Michael Tilson Thomas: Music and emotion through time (by TEDtalksDirector)
Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world. Or: the machines are in charge; I for one welcome our new cybernetic overlords.
From the description: “violinist Robert Gupta and cellist Joshua Roman perform Halvorsen’s “Passacaglia” for violin and viola. Roman takes the viola part on his Stradivarius cello. It’s powerful to watch the two musicians connect moment to moment (and recover from a mid-performance hiccup).”
The “mid-performance hiccup” has nothing to do with the musicians. The hiccup comes from the audience: some applaud in the middle of the performance, something that I’ve commented on before. In this case it’s worse than usual, because there was no between-movement pause to prompt the applause: the musicians went from bowed string to pizzicato and the ignoramus poseurs in the audience assumed it was the end. As good professionals, the musicians ignored the faux-pas and continued to play.
I’m not much for modern arrangements of baroque music (the description calls it Halvorsen’s when it’s an arrangement of Handel’s Harpsichord Suite in sol minor), but this is pretty good and playing the viola part on cello makes it more emotional.
The misattribution to Halvorsen instead of Handel, the emphasis on collaboration (duh, it’s a duo) as if it were novel, and the ignoramus poseurs: well, that’s TED.
