INSPIRED PEN WEB: March 2016

Béla Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Classical Music / Concerto for Orchestra / Orchestral

The Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement work for orchestra composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular and most accessible works. The score is inscribed '15 August – 8 October 1943' and premiered on December 1, 1944, in Symphony Hall, Boston. It was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with Serge Kousssevitzky conducting.

The concert was a great success and since then has been regularly performed. Perhaps it is the best-known of a number of pieces that have the apparent contradictory title Concerto for Orchestra, in contrast to the conventional concerto form which features a solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment. Bartók said that he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way.

Below is a wonderful performance as well as recording of Concerto for Orchestra, recorded in 1955. Composer: Béla Viktor János Bartók (25 March 1881 -- 26 September 1945). Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Fritz Reiner

Movements:

00:00 - I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo -- Allegro vivace
10:03 - II. "Giuoco delle coppie". Allegretto scherzando
16:05 - III. "Elegia". Andante non troppo
24:05 - IV. "Intermezzo interrotto". Allegretto
28:21 - V. Finale. Presto

Video Credit:

Béla Bartók - Concerto for Orchestra. Uploaded by Olla Vogala. Accessed March 25, 2016

Resource:

Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók). en.wikipedia.org.

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

SPC's 2016 Mozart Requiem Concert

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs present:
MOZART REQUIEM
Easter Saturday, 26 March 2016, 2PM
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

Don't miss! Book on line Sydney Opera House box office! Drawing on his musical genius and unparalleled understanding of the human voice, with passion and heavenliness, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produces his last composition as he lays dying. His Requiem is music of profound humanity and splendid beauty.

Join the charismatic Brett Weymark, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' Artistic & Music Director, conduct Mozart's Requiem and an Australian premier from Tavener, with SPC's Symphony Chorus, Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra and fine line of soloists, this Easter Saturday, 26th March 2016, 2PM, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House.

Soloists include:

Taryn Fiebig, Soprano
Sian Pendry, Mezzo soprano
Jonathan Abernety, Tenor
Michael Honeyman, Baritone
Shane Lowrencev, Bass

Stephen Sondheim

Musicals / Classical Music Datebook: March 22

Happy Birthday Stephen Sondheim! Thank you for the lovely music!

Stephen Sondheim: American Composer and Lyricist

Stephen (Joshua) Sondheim, born March 22, 1930, is an American composer and lyricist known for his contributions to musical theatre. He has received numerous awards including an Academy Award, Tony Awards (plus a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre), Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom (2015).

His best-known works include: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Follies, A Little Night Music (with the famous "Send in the Clowns"), Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods. The list goes on... Sondheim also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy, and some songs for 1990's Dick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" by Madonna, which won the Academy Award for Best Song.

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Classical Music / Composers Datebook: March 22

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber, is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. His various musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. To date, he has composed 21 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. He shares the same birthday with another 'giant' in musicals: Stephen Sondheim, 18 years his senior.

Early years

Andrew Lloyd Webber was born on 22 March 1948 in Kensington, London, the elder son of William Lloyd Webber, a composer and organist, and Jean Hermione Johnstone, a violinist and pianist. His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, is a world-renowned solo cellist. On the BBC's genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, he learned that his mother's great-great-uncle was the soldier Sir Peregrine Maitland who in 1815 served as a major general at the Battle of Waterloo.

In 1965, when Lloyd Webber was a 17-year-old budding musical-theatre composer, he was introduced to the 20-year-old aspiring pop-song writer Tim Rice. Their first collaboration was The Likes of Us, an Oliver!-inspired musical based on the true story of Thomas John Barnardo. They produced a demo tape of that work in 1966, but the project failed to gain a backer.

The Likes of Us is stylistically fashioned after the Broadway musical of the 1940s and 1950s; it opens with a traditional overture comprising a medley of tunes from the show, and the score reflects some of Lloyd Webber's early influences, particularly Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe, and Lionel Bart. In this respect, it is markedly different from the composer's later work, which tends to be either predominantly or wholly through-composed, and closer in form to opera.

^Mid-1970s

Lloyd Webber collaborated with Rice once again to write Evita (1978), a musical based on the life of Eva Perón. As with Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita was released first as a concept album (1976), featuring Julie Covington singing the part of Eva Perón. The song "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" became a hit single and the musical was staged at the West End's Prince Edward Theatre in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Elaine Paige in the title role. This original production was enormously successful, eventually running for nearly eight years in the West End.

Yvonne Elliman sings Jesus Christ Superstar ('73) "I don't know how to love him", the most brilliant interpretation in my books. Elliman doesn't just sing, she tells a story and shows her mixed feelings, emotions and doubts... all in a heartbeat.Youtube, uploaded by Blu Eyeangell. Accessed March 22, 2024.

