Black Swan

http://youtu.be/5jaI1XOB-bs Darren Aronofsky shows the dual nature of life as portrayed by the black swan in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Ballet. He suggests that the search for perfection may not always be healthy for people. But, it has resulted in an almost perfect film where Natalie Portman is great and has earned the best actress award in 2011. She is well supported by Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel and Winona Ryder. The background score of Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky is magical and surreal.

The Last King of Scotland

I have seen it yesterday. Forest Whitaker fully deserves the best actor Oscar. This film is based on the events during 1971 to 1978 during the regime of the Ugandan ruler, Idi Amin. I have seen some pictures of Idi Amin Dada and some videos too and I am impressed by Whitaker's get up and performance. Nice direction by Kevin MacDonald. The film covers scenes from the perspective of Amin's personal physician, Dr. Nicolas Garrigan, a Scottish doctor, played admirably well by James McAvoy. The support roles of Gillian Anderson and Kerry Washington are also adequate enough. The film covers events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's regime as seen by his personal physician during the 1970s. The music by Alex Heffes is effective, particularly during the torture scenes of Dr. Garrigan at the airport. Most of the film is based on the experiences of a young Scottish doctor who becomes a confidante of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Dr. Garrigan sees Africa as a young enthusiast who is bored of his life in Scotland. He considers it an adventure in Uganda - a playground of experiences. He falls for the charisma of Amin and he is totally oblivious to the atrocities that were being committed in Uganda.

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3

The third piano concerto of Beethoven holds an important place among all piano concerti. Beethoven had given credit to Mozart's C Minor twenty fourth piano concerto as a major inspirational force for this C Minor Concerto. This concerto, as Eroica Symphony, broke away from the classic idiom of the first two piano concerti with its melodic force and solo bravura. The initial quiet theme that introduces the concerto arrests the listener with its shape and allows for plenty of elaborative scope. The use of the timpani in the cadenza is also unique. These are the few small things that made this concerto break away from the classical age into the Romantic era where Beethoven wrote the passages according to his dictates and not the limitations of the form and age. http://youtu.be/MotHj6N9dJU

Roma Symphony of Bizet

http://youtu.be/bdVpty25oMg Thanks to Unsung Masterwork; we have a recorded version here. Bizet won the Prix de Rome in 1857. This required him to spend the next couple of years at the French Academy in Rome, followed by a year of study in Germany. He also did some touring through Italy, seeing places that he had not visited in his earlier travels in 1858 and 1859. In Rimini, he got the idea for this symphony. He made some sketches but had to leave them incomplete as his mother passed away and he had to rush back to Paris. The Symphony in C "Roma" is the second symphony written by Bizet. This is also in the key of C Major as his earlier symphony which he wrote as a student at age seventeen. Roma was written with plenty of interruptions between 1860 and 1871.Bizet was not too satisfied with it and made many revisions.All four movements were performed in his lifetime, but never on the same occasion. The full symphony in its latest revision was performed in 1875, after his death. This is the famous C Major Symphony performed brilliantly by Georges Pretre and the Wiener Philharmoniker. http://youtu.be/9ivswqCWIQU The Symphony in C is an early work by Bizet. For a student just seventeen years of age, it is a marvel of melodic invention and extraordinary handling of themes in the orchestration. It was written while he was a student at the Paris Conservatoire under Charles Gounod. It was an assignment. Bizet's creative work in his life was cut short by a premature death. He died of heart failure at the age of thirty six. Well, Mozart too was on earth for a period of only thirty five years. Both are extraordinary musicians, extremely gifted and talented.

An Epic Messe Sollenelle by Louis Vierne

http://youtu.be/-zjlRHP0tjk Even in the world of classical music, not many people would have heard of Louis Vierne. Today, I came across his magnificent Messe Sollenelle written for two choirs and an omnipresent organ. I am going to explore all his organ symphonies very soon. I was reading about his life and what hit me most was the moment of his death. Vierne was the principal organist at the Cathedrale de Notre Dame in Paris for most of his sixty seven years in his life. He died while giving his one thousand seven hundred and fiftieth recital on 2nd June, 1937. Flashback: Despite holding a prestigious post, his personal life was full of turmoil. He had a troubled marriage. His wife left him after few years of marriage. His youngest son passed away from tuberculosis. His brother and his eldest son were killed during the First World War. He suffered with an accident where his leg had to be amputated from the ankle. He had to use wooden supports to retain his pedal technique. He was also born with a congenital cataract problem in one eye. At one point in time, he had to spend six months in a dark room in Switzerland recovering from a surgery which was eventually unsuccessful. In his sixty seventh year, he was a broken and depressed man. While giving his final recital, he felt uneasy and collapsed after playing the last note of the concert and died a few moments later. Vierne had always said to his friends that this is how he hoped he would die, at the keyboard of the pipe organ he loved. The bench that he sat on is on display at the Notre Dame Cathedral to this day. This episode in Vierne's life reminds me of a tango orchestra leader in Argentina who had told his friends that he would die playing his favourite instrument, the bandoneon. The name of that great musician was Anibal Troilo and he died after giving a concert in Buenos Aires.

Vox Balaenae

http://youtu.be/9imchw0u6Bc Vox Balaenae - The Voice of the Whale - was written by George Crumb, an American composer. It was premiered by the New York Camerata in 1971. In 1967, it was discovered by biologist Roger Payne that humpback whales actually sing and he published recordings of the vocalizations of whales. It was deemed complex. This helped to trigger the movement to save whales from poachers. I wonder if whales do not have the right to exist without their singing value. This world is mad and greedy. George Crumb was inspired after hearing those whale recordings of Payne but this work does not use those tapes. Crumb has tried to get that effect reproduced in musical form. He has composed this for three masked players who handle electrically amplified piano, flute and cello to generate sounds that bring to mind the images of the sea and the singing of the whales.

Zero Dark Thirty

http://youtu.be/rdvsYgmZ_DU This is a great account of perhaps the most important man hunt in American history which took a decade of patience and plotting and instinctive speculation on part of a focused and obsessive CIA operative. The film covers the Navy SEAL Team 6 operation of May 2011 that killed Usama Bin Laden. Kathryn Bigelow has come out with another thriller after her brilliant `Hurt Locker' which shot Jeremy Renner into fame. This film has another impressive performance by Jessica Chastain as Maya, the CIA operative in Pakistan. This was the best performance by an actress in 2012. She was not even nominated. Meryl Streep was awarded for `The Iron Lady', playing Margaret Thatcher. Maybe, that was an author backed role and the jury tends to tilt towards such performances but Chastain's was the more sensitive one. A great statement by Kathryn Bigelow. She has got style. Chastain was acknowledged by the Broadcast Film Critics Association as the best actress. She is a versatile actress. I was impressed by her performance as Maggie Beauford in `Lawless'. As Maya in this film, she has done a strong portrayal of a stubborn and obstinate CIA operative who targets the couriers that Laden was using while working on a base from Abbottabad, Pakistan.