Russian Composers: Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Glinka

Today, I'm going to talk about Russian composers (and try not to mention the biggies Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.)

For me, Shostakovich means his violin duets. They are remarkably different from his atonal pieces like his first violin concerto and violin sonata op.134. All the Shostakovich I've managed to hear live in the past were from second-half concerts (you know, when the first half is a famous piece like Brahms' first symphony, and the second half is a less well know one.) I don't know why programmers always put Shostakovich as the end tag piece, or why they always put in the less interesting jazzy pieces of his where those trippy tone rows just play with your mind and you lose track of any melodies present. Hence so far all the pieces I've heard by him are those gloomy, restrained, dissonant ones, as if they all have potential to be great works but his editor majored censored it or something.

It wasn't until I looked through the 2nd hand music books sale at my music school when I discovered Shostakovich's real talent. Actually at that time my knowledge for duet pieces was so limited that when I wanted to duet with someone and they asked me 'what do you want to play' I would always reply with 'err.. Bach double violin?' So I was on a hunt and thank god I found Shostakovich. Here's the Three Violin Duets performed by Perlman and Zukerman:



They just sound so beautiful and sophisticated. The melodies and simple and harmonies and clean. The mastery of the players' techniques just make it all the better.

Stravinsky. When anyone says that name, images of Russian dolls and Polish dancers/yodellers in their dresses come to my mind. This man works MAGIC with wind instruments. His pieces are very psychedelic too, but it sounds more like a frustrated classical era musician improvising and trying out new things. The classic structures and forms of the classical era are definitely still present. Hence the hidden tonal and harmonic quality that comes out in bursts. When I say bursts, I mean that word in every way. Stravinsky's identity is the use of pushing notes beyond the bar lines; he tries to fit in notes so that they are bursting out from the set rhythmic frame. To me, he seems less concerned with phrasing, and sometimes is quite abusive when it comes to rhythms (he always uses a staccato rhythm for bars and bars on end).

Two of my favourite pieces by him are his Violin Concerto (especially the 4th movement), and a piano piece called Petroushka.


Played perfectly by Gil Shaham (there's an ongoing debate between me and my friend on whether Perlman or Shaham plays better, haha). Listen to the opening wind instruments. I don't think any other writes so well for winds in orchestral piece. (Okay maybe Rachmaninov does.)


See the abusive rhythms? It's like a more tonal version of piano bashing. But Kissin bashes it very well :)

Just a little bit on Glinka. Honestly I haven't heard enough of his pieces to gush about technical things, but I have heard his Ruslan and Ludmila Overture, which I love very much. I'm going to see this piece next month together with the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in one concert, and I can barely contain my excitement! It's lightning fast, and just makes me feel so.. jubliant (lol). Can't believe that people at the time hated it when it just came out.



That's it folks! I'll be back with a French composers post (most likely to be talking about Debussy, Ysaye and Satie!)
xxx

London Fashion Week Days 1 & 2 - bringing back British Fashion + Minimalist influences

Before I start, I'd like to thank all my readers that are reading my posts!

I'm at home home today, but when we were driving we past the glorious Somerset House all done up for LFW.

In the doom and gloom of a weather, the building itself looked horrid, but somehow the Mondrian windows worked, and the sheer number of fashionable people around the area was enough to light up at least that part of London. When we were passing Waterloo Bridge I seriously considered stopping the car by to just observe the amazing street fashion. After only around 10 seconds of observation, I have reached the conclusion that London fashion as perceived by the public is very much focused on retro British fashion. You have the 60s glamour, 70s high waists, 80s colours and 90s grunge. ALL coming back.

All hail British Fashion.

Mind that these are the umbrella stereotypes; everyone added their own little thing to stand out from each other.

People love recreating that chic look that Britain in the 60s are so well known for. A walk down Brick Lane and the style is blatantly located there. If done correctly and you have enough vintage pieces, you could really look like you came out of a page of a magazine at the time:

(pic taken from Vintage Fashion Week website)

I'll skip the 70s as I'm not a massive fan on high waisted pants (being short in height myself), but the 80s style was very dominating. Nowadays people go for colour. The wilder the better. Under influences from emerging designers such as Jeremy Scott, who skillfully locks mad colours and sporty fashion into his pieces, people are bringing back the 80s dance attire: big sweatshirt, jazzy shiny leggings, bright zip ups. The colours are more sophistcated than the classic neons, but the influence is clearly visible. 

