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November 03, 2024
The Gaggle Music Club

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade op. 35. The work, inspired by the tales of the One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights), was composed in 1888. It is famous for its lush orchestration, exotic themes, and vivid storytelling, embodying Rimsky-Korsakov’s mastery in creating a musical world that feels both fantastical and deeply expressive.

The suite is structured in four movements, each evoking different stories and scenes from the Arabian Nights:

1. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship - This movement, with a majestic, sweeping melody, paints an image of the sea and the adventures of Sinbad. It introduces two key motifs: the stern, brass-led theme representing Sultan Shahryar; and a sinuous, solo violin theme representing Scheherazade.

2. The Story of the Kalendar Prince - This movement uses varied rhythms and rich orchestration to convey the tale of a wandering prince. It’s known for its mysterious and sometimes turbulent character, showcasing Rimsky-Korsakov's skill in depicting exotic narratives.

3. The Young Prince and the Young Princess - This lyrical, romantic movement contrasts with the previous ones, depicting a love story with flowing, tender melodies and delicate interplay between instruments.

4. Festival at Baghdad; The Sea; The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman - The final movement is lively and intense, revisiting themes from earlier sections to create a sense of culmination. The piece builds toward a dramatic conclusion as Scheherazade's story brings the sultan to spare her life.

Rimsky-Korsakov uses leitmotifs to enhance the narrative structure, a technique inspired by his contemporaries. The solo violin that symbolizes Scheherazade reappears throughout the piece, linking the movements and illustrating her storytelling abilities as she captivates the sultan with each tale.

Scheherazade uses vivid orchestration to blend Eastern-inspired melodies with Russian Romanticism.

00:52:08
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September 29, 2025
Monday Night At The Movies: "The Wicker Man" (1973)

Join Gagglers for "The Wicker Man"!
The screening starts at 3 p.m. ET sharp.
Share all of your thoughts, comments and criticisms on the Live Chat.

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September 28, 2025
The Gaggle Music Club: Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements. Completed in 1945, the symphony is one Stravinsky's most important late works. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Society, the symphony premiered on Jan. 24, 1946 at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Stravinsky himself.

Often called Stravinsky's “first American symphony,” the composition shows his neoclassical language at its most taut: sharp orchestration, motor-like rhythms, lean textures.

Although Stravinsky often denied overt programmatic meaning in his music, he later admitted that the Symphony in Three Movements was a “war symphony.” The first movement, for example, was inspired by newsreel footage of wartime scorched earth tactics. Its violent rhythms and jagged piano writing reflect mechanized destruction. The final movement was inspired by Allied military advances, including the crossing of the Rhine in 1945. The march rhythms and the relentless drive exude a sense of military ...

00:23:14
January 21, 2023
More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

Here at "The Gaggle" we have very little time for the "more Leftie than thou" school of thought--that's the approach to life according to which the only thing that matters is whether you take the right position on every issue under the sun from Abortion to Zelensky. No one in the world meets the exacting standards of this school of thought; any Leftie leader anywhere is always selling out to the bankers and the capitalists. The perfect exemplar of this is the unreadable Jacobin magazine. 

The other day I came across this article from 2021. It's a celebration of trade union power. And not simply trade union power, but the use of trade union power to secure political goals. Of course (and this is always the case with the "more Leftie than thou" crowd), this glorious, never-to-be-forgotten moment on the history of organized labor took place many years ago--in the summer of 1974 to be exact. Yes, almost half a century has gone by since that thrilling moment when the working-class movement of Australia mobilized and prepared to seize the means of production, distribution and exchange. 

Well, not quite. Organized labor went into action against...Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, the Voice; yes, Frank Sinatra. Why? What had Sinatra done? Sinatra was certainly very rich, and he owned a variety of properties and businesses. But if the Australian trade union movement were, understandably, searching for the bright, incandescent spark that would finally awaken the working class from its slumber there were surely richer, greedier, more dishonest, more decadent, above all more Australian individuals it could have discovered. Australia was never short of them. Rupert Murdoch immediately springs to mind. Why Sinatra?

 

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