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Feb 22, 2024 · His success was huge and secured Chopin a living as well as a reputation he deserved. Chopin composed his two piano Concertos (oddly enough No.1 in 1830 and No.2 in 1829), as well as his initial set of Études, Op.10 (1829-32). The Études was not only a demonstration of Chopin’s virtuosity and dexterity but also the first window into his ...
Jul 17, 2024 · The harp part of Newsom’s “Sawdust and Diamonds” could have been written by any Impressionist composer at the turn of the 20th century. 9. Paul Dukas (1865–1935) French composer Paul Dukas studied music and eventually taught composition at the Conservatoire de Paris. He was also respected as a music critic.
- Brandenburg Concertos
- Four Orchestral Suites
- St Matthew Passion
- Cantata No.21
- Organ Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV542
- The Well-Tempered Clavier – The 48
- Goldberg Variations
- Six Cello Suites
- Violin Sonatas and Partitas
- Concerto in D Minor For Two Violins
Many Baroque composers wrote dozens, or even hundreds, of concertos but Bach managed to sum up the entire genre with only six, each featuring a different line-up of soloists with a wide range of moods and even structures (shocking in an era when concertos were supposed to have three movements: fast-slow-fast). So we leap from the dizzying heights o...
Alongside the concerto, the other genre in vogue in Bach’s time was the orchestral suite (or “overture” as he called it). Whereas the concerto came out of an Italian tradition the suite was, in origin, a sequence of French dances. While all four of Bach’s have a kind of courtly nobility beyond that they range enormously: from the gracious sequence ...
Passions are large-scale choral works telling of the suffering and death of Christ, and none come finer than those of Bach, of which two have come down to us: the St John and the St Matthew. The latter is one of the great icons of music, but after Bach’s death, it went unperformed for nearly 80 years until a young Felix Mendelssohnreintroduced it t...
Bach’s cantatas (nearly 200 sacred and a good handful of secular ones survive) are all the more remarkable when you think that this was real bread-and-butter stuff, produced for the church services every week. This meant they had to be performable without much rehearsal; so either the congregation endured some pretty ropey playing, or Bach’s musici...
Bach was particularly admired for his keyboard skills, not least his knack for improvisation; much of his organ music probably started out life as just that – a doodle turned into something mighty. Leaving aside the most famous organ work of all, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor (which some doubt is by Bach at all), one of the most brilliant works ...
Bach was not merely one of the greatest composing geniuses in history; he was also a devoted family man, and frequently wrote keyboard music as a teaching aid for his many children. The Well-Tempered Clavier is a set of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys (48 works in all). If that sounds a little dry, then just remember this is Bach...
Ultimately with Bach, you can either spend ages trying to analyse why his music is so endlessly compelling or, as with the Goldberg Variations(purportedly written to soothe an insomniac nobleman to sleep) you can just enjoy it. Designed for harpsichord, but equally enthusiastically claimed by pianists, it consists of a lyrical theme with 30 variati...
While it’s easy enough for the keyboard to stand alone, string instruments have a harder time of it. Bach’s solo Cello Suitesare immensely difficult, not least because he was determined to make the instrument sound self-sufficient. They vanished for years from the repertoire, only to be rediscovered and subsequently celebrated when the great Catala...
Violinists have no need to envy the Cello Suites, since Bach left them an equivalent solo work: the Sonatas and Partitas. The most famous of them is the ‘D Minor Partita’, with its fiendish and epic final ‘Chaconne’, in which a simple theme is varied no fewer than 64 times, to extraordinary emotional effect. Equally effective is the ‘E Major Partit...
Bach didn’t leave many solo concertos, but this one is a gem, easily up there with the best Bach works of all time. Featuring two violinists with a simple string-and-harpsichord accompaniment, it is particularly beloved for its rhapsodic slow movement (shamelessly plundered by myriad film directors for moments of high emotion), in which the two sol...
A few of our other favourite Byrd works. My Lady Nevell’s Virginal Book. Dating from 1591, this extraordinary compilation of 42 of Byrd’s finest keyboard pieces includes ‘The Battell’, a descriptive piece written in response to the Irish Rebellions. Recommended recording: Elizabeth Farr (harpsichord) Naxos 8570139-41.
Mar 1, 2024 · Polonaise-Fantaisie. Of the self-contained longish pieces, the ten-minute Polonaise-Fantaisie – a late best Chopin work, published in 1846 – is the perfect musical novella, unique in structure ...
Jan 31, 2024 · Piano Concerto No.21, ‘Elvira Madigan’. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 has received much of its popularity from its use in themes, and it’s also one of his greatest works. Hear Mozart at his most joyful and exuberant, with a playful sparkle to his solo writing. First written in 1785, the piece has since featured in 2006’s Superman ...
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Mar 5, 2021 · The St Matthew Passion is the epitome of Bach’s ability to set sacred choral music and it contains some of the most beautiful melodies, and powerful choral moments found in music. The aria for mezzo-soprano, with solo violin and orchestral continuo, ‘Erbarme dich, mein Gott, um meiner Zähren Willen’ is one of the most loved from the ...