The recreated 90s looks comes from the oversized sweaters/jumpers, contrasting collars, clunky big shoes (doc martens, platform sneakers), high neck shirts, printed T shirts, velvet. And I think most iconic pastel colours. Log yourself onto Tumblr and see for yourself people's obsession with dip tyed hair in all colours. It's a brilliant look that wraps in individuality and fantasy. Very trippy but it works. 

(pic taken from romanceisboring.tumblr.com)

(pic from f-a-s-s-h-o-n.tumblr.com)

British fashion is proudly being worn again. I think the advancement is probably the newish embrace of equality of men and women, and influences from modern Asia. Women proudly wear men's styles such as from the Kooples or Ralph Lauren. Japanese grunge and lolita fashion are also widely present. 

So, what's on the runway?

Surprising, it's minimalism. From all the decades. 

At least so far.

As I mentioned in a past post, people are finally recognising the sense of comfortable fashion, earth/metal colours and a general downgrade from extravagance and art nouveau details. Let's take a look at some walks from Friday and Saturday:

J. JS Lee

Clean clean clean. Everything about this collection is clean, washed down, simplistic, nude. When I look at this, it's like I've returned the the mid-90s. Look at the hair as well, so neutral and bare. Very "clean cut and distinctively grown up", as depicted by the Telegraph. What I love is the geometric look, almost architectural, no cliche contouring of the woman's body, ie waist, bum, chest, etc. The pieces drape down the sides like the sides of a rectangle. It's not at body hugging, but creates a clean cut, structural silhouette. Check out the last black dress though, looove the little ruffle down one side. Would love to get my hands on those!

Jasper Conran

Glorious 60s. Knee length bell shaped skirts/coats. 60s was when any sort of minimalist ideas all began. Twiggy's trend for short hair, clean contours to the face are all here. These metallic shifts are beautiful, even though they look a bit heavy to wear.

Zoe Jordan

The bell shaped silhouette is so evident here. Overall minimal shape, but the details of the fabric seem highly detailed. There are some chiffon, embroidery and every snake skin motifs. Some pieces look like wool and tricot too.

House of Holland

Helloooooo 70s!!! Before I analyse anything, check out those amazing flare leggings. It feels like if I went to GAP in the 70s I would find the top 3 looks on the mannequins. Absolutely loving this orangey red and the high waist tailoring. The original bell bottomed pants seem even more exaggerated to emphasize on the influence.

Maria Grachvogel

I can't exactly pin point what period this is from, but it is definitely an upgrade from classic minimalism. The silks and draped dresses spurs a French style. I love that red maxi dress and how it hugs the legs so closely. I'm glad that they cleaned the hair to make the horizontal shoulder line stand out even more.

Lastly,
PPQ

Even the 40s are back. Completely perfectly with the wavy glamour hairstyles. This is REAL vintage, but everything is done better. Better quality fabrics, better sleekness, better contouring. Clothes back the in the 40s almost reshaped and redefined women, but this collection kept it so that the girls define the clothes with their figures and movement.

So, that was days 1 & 2 of London Fashion Week. I'll be back tomorrow to update on day 3. And I promise to do more personal posts as well.

In the mean time, I need a get myself a new pair of sunglasses and a 20s head hugging hat.

Also, I'm getting my hair done at Jones & Payne tomorrow. I managed to book a slot for getting my hair re tinted and re cut (it's dying at the bottom..) Shouldn't look too different, but I'll post some pictures if I do take them!

Alsoooo my haul clothes are drying up from the wash. I should be able to blog about that really soon!

xxx

Joshua Bell and BRUCH!

I just bragged myself cheap tickets to Joshua Bell's Bruch Violin Concerto concert in April at the Cadogan Hall in London!

