A historical overview of classical music beginning over 1400 years ago with Gregorian chants and HidegardA whirlwind tour to beat all whirlwind tours!
A historical overview of classical music beginning over 1400 years ago with Gregorian chants and Hidegard von Bingen culminating with a brief listen to a snippet of the soundtracks from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter must by its very breadth be an extremely cursory whirlwind tour that forgoes all attempts at depth or explanation. That said, no matter how informed or erudite the listener might be, THE STORY OF CLASSICAL MUSIC provides an entertaining 4 CD collection of musical excerpts that spans history, spans musical styles and spans the globe. From ancient to avant garde, from ridiculous to sublime, from pianissimo to con belto fortissimo - there's something here for everybody and a springboard from which any listener - no matter how young or old, no matter how educated or new to the listening of classical music - can leap into further researches in the ever broadening and ever changing field of classical music.
Did you know that there is actually a performance piece of experimental classical music (and, no, I am not kidding) that is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence! The performer (presumably a concert pianist) enters the stage, sits down at the piano and does nothing for the duration of the piece. The music (such as it is) is presumed to be the background noises that occur in the concert hall! What do you think? Would you be clapping wildly when the performer took his bows? In honour of the nature of the piece, I'll stay silent on the name of the composer.
Another juicy little tidbit! I wonder how many other fans of classical music there are like me who were blissfully unaware that the modern "Tea for Two" which virtually any adult in North America can hum was composed by the Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovitch. What a neat little piece of classical music trivia!
To summarize, shallow and, of necessity, only informative or educational in passing but thoroughly entertaining and pleasant to listen to for the entire duration of the 4 CD production. Recommended.
The intent and general content of THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA is made abundantly clear by a perfectly self-explanatory tiListen, learn and enjoy!
The intent and general content of THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA is made abundantly clear by a perfectly self-explanatory title. But, as always, the devil is in the details and Jeremy Siepmann is a past master at providing stellar commentary when it comes to "high brow" music, musical criticism, musical instruction, theory and history. His wonderful narration of THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA will make any classical music lover a more informed, more active and more appreciative listener of the music we already love.
Breaking down the typical orchestra into significant sections - strings, woodwinds, horns, brass and percussion - Siepmann provides a detailed explanation of the range, timbre, character and history of each instrument within a section. Most classical music lovers, for example, are probably already aware that the string section consists of the violin, the viola, the cello and the double bass. But many people may not be aware of the myriad of methods of playing each instrument and the use of such embellishments as muting, tremolo, harmonics and double stopping, for example. Siepmann's extraordinarily informative lessons even provide insight into how the instruments and the various playing techniques have evolved in time and how composers have changed the use and the intent of the instrument over time in the orchestration of their scores.
And, of course, what would such a set of lessons be without examples? Siepmann has done himself proud illustrating every point with absolute clarity giving the listener a musical example ranging in length from a few bars to entire movements. It is worth observing that a whirlwind tour of the orchestra completed in this fashion, if you change your perspective only slightly, amounts to a whirlwind tour of the entire history of orchestral music. Absolutely fascinating!
On a completely personal level, I took special delight in the percussion section. From guns to whips, snare drums to sandpaper, typewriters to tambourines, tympany and triangles, blocks and maracas to chains and wind machines, the ingenuity of composers knows no bounds in its attempt to create sounds to accompany music.
Having de-constructed the orchestra, Siepmann concludes THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA by re-building the orchestra one piece at a time to show how sound builds from duets to trios to quartets to ensembles to orchestras that are so massive as to beggar the imagination. Last but not least, he provides food for thought. As computers and synthesized sound come closer and closer to replicating any sound of any quality, any pitch, any duration, any timbre and any character, is it possible that our world faces the extinction of the reality of a symphonic orchestra?
If you love music, you will love THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA.
Even from the earliest age, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, like so many other musically precocious world-class comBeautiful music and an engaging biography
Even from the earliest age, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, like so many other musically precocious world-class composers, displayed an emotional insecurity that was to develop into a string of personal crises, depression and even suicidal tendencies as an adult. Perhaps it was the overwhelming fear of the exposure of his stifled homosexuality that led to his marriage being an utter disaster even from its very first day. Even his long-standing relationship with his only true friend, the widowed Nadezhda von Meck, might be classed as considerably off the beaten track of normal friendships. This wealthy woman, who for much of Tchaikovsky's life was a generous patron, insisted that the only condition on their relationship be that they never meet. Their entire friendship was conducted through correspondence and it hurt Tchaikovsky deeply when she unilaterally terminated that relationship for no reason that Tchaikovsky could fathom. While the world did not lose Tchaikovsky quite as early as we saw Mozart pass away, his untimely death at the age of 53 was deeply mourned. To this day it is an open question as to whether he died of cholera or suicide.
