Pictures at an Exhibition - Naxos podcast review

Mussorgky's Pictures at an exhibition is a famous piece of music almost everybody knows or at least recognizes upon hearing (wiki). Naxos Classical Music Spotlight Podcast relates the background of the piece, which turns out to be quite a fascinating and unexpected history.

Host Raymond Bisha reveals that the piece was originally written for piano and when it was finally published, it came out filled with errors. As a consequence the piece needs arrangement and leaves much room to performers for interpretation. Naxos has released a CD with one such interpretation, but there are many more with the pop version by Emerson, Lake and Palmer probably as the most famous one. (At least that is an old childhood favorite of mine!) Within that the passage from picture to picture is the part that is most easily recognized. (click player above. (Podsafe music from the Skidmore College Orchestra)

The piece was written with actual pictures in mind,. Bisha discusses several of them. This is a very entertaining and informative podcast and gives much desire to hear more.

Previously about the Naxos podcast:
Hildegard von Bingen.

MMW 4 Herbst - UCSD podcast review

UCSD podcasts are invariably a brief pleasure. Available as long as new installments in the feed are expected, but taken from us, swiftly after the last lecture as the lights flicking on in the cinema, when the end titles are still rolling. History lovers will need to be on guard and rake in MMW 4 (Making of the Modern World, era 1200 - 1750) by Professor Matthew Herbst, when they still can. (feed)

Herbst we still know from MMW 3 last year and the way he started this new series promises to be as good as the previous one and seamlessly connects with it. We pick up, where we left off, with the camel, that wondrous beast of burden that allows for trade through the Sahara and thus enables the connection between the Muslem empire and the Sahel. And so Islam and its empire is the first subject in the course. Plague ridden Europe will follow only later.

The geographical span is exhilarating: from West-Africa to Cairo, to Baghdad, to Delhi with mention, even, of Samarkand and Bukhara. Herbst gives a vivid feel for this new, large, rich and immensely diversified empire with its culture and its politics. We touch on Sufis, Mameluks, Hindus, Mongols, Dhimmi and Africans. This is the shining world leader in the beginning of MMW 4's era, how could the tables ever turn?

More Matthew Herbst:
The Kingdom of Ghana,
Gupta History,
World history guided by the religions,
World history outside the European box,
Making of the Modern World - UCSD.

The Translation Movement - IOT review

The second issue of BBC's In Our Time after the summer recess paid attention to the huge effort of the Arabs to translate Greek works (link). It is in the early days of the Arab Empire, during the Abbasid period, when the center of the empire became the newly built metropolis Baghdad.

What is fascinating is that this effort, if at all a singular movement, was instigated from above, or at least stimulated, and carried out by groups of intellectuals that comprised of an astonishing diversity of backgrounds. The scholars were not just Muslims. First of all there were numerous Christians, those who mastered Greek and they were also joined by Jews and Zoroastrians. In relatively little time a huge body of Greek works were translated, notably Galen and Aristotle and, interestingly, much less so: Plato.

There was a lasting effect on the Arab world, the culture and the language. Also, by way of Spain, Toledo, the works made it to Europe, where the translation effort was followed and many of the works made it to Latin, either directly from Greek or through the Arab sources. Thus also the commentaries of Averroes and Avicenna made their way to the West and the translation movement left an imprint on western thinking, science and culture as well.

More In Our Time:
Miracles,
Tacitus,
John Donne (The Metaphysical Poets),
The Arab Conquests,
BBC's In Our Time (podcast review).

Making History with Ran Levy - עושים היסטוריה עם רן לוי

הודות להמלצות קוראי הבלוג סוף סוף הצלחתי לצבור כמות מספקת של פודקאסטים בעברית כדי שאוכל למלא את החובה שלקחתי על עצמי לכתוב סדרה של ביקורות על פודקאסטים דוברי עברית. הביקורות יהיו קצרות מפני שאני כותב ממש לאט, ומעדיף לחלוק את הידע כמה שיותר מהר במקום להתקע עם מילונים והחיפוש אחרי האותיות במקלדת - מכירים את התופעה? בכל אופן הנה הראשון: עושים היסטוריה עם רן לוי (site, feed).

