I updated the blog entry about the Ravel work.
Boy do I feel stupid! :-/
But I’m always (nearly always, anyway) to admit when I’m wrong. I’ve grown weary of trying to pretend I don’t make mistakes. Okay, okay, I never really pretended very well anyway. And I also think it’s fine to be wrong sometimes. Or to hear wrong, which is what I did this time. And I continue to hear wrong every time I listen. But I wonder what would happen if I listened on bigger and better speakers. I wonder.
The playing, though, is amazing. It sounds incredibly mechanical and I can’t hear a single attack. To me the attack given a note adds some personality. So I hear no personality. I suspect that is the intention of the composer, although I can’t write to ask him!
I remember seeing something once on Ravel’s Bolero But the memory is extremely vague. Mostly what I remember is seeing a bunch of huge gears moving—or at least some sort of machinery—while the work played which is, of course, very appropriate to this piece, as it was inspired by a factory Ravel visited. Or so I’ve read.
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