But, of course, it is the music - the symphonies, ballets ("Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker" are arguably the best known ballets in the entire classical repertoire), chamber music and operas such as the lyrical "Eugene Onegin" - that is the reason we are so interested in the story of the man as well. Jeremy Siepmann and Naxos Records have created a truly winning recipe with their "LIFE AND WORKS" series. The combination of an audio book with music is an extraordinarily powerful and compelling way of bringing the biography of a classical musician to life and, at the same time, making the music accessible to a wide audience who may never have had the privilege of listening to some of the greatest music ever written. Siepmann's narrative voice is truly enchanting. Not only does he do a masterful job narrating Tchaikovsky's story in a most compelling manner but he does a magnificent job of relating Tchaikovsky's mercurial moods and the events in his life to the very nature of the music that he was producing at different periods in his life.
Highly recommended for lovers of music and music history alike.
Jeremy Siepmann and Naxos Records have created a truly winning recipe with their LIFE AND WORKS series. The combYet another success in a superb series
Jeremy Siepmann and Naxos Records have created a truly winning recipe with their LIFE AND WORKS series. The combination of an audio book with music is an extraordinarily powerful and compelling way of bringing the biography of a classical musician to life and, at the same time, making the music accessible to a wide audience who may never have had the privilege of listening to some of the greatest music ever written.
Frederic Chopin, like so many of the classical composers that we have come to love, was a child prodigy. Born in Poland to a French father, he was a composer and a leader in the development of Romantic music (a genre he truly didn't even care for himself). Despite being one of the greatest pianists in Europe, his innovative compositions relied more on depth, nuance, expression and musical story-telling than a blatant exhibition of pianistic virtuosity. His prolific output included stylings such as sonatas, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, ballades, impromptus, études and préludes (some of which had yet to be written for piano until Chopin set pen to paper).
In a listening experience that spans a scant two hours, it's difficult to be scholarly and cover great expanses of music. But, be assured, it's all here at least in brief - his deeply flawed love life, the rumours of his homosexual tendencies, his virtuosic piano skills, his music, his nomadic living style coupled with a fierce patriotic love of Poland, his birth place, his frail disposition and his ill health which, of course, fueled a predisposition to paranoid levels of hypochondria, and much, much more.
Truly an uplifting, entertaining and educational listening experience. Highly recommended.
Educational, uplifting and immensely entertaining!
Jeremy Siepmann and Naxos Records have created a truly winning recipe with their LIFE AND WORKS serEducational, uplifting and immensely entertaining!
Jeremy Siepmann and Naxos Records have created a truly winning recipe with their LIFE AND WORKS series. The combination of an audio book with music is an extraordinarily powerful and compelling way of bringing the biography of a classical musician to life and, at the same time, making the music accessible to a wide audience who may never have had the privilege of listening to some of the greatest music ever written.
In Josef Haydn, we are treated to the story of a modest unassuming man, born of modest parents (his father worked as a wheelwright). As an employee of the Esterhazy family (one might almost argue that his work contract made him an indentured servant), he lived a quiet, modest life with modest means. Even after he had become famous across Europe and was arguably the wealthiest musician on the continent, he was generous to a fault with both his time and his resources.
Unlike his successors, Mozart and Beethoven, he was not ruthlessly exploited by his parents. His marriage was unhappy almost from its inception and, while he craved the stability of a happy family life with children, he was forced to make do with a series of what one can best characterize as monogamous affairs. His astonishing success as a musician can be attributed to relentless, unstinting hard work and self-improvement through lifelong study and continuing education of the art of music, composition and theory. He was an accomplished singer and could play virtually any instrument at a level that would comfortably place him among the ranks of a symphonic orchestra.
Haydn's religious faith was unshakeable and, indeed, much of his music, whether religious or secular, was specifically dedicated to the glory of a God who Haydn saw as responsible for his success, for all the beauty he saw around him and for any beauty he was lucky enough to create in his music.
In short, while his life was rather uneventful, placid and not particularly exciting, his music was certainly the opposite. Whether it was a piano trio, a sonata, a string quartet - contrary to common belief, Haydn did not create the string quartet as a style of music but he certainly revolutionized it almost beyond recognition from any previous form in which it may have existed - a symphony, an opera, a mass or a piece of secular music that might be sung around the fire or in a local public house, Haydn's astonishing musical output marks him as one of the greatest composers who ever lived.
