TheGaggle
Politics • Culture • News
Our community is made up of those who value the freedom of speech, the right to debate and the promise of open, honest conversations.

We don't agree on everything but we never silence our followers and value every opinion on our channel.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
The Gaggle Music Club: Isaac Albéniz’s "Iberia"

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Isaac Albéniz’s Iberia. Written between 1905 and 1909, during the composer's final years of life, "Iberia" is a towering masterpieces of piano composition. The work consists of 12 pieces grouped into four books. Though rooted in the musical idioms of Andalusia and indeed of Spain a whole, "Iberia" was composed while Albéniz was living in Paris and Nice.

As Albéniz’s health deteriorated during the composition of this work, he was supported and encouraged by a circle of French musicians, notably Debussy and Dukas, who admired his synthesis of Spanish folk idioms with French impressionist techniques.

Born in 1860 in Catalonia, Albéniz was a child prodigy pianist who gave his first public concert at age four. By the time he was nine, he was performing internationally. His early career was marked by spectacular virtuosity. After studying at the Leipzig and Brussels conservatories, he later moved to Paris, where he came under the influence of French composers such as César Franck, Gabriel Fauré and Debussy.

Each of the 12 pieces in Iberia is a portrait of a Spanish region or town, imbued with dance rhythms, folk tunes and evocative harmonies. Iberia marks a culmination: It fuses the celebration of Spain that was such a notable feature of earlier works such as Suite Española with a cosmopolitan harmonic and formal language. In Iberia, Albéniz achieved what few nationalist composers did: the transformation of regional idioms into universal, forward-looking art.

Iberia is a masterpiece of piano composition. Debussy said it was "more Spanish than Spain itself." Manuel De Falla called Iberia "the greatest Spanish piano work of all time." It became an emblem of Spanish musical identity. Iberia also set new, demanding technical standards. At first, many considered it unplayable due to its complexity. Over time, it was recognized as a monumental achievement. Critics now place it alongside the piano music of Debussy, Ravel and Scriabin for innovation and expressive depth.

In this performance from Aug. 19, 2000 at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Daniel Barenboim celebrates his 50 years on stage with a solo-recital as in his first appearance as a 7-year-old boy

00:43:04
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
The Gaggle Music Club: Carlos Chávez's Sinfonía India

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Carlos Chávez's Sinfonía India (Symphony No. 2).

Carlos Chávez (1899–1978), one of the leading figures of Mexican 20th-century classical music, composed Sinfonía India in 1936 while working as a guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

During the 1920s and 1930s, 30s, the Mexican government actively promoted a new national identity. Artists such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros glorified indigenous heritage in murals; composers such as Chávez and Silvestre Revueltas did the same in music.

Chávez, as conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, was at the center of this cultural nationalism, believing Mexican music must not only adopt modernist European styles but reflect indigenous and folk traditions. Chávez sought to integrate indigenous music, pre-Columbian rhythms, and Mexican folk material into modern classical forms.

Chavez conceived Sinfonía India as a single-movement symphony, as a...

00:13:51
TG 1952: Endgame In Bosnia And Herzegovina?

George Szamuely talks to Stefan Karganovic of the Srebrenica Historical Project about latest events in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and the serious crises that are coming to the boil in both countries.

00:54:51
TG 1951: Europeans Try To Trap Trump Into Escalating In Ukraine

George Szamuely discusses the latest maneuverings on the part of NATO's European members as well as the media to try to force President Trump's hand into escalating in Ukraine.

00:44:24
The Gaggle Book Club: "The Hitler Of History: Hitler's Biographers On Trial" By John Lukacs

Each week, The Gaggle Book Club recommends a book for Gagglers to read and—most important—uploads a pdf version of it.

Our practice is that we do not vouch for the reliability or accuracy of any book we recommend. Still less, do we necessarily agree with a recommended book's central arguments. However, any book we recommend will be of undoubted interest and intellectual importance.

Today's book club selection is "The Hitler of History: Hitler's Biographers on Trial" By John Lukacs. Published in 1997, Lukacs's work is not another biography of Hitler; rather, it is a work of historiography, an account of how historians, journalists, politicians and even novelists had tried to interpret Germany's most calamitous leader. Lukacs examines why some saw Hitler as a nihilistic madman, others as a cynical opportunist, others as an ideological fanatic, others as a master politician, others as the embodiment of modernity and others still as a throwback to barbarism. Lukacs argued that Hitler’s place in history is ...

The_Hitler_of_history___Hitler_s_biographers_on_trial_--_Lukacs,_John_--_New_Ed_edition,_April_18,_2002_--_Weidenfeld___Nicholson_history;_Orion_--_9781842125243_--_09b30345ce428a1faa610352c8f94570_--_Anna’s_Archive.pdf
Monday Night At The Movies: "The Night Porter" (1974)

Dear Gagglers:

Monday is, and has always been, a profoundly depressing day. That's why we have decided to add a little bit of fun to it.

On Monday, Aug. 25, we are holding another film screening. Gagglers can watch a movie and, as they do so, offer comments, random thoughts, aesthetic observations and critical insights in the Live Chat.

We will be screening another one of the runners-up in The Gaggle's "films about someone living under a fake identity" poll: Liliana Cavani's troubling "The Night Porter," starring Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling.

The film will starts at 3 p.m. ET sharp.

See you at the movies.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071910/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1

17 hours ago

Russian aircraft industry still in dire shape and no solution in sight. No wonder they are interested in Boeing.

Mishustin - Grefu: You killed the Russian aviation industry - you revive it!

Changes are coming in the aircraft industry, but without an industrial revolution, they are unlikely to be useful

Alexey Peskov

https://svpressa.ru/economy/article/478674/?utm_source=finobzor.ru

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?

 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals