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Hello everyone and welcome back to where is the music podcast? In today's episode, I thought it was a good idea to open the stage to an element that is very often present in music. Possibly is.

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Present in every good piece of music, regardless the style.

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The country or of origin, this element that I'm talking about, is the mysterious, the mystery, the unknown. Obviously this is something that it's really hard to speak technically, but.

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If you have ever listened to.

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Artists not only musicians talking about the way they come up with their best ideas, very often it is hard to keep track or to, let's say, explain, rationalise practically, technically, how these.

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The ideas come and very often, at least a good portion of them would call some element of unknown, unknown or mysterious to join them and to help them.

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Going through their creative process, obviously again, I don't. I don't claim that I understand it and certainly I might say that in my own experience as a creative, as a composer, I have been.

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Let's say allowing more and more that element to be part of my activity and so perhaps this is something that when I hear it in the music.

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Play, play or study on the music that I listen to. I possibly recognise it and so the goal of today's episode would be perhaps to open the stage to these elements so that when you come across some piece of music that.

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Has a quality, an aspect of it that you quite that you don't quite understand your grasp or can't make sense to it. Perhaps that's this is where the the true interest, the true depth and and the interest in the music might be.

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So.

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Today I thought I was going to give you a few examples of where I found this element of mysterious myself. 3 examples from very different kinds of music, so I'm going to just open to.

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To say that this element of the mysterious possibly is an essential feature of this song that I then go into present.

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And.

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The reason probably why we find, or at least at least I find this element essential, is that as it doesn't allow us to quite grasp quite understand how it is, why is it there and why is it so?

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Fascinating, making, making it difficult for the listener to predict how a piece of music will develop.

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At the same time, it welcomes free and diverse interpretations, which is probably what good art is about. So the first example I'm going to present to you is.

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By a duo.

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Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter have recorded piano and saxophone album called 1 + 1 in 1997, released in 1997, and the opening number is called Meridian Woods.

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A self if you're wondering exactly what it is the dictionary says it's an imaginary. It's an imaginary spirit of the air which already tells a little bit what the music can be about, how much the mysterious element.

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Perhaps we'll.

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Will come in the reference. So on the title are to nature, spirit and probably the mystery is attached associated with that and also the Meridian. It's also a reference to perhaps a way of orienting ourselves.

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Within that mystery, so before we we listen to it and we continue maybe commenting I'm I'm going to.

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Play a little bit of the melody so when it comes out in the recording, you perhaps already can follow better and have a quite a better grasp of what I'm trying to accomplish here. So the melody goes like this.

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Seems like a very innocent and not particularly unique, so perhaps it would be good to set it into harmonic and limit context so.

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This is obviously just the beginning, let's say something about it. It's in 3-4. It's a very slow, dense tempo. It's possibly recorded by the duo even slower than what I'm playing right now.

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There is a sense of looseness and openness about it, and I actually noticed just right before starting this podcast today that it starts very similarly to another very famous piece of music.

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This one goes.

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You can tell there there is some sort of similarity, and for the Satie example there is without doubt an element of suspension, mysterious and.

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Yeah.

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Quite, quite the female, perhaps. So the the the saxophonist comes in when shorter comes in with this melody. After a bit of piano. But the piano has this very open kind of accompaniment.

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Right. It's just so.

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Undefined, ephemeral, regular, and yet.

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Unpredictable. It sounds like the there is a story being told, an ancient story that.

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The speaker, the saxophonist, is kind of tell us telling us, and we're going to listen to it in a moment. But I wanted to offer a couple of more of, let's say, keys for your listening.

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Uhm.

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Imagine you are about to listen to, let's say an an old person, an elderly, maybe man or woman, maybe a a grandfather, maybe a grand grandfather or grandmother that.

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Is telling one of those stories that no one really knows about are unfound. In the written records, and that only a few people know and that.

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It's kind of a luxury to have the opportunity to have someone who can tell that story and it's an ancient tale full of mystery and surprise, and he speaks slowly with perhaps.

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With a beautiful voice, but somehow unrefined, probably because of the age. Probably because.

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This is the kind of person that doesn't always maybe doesn't speak often, and perhaps when he speaks, it's not often paid attention to. But yet in this case there is.

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There is the.

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There is a very important story to be told, so there are refinement of of the voice meaning in this particular case, the saxophone is perhaps a clearer sign of the authenticity of.

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The voice. So the story, though this kind of story needs an introduction. So now prepare yourself as a listener. Let's make some some dark, perhaps light ups, a couple of candles.

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Let's be quiet for a moment or two, and let's prepare for a mysterious storytelling.

