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Do you write about classical music? Are you a blogger? Want to team up with Classical Connect? Send us a message, let's talk!
July 19, 2010
Early Music. We continue our collaboration with Millennium of Music, an early music series created by Robert Aubrey Davis. We recently expanded our collection with three programs about the French-Flemish school. The period, which began in the late 15th century and stretched through the 16th, was one of the most productive in the history of early classical music: its notables include Josquin des Prez, Orlando di Lasso and Jacob Obrecht, to name just a few. These composers were born in what is now the Netherlands but traveled all over Europe, settling in Italy, France, and Spain, absorbing the local styles but also strongly influencing the further development of music. The period is also remarkable for its newly discovered sense of self-awareness: there was a general sentiment that these composers were of a very high order and deserved to be celebrated and preserved. Publishers, such as Ottaviano Petrucci (who is believed to have produced the first book of sheet music) and Tielman Susato, were selecting famous pieces and creating anthologies for the benefit of musicians and the listening public alike. Music from these collections is presented in three programs entitled “Music from the Lowlands.” To listen, click here.
July 12, 2010
Recent Piano uploads. The young Israeli pianist Einav Yarden has performed extensively in recitals and as a soloist with many well-known orchestras such as the Israel Philharmonic and the Minnesota Symphony, among others. She has also won a number of prizes in international competitions. Einav studied at the Peabody Conservatory with Leon Fleisher. You can hear her perform Stravinsky’s piano Sonata. The German pianist Michael Krücker studied in Rotterdam and Düsseldorf with such masters as Paul Badura-Skoda and György Sándor. Michael has an active performing career, playing in many European festivals and concert halls. We’ll hear a rarely performed Sonate mélancolique by Ignaz Moscheles. It is played on an 1844 Erard pianoforte. The pianist Sophia Agranovich is a native of Ukraine where she studied with Alexander Edelman. She then moved to the US and continued at the Juilliard with Sascha Gorodnitzki, also a former Ukrainian, being one of her teachers. We’ll hear Sophia play Liszt’s Liebestraum No.3. Our library contains many more recordings of these pianists, so please browse. To listen to the selected pieces click here.
July 5, 2010
Gustav Mahler. The great Austrian composer was born 150 years ago this week, on July 7, 1860, but his music sounds as raw and tragic today as the day it was written. Nobody ever projected naked emotions with such force. His music is vulnerable, flawed, sometimes sentimental and at the same time noble. He managed to combine the low, even vulgar, and the angelic into one enormous but coherent whole. Mahler was ahead of his time even despite never accepting atonal music. He influenced many composers of the 20th century, from Schoenberg, Webern and Berg to (especially) Shostakovich. A Jew in anti-Semitic Vienna, he converted to Catholicism to get a position with the Vienna Court Opera but was still abused in the press. Superstitious, he was afraid of writing the 9th symphony, trying to deceive faith by not calling Das Lied von der Erde a symphony. But he still died at the age of 50 with exactly nine completed symphonies.
We’re grateful to the Peabody Conservatory for allowing us to present two of Mahler’s symphonies: No. 3 and No. 5. Symphony No. 3 runs for approximately 103 minutes, and the version you hear on our site is probably the longest streaming performance on the Web. You can also listen to the famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony as played by the Texas Festival Orchestra.
June 28, 2010
Millennium of Music. We’re proud to present several programs from this long-running series of early music. Hosted by Robert Aubry Davis, these programs are dedicated mostly to European music of the medieval period and the Renaissance, but cover almost one thousand years of music preceding that of Bach’s. The recordings are made by some of the most interesting early music ensembles and feature great composers from all over Europe: the English, such as Thomas Tallis and William Bird; the French-Flemish (Josquin des Prez and Orlando di Lasso); the Italians (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Claudio Monteverdi), the Spanish (Tomás Luis de Victoria), the Germans (Michael Praetorius), to name just a few. At the moment we have eight programs, but in the future we will be adding many more, so please check this section often. To select a program, click here.
June 21, 2010
Performance Details pages. As our listeners know, many of the Performance Details pages contain liner notes. Very often these notes are written by those who recorded the piece, or, in case of contemporary compositions, by the composers themselves. We also add new descriptions on a regular basis, especially for the larger, historically important compositions. Here, for example, are some thoughts about Diabelli Variations, which Alfred Brendel called "the greatest of all piano works." This is a double treat: first, the pianist, Beth Levin, wrote a very detailed series of notes on each variation, and then we added the notes from Joseph DuBose.
The Variations’ place in the world of piano music may be compared to that of Bach's Goldberg Variations and Johannes Brahms' Handel Variations (some ideas about Brahms’s masterpiece could be found here). And as far as Beethoven is concerned, you may also enjoy the notes on Beethoven’s late sonatas: Hammerklavier, Op. 106, Sonata no. 30, Op. 109 and the last one, Sonata no. 32, Op. 111.
June 14, 2010
Igor Stravinsky and Edvard Grieg were born this week – the Russian in 1882 and the Norwegian in 1843. Although it’s hard to imagine two composers with more different musical sensibilities, there is a link between the two – Tchaikovsky. Stravinsky, whose father, a bass, sang in many premiers of Tchaikovsky’s operas, admired Tchaikovsky from childhood. Eventually he wrote a ballet, The Fairy's Kiss, based on the music of Tchaikovsky. Grieg, a contemporary of the great Russian, met him in 1888. Tchaikovsky heaped praise on Grieg’s music for its beauty, warmth and originality.
We’ll hear four piece: first, the husband-and-wife piano duo, Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax, will play Danse Russe and The Shrovetide Fair, from Stravinsky’s Petrushka ballet. Then, the Texas Festival String Ensemble will play a piece from Grieg’s Holberg Suite. We’ll switch back to Stravinsky and his Suite Italienne for Violin and Piano. It’s performed by Janet Sung (violin) and Robert Koenig (piano). Finally, the soprano Tina Beverly will sing the lovely Solveigs Sang. To listen, click here.