem­pla­tive envi­ron­ment.”  He cre­at­ed this con­tem­pla­tive envi­ron­ment at the Explorato­ri­um, a one-of‑a kind muse­um of “sci­ence, art, and human per­cep­tion” I remem­ber fond­ly from my own child­hood in the Bay Area (though alas, I did­n’t start going until just after “Lat­est Flames” closed). Dur­ing that vis­it, he spoke on Berke­ley’s KPFA-FM about his great admi­ra­tion for the very exis­tence of the Explorato­ri­um, which he thinks could nev­er have hap­pened in his native Eng­land, “too fussy” a coun­try to accept such an exper­i­men­tal insti­tu­tion. He also empha­sizes how much grat­i­tude he thinks Amer­i­cans should show for their pub­lic radio sta­tions like KPFA, which, in con­trast to the admit­ted­ly “great radio”-producing broad­cast­ers of the U.K., work more loose­ly, with greater cre­ative free­dom not sched­uled on “five-year plans.” It sure­ly did­n’t damp­en Eno’s appre­ci­a­tion for KPFA that he appeared dur­ing the sta­tion’s “Bri­an Eno Day,” a twelve-hour marathon of mate­r­i­al relat­ed to his work: music, music analy­sis, inter­views new and old, and even lis­ten­er calls.

This hap­pened dur­ing KPFA’s reg­u­lar pledge dri­ve, and as every Amer­i­can pub­lic radio lis­ten­er knows, pledge dri­ves hold out the promise of desir­able thank-you gifts to donat­ing callers. In this case, these entice­ments includ­ed items signed right there in the stu­dio, between turns at the micro­phone answer­ing ques­tions and chat­ting with com­pos­er-host Charles Amirkhan­ian, by Eno him­self. The auto­graphed Oblique Strate­gies decks run out first, and even after that peo­ple still call in with ques­tions about their ori­gin, their best use, and their future avail­abil­i­ty. They also (and Amirkhan­ian, and ambi­ent music expert Stephen Hill) have much else to ask besides, fill­ing the hours — those not occu­pied by pledge pitch­es, records Eno pro­duced, or the full length of his own Thurs­day After­noon album — with talk of the mean­ing of his inscrutable lyrics, the record­ing stu­dio as musi­cal instru­ment, the mak­ing of “Lat­est Flames,” his impa­tience with com­put­ers and syn­the­siz­ers, his rec­om­mend­ed Eng­lish art schools, and how ambi­ent music dif­fers from new age “muzak.” A fan could ask for no rich­er a lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence, even 26 years after it first aired — and few more enter­tain­ing lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ences than, toward the end of this long Bri­an Eno day, the man of the hour’s (or rather, of the twelve hours’) deci­sion to delib­er­ate­ly answer each and every remain­ing lis­ten­er ques­tion with a lie. You can stream all of KPFA’s 1988 Bri­an Eno Day above. It’s also bro­ken into nine the­mat­ic seg­ments at the Inter­net Archive.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Genius of Bri­an Eno On Dis­play in 80 Minute Q&A: Talks Art, iPad Apps, ABBA, & More

Bri­an Eno Once Com­posed Music for Win­dows 95; Now He Lets You Cre­ate Music with an iPad App

Bri­an Eno on Cre­at­ing Music and Art As Imag­i­nary Land­scapes (1989)

Watch Bri­an Eno’s “Video Paint­ings,” Where 1980s TV Tech­nol­o­gy Meets Visu­al Art

Jump Start Your Cre­ative Process with Bri­an Eno’s “Oblique Strate­gies”

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Hear Led Zeppelin’s First Recorded Concert Ever (1968)

in Music | April 29th, 2014

It’s Decem­ber, 1968. You’re a teenaged kid in Spokane, Wash­ing­ton, keen to see Vanil­la Fudge—or “The Vanil­la Fudge,” as the pro­mot­er calls them—at Gonza­ga University’s Kennedy Pavil­ion, and… what’s this? The open­ing act is “Len Zef­flin?” Who the hell is that?

Maybe you’re hip, like Bob Gal­lagher, who knew Jim­my Page from the Yard­birds and looked for­ward to catch­ing his new band. Maybe not. Maybe, like Ker­ry Whit­sitt, you’re hop­ing “the first band wouldn’t stay on stage too long.” You know how it is… open­ing bands….

