Monthly Archives: May 2012

Russian composers: Part II

by Lourenço

Hello again!

Today we are back to Mother Russia to visit another great composer: Modest Mussorgsky. He was another one of The Five (the other I presented was Rimsky-Korsakov, remember?). He is most known for the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition and the piece for orchestra Night on the Bald Mountain. Both belong to my favourite classical pieces, and I hope you’ll understand why right away.

The latter was never performed during Mussorgsky’s life, with the better known version being an edition by Korsakov (him again, yes). Similar situations happened with both pieces, with Ravel (the guy of the Bolèro) making an orchestral version of Pictures and Konstantin Chernov a piano version of the Bald Mountain. As all 4 versions are amazing, I decided to post here all of them, so yes, this will be another enormous post :P

I’m usually not very fond of piano solo compositions, but both the original Pictures by the hand of Evgeny Kissin (no introduction necessary, I hope) and this version of Bald Mountain by the amazing Boris Berezovsky are extraordinary.

Just another note: the megalomanic Emerson, Lake & Palmer did a rock version of the whole Pictures at an Exhibition live. You can check it out here (it is pretty good, actually)

Oh, I almost forgot, here’s the customary playlist to anyone patient enough to listen to all this haha!

The Temper Trap

by pedroganco

Today I bring you another alternative/indie band.

Love lost

(500) Days of Summer

I discovered The Temper Trap in this lovely movie called 500 Days of Summer.

“It’s not a love story, it’s a story about love”, and I suggest all the broken hearts to see it.

Sweet Disposition

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Hot Shots!

by Nuno

Well, my friend Miguel seems to be on vacation, so the musical section has been stopped. I don’t intend to take his place, but I’ll make a post about a movie.

Hot Shots Charlie Sheen Valeria Golino Jon Cryer Lloyd BridgesI am  quite fond of laughing, which means that I love comic movies :P among many that I like, there are two that stand out – Hot Shots and Hot Shots Part Deux. These two comedies are parody films (like Scary Movie and others) that satirize Top Gun, Rambo, Rocky, as well as several others. It stars Charlie Sheen back when he was more known for quality acting than for smoking crack cocaine (yeah, it was a while ago!), Valeria Golino and Lloyd Bridges (totally love his performance!).

I won’t tell you the story, not to avoid spoiling it, but because it is the least important. The important thing is that you laugh almost constantly for 1 hour and 24 minutes, with few breaks for little romances!

Now the songs – firstly, the epic horse scene with Bobby Darin‘s Dream Lover

If you liked it, you can listen to Dion’s version, which is the version that I actually listen to.

And now The Platters with Only You

PS – if you watch both movies you will recognize two characters from Two and a Half Men (besides Sheen).