INSPIRED PEN WEB: 2016

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' Heavenly Voices

Great works from the Renaissance and Baroque

The majestic St Mary's Cathedral will provide the ideal acoustic for the heavenly voices of our Chamber Singers in this program which spans the late Renaissance to the late Baroque. Aria award-winning soprano, Sara Macliver, will perform with Tobias Cole, Paul McMahon and Christopher Richardson accompanied by period instruments, offering a rich and elegant sound which can only be created in such a venue.

Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612) Jubilate Deo

Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) Magnificat BuxWV 203

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (Actus Tragicus) BWV 106

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) Exsultate Deo

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) Beatus vir SV 268

Johann Sebastian Bach Mass in A Major BWV 234

At its heart are two works by JS Bach. The first, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit is from early in Bach’s career. Poignant and consoling, its gentle introduction played on soft grained instruments is some of the most heart–rending music Bach ever wrote. The Mass in A major is a mature work, one of the rarely heard Lutheran masses which Bach composed. This will be followed by some of the most sacred and spiritual works from Gabrieli, Palestrina and Monteverdi.
These uplifting performances will be an elixir for the soul.

Conductor: Brett Weymark
Soprano: Sara Macliver
Countertenor: Tobias Cole
Tenor: Paul McMahon
Bass: Christopher Richardson

Friday 14 October, 7:30pm, and Saturday, 15 October, 8:00pm Venue: St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney

Resources:
Programme, Flyer, and website of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

(c) 2016. Tel Asiado. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved

Sydney Philharmonia Carols at the House 2016

CHORAL SINGING / Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

Carols at the House 2016 presented by the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs brims with Broadway, joined by a star-studded line-up of soloists and musicians filling the Concert Hall with favourite festive music. A 500-strong choir performs traditional favourites such as Joy to the World, Silent Night and Oh Come All Ye Faithful and the audience can sing along too! Song sheets are provided and everyone is encouraged to get into the festive spirit.

Anton Rubinstein

Classical Composers Datebook: November 28

Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and founder of St Petersburg Conservatory and Russian Musical Society

Anton Rubinstein (Gigor’yevich) (born Vikhvatinets, 28 November 1829 - died Peterhof, 20 November 1894), was a Russian pianist, composer and teacher. His piano playing is often compared to Liszt, was a prolific Russian composer, a child virtuoso and acclaimed as one of the greatest 19th century pianists. He enjoyed enormous international success. Tchaikovsky was among his pupils. One of his popular compositions is the "Album de Peterhof, Op.75" that forms a beautiful musical picture of memories. Peterhof was his favorite summer retreat with his family. He died there 8 days before his birthday anniversary. Rubinstein had two sons and a daughter by his wife Vera Tschekouanoff.

The video below is the most famous music of Rubinstein in the orchestral version. (Paintings by Pierre Auguste Renoir.) Sorry, I don't have info who interpreted the music.

Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894), Russian composer, pianist and teacher, was born in Vikhyatinets, on November 28, 1829, of Slavic-Jewish-German descent. Anton’s music education started with his mother who gave him piano lessons. Nikolay Rubinstein, a known pianist and teacher, is his younger brother. At the age of five, his family moved to Moscow where his father set up a pencil factory. At the age of ten, he had his debut in Moscow then went on European concert tour, including London, but the tour barely paid for itself.

Brahms Symphony No. 1

Classical Music / Symphony

Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

Johannes Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing his Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68. His sketches date from 1854. He declared that this work, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876. The premiere of this symphony, conducted by his friend Felix Otto Desssoff, was on 4 November 1876, in Karlruhe, then in the Grand Duchy of Baden. A typical performance lasts between 45 and 50 minutes.

Enjoy listening to the video below conducted by Paavo Järvi, with Orchestre de Paris - Brahms: Symphony No.1 in C Minor, Op.68.

Sydney Philharmonia's VOX and Synergy

Choral Singing / VOX and Synergy

A musical collaboration between Synergy Percussion and Sydney Philharmonia's VOX.

Programme:

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), Idmen A
Dan Forrester (b. 1978), Three Nocturnes
Melody Eötvös (b. 1984), World Premiere of a new work
Xenakis, Ohko
Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), Sleep
Luke Byrne (b. 1980), Desert Sea

The name Petra belies the colossal, elemental and timeless nature of this program. There is a primal, ancient connection between voice and percussion, and in this hotly anticipated collaboration, VOX and Synergy deliver the full musical gamut, from the most melodic to the most rhythmic, from soothing “night” music to the musical equivalent of a titan battle-sequence.

The music of Greek composer Iannis Xenakis has achieved a cult status - almost a mythical aura about it - and his work for choir and percussion Idmen is a virtuosic and visceral tour de force for both ensembles. This is to the best of our knowledge the first time it has been presented in its entirety in Australia.

