This post isn’t a normal one. In some ways, it isn’t a post for Musicolunia. Maybe I should have written it in Englunia or my Persian weblog, 5th Movemement. Anyhow… I feel a little strange. I have a Danish friend, Elora, whom I found her exactly because of that Muhammad cartoons. She’s such a lovely person, I like her characteristics, being really open minded and one thing I like a lot, (as it appears to me, and in a way I like) being crazy!
Her father had cancer, and he died tonight. I knew that would come sooner or later, but this feeling is a strange one. I haven’t seen her. We’re kilometers away from each other. We are of two different cultures, and yet I regret for the way she feels now.
This post’s music is exclusively for Elora. It’s from Stravinsky’s Fire Bird suite, the last part, Final Hymn. And from the 1945 version, conducted by the composer himself.
Stravinsky wasn’t a great conductor, but he was able to make orchestra play what he wanted his music sound like. So his recordings of his works are the exact way he wanted them to be performed.
Fire bird suite, a very revolutionary work, was the first of ballets which made Stravinsky a famous and leading composer. The original version was written in 1910 and he made two revisions in 1919 and 1945. I’m not going to write much about the piece in this post, as it needs a more complete series of posts.
Anyway, in my imagination, the Final Hymn is Hope. It may not be that one Stravinsky thought of for the ballet scene, but I like to think of it in that way. Small sparkles of hope shines, and then strengthen. They grow and get stronger and stronger, but suddenly fogs of uncertainty and indeterminacy come and fill the whole atmosphere, but at last the light comes out even stronger and hope wins the battle!
That’s it, Stravinsky’s Fire Bird, Final Hymn, 1945 version, as performed by Columbia Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer… for dear Elora.