New Style Old Style

Yeah , LJ old style is better than new style. I wanted to put up a couple more icons or avatars up but in the new style i could not find where to click on userpics to upload new avatars, and it flummoxed me , so i clicked on the drop down menu about feedback and clicked on having the old style back. Now i can see on my home page who has had birthdays etc.

There are facets about the new style i like but there are alot more facets of the old style i prefer. 

A Finlandian Morning

Some stirring music for a Sunday morning, and this time form a composer from the Scandinavian countries , and a nod to my Finnish Mate with the beard, Mestari, Sibelius and his tone poem Finlandia -

Finlandia, Op. 26 is a symphonic poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The first version was written in 1899, and it was revised in 1900. The piece was composed for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, as the last of seven pieces, each performed as an accompaniment to a tableau depicting episodes from Finnish history.

The premiere was on 2 July 1900 in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus. A typical performance takes anywhere from 7½ to 9 minutes.

A recurrent joke within Finland at this time was the renaming of Finlandia at various musical concerts so as to avoid Russian censorship. Titles under which the piece masqueraded were numerous, a famously flippant example being Happy Feelings at the awakening of Finnish Spring.

Most of the piece is taken up with rousing and turbulent music, evoking the national struggle of the Finnish people. But towards the end, a calm comes over the orchestra, and the serenely melodic Finlandia Hymn is heard. Often incorrectly cited as a traditional folk melody, the Hymn section is of Sibelius's own creation.

Although initially composed for orchestra, in 1900 Sibelius arranged the entire work for solo piano.

Sibelius later reworked the Finlandia Hymn into a stand-alone piece. This hymn, with words written in 1941 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, is one of the most important national songs of Finland (though Maamme is the national anthem). With different words, it is also sung as a Christian hymn (Be Still, My Soul), and was the national anthem of the short-lived African state of Biafra (Land of the Rising Sun).

Enjoy.

Pizzicato Five and Cornelius

More Japanese pop courtesy of the excellent Pizzicato 5 , and this groovy little number, Baby Love Child.

There does seem to be a very kitsch feel to their music and yet it works in spades. The sixties feel is all there and yet they imbue it with style, panache, and in all serious wanting to give you good foot tapping tunes.

Here is another sixties style groove, It's A beautiful Day.

. They make very happy music and we sure need some of that. Here, from the Made In The USA album is Sweet Soul Revue -

Also from the same stables, o to speak, is Cornelius and a track from the Fantasma album , Star Fruits Surf Rider -

Enjoy.

Flo on the Window Ledge

Flo likes looking out the window alot but sometimes even she gets tired of it.



That cannot be comfortable, can it?

Cornshucks

BBC Radio 4 had a great  music documentary on today about the forgotten blues singer Little Miss Cornshucks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042zsxx

. She was recorded by Atlantic Records' Ahmet Ertegun just for himself in 1943 years before he had a record label because he liked her voice so much. She had a little girl act, with her hair tied with a ribbon, an image that she carried over from her vaudeville days. She recorded on Chicago's Sunbeam label in 1947 and had been a major draw at the city's Club De Lisa by the time she was 18 in 1941. She also opened the Rhumboogie and also recorded on Miltone, Aladdin, Coral and Chess


Here she is doing the original of Try A Little Tenderness.

Little Miss Cornshucks from a 1951 Coral recording

Here is a version of So Long

And finally a good slab of blues called 'Cause I  Lost My Helping Hand.

Enjoy.