But then Page, Plant, Bon­ham, and Jones take the stage, and like Jeff “Tor” Nadeau, you look around to find the house “uni­ver­sal­ly mind-blown” by “the most stun­ning and awe­some sound ever.” And like Ker­ry, you don’t “want them to leave the stage—ever!”

spokane68-ad

These then-teenage fans’ rem­i­nisces of this his­toric show, only the fifth of Led Zeppelin’s first U.S. tour, come cour­tesy of the Zep­pelin web­site’s descrip­tion of the mis­tak­en­ly billed “Len Zefflin”’s ear­li­est record­ed con­cert, which you can hear in its entire­ty above, thanks to an enter­pris­ing young stu­dent who brought his tape recorder.

The band’s first album—Led Zep­pelin—wouldn’t hit stores for anoth­er three weeks. The kids haven’t heard any­thing like this before: Bonham’s explo­sive fills, Plant’s high-pitched har­mo­niz­ing to “Page’s pipe-wrench riffs.” By the time Zep­pelin left the stage, Bob Gal­lagher and his bud­dies were “flab­ber­gast­ed.” And “when Vanil­la Fudge came on, they were so sleepy. It was like, after that, psy­che­delia was dead and heavy met­al was born, all in a three-hour show.” Poor Vanil­la Fudge.

The raw, two-track tape record­ing of that frigid win­ter show has cir­cu­lat­ed for thir­ty years in var­i­ous boot­leg forms, but it’s new to Youtube, new to me, and maybe new to you too. Lis­ten to it and see if you can’t con­jure some of those lucky audi­ence-mem­bers’ awe in that moment of dis­cov­ery, when heavy met­al was born from the blues. The full track­list of the show is below. For the full expe­ri­ence, see the Youtube page to read a tran­scrip­tion of Robert Plan­t’s between-song stage pat­ter.

01 — Train Kept A Rollin’ [0:00]
02 — I Can’t Quit You [2:32]
03 — As Long As I Have You (incl Fresh Garbage / Shake / Hush) [9:15]
04 — Dazed And Con­fused [17:52]
05 — White Sum­mer [27:43]
06 — How Many More Times (incl The Hunter) [34:31]
07 — Pat’s Delight [50:07]

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Led Zep­pelin Plays One of Its Ear­li­est Con­certs (Dan­ish TV, 1969)

Whole Lot­ta Led Zep­pelin: Live at the Roy­al Albert Hall and The Song Remains the Same–the Full Shows

Decon­struct­ing Led Zeppelin’s Clas­sic Song ‘Ram­ble On’ Track by Track: Gui­tars, Bass, Drums & Vocals

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Meet Carol Kaye, the Unsung Bassist Behind Your Favorite 60s Hits

in K-12, Music | April 28th, 2014

Car­ol Kaye: you may not rec­og­nize her name but chances are you’re famil­iar with her work.

Now 81, the lady has laid down some deeply icon­ic bass tracks in a career span­ning 55 years and some­thing in the neigh­bor­hood of 10,000 record­ing ses­sions.

Joe Cock­er’s “Feel­in’ Alright”?

The Beach Boys hits “Help Me, Rhon­da,” “Sloop John B,” and “Cal­i­for­nia Girls.” 

The theme song to The Brady Bunch?

Nan­cy Sina­tra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ”?!?

Holy cow, talk about some­thing to tell the grand­kids.

Her inter­view for a nev­er com­plet­ed doc­u­men­tary above left me with none of the melan­choly I felt on behalf of the under-rec­og­nized back up singers pop­u­lat­ing the recent film Twen­ty Feet from Star­dom. This may be due to some rock and roll gen­der inequal­i­ty. The girls far out­num­ber the boys in the ranks of back­ing vocals, where looks play an unde­ni­able part, at least when the band’s out on the road. Kaye’s con­tri­bu­tions occurred in the record­ing stu­dio. She appears plen­ty con­tent to have num­bered among an elite team of hard work­ing, clean liv­ing Los Ange­les ses­sion musi­cians.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, she was one of a very few women in the field, though girls, take note: her web­site has 115 play­ing tips for fledg­ling bass play­ers. Boys are free to take note too…

Now that you’ve “dis­cov­ered” this leg­end, may we sug­gest set­ting an hour aside to get to know her bet­ter in the longer inter­view below? Also make sure you see our relat­ed post: 7 Female Bass Play­ers Who Helped Shape Mod­ern Music: Kim Gor­don, Tina Wey­mouth, Kim Deal & More

Relat­ed Con­tent:

7 Female Bass Play­ers Who Helped Shape Mod­ern Music: Kim Gor­don, Tina Wey­mouth, Kim Deal & More

The Neu­ro­science of Bass: New Study Explains Why Bass Instru­ments Are Fun­da­men­tal to Music

The Sto­ry of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music His­to­ry in 8 Min­utes