Mid-80s

Lloyd Webber premiered The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End in 1986. He wrote the part of Christine for his then wife, Sarah Brightman, who played the role in the original London and Broadway productions alongside Michael Crawford as the Phantom. It became a hit and is still running in the West End; in January 2006 it overtook Lloyd Webber's Cats as the longest-running show on Broadway. On 11 February 2012, Phantom of the Opera played its 10,000th show on Broadway. With over 14,200 London productions it is the second longest-running West End musical. The Broadway production closed on 16 April 2023, having played 13,981 performances, the most in Broadway history.

'Music of the Night' - Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, The Phantom of the Opera. Youtube, accessed March 22, 2024.

Leopold Mozart's Musical Sleigh Ride

Classical Music / Leopold Mozart / Dances / Musical Sleigh Ride

Leopold Mozart, like his famous son Wolfgang Amadeus, also composed his own Musikalische Schlittenfahrt (Musical Sleigh Ride)

The musical works of Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang's father, a great violinist and composer himself, is inevitably overshadowed by the work of his endeared son. Leopold Mozart willingly sacrificed his own career to promote Wolfgang's. Like Wolfgang Amadeus, Leopold also composed his own musical sleigh ride, a Divertimento in F Major, considered popular enough.

Other works of Leopold Mozart that have survived include: The Toy Symphony, a trumpet concerto, and a number of symphonies.

Video Credit:

Leopold Mozart Musical Sleigh Ride (Musikalische Schlittenfahrt). YouTube uploaded by JHBernardo. Accessed March 18, 2016.

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

Wolfgang Mozart's Sleigh Ride

Mozart Dances / Three German Dances

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "Schlittenfahrt" from the Three German Dances No.3

"Schlittenfahrt" is the third dance in Wolfgang Mozart's Three German Dances (Teutsche), K. 605 he composed in 1791. The music may have been written by Mozart independently as it is very different in style from his other compositions. Schlittenfahrt means musical "sleigh ride," with the use of sleigh bells in the music piece clearly emphasizing this.

Before the sleigh bells enter, there is a series of repeating phrases that pass between the trumpets, woodwind and violins. The rise and fall of the sleigh bells make the piece seem like a sleigh ride would over snow. This is followed by beautiful trumpet solo that provides a peaceful and clear atmosphere to the music like in a winter's day.

The original repeating phrases then return, with a majestic fanfare from the trumpets that passes to the other instruments, then back to the sleigh bells, and finally, returns to the trumpet solo again, where the piece ends.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - German Dance No. 3 - Schlittenfahrt K. 605

Mozart - Three German Dances, K.605 [Complete]

German physicist who formulated Ohm's Law.

He worked on electric currents and acoustics. The unit of electrical resistance (Ohm) was named after him.

Georg Simon Ohm (16 March 1787 (89?) – 6 July 1854) was a German physicist born in Erlangen, Brandenburg-Bayreuth. He began his research as a high school teacher, used an electrochemical cell invented by Italian Count Alessandro Volta that time. Ohm taught in Cologne, Nuremberg, and finally in Munich.

A highly methodical experimenter, Ohm also availed his own created equipment to determine that there is a direct proportion between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current. This relationship is known as Ohm's law, an empirical law (found by experiment), which he formulated in 1827.

Barry Lyndon Film Soundtrack

Movie Soundtrack

Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period drama film. It's written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. The movie recounts the exploits of a fictional 18th-century Irish adventurer.

It stars Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, and Hardy Kruger. Exteriors of the film were shot on location in Ireland, England and Germany.

Tracks:

1. Sarabande Main Title (Georg Friedrich Handel) (0:00)
2. Women of Ireland (Sean O'Riada) (2:40)
3. Piper's Maggot Jig (Traditional) (6:53)
4. The Sea Maidens (Traditional) (8:37)
5. Tin Whistles (Sean O'Riada) (10:44)
6. British Grenadiers, Fife and Drums (Traditional) (14:28)
7. Hohenfriederberger March (Frederick the Great) (16:43)
8. Liliburlero, Fife and Drums (Traditional) (18:00)
9. Women of Ireland, Harp (Traditional) (19:08)
10. March from Idomeneo (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (20:04)
11. Sarabande Duel (Georg Friedrich Handel) (21:37)
12. Lilliburlero (Traditional) (24:52)
13. German Dance No.1 In C-Major (Franz Schubert) (25:47)
14. Sarabande Duel (Georg Friedrich Handel) (28:05)
15. The Cantina from Il Barbiere Di Saviglia, Film Adaptation (Giovanni Paisiello) (28:56)
16. Cello Concerto E-Minor, Third Movement (Antonio Vivaldi) (33:28)
17. Adagio from Concerto for Two Harpsichords And Orchestra in C-Minor (Johann Sebastian Bach) (37:21)
18. Piano Trio in E-Flat, Film Adaptation of the Opus 100 2nd Movement (Franz Schubert) (42:38)
19. Sarabande End Titles (Goerg Friedrich Handel) (46:56)

The film won four Oscars in production categories at the 1975 Academy Awards. Although having had a modest commercial success and a mixed reception from critics on release, Barry Lyndon is today regarded as one of Kubrick's finest films.