Mozart Opera Don Giovanni

Classical Music / Opera

A Unique Blend of Comic and Serious Opera

Four of about twenty two operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart have remained extremely popular on stage and record. One of them is Don Giovanni.

Don Giovanni is in two Acts, approximately two hours and thirty minutes. Libretto is in Italian by Lorenzo da Ponte after Giovanni Bertati's libretto for Giuseppe Gazzaniga's The Stone Guest, the contemporary version of the Don Juan legends.It was first performed

First performance: National Theatre, Prague, in October 29, 1787. Subtitled "drama giocoso," the opera blends comedy, melodrama, and supernatural elements. In Vienna, it was first performed May 7, 1788.

Franz Liszt

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: October 22

Franz Liszt, his life, musical style, influence and works. Arguably considered the supreme Romantic composer. He is best remembered for his orchestral symphonic poems and for his unsurpassed piano virtuosity.

Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt (Raiding, October 22, 1811 - Bayreuth, July 31, 1886), is best remembered for his concept of descriptive orchestral music he called 'symphonic poem ,' also known as 'tone poem,' and as the most talented pianist of his time.

His primary interests in life were threefold - religion, music, and the arts; perhaps we can add the fourth, a female companionship - in equal fervor.

Liszt was taught the piano by his father and later by Carl Czerny in Vienna, he made his debut establishing himself as a remarkable concert pianist by age 12. In Paris he studied theory and composition, then travelled widely in Europe, at age 14, writing the opera Don Sanche in Paris. There, he also met Chopin and Berlioz.

Arthur Miller

Literature / Great Playwrights

Brief biography of Arthur Miller

Life and works of American playwright and screenwriter, Arthur Miller, one of America’s leading playwrights. Death of a Salesman is regarded as his greatest play.

Arthur Miller, one of the most prominent and popular American playwrights and screenwriters, wrote some of the 20^th century’s most important and famous plays for the American theater and film productions. His best known plays include Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible.

Miller was a Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama. Married to the famous actress, Marilyn Monroe (1956 to 1961), he was popular from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Early Life of Arthur Miller

Arthur A. Miller was born on October 17, 1915 in New York City. Just before the Great Depression his father’s business shut down, reducing the family to near poverty. This change in fortune strongly influenced Miller as seen in many of his plays depicting families destroyed because they live by the rules of a society that says money is the most important thing.

Initially, Miller was more interested in sports than literature, but all that changed when he read The Brothers Karamazov by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. Miller decided to become a writer and enrolled at the University of Michigan to study journalism.

Miller’s Plays All My Sons, The Death of a Salesman and The Crucible

Miller’s first successful play, All My Sons (1947), was performed when he was 32 years old. The story is about a factory owner who sells faulty aircraft parts during the Second World War. The play clearly shows Miller’s belief that the desire for money in American society encourages people to act immorally. This play has been influenced by Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder.

Death of a Salesman, regarded Miller’s greatest play, was produced two years later after All My Sons. It won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1949. The story is about a man who kills himself when he realizes he will never be considered a success.

His 1953 play, The Crucible, is based on the 17^th-century Salem witch trials, actually an attack on the anti-communist trials held during the McCarthy Era. He also wrote the screenplay for Marilyn Monroe’s last movie, The Misfits.

Miller's description in writing for the stage:

"I am in the ultimate place of vision - you can't back me up any further.

Everything is inevitable, down to the last comma".

Legacy of Playwright Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller died on February 10, 2005. His plays have always been delicately structured, mainly focused on the major concerns of post-war America and the lives of the American people of the time. His works, not necessarily just a pre-occupation of guilt, show more importantly, that in order to redeem the past, it should first be remembered.

Miller was the most popular American playwright since his predecessor, Eugene O’Neill. His three greatest plays, Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible, have remained popular.

Works by Arthur Miller:

All My Sons, 1947

Death of a Salesman, 1949

The Crucible, 1953

A View from the Bridge, 1955

Incident at Vichy, 1964

After the Fall, 1964

The American Clock, 1980

The Last Yankee, 1990

Broken Glass, 1994

Plain Girl, 1995

Photo Credit:

Arthur Miller. Public Domain

Resources:

Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994

Oxford Who's Who in the 20^th Century. Oxford: OUP, 1999

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997

Note: I originally wrote this piece for Suite101.com, June 28, 2010. It is being republished in short version for Inspired Pen Web.

Giuseppe Verdi

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook : October 10

Greatest 19^th Century Italian opera composer who raised the opera's heights. He created some of the most dramatically effective music ever heard on stage.

Giuseppe Verdi's brief biography – his life and list of major works. Famous for operas Rigoletto, Aida, Nabucco, La Traviata. Il Trovatore, and more, popular then and now.

