Monday Music: Fun with William Tell

Here's some great fun from people practicing social distancing. We can all watch and listen as we continue our own social distancing.

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Monday Music: Concerto for three harpsichords in D minor, BWV 1063 (J. S. Bach)

Concerto for three harpsichords in D minor, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society for All of Bach

From the YouTube notes:

In the Concerto for three harpsichords in D minor, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society for All of Bach, Bach plays with monophony and polyphony. It is a solo concerto, but then for three harpsichords. Sometimes all the instruments play the same melody, but then they go off on their own again. And even when they follow their own path, there are still always lines played by two, three or four hands together. When the harpsichordists are actually all playing something different, their instruments still sound like one big combined instrument.

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Monday Music: Harpist plays Arabesques by Debussy

Some beautiful classical music this morning. A harpist plays "Arabesques" by Debussy

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Monday Music: A Very Young Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma at age seven, plays the first movement of Concertino No. 3 by Jean-Baptiste Bréval. He is accompanied by his eleven-year-old sister, Yeou-Cheng Ma. I love the scope of Leonard Bernstein's international vision as he introduces Yo-Yo Ma for the first time to a national audience.

From the YouTube site:
The New York Times reported that on November 29, 1962, a benefit concert called "The American Pageant of the Arts" was to be held with "a cast of 100, including President and Mrs. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Leonard Bernstein (as master of ceremonies), Pablo Casals, Marian Anderson, Van Cliburn, Robert Frost, Fredric March, Benny Goodman, Bob Newhart and a 7-year-old Chinese cellist called Yo-yo Ma, who was brought to the program's attention by Casals."

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Leonard Bernstein, The greatest 5 min. in music education

From the YouTube site:
"This amazing lecture series (The Unanswered Question ), is actually an interdisciplinary overview about the evolution of Western European classical music from Bach through the 20th century..." 

The Unanswered Question was a series of six lectures given by Bernstein at Harvard when he delivered the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1973. Virgil Thomson said of the lectures: “Nobody anywhere presents this material so warmly, so sincerely, so skillfully. As musical mind-openers they are first class; as pedagogy they are matchless.”

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Monday Music: Vivaldi

Classic FM posted this amazing Vivaldi Concerto in which the musicians use plastic recorders and a Cassio keyboard. They achieve a remarkable sound. On their Facebook page, Classic FM’s stated mission is “To bring classical music to the widest possible audience, no matter what their age, background or location.” According to the site, “Classic FM is the UK's favourite classical music station. Listen across the UK on 100 - 102 FM, digital, online at classicfm.com and in HD on our app.”

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Monday Music: Rainer Hersch and a Fun Take on Pachelbel Canon

Rainer Hersch is a British conductor well known among BBC audiences for his comic take on classical music. Here he takes the chord progression found in Pachelbel's Canon and shows us how many popular songs can fit within the music.

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Christmastide: "For Unto Us a Child is Born"

On the eight day of Christmas, "For Unto Us a Child is Born," by George Frideric Handel who chose his text from Isaiah 9: 6,7. It is a selection from Handel's Messiah, performed by the Winchester Cathedral choir.

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Monday Music: O Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion

By the liturgical calendar, Christmastide began with the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve and will continue until Epiphany (January 6). In other words, although Christmas Day was yesterday, it is still Christmas, which means we have a little more time for Christmas music.

My friend, Mark Biddle, has been sharing "12 Days of Christmas" musical selections from his talented family on his blog, Mostly on the Bible (he's a seminary prof). I wanted to share this lovely performance by his daughter, Ellen Broen, singing "O Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" (from Handel's Messiah). Check out his blog site, though, not only for the Twelve Days of Christmas music, but also for the theological commentary he shares on living our faith values.

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Monday Music: Timo Andres - Etude No. 16 by Philip Glass

Last week my wife and I heard the Alabama Symphony Orchestra play a composition by Timo Andres, "Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno." We were so impressed that I wanted to find out more about Timo Andres. He is a concert pianist as well as a composer. Here is a beautiful piece he plays by Philip Glass, "Etude N. 16."

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Monday Music: A Song that Changed the Course of Music

From “This Song Changed the Course of Music” By Kile Smith (WRTI, “your classical and jazz source”):

It was 201 years ago that Franz Schubert (1797-1828) wrote a song that would alter the course of music history…. “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel,” an unassuming title for Schubert’s first masterpiece and the start of an entire genre of music…

There had been songs before, of course. But art songs—in particular, German Lieder—were new. Not drawn from opera, they were self-contained concert dramas for voice and piano, setting poems steeped in romantic philosophy. They place the self-aware, if flawed, individual against nature or society, where it shines in all its glory—or despair.

Deceptively simple, Schubert’s harmonic agitation and melodic rage reflect Gretchen’s turmoil, while the wheel inexorably turns. (Read the entire piece here)

From NPR:

"The most amazing thing is that a 17-year-old boy can somehow enter into the female pysche with such an incredible amount of understanding as if he himself had experienced such feelings," Johnson says. And those feelings explode with operatic intensity half-way through the song when Gretchen stops the spinning wheel cold and screams "Sein kuss!" (His kiss!).

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Monday Music: Franz Liszt: Liebestraum cello and piano

Note from the You Tube site:
Cellist Seeli Toivio and her brother, pianist Kalle Toivio perform Franz Liszt (1811-1886) "Liebestraum" at Festival Servais 2007. Halle Basilica, Belgium, June 6, 2007. Festival Concert: Bicentennial Commemoration of the Belgian cello virtuoso Adrien François Servais (1807-1866).

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