Another wonderful success in the Naxos series that brings the classical composers and an overview of their wonderful music to the ears of a grateful audience. I continue to look forward to further entries in this fabulous series. Highly recommended.
Uplifting, educational and immensely entertaining!
Jeremy Siepmann and Naxos Records have created a truly winning recipe with their LIFE AND WORKS seriUplifting, educational and immensely entertaining!
Jeremy Siepmann and Naxos Records have created a truly winning recipe with their LIFE AND WORKS series. The combination of an audio book with music is an extraordinarily powerful and compelling way of bringing the biography of a classical musician to life and, at the same time, making the music accessible to a wide audience who may never have had the privilege of listening to some of the greatest music ever written.
Franz Liszt, revered in his time as the greatest pianist in Europe (and, as a result, almost certainly in the world) is now recognized as perhaps the most technically skilled virtuoso pianist who ever laid hands to keys.
An important and influential composer, Liszt's development of the symphonic poem form and his departures from accepted harmonic combinations are now seen as the early fore-runner to modern music and the basis on which 20th century "classical" music is now based.
The enormous body of work left behind by Liszt includes, for example, a large number of religious works which a century and a half later are only now being explored and studied by religious and music scholars and conductors. His first setting of the "Ave Maria" is so lush and mellifluous as to positively melt a listener. What I wouldn't give for an opportunity to perform such a magnificent work!
This wonderfully performed story ends by summarizing the paradoxes of Franz Liszt's life and the almost inconceivably vast catalogue of music that was his legacy. In a most confusing way, Liszt was astonishingly vain and yet truly humble; self-centred and self-seeking yet prodigiously generous with his time, his skills and his teaching; powerfully sexual and, not to put too fine a point on it, a "chick magnet" with a power that would be the stuff of a modern man's fantasy, but, at the same time, morally strict with himself and others (the classic example of saint and sinner rolled into one).
In a listening experience that spans a scant two hours, it's difficult to be scholarly and cover great expanses of music. But, be assured, it's all here at least in brief - his love life; his virtuosic piano skills; an overview of his music; his nomadic living style coupled with a fierce patriotic love of Hungary, his birth place; his fiery relationship with his mistresses; his sadly deficient parenting skills and his virtual non-relationship with his children; his courageous support of the Romany gypsies, for example, in the face of political opposition; and much, much more.
Truly an uplifting, entertaining and educational listening experience. Highly recommended.
"Suffering is not external ... it is an essential part of the human experience!"
Informative, educational, entertaining, breathtaking, moving and ("Suffering is not external ... it is an essential part of the human experience!"
Informative, educational, entertaining, breathtaking, moving and (fill in your favourite superlative here!) What an absolutely brilliant use of the audio book medium to combine a book and music into a single format.
We have a wonderfully narrated (and extremely well acted) story of Beethoven as a man - the ruthless, indeed, brutal exploitation of the young genius by his father, Johann, who was determined to profit from his son's abilities in the same fashion as Leopold Mozart squeezed his brilliant child prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus; Beethoven's heartbreaking (and perennially unsuccessful) obsession with obtaining a wife and female companionship; the devastating universal rejection of his overtures of love (never mind that the objects of his affection were invariably unavailable either by class, by age or by virtue of being already married); the young Beethoven's arrogant self-confidence that not only expressed nary a scintilla of doubt in his own abilities but even loudly professed that he learned absolutely nothing from his aging colleagues, Mozart and Haydn; the virtual abduction of his deceased brother's son, Karl, and his almost lifelong battle against Karl's mother, Johanna; and, of course, the tragedy of his progressive deafness and chronic abdominal pain.
Then there was his prolific, almost miraculous output of some of the finest music that the world has ever been granted the opportunity to hear - symphonies, etudes, quartets, quintets, sonatas, choral works, chamber music, concerti, masses. Cutting edge music such as his 32nd and final piano sonata defied current convention and re-wrote the musical rule books as to what was acceptable and beautiful. Although this sonata, for example, was fundamentally what we would historically label as classical in nature, it was also avant-garde, entirely original and bore no resemblance to the baroque music that immediately preceded it. Certain rhythms, enormous variations in both tempi and volume, and striking dissonant harmonies would even lead many of today's listeners (unfamiliar with Beethoven) to feel they were listening to the beginnings of modern jazz piano. The breathtaking and entirely unprecedented final movement of his ninth symphony, with orchestra, full mixed chorus and four soloists, was so far ahead of its time as to lay the groundwork for Mahler's enormous choral masterworks that weren't to appear until over 70 years later.