Verdi's operas range from the tragic to the comic. He was master of theatrical drama, who also inherited the 'bel canto' singing style from predecessors Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini. Verdi's music are instantly recognised, for example, "La donna è mobile" (woman is fickle) from Rigoletto or "Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore, often used in numerous TV commercials, are as acclaimed today as when it was first written.

Early Life

Giuseppe (Fortunino Francesco) Verdi was born in Roncole near Parma, Italy on October 10 (9?), 1813. He came from the family of small landowners and taverners. However as a composer, his success was so great that by today’s standard, he would be considered a multimillionaire.

Camille Saint-Saëns

Classical Music / Composer Datebook: October 9.

Short biography of Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer known for Suite 'Carnaval des Animaux' and the opera 'Samson et Dalila'

Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer, conductor, organist and pianist is best remembered for his orchestral Carnaval des animaux (Carnival of the Animals). He wrote many lyrical Romantic and orchestral pieces.

He loved travelling and often arranged concerts. He enjoyed Africa, Uruguay,South America, and Algiers where he died at 86. He married a much younger woman and had two sons but both boys died within six weeks of each other. Composer Gabriel Fauré was not only his protege but a close friend, and in the Fauré home, he assumed the “favourite uncle” role.

Delius Two Orchestral Works

Classical Music Milestone: October 2

The orchestral works of Frederick Delius were first performed in Leipzig on October 2, 1913:

Summer Night on the River
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

1) "Delius - Summer Night on the River" YouTube uploaded by Orquestra Classica de Centro. Accessed October 2, 2016.

2) "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra). Accessed October 2, 2016. (Sorry, it's currently unavailable; will try to find a replacement. Tel / January 29, 2019)

Wagner Das Rheingold

Classical Music / Opera (Music Drama)

Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), WWW 86A, is the first of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung.) It premiered at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, with August Kindermann as Wotan, Heinrich Vogl as Loge, and Karl Fischer as Alberich. Wagner allowed the performance only of this first cycle at the insistence of his patron King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The work was first performed as part of the complete cycle on 13 August 1876, in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

Video Credit:

Wagner - Der Ring Nibelungen: Das Rheingold. Richard Wagner. Das Rheingold. Adam Fischer/Vienna State Opera, 2016. Youtube, uploaded by Randall G. Malstrom. Accessed April 20, 2023.

Resource:

Das Rheingold. en.wikipedia.org. Accessed September 22, 2016.

(c) 2016-2017. Updated April 20, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Frida (Film) Soundtrack

Soundtrack of Frida (Film)

Note: There are 12 videos; wait few seconds for the next one to play.

Frida is the original soundtrack album, on the Universal label of the 2002 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award - winning film Frida, starring Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Mia Maestro and Ashley Judd. The original music score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal. The soundtrack features songs by various artists.

Link to: Frida Kahlo - Soundtrack

Note: There are 12 videos; wait few seconds for the next one to play.

About Frida (The Film)

Frida is a 2002 American biopic drama film that depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954). She painted many portraits including self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by her country's popular culture, she employed a naive folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. OFten, her paintings had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Frida Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo)

The film, directed by Julie Taymor, stars Salma Hayek in her Academy Award-nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera. The movie was adapted from the book Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera. The film generally received positive reviews from critics, and won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Makeup among six nominations. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida)

Video Credit:

Frida Kahlo (Film) Soundtrack. YouTube, uploaded by Jaz Ponce. Accessed 11 September 2016.

Film Soundtrack Resource:

Frida (Soundtrack). en.wikipedia.org.

Photo Credit:

Cover of Frida (Film) Soundtrack. en.wikipedia.org / Fair Use. File: Elliot Goldenthal. Accessed 11 September 2016.

(c) 2016. Tel Asiado. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Written on the Wind (Song)

Songs / Down Memory Lane

The song Written on the Wind is written by Sammy Cahn and Victor Young. It was sung by The Four Aces during the opening credits of the 1956 American drama film of the same title, directed by Douglas Sirk, starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone. The film's score was composed by Frank Skinner.

Video Credits:

Main Titile - Written on the Wind (Original Soundtrack). Youtube, downloaded by Classic Soundtrack Collector. Accessed September 11, 2016.

The Four Aces - Written on the Wind (1956). Youtube, uploaded by Catspyjamas1. Accessed July 17, 2017.

"Written on the Wind" Film Opening (Directed by Douglas Sirk). Youtube, uploaded by impuritylevels. Accessed September 11, 2016.

