Preparing for Halloween!

Personal

Preparing to drag my sorry ass upstairs to bed…beside a woman who’s been stuck with less than she deserves.

Been digitizing music and videos. Right now I’m listening to a music album while digitizing a video. The video? Disney’s Fantasia 2000. Walt gets credit for the original. For 2000 the credit is Roy’s. I’ll write more about the video as the weekend progresses.

 

Mephisto 1

 

For now, though, the music alone. The album is titled Mephisto, and it features Eiji Oue leading the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra. Works included are…

  • Liszt: Mephisto Waltz
  • Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain (also in Fantasia)
  • Liadov: Baba Yaga (a Russian witch, who’s featured also in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition)
  • Franck: The Accursed Huntsman
  • Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (in both versions of Fantasia)
  • Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre
  • Arnold: Tam O’Shanter
  • Strauss Jr.: Lucifer Polka

 

Great stuff! Highly recommended, both for the compositions themselves and for these particular performances/interpretations. Listen to the compositions while waiting for trick-or-treaters!

 

Each to her or his own, of course. But my suggestion would be first to listen to the compositions; then, if you don’t already know the content they reference, read about that; finally, with eyes closed and imagination open, listen to the music again.