Paul McCart­ney Offers a Short Tuto­r­i­al on How to Play the Bass Gui­tar

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, and cre­ator of the award win­ning East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Hear John Lennon Sing Home Demo Versions of “She Said, She Said,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “Don’t Let Me Down”

in Music | April 28th, 2014

John Lennon was an invet­er­ate archivist of sound and image, doc­u­ment­ing his life in what­ev­er medi­um he had avail­able to him and leav­ing behind acres of tape for friends and fans to dis­cov­er. Lennon’s tapes com­prise hun­dreds of hours of song sketch­es, full demos, con­ver­sa­tions, jokes, and, as Yoko Ono puts it in her intro to The Lost Lennon Tapes, some “pret­ty per­son­al stuff.” The Lost Lennon Tapes was a radio series that aired between 1988 and 1992, pre­sent­ing over two hun­dred hours of archival Lennon audio in 219 episodes. Host­ed by Lennon’s friend Elliot Mintz, the series gave lis­ten­ers an inti­mate look into John’s cre­ative process through demos like that above, a 1966 series of sketch­es that would become Revolver’s “She Said, She Said.”

In this record­ing, Lennon, alone with a jan­g­ly gui­tar, works out the now-famil­iar chord pro­gres­sions and vocal melodies of the song in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent iterations—and with some quirky lyri­cal vari­ants (“She’s mak­ing me feel like my trousers are torn”). We get to hear the song evolve in sev­er­al stages, from its boun­cy two-chord begin­nings to its final, East­ern-inspired form. The demo also pro­vides evi­dence of the song’s con­cep­tu­al ori­gins; in the first cou­ple ver­sions, you can hear Lennon sing “he said” instead of “she.” The “he” refers to Peter Fon­da, who inspired the song by freak­ing Lennon out dur­ing an acid trip, utter­ing what became the song’s first line, “I know what it’s like to be dead.”

Just above you can hear sev­er­al dif­fer­ent 1966 home demo takes of “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er,” with John singing over a lone elec­tric gui­tar. Lennon stops and starts sev­er­al times, then, at 1:55, finds his groove and plays the whole song through. Next, we hear a run-through with added Mel­lotron, that odd ear­ly pro­to-syn­the­siz­er that lent the final George Mar­tin-pro­duced ver­sion so much of its dis­tinc­tive sound. Final­ly, at 6:15, hear one of the very first demo record­ings of the song—a beau­ti­ful solo acoustic ver­sion record­ed in Alme­ria, Spain. In the promi­nent gui­tar, we hear the strange, ser­pen­tine chord pat­tern that gives the song such a haunt­ing feel. Lennon began com­pos­ing the song in Spain while film­ing his scenes for Richard Lester’s How I Won the War.

Paul McCart­ney once called Lennon’s “Don’t Let Me Down” a “gen­uine plea” to Yoko, inter­pret­ing the song as John say­ing “I’m real­ly just let­ting my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty be seen, so you must not let me down.” The Bea­t­les record­ed sev­er­al ver­sions of the song for the Let it Be ses­sions and released it as a B side to the “Get Back” sin­gle in 1969, though Phil Spec­tor even­tu­al­ly dropped the song from Let it Be. McCart­ney restored it to his re-release of the album, Let it Be… Naked, in which he stripped the songs of Spector’s stu­dio effects. Above, hear “Don’t Let Me Down” at its most stripped-down in a 1968 home demo. Just Lennon with his acoustic gui­tar, qui­et­ly strum­ming out his bluesy love tune, a stark con­trast to the scream­ing rock­er the song would become.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

John Lennon’s Raw, Soul-Bar­ing Vocals From the Bea­t­les’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (1969)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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German String Quartet Performs Vivaldi & Mozart in Delightfully Comical & Acrobatic Routine

in Music | April 28th, 2014

Mak­ing the rounds on the inter­net is this per­for­mance by the Ger­man string quar­tet Salut Salon. Fea­tur­ing Ange­li­ka Bach­mann (vio­lin), Iris Siegfried (vio­lin and vocals), Anne-Moni­ka von Twar­dows­ki (piano) and Son­ja Lena Schmid (cel­lo), the quar­tet knows “bet­ter than any oth­er cham­ber music ensem­ble how to seduce their audi­ence with pas­sion­ate vir­tu­os­i­ty, instru­men­tal acro­bat­ics, charm and a great sense of fun.” Above you can get your week start­ed by watch­ing them per­form a mash-up of Vival­di, Mozart, and Kurt Weill. And to keep your day going, you can always watch 2Cellos bang­ing out a ver­sion of Guns N’ Ros­es “Wel­come to the Jun­gle” and this 14-year-old girl play­ing a blis­ter­ing heavy met­al per­for­mance of Vival­di. Enjoy.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

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