(c) 2007-2017. Tel Asiado. Written for Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs - Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony

Choral Singing / Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

Dates:

Thursday 22 Sept 2016, 8pm
Saturday 24 Sept 2016, 2pm

Venue:

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

Program:

1. Richard Wagner - 'Siegfried's Rhine Journey' from the opera Götterdämmerung

2. Carl Vine - Wonders (world premiere)

3. Ralph Vaughan Williams - A Sea Symphony,

The Four Movements:

I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships

II. On the Beach at Night Alone

III. Scherzo: The Waves

IV. The Explorers

Artists:

Brett Weymark Conductor
Penelope Mills Soprano
Christopher Hillier Baritone
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs: Symphony Chorus & Festival Chorus
Sydney Youth Orchestra

A snippet of our general rehearsal with Maestro Brett Weymark. Apology for the abrupt end of the recording.

A pre-concert talk by Carl Vine and English composer Christopher Gordon will be held prior to the performance on Thursday 22nd September 7:15pm-7.45pm. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Northern Foyer.

About the Music:

A Sea Symphony is a choral symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams, written between 1903 and 1909. Vaughan Williams's first and longest symphony, it was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910, with the composer conducting. It marked the composer's emergence as one of the most ditinctive musical personalities of the 20th century. The symphony's maturity belies the composer's relative youth when it was written (he was 30 when he first began sketching it).

Image Credit: Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

One of the first symphonies in which a choir is used throughout the work and is an integral part of the musical texture, A Sea Symphony helped set the stage for a new era of symphonic and choral music in England during the first half of the 20th century. The work is sometimes referred to as the Symphony No. 1. The sound of the sea permeates the entire work from the sailors' sea shanties "Song for all Seas, all Ships", to the tranquillity of "On the beach at night, alone", and the exulting dramatic waves in "The Waves", and the words the choir sings are by the American poet Walt Whitman.

Leo Tolstoy

Writers Datebook: September 9

Russian Novelist, Also a Moralist, Philosopher and Mystic

Brief biography of Leo Tolstoy, one of Russia's best writers best known for War and Peace and Anna karenina.

Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, or simply, Leo Tolstoy, was one of Russia's finest writers. He is best known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, books considered to be among the greatest of all time.

Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828. His parents were wealthy landowners, and they lived on a huge estate, Yasnaya Polyana, near Moscow. Hoever, his parents died when he was young, leaving his aunts to bring him up. He was privately educated at home, then at Kazan University where he studied law and Asian languages. From his writings, Tolstoy had a happy childhood. A dreamy young man, he failed to graduate and moved to Moscow where he lived a fairly wild life.

When he was 23, he accompanied his elder brother Nikolay Tolstoy and joined the artillery regiment serving in the Crimean War. It was this time that Tolstoy also began his literary career. He published his autobiography and Sevastapol Sketches, a view of war as soldiers see it. He toured Europe as a literary celebrity but returned to Russia, where he set up a school for peasant children on his estate.

When he was 34, he married 18-year-old Sofya Behrs. They were happy and had 10 surviving children. Tolstoy devoted himself to his family, his writing and as a conscientious landlord, and committed to improving the lives of the peasants who lived on his Volga estate. During these years he produced his two literary masterpieces. War and Peace is a huge and complicated novel set in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. It was followed by Anna Karenina, the story of doomed love.

In his mid-life, Tolstoy went through a 'spiritual crisis' that he described in My Confession. In his serious search for God, he expounded Christ-like doctrines. As a result, he rejected materialism, war, the church, and his own wealth in favour of a simple, peasantlike life.

Quoted from his last major work A Calendar of Wisdom page 257 (refer Resources below):

"Try to establish an inner silence in yourself, a complete silence of your lips and your heart. And then you will hear how God speaks to us, and you will know how to fulfil his will."

Leo Tolstoy died at the age of 82. This brilliant writer, philosopher, moralist and mystic, seemed to look at life slam in the face: passionately, wondering, perhaps too seriously even to argue itself with life, or even death. He died at the age of 82.

Suggested Listening:

War & Peace. By Martin Phipps, James Laing, Latvian Radio Choir & BBC National Orchestra of Wales. YouTube, uploaded by The Greatest Bird. Accessed September 9, 2017

Books by Tolstoy:

1851 Istoria vcherashchnevo dnya (Accounts of Yesterday)

1852 Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, an autobiographical trilogy

1855-56 Sevastapol Sketches

1865-69 War and Peace

1875-7 Anna Karenina

1884 My Confession

1886 How Much Land Does a Man Need?

1886 The Death of Ivan Ilyich

1895 Master and Man

1899 Resurrection

Note: I first wrote and published this piece for Suite101.com, September 13, 2007 / Tel

Image Credit:
en.wikipedia.org Commons / Public Domain.

Resources:

1. Dictionary of Writers, Larousse, 1994.
2. Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. Carlton Books, 1997.

(c) September 2016. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Antonin Dvorak

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: September 8

Brief biography of Czech composer Antonin Dvorák, most internationally celebrated composer of 19th century Bohemia, now Czech republic. He is best known for Symphony No.9, "From the New World" and his nationalistic outlook by using folklore and traditional legends.

