R is for Rachmaninoff

 

              I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and my theme this year is classical music. Check out the list of other participants by clicking here! R is for Rachmaninoff. Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer who lived from 1873 to 1943. Today’s featured video is Rachmaninoff’s (alternatively spelled Rachmaninov) Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5 played by Boris Berezovsky.

Video link: https://youtu.be/I2GKgFZ_ioQ

 

Photograph by Kubey Rembrandt
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

   ·   Sergei Rachmaninoff began playing the piano at the age of 4. He had an exceptional ability as a pianist and composer, and he wrote his First Piano Concerto at the age of 18.
 

   ·   He had very large hands which could span twelve keys on the piano. This made playing chords easy for him and his piano techniques were noted for definition and clarity.
 

   ·   At the premiere of Rachmaninoff’s first symphony, the conductor, Alexander Glazunov, was ill-prepared and possibly drunk. Critics highly disapproved of the piece and Rachmaninoff went into a depression for three years and suffered from writer’s block.
 

   ·   He finally overcame his depression after a course of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy, and went on to write his Piano Concerto No. 2, which became one of his most well-known, beloved concertos.
 



Rachmaninoff proofing his
Piano Concerto No. 3

   ·   Beyond composing, Rachmaninoff also made a living as a concert pianist and a conductor. He was offered many conducting positions in the United States.



   ·   He had a very deep religious faith and wrote some beautiful choral vespers full of vivid harmonies.

   ·   Rachmaninoff and his family moved to the United States in 1917. He made enough money from piano concert performances to build a house in Los Angeles that was an exact replica of his home in Moscow.

 

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/rachmaninov/guides/rachmaninov-facts/

 

For this challenge, I’m keeping a playlist of the videos I’m using plus some extras for anyone who wants to hear more. I will update with the latest letter each day. For today’s extra video, I added Rock Meets Rachmaninoff by The Piano Guys. It is based on Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C sharp minor and done in a soft rock style. The Piano Guys take classical pieces and rework them into modern styles and pop culture music. They also do a lot of movie themes.

 

Do you know your hand span on a piano? Mine is an octave (8 keys). Trivia: Rachmaninoff was tall and he rarely smiled for photographs, what nickname did this earn him?

Q is for Quartet

 

              I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and my theme this year is classical music. Check out the list of other participants by clicking here! Q is for Quartet. Today’s featured video is Claude Debussy’s Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10, Movement 2 performed by the Danish String Quartet.

Video link: https://youtu.be/EAMtEqwI7Zs
 

   ·   Claude Debussy was a French composer who lived from 1862 to 1918.
 

   ·   In 1884, Debussy won a four-year scholarship at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, but he found the environment there boorish and stifling and he was often too depressed to compose. He desired to follow his own path and said, "I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards the path which it ordains as the only right one. But there is no help for it! I am too enamoured of my freedom, too fond of my own ideas!”
 

   ·   One of Debussy’s most famous piano pieces in the Suite bergamasque, which includes Clair de lune as its third movement.
 

   ·   Some people think that Debussy structured some of his works mathematically. A book by Roy Howat, indicates that “some of Debussy's pieces can be divided into sections that reflect the golden ratio, frequently by using the numbers of the standard Fibonacci sequence.”^*
 

The Tallinn String Quartet

   ·   The Quartet in G Minor is Claude Debussy’s only string quartet.
 

   ·   A string quartet consists of two violins, a viola, and a cello. The current form of string quartets was developed by Joseph Haydn. Most well-known composers since the 18^th century have written string quartets.

Sources: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_quartet
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/debussy/


            Yesterday’s trivia: Which character in Peter and the Wolf did the clarinet represent? Answer: The clarinet represented the cat :)

For this challenge, I’m keeping a playlist of the videos I’m using plus some extras for anyone who wants to hear more. I will update with the latest letter each day. The video I added to the playlist today is the Suite bergamasque: III. Clair de lune, and not abandoning letter Q, it is performed by the Quebec Symphony Orchestra.

 

Do have a favorite string quartet piece? Or is there another type of quartet you are fond of (i.e. barbershop, guitar)?

P is for Prokofiev

 

              I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and my theme this year is classical music. Check out the list of other participants by clicking here! P is for Prokofiev. Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian and Soviet composer who lived from 1891 to 1953. Today’s video is a performance of Montagues and Capulets, also known as Dance of the Knights, from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suite performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Gaffigan.

 

Video link: https://youtu.be/8M-zu5V2wYY

   ·   Sergei Prokofiev was a child prodigy. He composed his first piano piece at age 5 and his first opera at age 9.
 

   ·   He became interested in chess at age 7 and later played with world chess champions. He beat José Raúl Capablanca in a match in 1914 and played several matches against Mikhail Botvinnik in the 1930s.
 

   ·   After the Russian Revolution, Prokofiev believed that Russia “had no use for music at the moment,” and after obtaining his passport and official permission to leave, he moved to the United States. He also lived in Germany and Paris before returning to Moscow in 1936.
 