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This was Meridienne – A Wood Sylph, 1997 by Herbie Hancock at the piano and Wayne Shorter on saxophone. In the album from the album 1 + 1.

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Of course, there will be a link in the description of the of the episode. If you want to listen to the whole recording, and perhaps I recommend the entire album.

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So let's let's go.

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To our second example, this is from Franz Schubert, very well known.

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Piece it's it's the undaunted tenuto from one of his most possibly performed sonatas, the B flat major Sonata D960.

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It is particularly well known because of, well, we're going to discover one particular characteristics that makes this piece rather unique, especially considering the time which it was written.

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It was towards the very end of his life and there have been multiple.

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Occasions in which this particular movement has been associated to the composer, fear of death, or perhaps acceptance of its own mortality.

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So it is also in 3-4. It's possibly even slower fill slower tempo. There is though, no sign of any.

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Dense field. Any dense rhythm, if anything it's it feels like a slow March. Here we have. I'm going to play for you. The the the main theme.

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As you can imagine, it's quite it's quite tragic. This was the first. The first phrase just.

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8 bars. You can already tell if you didn't notice this before. You can already tell there is a strong element of solemnity. This is possibly given by the the long notes, but also the dotted rhythm.

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This.

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Type of type of rhythm that recalls a slow March.

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There is in fact a funeral atmosphere to this just to the melody on its own.

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Another element that might be.

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Worth pointing out before we talk about the mysterious aspect of this piece is the phrasing structure, meaning the sense of call and response that this melody is.

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Design with I mean the call.

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A response.

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And then another call another response.

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Another call.

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The response?

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Last call.

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Last response.

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This mechanism, which it seems to be rather.

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Built on a short motif, short phrases is like short call and a short response. There is there is a sense that every attempt to raise is being taken down right away. Just one bar after this happens already four times but.

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The next phrase we witness a different type of phrasing.

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This seems to be a whole rise. It's like the call to lift is now 4 times longer the phrase expands.

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And now we're going to have the response.

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How interesting the response is also of the same length. A much longer way to lift and.

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Similar similarly long way to go down again.

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It feels.

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The piece initiated started on short, perhaps almost hopeless cries of of help, and it has already developed with a much more dramatic and impactful and effective longer.

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Profound cry.

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And.

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Now we can possibly probably already the time to talk about the element of mysteries. Actually. Possibly there are two elements of mysteries in this.

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Piece the 1st.

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That I would point your attention to is that the same melody that we just heard.

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UM.

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Transforms.

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It's certainly so far it has been dramatic said.

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Profoundly tragic and now has will transform in something positive. Here's what I mean. It started tragically.

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And now it transforms in positive.

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Notice it's exactly the same melody, the same exact notes. It seems there is a sort of magic mysterious transformation happened in Schubert's world, and in Schubert style.

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This transformation is easily describable, went from minor to major. If you play, you know you know what that means. Every minor key has a relative major and.

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It is true that Schubert uses this sort of trick often, but in this case it's so interesting that the melody is.

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Surprisingly, exactly, exactly the same. And the transformation of something by fundamentally changing everything around the atmosphere, the tragic sense of of contending with.

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F Now it seems to be.

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I hope profound hope for transcendence and becoming becoming something new, perhaps, and this has been achieved by maintaining the melody itself, so the melody.

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Continues.

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OK.

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I'm going to I'm going to stop here because I don't want. I don't want to spoil. If you're listening, experience. If you don't know how it continues. And now finally, the most mysterious aspect of this piece, which as I was mentioning earlier is possibly the one characteristic that.

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Is unique to possibly all classical music and trust with the reason also why this piece is so well known.

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There is a suspense, sense of suspense and mystery that this andante has given. By the way, this melody is accompanied there is.

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A pedal note. It's a C# that travels through through the keyboard.

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Same note.

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Are different octaves and has this. I would say questioning rhythm there isn't really.

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March rhythm in it. You can't feel it whenever the less it's it's puzzling. It can't even be called a real accompaniment. It feels like this rhythm is a a soft sound from somewhere else, from a different dimension.

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So here is the result.

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Now the the Magic is complete. You if you're not familiar, you recognise already how strange and original and profoundly mysterious this music is.

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I mean, Schubert could have chosen so many more ways to accompany this melody. So for example.

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Please Schubert. Forgive me.

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Hang on.

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Uh.

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Could have done that. He could have done something else.

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Instead, he chose to be essential to play, to write the least amount of notes necessary to express.

