Thursday, April 8, 2010

Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Music of the Night"

So, this has got to be one of my favorite pieces of all time, both to play on piano and to listen to.  Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote this for the The Phantom of the Opera play, later put into a movie.  It's not a difficult song to play (at least, not at the level I learned it - I'm sure there are many more difficult versions, and probably a few easier ones), but it sounds magnificent.  It starts off quietly, then builds and builds in a shattering crescendo, and then ends just as quietly as it began, but with incredible majesty and delicacy throughout the song.  I played this at a talent show in junior high, and the entire school loved it.  It's one of those songs that just sounds amazing, even if you don't play it perfectly.  I usually play it a bit off-tempo, simply because I think it sounds better - I leave some notes hanging too long and others too short.  Really, though, each piece of music is individual not only to the written sheet music, but to the performer.  Each performer adds a bit of his/her own personal style.  And this song allows you to "ad lib" some of it and still sound really good.

Note: I'll have the video up soon, and I'll add some more commentary then, but I'm having technical issues with my camera and can't seem to get videos from it to my computer.  Once I have the video up, I'll point out some of the sections that I thought were easy or hard, the sections that sound good when you play them a certain way (or bad when you play them a certain way), etc., etc.
So, see you soon, and thanks for reading!

No comments:

Post a Comment