   ·   Prokofiev was friends with Igor Stravinsky, who described Prokofiev as the greatest Russian composer of his day, after himself.
 

   ·   He made a record of his third Piano Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra at London’s famous Abbey Road studios.
 

   ·   Contrary to Shakespeare, Prokofiev’s original Romeo and Juliet ballet had a happy ending, but he was strongly urged to revert back.
 

Disney's Peter and the Wolf book

   ·   You may be familiar with Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, which is a children’s story told by a narrator with an accompanying orchestra. Each character in the story is represented by a different instrument. When I was a child, this was my first introduction to the sounds of different instruments.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Prokofiev

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/prokofiev/

 

For this challenge, I’m keeping a playlist of the videos I’m using plus some extras for anyone who wants to hear more. I will update with the latest letter each day. The video I added today features a different “P” composer plus some laughs. The comedic and talented quartet, PaGAGnini performs their own variation of Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major.

 

Have you ever played chess? Are you familiar with Peter and the Wolf? Which character in Peter and the Wolf did the clarinet represent? Answer tomorrow.

O is for Orff's O Fortuna

 

              I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and my theme this year is classical music. Check out the list of other participants by clicking here! O is for Orff’s O Fortuna. Carl Orff was a German composer who lived from 1895 to 1982. Today’s featured video is “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana performed by André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/EJC-_j3SnXk

  

   ·   Carl Orff studied piano, organ, and cello as a child, but he figured out that he preferred to compose music than to perform it. He wrote and composed music for puppet shows that he staged for his family.

 

   ·   As a teenager, he taught himself the art of composition by studying classical masterworks.

 

   ·   Orff served in the German Army during World War I and nearly died in a trench cave-in.

 

   ·   Carmina Burana is derived from a series of songs and poems from the 11^th to 13^th centuries that Carl Orff set to music in a scenic cantata.

 

   ·   Carmina Burana was so well-received that Orff told his publishers, “Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, published, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana my collected works begin.” He did rewrite some of his earlier pieces to his liking and some pieces were re-released.

  

 



·   Carl Orff was a leading developer in children’s music education with his Orff Schulwerk approach. I remember seeing his name in some of my teacher education textbooks in college.

 

 

   ·   “O Fortuna” is widely used in commercials, movies and TV shows. Notable appearances include, part of an Old Spice ad campaign in the 1970s and an opening theme in The X Factor.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Orff

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/orff/

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/orff/guides/story-behind-orffs-carmina-burana/



  

On Saturday, I asked: Who played Niccolò Paganini in The Devil’s Violinist? The answer is violinist David Garrett.

For this challenge, I’m keeping a playlist of the videos I’m using plus some extras for anyone who wants to hear more. I will update with the latest letter each day. Today I found another “O” composer with a popular piece, Jacques Offenbach, and the video I added is his “Infernal Galop” from Orpheus in the Underworld, which you might also know as the Can-Can. It is performed by the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra with Conductor, Amir Shiff.

 

 

Do you remember hearing either of these pieces by Orff and Offenbach before? Have you heard of the Orff approach for children's music education?

N is for Niccolò Paganini

 

              I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and my theme this year is classical music. Check out the list of other participants by clicking here! N is for Niccolò Paganini. He was an Italian composer and violinist who lived from 1782 to 1840. Today’s featured video is Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 in A Minor performed by Alexander Markov. He plays this piece stunningly well, there’s even a point around the 3-minute mark where the camera frames can’t seem to keep up with Alexander’s finger movements!

 

Video link: https://youtu.be/PZ307sM0t-0

 

By Jean Auguste
Dominique Ingres

   ·   Niccolò Paganini’s father began teaching him the mandolin at age 5, then he learned the violin by age 7. When his family realized his talent, they had him study with various local violinists.
 

   ·   He moved to Parma, Italy in 1795 to get further training, but he was told that there was nothing more they could teach him. He began training himself and would practice up to 15 hours a day!
 

   ·   He once borrowed a violin made by Giuseppe Guarneri for a concert from a wealthy business man named Livron. After the concert, Livron refused to take it back because of how well Paganini played. That violin is now known as Il Cannone Guarnerius and is on display in Genoa, Italy.
 

   ·   Paganini was called “Witch’s Child” and many people believed that he made a pact with the devil because his playing ability appeared to be supernatural.  Paganini enjoyed it. According to inmozartsfootsteps.com, “he would dress completely in black and sometimes arrive at a concert in a black carriage pulled by four black horses.”
 

Il Cannone Guarnerius

   ·   His abilities may have been caused by a medical condition. It is believed that he had Marfan syndrome or Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, which could have accounted for his very long fingers and excessive flexibility of the joints.
 