Antonín (Leopold) Dvořák, Czech composer with the widest international renown due to his masterpiece Symphony No.9, 'From the New World,' is equally known for incorporating folk music into his classical works by using Bohemian and Slavonic folk songs and dances.

Dvorák was born in Nelahozeves, Czech Republic on September 8, 1841, Following the family tradition, he was trained as a butcher, something that did not suit well with him, but he finally convinced his father to allow him to pursue music especially singing, violin, piano and organ. He studied with Antonin Liehmann, then at the Prague Organ School. Only 16 years old, he played viola in cafes and the organ in a mental asylum in order to earn monies. A capable viola player, he joined the band that became the nucleus of the new Provisional Theatre orchestra. Antonin Dvorák was an amiable family man and lived a happy life.

Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture

Classical Music / Orchestral

The Year 1812, festival overture in E-flat major, Op. 49

Popularly known as the 1812 Overture, The Year 1812, festival overture in E-flat, Op. 49, is an overture written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to commemorate Russia's defence of its motherland against Napoleon's invading Grand Army in 1812.

The overture was first performed on August 20, 1882, on an all-Tchaikovsky program at the Art and Industrial Exhibition, in Moscow, conducted by Ippolit Al'tani under a tent near the then-unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, also memorializing the 1812 defense of Russia.

It was conducted by Tchaikovsky himself in 1891 at the dedication of Carnegie Hall, in what became the first time a major European composer visited the United States.

1812 Overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire, ringing chimes, and brass fanfare finale. It has also become a common accompaniment to fireworks displays on the United States' Independence Day. It went on to become one of Tchaikovsky's most popular works, along with his ballet scores: The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker.

Brief history of the famous 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky

Nikolay Rubinstein, head of the music section in connection with an exhibition of industry and the arts planned for 1881, commissioned from Tchaikovsky an overture which would open the exhibition. Tchaikovsky was reluctant: it was not the kind of job that attracted him, but he could not refuse Rubinstein's request. The composer only worked on it in October 1880, and finished it in less than a week, apart from the orchestration. He did not cherish any illusion of its true worth, as he told his patroness Madame Nadezhda von Meck, "It will be very loud and noisy. I wrote it without much warmth and therefore there will probably be no artistic merit in it." By this time, however, Tchaikovsky's music was famous worldwide.

It's common knowledge that Overture 1812 is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular works.

Trivia:

1812 Overture is personally emotional and memorable: In celebrating 40 years of Sydney Festival: Symphony in the Domain 2016, 16th January, the finale was performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and our Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' Symphony Chorus. Some of us from SPC Festival Chorus sung a special 'Happy Birthday' rendition and a small choral part of the overture itself.

Suggested Listening:

Tchaikovsky : Overture 1812 (Full, Choral) (Sure, best version ever) - Ashkenazy. Uploaded by greatclassicrecords. Accessed August 20, 2016.

Flashmob of Tchaikovsky's Overture 1812 - July 4th fireworks from Spain's Societat Musical d'Algemesi. Accessed August 20, 2018.

Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture (Full with Cannons). Youtube, uploaded by avrilfan2213. Accessed August 20, 2016.

Video Credit:

Tchaikovsky: Ouverture 1812 | Prinsengrachtconcert 2013, conducted by Antonio Pappano. Youtube, uploaded by AVROTROS Klassiek. Accessed August 20, 2016.

Resources:

1812 Overture. en.wikipedia.org. Accessed August 20, 2016.

Mountfield, David. TCHAIKOVSKY: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840-1893. New Jersey, U.S.: Chartwell Books, Inc. (1990).

The History of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. ThoughtCo.

Dvorak Piano Quintet No. 2

Classical Music / Piano Quintet

Antonín Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, B. 155, is a quintet for piano, 2 violins, viola, and cello. It was composed between August 18 and October 8, 1887, and was premiered in Prague on January 6, 1888. The quintet is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the form, along with those of Schumann, Brahms and Shostakovich.

The work was actually composed as the result of the composer’s attempt to revise an earlier work, Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 5. Dvořák was dissatisfied with the Op. 5 quintet and destroyed the manuscript not long after its premiere. Fifteen years later, he reconsidered and retrieved a copy of the score from a friend and started making revisions. However, he decided that rather than submitting the revised work for publication, he would compose an entirely new work. The new quintet is a mixture of Dvořák's personal form of expressive lyricism as well as a utilization of elements from Czech folk music. Characteristically those elements include styles and forms of song and dance, but not actual folk tunes; Dvořák created original melodies in the authentic folk style.

The music has four movements, with a duration of approximately 40 minutes.

Allegro, ma non tanto
Dumka: Andante con moto
Scherzo (Furiant): molto vivace
Finale: Allegro.