I've seen him performing it on Youtube (lol) and have only been dreaming that one day I'll be able to see him play it live. And voila!! Luck is on my side this year! (I've noticed how lots and lots of bands are all coming to London around these months, including classical instrumentalists, modern musicians, and all those indie bands, hip hop groups out there that are actually good. I've book myself quite a lot of these concerts already, hurting my wallet and oh my gosh will they be good :D)

Anyways, here's nice picture of Joshua Bell and a nice full recording on the beautiful piece!

My photographs are live on Tatler.com!

http://www.tatler.com/bystander/events/2012/february/lse-fashion-show#/

Photos 10,11,12,13,14 and 15.

I'm so extremely happy, the deadline was MAD like, they wanted the best-resolution ones around 10 hours or so after the show ended. You might be thinking, it doesn't take that long to load the pictures off your camera to your computer and send it via dropbox, does it? But, it's not that simple; selecting out of around 900 photos and adding some lighting to it so that it wouldn't look so dark was all part of the procedure. (Also I had my bitermly assignment due that week too.. eeek.)

Now all the designers from the show want the rest of the photos. But keep in mind that they want pictures to show off their clothes, so I need to closely observe each picture and see if the fabrics are well presented. Which takes time. A LOT of time. Hence I'm currently suffering from exhaustion hence my moaning tumblr posts etc.. (also, London Fashion Week is around the corner which means explosions of urgency and frustration in the industry's blogsphere which make things even more catastrophic..)

Anyways, deadlines aside, the event and shooting itself was crazily fun. I shot mine without a tripod, and with the lighting being different in almost every walk, my mind had no time to think about how to set my camera and my arms and back were aching like hell. But this is the best I could do in that circumstance!

Also, if you are annoyed with the harsh flash shadow in the background, I'm sorry about that and SO AM I. But the room was wooden and very dark so it was the best I could do!

Luba Koroleva

Andrew Provost

Raphael Bosquet

Kiran Nyotta

Raphael Bosquet

Lucia Pflueger and Lisett Luik

I've realised that quite a lot models were non British, maybe it was just the LSE, but a lot of them were Central European or Slavik. No judgment, just an observation. 

And I'm sorry that my pictures seems to have a bias for this Raphael Bosquet guy. Actually I sent around 20 pictures of both girls and guys of all races, and they just decided to pick these people out of my pictures. Not that I'm complaining of course, he's quite hot in real life (they all are!)

READ!!!!!!!!!!!!: I'm going to do a longer post about this show with all the rest of the pictures, which will be better in quality. I took these pictures from the website, and they actually cropped a lot of them from their original sizes. Also, this one Asian girl (she's the 1st picture in the set on the website) looks EXACTLY and walks EXACTLY like the Chinese model Du Juan. Like, TWINS. So I have to gush about her and also Asians in the modelling world. Therefore I'm not YET done with this topic yet!

Plus I'll be blogging a lot next week since it's LFW! wooo!
xxxxx

minimalist style + music

I'm on a roll today!!

I've just been blog hopping (and getting confused with this Google+ thing) and on everyone's blogs people post pictures of themselves and styles etc. I don't want to be vain, but maybe I should start doing that too..

Sooooo

I dedicate this post to my recent hype (actually my style has changed AGAIN) on minimalist styles.
Sorry for my face harhar..

I love the comfortable look that minimalism creates. By minimalism, I don't mean black and white, or primary colour blocks like Mondrian paintings, but just single pieces with either block colours or patterned fabrics. Being a mathematician, I have an obsession with patterns, finding patterns and creating patterns. Sequences, order, form, shape, space, depth, anything related to that field I would boldly and proudly wear. The white shirt I'm wearing in No.3 has a lace back, gorgeous pattern and completely see through. I'm a big fan of Japanese prints and it took me a whole half an hour in the scorching heat of the backstreets of Kyoto to look for the perfect geta (wooden clogs) for myself.

I'm a great great fan of Alexander Wang, if you're not familiar with his 'T' label, I suggest you check it out right now:
http://www.alexanderwang.com/shop/womens/t-by-alexander-wang/

I love how all his designs are block colours, no fancy printed patterns, but if you go up close, he mixed different fabrics and strange cuts here and there to build on the simplicity. He's very body conscious, all his pieces are chic and sleek. Yet very comfortable, very practical. Even if he does do patterns, it'll be geometric or use a few very basic shapes.

