maurice ravel – miroirs

Posted on November 5, 2015 by cherry bomb

I can recommend Ravel’s piano works as suitable accompaniment when hurtling through the dark across unfamiliar country in a high-speed train.

Miroirs (“Reflections”) is a suite for solo piano written by French impressionist composer Maurice Ravel between 1904 and 1905, first performed by Ricardo Viñes in 1906.

Around 1900, Maurice Ravel joined a group of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians referred to as “Les Apaches” or “hooligans”, a term coined by Ricardo Viñes to refer to his band of “artistic outcasts”.

To pay tribute to his fellow artists, Ravel began composing Miroirs in 1904 and finished it the following year. There are five movements, each dedicated to a member of Les Apaches:

1. “Noctuelles” (“Night Moths”) – Dedicated to Léon-Paul Fargue

2. “Oiseaux tristes” (“Sad Birds”) – Dedicated to Ricardo Viñes

3. “Une barque sur l’océan” (“A boat on the Ocean”) – Dedicated to Paul Sordes

4. “Alborada del gracioso” (“The Alborada Gracioso’s Aubade”) – Dedicated to Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi

5. “La vallée des cloches” (“The Valley of Bells”) – Dedicated to Maurice Delage.

Pianist: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet

“wings of desire” – mirror scene

Posted on February 5, 2015 by cherry bomb

Excerpt from Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire (1987).

i’ve got my eye on you

Posted on June 20, 2013 by cherry bomb

Şafak Tortu – “Gözüm, göz olsun gözüne”

The title of the photograph is an expression that can be translated (I think) as “I’ve got my eye on you.” Find more of this Turkish photographer’s work HERE.

dave coba – “broken” (2008)

Posted on March 19, 2013 by cherry bomb

Dave Coba – From “Broken” Series, 2008

Broken is a project by photographer Dave Coba which features black and white studies of nude models. Coba says the images “were created by photographing the models in front of broken, partly “blind” mirrors. Thematically they’re about dreamlike rapture — self awareness in a reality that’s altered, twisted, broken and reflected in an enigmatic way. It means a lot to me that the models wanted to see themselves as they were portrayed: They played their decisive part by ‘putting themselves into the mirror’ and letting the photographer document them.”