The first movement opens quietly with lyrical cello theme over piano accompaniment which is followed by a series of elaborate transformations. The viola introduces the second subject which is another lyrical melody, but much busier than the cello's stately line. Both themes are developed extensively by the first and second violins and the movement closes with a free recapitulation and an exuberant coda.

The second movement is labeled Dumka which is a form that Dvořák famously used in his Dumky piano trio and features a melancholy theme on the piano separated by fast, happy interludes. It follows the pattern ABACABA where A, in F♯ minor, is the slow elegiac refrain on piano with variations, B is a bright D major section on violins and C is a quick and vigorous section derived from the opening refrain. Each time the Dumka (A) section returns its texture is enriched.

The third movement is marked as a Furiant which is a fast Bohemian folk dance. The cello and viola alternate a rhythmic pizzicato underneath the main tune of the first violin. The slower trio section of the scherzo is also derived from the furiant theme, with the piano and violin alternating between the main melodies. The fast Bohemian folk dance returns and the movement finishes aggressively, setting up for the polka in the last movement.

The Finale is light-hearted and spirited. The second violin leads the theme into a fugue in the development section. In the coda, Dvořák writes tranquillo for a chorale-like section, which features the theme of the movement this time in augmentation and played pianissimo, before the pace quickens with an accelerando, and the quintet rushes to the finish.

Video Credit:

Dvorak Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81, Rubinstein, Guarneri Quartet, 1971. Ian Altman. Accessed October 9, 2016.

Resource:

Piano Quintet No. 2 (Dvorak). en.wikipedia.org.

(c) August 2016. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Carl Orff

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: July 10

Carl Orff (b. July 10, 1895, Munich - d. March 29, 1982, Munich), German composer, is best remembered for his popular cantata Carmina Burana. He was also known for his influential teaching method.

Early Life

German composer and teacher Carl Orff was born in Munich on July 10, 1895. Although his father was a soldier, his family was musical. As a boy he studied piano, organ and cello. His first works were all vocal and published when he was 16 years old. Formal Academic Training He enrolled at the local Munich Academy of Music and graduated in 1914, aged 19. Three years later, however, he was called by the German army to fight in the First World War.

Respighi Fountains of Rome

Classical Music / Symphonic Poems

Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome) is a 1916 symphonic poem written by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, now considered part of the "Roman Trilogy" of symphonic poems along with Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome, 1924) and Feste Romane (Roman Festivals, 1928). It is the first orchestral work in this trilogy. Each of the four sections depicts one of Rome's fountains during different periods of the day. It was first performed on March 11, 1917, where it appeared at the Teatro Augusteo in Rome with Antonio Guarnieri as conductor. Toscanini conducted the work in Milan in 1918 with tremendous success.

Movements:

1. "La fontana di Valle Giulia all'alba"
2. "La fontana del Tritone al mattino"
3. "La fontana di Trevi al meriggio"
4. "La fontana di Villa Medici al tramonto"

First section: "La fontana di Valle Giulia all'Alba" shows this fountain at daybreak in a pastoral landscape, in which cattle pass during the morning.

Second section: "La fontana del Tritone al mattino", Naiads and Tritons dancing in the morning light, as figures of the Bernini fountain are seen nearby. Gods and goddesses using conch shells (used in many rituals as spiritual symbols) are portrayed by the French horn.

Third section: Introduces "La fontana di Trevi al meriggio" and is ushered in by a triumph giving news of a recent victory by the god Neptune.

Final section: "La fontana di Villa Medici al tramonto" portrays a much more melancholic atmosphere as the brilliance of the sun fades.

Video Credit:

Ottorino Respighi - Fountains of Rome - Eugene Ormandy, 1957. YouTube, uploaded by mahlerman77, Accessed July 9, 2015.

Resource:

Fountains of Rome. en.wikipedia.org

(c) 2015-2017. Tel Asiado. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Chopin 12 Études Op. 25

CLASSICAL MUSIC / Etudes

The Études by Frédéric Chopin are three sets of solo studies for the piano published during the 1830s. There are twenty-seven compositions overall, comprising two separate collections of twelve, numbered Opus 10 an and 25, and a set of three without opus number.

Étude Op. 25, No. 12 in C minor is the last of the composer's formal studies for the piano, opus 25, dedicated to his mistress, the French novelist George Sand (Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin). It was first published in 1837 in French, German, and English. This work is a series of rising and falling arpeggios in various chord progressions from C minor. Its opening bars recall the chord structure of the opening bars of the second prelude of the first book of J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Chopin's 12 Études Op. 25, performed by Daniil Trifonov at Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition, May 2011 in Tel Aviv. (Please watch in Youtube - Here.

Said to be Chopin's last words:

"Now is my final agony. No more." Chopin's final words, as he listened to Mozart's Requiem.