Video Credit:

Barry Lyndon - Sountrack. YouTube, uploaded by Igor Peixoto. Accessed March 15, 2016.

Resource:

Barry Lyndon. en.wikipedia.org.

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

Mozart's Sister Film by Rene Feret

Film / Mozart's Sister

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had an older sister, Maria Anna Mozart, "Nannerl" to her family. Mozart’s Sister is a film accounting of her early life and the reasons why she abandoned her own career as a musician, composer and singer; instead, devoting her life to supporting her brother as dictated by their father, Leopold.

Maria Anna "Nannerl" Mozart was three years older than her brother Wolfgang Amadeus who adored his sister. Much has been written and told of the early life of child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus. His elder sibling, Maria Anna, affectionately known to her family as "Nannerl," was a gifted musician, composer and singer in her own right.

Science / Radio Waves Milestone

What are Radio Waves?

Radio waves are electromagnetic waves that transmit sound and pictures through the air. Scottish scientist James Maxwell (1831-1879), known for his development of the single force field, electromagnetism, predicted that radio waves existed. German scientist and professor Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), wanted to find out more and experimented using circuits and electric currents. In 1886, Hertz created and measured radio waves for the first time. This phenomenon of electromagnetic waves that he demonstrated is referred to as "Hertzian waves" coined after his name. He further showed that their velocity and length could be measured, and that heat and light are electromagnetic waves.

Something about the DNA Structure and GENETICS

The structure of the DNA is considered one of the most profound discovery of the 20th century. DNA is the material that stores genetic information in chromosomes. By the time Watson and Crick showed it was a "double helix," geneticists knew that it stored all the information needed for an organism to build and operate.

DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid, a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of living organisms. The primary role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information.

British chemist and clergyman, chemistry of gases pioneer

Quarter-length portrait of a man in a black coat against a purple and blue curtain backdrop.

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), English clergyman and chemist, one of the discoverers of oxygen, was born on March 13, 1733, in Fieldhead, Leeds. He spent four years at a dissenting academy in Daventry and later became a minister at Needham Market.

Priestley wrote The Scripture Doctrine of Remission, Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, and his controversial History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ (1786.) In 1761, he became a teacher at Warrington Academy. It was during his visits to London that he met Benjamin Franklin who supplied him with books for his History of Electricity published in 1767.

Mozart Piano Concerti / Great Mozart Interpreters / Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim plays Mozart's last 8 Piano Concertos with Berlin Philharmoniker

The music of Wolfgang Mozart has been an essential driving force of the entire life of Daniel Barenboim, a prominent conductor and pianist. It remains central to his performing career both as a pianist and as a conductor. These performances of Mozart's last eight great piano concertos (Italian: concerti) admirably demonstrate Barenboim's dictum that even when a true musician has already performed a familiar work hundreds of times, he or she 'never accepts that the next note will be played the same way as it was played before.'

The Mozart repertoire include: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466; Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467; Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major, K. 482; Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488; Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491; Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503; Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major, K. 537; Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major, K. 595.

Enjoy Mozart's piano concertos beautifully interpreted by Barenboim.

And more ...

Earlier Mozart Piano Concertos played by Hungarian-born pianist Lili Kraus: Mozart - Piano Concertos No.11,12,13,14,17,18,19 + Presentation (Century's recording : Lili Kraus). Youtube, uploaded by Classical Music / Reference Recording. Accessed April 18, 2023.

Mozart - Piano Concertos No.20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27 + Presentation (Century's record. : Lili Kraus). YouTube, uploaded by Classical Music / Reference Recording. Accessed January 27, 2021.

Video Credit:

Daniel Barenboim plays Mozart's last 8 Piano Concertos. Youtube, uploaded by EuroArtsChannel. Accessed January 9, 2016.

Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier

Science/Astronomy Datebook: March 11

French astronomer and mathematician Urbain J.J. Le Verrier co-discovered planet Neptune

Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (1811-1877), was a French astronomer who co-discovered planet Neptune (with John Couch Adams), was born on March 11, 1811, in St. Lo, Normandy. He became a teacher of astronomy at the Polytechnique.

Science Datebook: March 11

Baron Ernest Rutherford, Father of Nuclear Physics

Baron Ernest Rutherford (b. August 30, 1871-d. October 19, 1937), was a New-Zealand born British physicist.