Despite being a curious concatenation of ostentatious self-pity (one could admit that this was, to a certain extent, warranted given his physical ailments), ugly eccentricities, beastly manners and sometimes less than faithful personal hygiene habits, Ludwig van Beethoven was liked by his friends. He styled himself a Bacchus whose mission in life was the dissemination of joy to the world through his music. And now ... this brilliant audio work has made me painfully aware that I have only begun to scratch the surface of that enormous repertoire of joy. How ironic is it that one of Beethoven's final works, written at a time when he was most ill and most profoundly deaf was a setting of a poem entitled "Ode to Joy"! I've got an enjoyable bit of work in front of me to delve deeper into Beethoven's music!
I must say I'm looking forward to more CDs in this series! Goodness knows there are lots to choose from - Haydn, Chopin, Bach, Liszt, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Schubert and more! I'm thrilled to have discovered such a gem.
Informative, educational, entertaining, breathtaking, moving and (fill in your favourite superlative here!) What aMusic and text combined brilliantly!
Informative, educational, entertaining, breathtaking, moving and (fill in your favourite superlative here!) What an absolutely brilliant use of the audio book medium to combine a book and music into a single format.
We have a wonderfully narrated (and extremely well acted) story of Mozart as a man - the genius that was apparent as early as the tender age of 4; the ruthless, indeed heartbreaking exploitation of that genius by his father Leopold; the equally heartbreaking rejection of his unconditional love of his sister, Maria Anna (often called "Nannerl"); his astonishing ability to teach himself the violin to a level that most professional musicians would only dream of (but without his parents even being aware that he was doing so); his rather bizarre occupation with scatological humour; his insane ability to compose the most complex masterworks in his head and then, virtually as an afterthought, to commit them to paper only so musicians could actually play them; his slavish love of elegant clothing and a life well beyond his financial means; the influence he felt from Johann Christian Bach, a friend and musical mentor; his friendship with Haydn and his insecure belief that he could never measure up to Haydn's skills as a musician; the political controversy that Mozart courted in his writing of the opera Cosi Fan Tutte; and, of course, the lifelong devotion to his loving wife, Constanze.
Then there was his prolific, almost miraculous output of some of the finest music that the world has ever been granted the opportunity to hear - operas, symphonies, etudes, quartets, sonatas, choral works, chamber music, divertimenti, concerti, masses. Cutting edge music such as a tone poem for 13 wind instruments in seven movements that extended to almost an hour in length defied current convention and re-wrote the musical rule books as to what was acceptable and beautiful. He even wrote music for instruments such as the glass harmonica (invented by Benjamin Franklin) that was beautiful to a degree that the instrument was simply incapable of reproducing. This wonderful little audio book is absolutely chock-a-block full of samples of music - short enough and abundant enough to give you an almost dizzying sense of the scope of Mozart's work, yet long enough to leave you with a smile on your face and a toe-tapping sense of musical satisfaction.
If anyone had asked me who my favourite classical composer was before I listened to The Life and Works of Mozart, I would have readily answered that Mozart was my man. But now ... this brilliant audio work has made me painfully aware that I have only begun to scratch the surface of Mozart's repertoire. I've got an enjoyable bit of work in front of me to delve deeper into my favourite composer's music!
I must say I'm looking forward to more CDs in this series! Goodness knows there are lots to choose from - Haydn, Chopin, Bach, Liszt, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Schubert and more! I'm thrilled to have discovered such a gem.
A solid starting point for Christmas choral concert music!
CAROLS FOR CHOIRS 1 comprises 50 carols, mostly for mixed SATB voices, well blended from botA solid starting point for Christmas choral concert music!
CAROLS FOR CHOIRS 1 comprises 50 carols, mostly for mixed SATB voices, well blended from both traditional and modern sources as well as secular versus sacred. Several familiar texts such as "Away in a Manger", "Coventry Carol" and "I Saw Three Ships" appear in two different musical settings which will give choirs the ability to present a wider variety of music to informed audiences that might well be jaded with the more typical Christmas fare.
Some pieces such as Mendelssohn's "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" or "O Come All Ye Faithful" are presented with the well known upper voice descant and oft heard harmonies that are so familiar it's probable even "con belto" fortissimo audience participants might be heard singing in four parts.
In marked contrast, other pieces such as "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" or JS Bach's harmonization of "O Little One Sweet", while not requiring virtuosity, will require careful practice, study and complete attention to choral detail such as dynamics, endings and articulation in order to pull off a polished, crowd-pleasing a cappella performance.
Highly recommended for regular choral singers and conductors.
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