Video Credit:

Frédéric Chopin - 12 Études, Op. 25 (Trifonov). YouTube, uploaded by pergrin tuk. Accessed July 1, 2016.

Resources:

Étude Op. 25, No. 12 (Chopin). en.wikipedia.org. Accessed July 1, 2016.

Études (Chopin). en.wikipedia.org. Accessed July 1, 2016.

(c) 2016. Tel Asiado. Written for Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Stravinsky and Gounod

Classical Music Composers Datebook: June 17

Charles Gounod and Igor Stravinsky were both born same day.

Charles Gounod (17 June 1818 - 18 October 1893), born in Paris, was a French composer, organist and conductor. His operas - best known is Faust - combine graceful melody and elegant harmonization. Gounod's Meditation on Bach's Prelude became successful and most popular with his "Gounod's Ave Maria" we offer refer to as "Bach/Gounod Ave Maria." I'm familiar with few other "Ave Maria" creations and I have to admit that my two all-time favourites are "Ave Maria" by Franz Schubert and the one below by Bach/Gounod. Below, a then 14 year-old girl Elena sang Gounod/Bach's "Ave Maria." Elena sang

Classical Music / Composer Datebook: June 15

Norway's Greatest Composer

Edvard Grieg (June 15, 1843 - September 4, 1907), Norway's greatest composer, is best known for his incidental music Peer Gynt Suite adapted for the Ibsen play Peer Gynt. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music a part of the standard classical repertoire. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought the music of Norway to international consciousness, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius did in Finland and Bedřich Smetana did in Czechoslovakia.

His major works include Concerto in A Minor, Holberg Suite, and Lyric Pieces of piano. He played a part in the formation of the Norwegian Academy of Music.

A son of a merchant, Grieg was of Scottish descent. He is the most celebrated person from his city of birth, Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school (Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home, Troldhaugen, is dedicated to his legacy.

Grieg studied in Leipzig. In 1863 he went to live in Copenhagen and studied with Niels Vilhelm Gade. The following year he met Rikard Nordaak, who inspired him for Norwegian national music. He then settled as a teacher and conductor at Christiania.

Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending

Classical Music / Solo Violin and Orchestra

The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams premiered in London in June 14, 1921. It's an orchestral romance for violin and orchestra. The music is inspired by a poem of 122 lines of the same name by the English poet George Meredith. It is about the song of the skylark. Siegfried Sassoon, English writer, poet and soldier, called it matchless of its kind, "a sustained lyric which never for a moment falls short of the effect aimed at, soars up and up with the song it imitates, and unites inspired spontaneity with a demonstration of effortless technical ingenuity... one has only to read the poem a few times to become aware of its perfection."

Vaughan Williams's beautiful music is now considered more widely known that the poem itself. He originally composed it in 1914 for violin and piano. It was revised in 1920, when the composer re-scored it for solo violin and orchestra, and a year later, premiered under the conductor Adrian Boult. Featuring a prominent solo violin part, the composition is intended to convey the lyrical and almost eternally English beauty of the scene in which a skylark rises into the heaven becoming almost invisible.

This version, now the more often performed of the two, premiered in 1921. The Lark Ascending is one of the most popular in the Classical repertoire among British listeners. In 2015, it ascended to ABC Classic FM 'Classic 100,' Swoon programme.

The video below is performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with David Nolan on violin and Vernon Handley conducting. (Picture: "The Cornfield", 1826, by John Constable)

Video Credit:

Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending. YouTube, uploaded by Richard Brittain. Accessed June 14, 2013.

Resource:

The Lark Ascending. en.wikipedia.org.

(c) June 2013. Updated June 14, 2016. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Wagner Opera Tristan und Isolde

Classical Music / Opera

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde, or Tristan and Isolda, or Tristran and Ysolt) is an opera or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by him, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Strassburg. Composed between 1857 and 1859, it was first performed in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bulow conducting. Wagner referred the work not as an opera but called it "Eine Handlung" (literally a drama, a plot or an action).

In 1886, 1st of December, Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde in its American premiere is enormously successful. Anton Seidl conducted the Metropolitan Opera in the New York opening.

This work by Wagner was inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, as well as Wagner's affair with Mathilde Wesendonck. Acknowledged as one of the peaks of the operatic repertoire, Tristan und Isolde was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of chromaticism, orchestral colour, harmonic suspension and tonality, and was enormously influential among Western classical composers.

The Prelude to Act I and Isolde's Liebestod (Love Death) are often performed as concert item.

Listening Pleasures:

Love Duet from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" Pt. I (English Subtitles). YouTube, uploaded by Eric Anderson. Accessed December 1, 2020.