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Just the sense of entering or participating. Be part of a separate dimension. I would say one can call it the spirit or the transcendental. Maybe the mysterious. This is probably the reason this left hand is probably the reason why.

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Umm.

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Many critics, and possibly even interpreters of this, associate this piece particularly work that particularly well associated connects us with a dimension of.

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Transcendence after all, if you think about it.

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The left hand goes from the same note, travels through three octaves on the piano from the low to the high end.

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Symbolically, what is best to what could be best to describe?

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Process of transcendence, meaning going, becoming, stopping being something terrestrial. A creature of earth and and entering spiritual space meaning lift up from what's.

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From what is down?

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Right, I know this is a bit perhaps philosophical, but I think it's very symbolically, quite powerful. So we're going to listen to this first page in the interpretation of the.

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And.

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Pianist Mitsuko Uchida. I'll once again, I'm going to link this recording into the description of the episode and.

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Now we're going to just listen to the first page, because it's quite a long movement. I encourage you to to take your to take the time to listen to it, cause it can be.

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Let's say revelating experience.

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How gorgeous, right?

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At next we are going to hear.

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A pianist that I.

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Probably shamefully did not really know about until quite recently this is.

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Pianist suggests American pianist called Roland Hanna, who has recorded quite a good deal. Good number of.

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Albums and is actually quite interesting. I found at least quite interesting because it seems to be very active as a soloist. As an original composer as well, and his style is quite different from let's say what we would normally associate with.

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American jazz piano he seems to be very open to classical forms and a virtuosic approach to the piano that it's not common. He's an incredible virtuoso performer and artist, so.

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UM.

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The song that I want to discuss a bit with you is called Perugia. It's a Perugia is actually the an Italian town in the in the countryside, in the centre of Italy, possibly known by Roland, Hanna and.

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Here I am just speculating because of the.

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Famous international jazz festivals that has been taking place there for many decades in in Umbria. Perugia is right there. So this tune, I.

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I fallen in love recently because the melody is gorgeous. There is a sense of.

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Unpredictability and nevertheless extreme lyricism and sweetness attached to it. It's I'm going to play it to you, but I really can tell you that there are so many moments of openness. In a sense, there is a.

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Looseness.

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Attached to this to to to the way these notes progress, it leaves a lot of space and phrases that seem kind of left unfinished. Let for the listener to complete in their imagination. It is one of those.

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It is. It is to me, or at least to my taste is perfectly inspired all the way through and.

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It is actually quite difficult to ornament or improvise, exactly because it is so crystally, let's say, conceived that changing anything seems to be quite a sacrilege here. Here how it goes.

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He plays it twice. I'm sure that if it's the first time you heard it, you're you're probably wondering why it's so short. I want it to be to be longer. We're going to listen to it really soon. But the reason why I find.

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This piece of music.

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Let's say so much associated with this idea of mystery is not in the melody itself, but in the fact that the composer has used a sort of introduction, perhaps better called.

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We better call a prelude, which is extremely mysterious, so.

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The introduction itself is what gives this melody profoundly mysterious dimension. There is a, once again, a questioning rhythm. Coincidentally, it's in 3-4 again today. It's all about 3-4. Apparently. There is also a sense of suspense and.

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There isn't any clear trajectory forward.

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There are probably something that we can call just waves of sound. There is a centre, there is a sense of instability coming coming through this is.

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How it goes?

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Etcetera. I'm sorry to interrupt like this.

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We're going to listen to to it in a few moments, but.

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How do you feel about it? I mean, isn't it doesn't need this very few introductory cord? Give a sense.

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Of profound, mysterious city mystery about it. The melody in itself seems to be a melody kind of a sweet, personal and lyrical intimate confession, but this introductory code gives a whole dimension of darkness and.

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And mystery, I think he realised that at least I can imply this because.

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The centre, the core of this music, as you will hear, is the improvisation that happens after the melody.

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Which is not a variation, or an ornamentation or a a.

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And.

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Let's say extemporary creativity around the chords and the melody is actually an improvisation over this harmony the F# harmony.

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And he goes in crazy places.

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Yeah.

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All of this very strong addition and but nevertheless very expressive harmonies are placed on top of this.

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Note the F#.

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You will hear.

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How some sort of the centre of mystery has been taken as a as a starting point for, I would say almost volcanic explosion of creative ideas. And once he's done with it.

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He comes back to the initial original, beautiful lyrical melodies that we heard already.

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So this is Perugia by the pianist Roland Hanna. I will link this as well. And with this, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say goodbye. Thank you for listening. For tuning in to where is the media podcast? I look forward to.

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Read some of your comments about it and to the next time, then bye.