In one of my favourite interviews of him, he said: 'I'm not here to reinvent the wheel. Humans have two arms, two legs, and a head. You need to have clothes that fit that body; you want to look attractive, and you want to look like you can walk out of the door and not trip.' This quote basically sums up my current idea of fashion: to look beautiful, but feel comfortable and confident in wearing it. Check out the interview here:



Here are some designers to look out for if you share an interest in the minimalist field:

Kai Kuhne:

Bernadette Penkov:

Helmut Lang:

Okay, just a little bit more about minimalist music..

Again, huge fan. Notably Steve Reich, Michael Nyman and Philip Glass. I was lucky enough to be able to perform a choral piece written my Michael Nyman at the Southbank several years ago. It was absolutely crazy, humming octaves etc, but the effect was amazing.

Steve Reich.. if you know me personally, I would have ranted to you about his music at some point. I went to see his works performed live at the Barbican several months back, and saw him personally perform the Clapping Music right in front of my eyes. Here's the empty stage on the day:

My favourite pieces from Reich has got to include 'Different Trains', and also the less well known 'Violin Phase'. Watch this video, and if you can work out what is going on, cookie for you :)



Right now though, my style has developed into a liking a second hand clothes (I dislike the word vintage, it's so overrated), more precisely second hand clothes from my mum's times. But I like it with a touch of modernism, for example an old jumper with old leather pants but with platform shoes, bright headband, fringe bag etc. So for the retro part, washed out colours, pastel colours, old shirts men used to wear, thick jumper, lots of wool, lots of faux fur. Update about my recent very cheap second hand/vintage haul @ The Rag Factory and Thrift Store East End tomorrow I promise!!

Okay! i think that's enough posting for today :) goodnight world from London! xx

music and workkk

I'm so glad I managed not to post on Valentines Day. I just never want to think too deeply about my love life, it depresses me really.

BUT, yesterday I did attend the Valentine's Day concert at the Royal Festival Hall to indulge in some lovey-dovey music. The programme was Rachmaninov: the 2nd piano concerto and the 2nd symphony. An introductory leaflet correctly wrote 'Rachmaninov means romance.' The number of couples present also added a matching atmosphere which made things work.

If you know me personally, you will know that I dislike symphonies, but have soft spots for Beethoven, Lalo, and HUGE soft spots for Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. Also, Rach 2 being my favourite piano concerto for around 3-4 years now, I had been planning for sometime to see a live of it on Valentine's Day.

I won't go into depth about the concert (but if you haven't heard the piano concerto yet I highly recommend Evgeny Kissin's version [see end of post] *he's coming to London on the 2nd gush gush*), but I've got to take a moment and congratulate the London Philharmonic's performance of the 2nd Symphony. Normally that piece drives me to sleep, even though I understand why it's considered one of the best symphonic works of our times, but it is 1 hour long and if it's not deafening like Beethoven's 9th Symphony I can't see how any audience can get through the entire thing without feeling drowsy at some point.

The sound of the 1st movment was so overwhelmingly sweet it was hard to stop having stills from Audrey Hepburn films popping into your mind. As the whole symphony was written to express Rachmaninov's recovery from depression and writer's block, it was perfect for me because currently I want to forget some things and move on. I really FELT the 3rd mvt, the violins did a brilliant job.

Anyways, I can go on for years about music, but I've got to get back to my maths..
Also, my photos I took for my uni's fashion show MIGHT be appearing on the next issue on Tatler 8D really looking forward to that (but of course it's not a guarantee because there are 4 other photographers' works from which the magazine can choose from..)

A little update on my uni life: Maths is getting so difficult beyond anything I'd imagined. I'm starting to think whether I should post some questions on this blog just in case a genius happen to drop by and answer it for me...

Anyways, enjoy the discounted Valentines chocolates today! xx


The 1st movement is so perfectly written, I literally cannot find one fault in it



Here's the entire symphony in HD. Listen to the sweet melodies from around the 7:40 mark :)

Japan (captured shakily on an Apple product..)

I'm working on my Japan photos I promise.
I've got thousands so I need to filter it down (which is taking some time), but I took some nice ones using my iPad, which I thought I'll share for now :)