Richard Wagner "Tristan Und Isolde" | Carlos Ludwig Kleiber. YouTube, uploaded by Adagio. Accessed June 10, 2015. Richard Wagner - Tristan and Isolde, Complete Opera, WWV 90. Staatskapelle Dresden, Carlos Ludwig Kleiber. Deutsche Grammophon, 1982. Act I. Prelude http://youtu.be/l25J7xdhhKc Act III. Liebestod http://youtu.be/YjMwDbFng_g

Live Performance:

Below is Act I of Tristan und Isolde performed in 2015 by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, conducted by American conductor David Robertson. Christine Brewer (soprano) – Isolde, Lance Ryan (tenor) – Tristan, Katarina Karnéus (mezzo-soprano) – Brangäne, Boaz Daniel (baritone) – Kurwenal, Angus Wood (tenor) – Melot, John Tessier (tenor) – Young Sailor, Shepherd, John Relyea (bass) – Marke, King of Cornwall, Harrison Collins (baritone) – Steersman. Tristan und Isolde Act I - SSO. YouTube, uploaded by Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Accessed December 1, 2016.
For those interested: Act II - here, and Act III - here.

Resource:

Tristan und Isolde. en.wikipedia.org. Accessed June 10, 2016.

Tristan und Isolde. Opera Online. Accessed June 10, 2018.

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' ChorusOz 2016

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs Presents

ChorusOz 2016: George F. Handel's 'Israel in Egypt'

12 June 2016, 5 P.M. Sunday
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

At Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, once again, it's that time of the year in June when hundreds of passionate singers from interstate and all over the world join SPC choristers for the annual ChorusOz weekend of singing, fun and friendship, finishing with a performance on the world-famous Sydney Opera House Concert Hall with a professional orchestra and soloists.

Briefly, Handel's Oratorio 'ISRAEL IN EGYPT'

George Frideric Handel's Israel in Egypt (HWV 54) is a biblical oratorio. Most scholars believe the libretto was prepared by Charles Jennens, thesame text writer for Handel's most famous Messiah. It is composed entirely of selected passages from the Holy Bible's Old Testament mainly from the books of Exodus and the Psalms.

Israel in Egypt premiered at London's King's Theatre in the Haymarket on April 4, 1739. Handel started it soon after the opera season at King's Theatre was cancelled for lack of subscribers. The oratorio was not well received by the first audience though commended it was commended in the Daily Post, and the second performance was shortened, the mainly choral work now augmented with Italian-style arias.

Marin Marais

Classical Music / Composers Datebook: May 31

French Composer Marin Marais

Marin Marais (31 May 1656 – 15 August 1728), was born and died in Paris. He is said to have brought viola da gamba playing to the highest level of perfection. He was a French composer and viol player who often conducted his own opera. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for few months.

In 1676, he was hired as a musician to the royal court of Versailles. Three years later, in 1679, he was appointed "ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole", a title he kept until 1725.

Mahler Symphony No.6 in A Minor

Classical Music Dateline, May 27 / Orchestral

Premiere of Gustav Mahler's Symphony 6

This day, May 27, 1906, Gustav Mahler conducts the first performance of his Symphony No.6 in Essen, Germany. Mahler's Symphony No. 6 in A minor is sometimes referred to as "Tragic" or Tragische, which he composed between 1903 and 1905 (revised 1906; scoring was repeatedly revised).

John Bardeen

Science / Scientist Datebook: May 23

Physicist and electrical engineer. Nobel Laureate in Physics twice.

John Bardeen (May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991), was born in Madison, Wisconsin. An electrical engineer and physicist, he was the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain, for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect, and in 1972 with Leon N Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer, for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity known as the BCS Theory.

The transistor revolutionized the electronics industry, and made possible the development of almost every modern electronic device, from telephones to computers to missiles.

Mary Cassatt

ART / Artist Datebook

"There are two ways for a painter: the broad and easy one or the narrow and hard one."
-Mary Cassatt

American Impressionist Painter

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (b. Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, May 22, 1844 - d. Le Mesnil-Theribus, France, June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born into a wealthy family of French descent in Allegheny (now part of Pennsylvnia's Pittsburgh, USA.)

She studied in Spain, Italy, and Holland, and lived much of her adult life in France, settling in Paris in 1868. There, she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the impressionists.

Newton's Laws of Motion

Brief insight of Newton's laws of motion.

Any science student or follower of Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) would know that his 3 laws of motion were framework for the mechanics of science. Newton calculated that the force of the attraction (gravity) between 2 objects is equal to the mass of each object multiplied by a gravitational constant and divided by the square of the distance between the objects.

What it means is that larger masses exert the stronger attraction, a reason why apples fall toward the Earth's gravitational centre. But, the force of gravity is reduced by distance - a reason why the Moon doesn't rush toward Earth or other larger celestial body. However, the earth's mass is much greater than that of the objects upon it that the force of attraction is large.

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