בעושים היסטוריה רן לוי קורא מונולוגים בנושאים שונים בהיסטוריה. הוא שם את הדגש על מדע וטכנולוגיה. הפודקאסט מועשר בקטעי קול ולאחרונה אפילו בראיון עם ג'יימס ברק (James Burke) - הראיון היה באנגלית כמובן. התוצאה היא פרקים של כשלושים דקות, משעשעים ומעוררי מחשבה באותה מידה. לטעמי, עושים היסטוריה עם רן לוי הוא פודקאסט באיכות בינלאומית.

ב-iCast, הספרייה העברית המובילה לפודקאסטים, לא רק בעברית, עושים היסטוריה עם רן לוי מדורג כהכי פופולרי בישראל. רן לוי טוען שיש לו אלפי מאזינים, הישג מדהים לדעתי לפודקאסט שלא באנגלית.

The Arab-Israeli conflict - UChannel podcasts review

The Middle-East and its ever-lasting conundrums are, naturally, a matter of huge interest to me. UChannel Podcast is a regular supplier of lecture podcasts on the subject, with writers, diplomats and politicians addressing the various subjects. Today I took two of those in a row.

The first and the toughest to hear was Saree Makdisi's lecture on the Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. Tough to hear because of the terrible everyday suppression that is described. Tough also because Makdisi proposes neither solution, nor hope nor strategy towards betterment. His only contribution in that direction is the description of what in his opinion should come into existence: a one state solution. A democratic, multi-ethnic, secular state with equal rites for Jews, Arabs and everybody else. This is the most beautiful, yet the most unrealistic outlook to describe and without any road towards it, what use is it? It taught me this: that also on the side of the Palestinians the two-state solution triggers doubt. (On the Israeli side )

In the second, most recent, lecture Aaron David Miller (picture) renders his criticism mostly toward US foreign policy and made a very good address to the books of Jimmy Carter and Walt and Maersheimer , to give some perspective. He also made a remark about the Palestinians, that gave some perspective on why the situation for them is so hopeless: there is no monopoly on either a diplomacy agenda, nor on the use of violence. It is as I have described it for myself time and again: two peoples, mostly the Palestinians are stuck between a rock and a hard place - between leaders of great incompetence, lack of courage and vision. The sad conclusion is once again: we muddle along. More of the same, with simple people paying the heaviest price.

More UChannel:
Civilization and the Hills,
New World Order,
The Invisible Hand,
The Second World,
Repairing Failed States.

De Roemeense Koning - Veertien Achttien

De laatste aflevering van Veertien Achttien krijgt als titel mee Carol I en er moest mij bij verteld worden dat dit de koning van Roemenie is. De man is van Duitse komaf en in WO I gaat zijn voorkeur uit naar een alliantie met de Centralen. Maar de Roemeense main stream kijkt meer naar de geallieerden.

Roemenie is nog nauwelijks een serieuze staat in die dagen en Carol is een monarch die er bijgesleept is om het nieuwe land in de negentiende eeuw soevereiniteit te verlenen. En al met al levert deze achtergrond vooral een uitstapje naar de voorgeschiedenis van Duitsland op. Tacken stipt de eenwording van Duitsland aan en de oorlogen met Frankrijk en Oostenrijk die Bismarck nodig had om van de Duitse staten een land te maken onder de Pruisische koning als keizer.

Wat dit te maken heeft met WO I is vooral dat met de totstandkoming van Duitsland het machtsevenwicht op het Europese vasteland verschuift van Frankrijk naar deze nieuwe Duitse eenheid, dat groter is, een grotere bevolking heeft en sneller geindustrialiseerd raakt dan de rest van de wereld. Roemenie is een achterhoedegevecht in het grote verhaal en zo blijft het ook.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Herbert Hoover,
Otto Weddigen,
Helmut Von Moltke,
Joseph Gallieni,
Alexander von Kluck.