In the 1970s a group of Italian animators produced a terrific film that borrowed the premise of Disney's Fantasia - animated sketches set to classical music. This is taken from that film (which I highly recommend).
Valse Triste literally translates to 'waltz sad', and the sketch is indeed one of the saddest cartoons I think I've ever seen. It never fails to choke me up. I made up the name 'The Melancholy Cat' for this sequence because it fits. A cat wanders through the ruins of his former home after, apparently, a nuclear holocaust. As he walks from room to room, he remembers the life and good times that once existed there. At times, he gets so wrapped up in his happy memories that he almost forgets that they are indeed memories and that all has been lost.
quote:In the 1970s a group of Italian animators produced a terrific film that borrowed the premise of Disney's Fantasia - animated sketches set to classical music. This is taken from that film (which I highly recommend).
One of the most exciting developments on the internet in recent years has been the advent of YouTube. Videos on every subject imagineable can be found there, and it's no surprise that musical performances make up a big chunk of the offerings. Indeed, you can find thousands of contemporary videos as well as tons of old film or tape footage of classic performances.
What's difficult is finding rare videos in high quality, and that's what I've been posting here. You can click any of my links and crank the volulme up LOUD, and so long as your sound card and stereo equipment are up to par the quality will be excellent if not superb. From the history of this thread, it's obvious that there are lots of us who love music, so I'd like to request that anyone else who stumbles across a classic, high quality video anywhere on the net please stop by here and post a link so the rest of us can enjoy it.
This one goes back to 1973 and probably the most recognizable performer of our time (that is, of course, if you've seen him at least once before). He's absolutely amazing, and his keyboard wizardry has had a profound influence. I think today's hip-hop deejays owe a debt to him, and by extension to Jimi Hendrix.
...I've purchased the three DVD box set the BBC sells which contains this performance.
I don't know which country EvC is actually hosted in but putting copyrighted material like this on it might cause Percy some problems if he's really unlucky.
Edit: I don't know anything about YouTube - maybe they've entered into some agreement with the BBC that makes this ok?
Edit2: I just looked up in Wikipedia and YouTube apparently prohibits posting copyrighted material - so that OGWT video shouldn't be there in the first place. Not surprisingly the Wiki article comments that copyright policing has proved hard for them.
Edited by MangyTiger, : Added afterthought.
Edited by MangyTiger, : Added check on afterthought!
quote:I don't know anything about YouTube - maybe they've entered into some agreement with the BBC that makes this ok?
I've wondered about that too, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that there's a dispute between the BBC or anyone else and YouTube. There may be, but there are also existing court rulings that make a clear distinction between hosting illegal content and simply linking to it.
Maybe one thing YouTube has going for it is that the videos are not downloadable; all you can do is watch them. But if Percy has a problem with these links I'll gladly stop posting them.
AbE: I did some searching and found that there is indeed a dispute going with YouTube, but oddly enough it isn't with any major publisher. It's with an individual, the guy who made the Coke / Mentos fountain video that made the rounds a few months ago. He had posted it on another site and was collecting ad revenue from the viewings but lost money when the file was quickly copied to YouTube. He's now suing them.
So it looks like that's going to be the area where YouTube might have trouble, at least for the short term. I can't find anything about a legal battle with a heavy-hitter like the BBC or an American record label. YouTube's policy states that it will remove any posting of copyrighted material whenever requested by the holder of the copyright. That may prove to be their saving grace.
In any event, there's no question that hosting the content and linking to it are two completely different things. During the Napster controversy even Time magazine posted links on their website and provided "getting started" instructions on how to use it. A lot of newspaper websites did the same thing, some of them - like Time - owned by media conglomerates.
Crooks & Liars posted this as the Late Night Music entry for tonight. I love a good violin concerto and this is one of my favorites. Even if you're not crazy about classical music, you should treat yourself to this. Oistrakh's performance is amazing.
Yesterday is the most covered song (over 3,000 covers?), but Summertime has by the more interesting covers. It's a kind of part time hobby of mine to collect Summertime covers (if only in my mind ). Some of my favourites are:
Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald Janis Joplin Sam Cooke
There's also an instrumental version by John Coltrane which I haven't got to hear yet, plus about 3,000 others.
There's also an interesting song by Eminem called Rock Bottom, which, although not a cover of Summertime, alludes to the song by referencing the unmistakable guitar riff from Janis Joplin's cover.
'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
My favorite versions of Summertime are the Janis Joplin and the Billie Holiday.
I don't know what the most covered songs in history would be, but I know of a couple I'm sick of hearing covered: Feelings, originally (I think) by Albert something or other and Hero, aka Wind Beneath My Wings (Gladys Knight had the best one, and even it was kinda weak).
Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.
The classic Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem is re-told by one of the greatest hard rock bands of all time. Although whole sections of the original poem are used in the lyrics, in order to tell the complete story much of it had to be condensed. Even so, the original album track ran to nearly 14 minutes, and this video is broken into two parts. A very short section from the original record, wherein the death of the crew members after the dice game between Death and Life-In-Death is recounted in some detail, has been deleted. It would have fallen between the two parts.
). Some of my favourites are:
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