   ·   His works, especially “La Campanella” and A Minor Caprice No. 24, have inspired many composers, including Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Sources: http://www.paganini.com/nicolo/nicindex.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Paganini

http://inmozartsfootsteps.com/1032/paganini-violinist-helped-by-marfan-syndrome/

 

            Yesterday’s trivia: Which member of Mozart's family is speculated to be the composer of the Toy Symphony? Answer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s father, Leopold Mozart, may have composed the Toy Symphony which includes parts for toy instruments. Although, there are other possibilities for its origin.

            For this challenge, I’m keeping a playlist of the videos I’m using plus some extras for anyone who wants to hear more. I will update with the latest letter each day. In the video I added today, we hear another instrument Niccolò Paganini was fond of: the guitar. The extra video I added is Paganini’s Grand Sonata in A for guitar and violin.

 

 

Do you know any violinists? Have they attempted the Caprice No. 24? Trivia: Who played Niccolò Paganini in the 2013 movie, The Devil's Violinist?

M is for Mozart

 

              I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and my theme this year is classical music. Check out the list of other participants by clicking here! M is for Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756 and he died at the young age of 35 in 1791. Today’s featured video is the Overture to Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro performed by the Weiner Symphoniker with conductor Fabio Luisi.

Video link: https://youtu.be/Mp6UAGN_Ir4

 

Portrait by Barbara Krafft

   ·   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s father began teaching him to play minuets and other pieces on the clavier at the age of 4. Around the age of 5, he began composing and playing short pieces that his father wrote down.

 

   ·   His musical memory was beyond belief. He heard Allegri’s Miserere at the age of 14 and wrote down the entire piece by memory later that day.

 

   ·   Mozart had a pet starling and he taught it to whistle a short tune that is similar to the opening of the third movement of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G.

 

   ·   Mozart wrote 30 symphonies by the age of 18 and composed over 600 works in his short lifetime. After his death, Mozart’s compositions became a standard part of studies for classical musicians.

 

A young Mozart with his father,
Leopold and sister, Nannerl
painted by Carmontelle

   ·   During his final illness, Mozart was working on the Requiem Mass in D Minor and he felt as though he was writing the piece for his own funeral. He did not finish it before his death and the work was completed by composer Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

 

   ·   His music is used in many films, including The Shawshank Redemption, When Harry Met Sally, Out of Africa, The King’s Speech, and Amadeus, a movie about the last 10 years of his life. He has 1,163 soundtrack credits in the Internet Movie Database!

 

Sources: http://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart

Yesterday's trivia: How many miles do you think it was estimated that Franz Liszt traveled in his threefold existence? Answer: It is estimated that Liszt traveled 4000 miles per year by train during those later years of his life. That is a significant distance for the 1870s at his age.

For this challenge, I’m keeping a playlist of the videos I’m using plus some extras for anyone who wants to hear more. I will update with the latest letter each day. Today's extra video is the hauntingly beautiful Adagio from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23. The piano is played with great emotion by Hélène Grimaud.

  

I'm sure you have heard of Mozart before, learn anything new? Trivia: Which member of Mozart's family is speculated to be the composer of the Toy Symphony?

L is for Liszt

 

              I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and my theme this year is classical music. Check out the list of other participants by clicking here! L is for Liszt. Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer who lived from 1811 to 1886. Today’s featured video is Arthur Rubinstein’s interpretation of Liszt’s “La Campanella” from the Grandes Études de Paganini. The pictures in this video are of Arthur Rubinstein.

Video link: https://youtu.be/hQULyGMhhWs

 

   ·   Franz Liszt was not only a composer, he was also a virtuoso on the piano, a conductor, a piano teacher, an author, and a member of the Franciscan Third Order Secular.
 

   ·   Liszt wrote many original pieces, but he also transcribed the work of other composers to piano. He took many creative liberties with these transcriptions and some were even considered more inventive than the originals.
 

   ·   Liszt was inspired by Niccolò Paganini to become as great a virtuoso on the piano as Paganini was on the violin. The Grandes Études de Paganini are based off of some of Paganini’s compositions for violin.
 

   ·   Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies included 19 piano pieces, but the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is by far the most popular. Excerpts from that piece can be found in numerous cartoons, including Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, remakes such as "Wish Liszt (Toy Shop Madness)" from Tran-Siberian Orchestra, TV shows, movies, and commercials.
 



"Liszt Monkey"

·    Even into his old age, Liszt continued to stay busy. He balanced living in Paris with teaching piano master classes in Weimer and Budapest. He called it his threefold existence.

 

 

   ·   He has a monkey named after him. The cotton-top tamarin is often called the Lisztaffe in German or “Liszt Monkey” because of its similar hairstyle to Franz Liszt.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Liszt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Rhapsody_No._2

For this challenge, I’m keeping a playlist of the videos I’m using plus some extras for anyone who wants to hear more. I will update with the latest letter each day. Today I added a funny video of Victor Borge playing Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.
 

Do you remember hearing the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (or at least part of it) before? How many miles do you think it was estimated that Franz Liszt traveled per year during his threefold existence? Answer tomorrow.