This day on March 11, 1911, Ernest Rutherford is considered the father of nuclear physics, as he published his atomic theory describing the structure of the atom for the first time at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.

He described the atom as having a central positive nucleus surrounded by negative orbiting electrons. His model suggested that most of the mass of the atom was contained in the small nucleus, with the rest of the atom mostly empty space. His conclusion followed what we now know as Rutherford's "gold foil experiment" especially amongst science students and other advocates.

Mozart Contemporaries / Librettists

Lorenzo Da Ponte, Italian Librettist of Wolfgang Mozart

Lorenzo Da Ponte's life and times, Italian librettist who wrote three of Mozart's four best operas.

Lorenzo Da Ponte (10 March 1749 – 17 August 1838), born in Céneda, near Treviso, Veneto, Italy, is an important librettist of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was a Venetian opera librettist and poet. He wrote the librettos for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest operas, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte. He was married to Nancy Grahl in Trieste, Italy, had one son.

Composer's Datebook: March 9

Czech Composer Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781)

Bohemian composer Josef Mysliveček, was born on 9 March 1737, in Ober-Sarka, Prague. He was one of identical twin brothers, the other was Jachym. He was a friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Josef Mysliveček showed more interest in music, although he became a miller first. He left the calling to his twin brother Jachym to follow in the footsteps of their miller father.
Josef began composing in about 1760. He became an important symphonist, producing numerous pieces. His vivacious personality endeared him to the Mozart family when they met in Bologna in 1770. "He exudes fire, spirit and life", wrote the youthful Wolfgang.

Science Datebook: March 8

Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission

Otto Hahn (1879-1968), German radio chemist and Nobel Prize winner, is born on March 8, 1879, in Frankfurt, Germany, and died July 28, 1968, in Gottingen, Germany. He discovered nuclear fission, in particular, the split of uranium atom into barium and krypton.

Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in chemistry, and shared the 1966 Enrico Fermi Award. He was involved in the discovery of several new radio elements, among them radiothorium, radioactinium and mesothorioum.

Richard Strauss Don Quixote for Cello Solo

Classical Music / Music for Cello

Richard Strauss's Don Quixote, for cello solo and orchestra first performed, 8th March 1898.

Don Quixote, Op. 35, is a composition by Richard Strauss for cello, viola and orchestra. It is subtitled Phantastische Variationen über ein Thema ritterlichen Charakters (Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character), based on the famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. Strauss composed this work in Munich in 1897, and the first performance took place in Cologne on 8 March 1898, conducted by Franz Wüllner with Friedrich Grützmacher as the cello soloist.

Video: Strauss: Don Quixote (Finale) / Rostropovich · Karajan · Berliner Philharmoniker

The orchestral score is 45 minutes long, written in theme and variations form, with the solo cello representing Don Quixote, and the solo viola and tenor tuba depicting the comic Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's squire. The second variation depicts an episode where Don Quixote encounters a herd of sheep and perceives them as an approaching army. All "episodes" are taken directly from the novel of Cervantes.

Verdi's La Traviata and Bellini's La Sonnambula

Classical Music Milestone: March 6

Verdi's La Traviata and Bellini's La Sonnambula first performed the same day

This day on March 6, 1831, the opera La Sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini premieres in Milan's Teatro Carcano. Opera La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi is also performed for the first time, March 6, 1853, at Teatro la Fenice in Venice.

La sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) is a two-act opera in semi-seria, with music in Bellini's tradition in bel canto to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani. It is based on a a ballet-pantomime called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer.

La traviata is a three-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi. It is set to an Italian libretto by Francisco Maria Piave, based on La dame aux Camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or The Woman Who Goes Astray. Originally, it was entitled Violetta, after the Verdi's main character.

Bellini: la Sonnambula, 2010, Nathalie Dessay, air final

Video Credit: Bellini's Opera La Sonnambula - youtube.com, uploaded by MrClifton68.
Retrieved March 6, 2013.

Dame Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti - 'Parigi, o cara' Verdi's La Traviata

Video Credit:

Verdi's La Traviata: "Parigi, o cara". youtube.com, uploaded by OperaAustralia. Retrieved March 6, 2013.

Resource:

Batta, András (2000). Opera: Composers, Works, Performers. Cologne: Könemann.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Classical Music Conductors Datebook: March 6, 2016

Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt dies at 86

The celebrated Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt - considered to be the "pope" of the baroque music revival - has died in Vienna aged 86. A statement on his website said he "took his last breath peacefully surrounded by family".

RIP, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and thank you for the many wonderful performances you showered us, with your beloved Concentus Musicus Wien, including Mozart's music. Read more from BBC...

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