The French guitarist Roland Dyens (1955-2016) was an extremely talented and well loved improviser, performer, composer, and arranger for classical guitar. His compositions show a love of life and a deep understanding of the use of guitar techniques and styles.

This piece is light and fun and if you close your eyes you can imagine riding a bicycle down a scenic path on the River Seine, or an old worn Paris avenue punctuated by sweet smelling patisseries.

https://youtu.be/CfKWwJLAZbw

It is very rare that you get to hear a great classical composer playing his own music. There are no recordings of Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and most of the other composers up until the turn of the 20th century. We are spoiled in our time that many of the contemporary classical composers can cement the exact way they want their music played. Even still, we have debates over the exact way and tempo that the majority of music through our history has been played.

So, here is Fritz Kreisler playing one of his short pieces, Schön Rosmarin (Lovely Rosemary), part of a set of three Viennese Dances (Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen).
https://youtu.be/RTNeHzzF8i8

François Couperin (1668-1733) was one of the leading composers of the French Baroque era. One of the best harpsichordists in history, he became the official harpsichordist to King Louis XV in 1719 after happily serving as organist in King Louis XIV Royal Chapel since the age of 25 in 1693.

This is a series of four concerts that can be listened to in parts or in whole, so it is easily accessible for those that are new to the Baroque style.
https://youtu.be/gAh8b2jW3hU

Music can often be hard to visualize for new listeners. Animated graphical scores, as pioneered and popularized by Stephen Malinowski, can strongly help novices and experts alike keep track of voices and ideas in music. I'll be posting more of his videos in the future since he is such an incredible resource for understanding music.

It might be a little confusing at first for some, but keep it up and you'll soon understand what's going on here. Try to keep track of different lines as they develop, switching from active listening and visually following one instrument to another and so on.

Joseph Haydn, Austrian, 1732-1809, Classical Period(~1730-~1820)

Quartet = two violins, viola, and cello.

https://youtu.be/1QjrtBWTof4

More often than many realize, pop and contemporary music borrow and take inspiration from classical music. A catchy melody, whether from Rachmaninov, Bach, or Beethoven, can still win the ears and hearts of the modern man.

You might have heard Elvis' famous song "Can't help falling in love" but have you heard the original that the melody comes from? Elisabeth Schwartzkopf (an interesting story herself) sings Jean Paul Martini's (1746-1816) Plaisir D'amour (Pleasure of Love).

He wrote it based on a Poem from Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian:

"The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,
The grief of love lasts a lifetime.

I gave up everything for ungrateful Sylvia,
She is leaving me for another lover.
The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,
The grief of love lasts a lifetime.

"As long as this water will run gently
Towards this brook which borders the meadow,
I will love you", Sylvia told me repeatedly.
The water still runs, but she has changed.

The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,
The grief of love lasts a lifetime."



And here are the Lyrics that Martini wrote for the song:

"The joys of love are but a moment long
The pain of love endures the whole life long

Your eyes kissed mine, I saw the love in them shine
You brought me heaven right then when your eyes kissed mine.

My love loves me, and all thy wonders I see
The rainbow shines in my window, my love loves me

And now he's gone like a dream that fades into dawn
But the words stay locked in my heartstrings, my love loves me"



Now compare this to the lyrics Elvis sang:
"Wise men say
Only fools rush in
But I can't help falling in love with you
Shall I stay?
Would it be a sin
If I can't help falling in love with you?

Like a river flows
Surely to the sea
Darling, so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand,
Take my whole life, too
For I can't help falling in love with you

Like a river flows
Surely to the sea
Darling, so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand,
Take my whole life, too
For I can't help falling in love with you
For I can't help falling in love with you"

A beautiful melody can go so far.
https://youtu.be/IjBNp07_qok

It is funny to me how the meaning and perspective of the lyrics change from version to version. The French sang that love is not without sorrow and loss, while the American sang for an optimistic future with the love of his life.

So while you might be happy playing Elvis' version at your wedding, you might not want to play the french version!

If you're interested in the beauty and history of the classical traditions and ancient traditions of music, then this channel is for you. I post once per day about different people, stories, styles, and of course music. Everything from Byzantium to modern classical.
Music is a precious heritage that is worth embracing.

Every day we go about our lives in a hurricane of sounds, the incessant hum of the machine, as E.M. Forster put it. It is inescapable and we are constantly experiencing louder and larger noises than any other people in history.

Today music is trivial, it is forced on you everywhere. People in grocery stores are humming to songs that they have known since childhood, yet they cannot tell you the meaning of the lyrics. The banality of modern music wafting from tinny shop speakers is not the way people experienced music for thousands of years.

The soundscape was quiter, a small town in Byzantium would have the shuffling of market merchants, the sharp stone on stone chisel of construction, the creak of a wobbly wagon wheel and the bleating of nearby sheep. But most notably, you would hear the magnificent sounds of Byzantine chants echoed throughout the town from the many churches built specifically with acoustics in mind.

Ancient man's music was largely in the glory of God, it was beautiful and resonating. In our time of shifting attention spans and sharp noises, we should remember the profound impact that music can have on man. It was and still is one of the most powerful psychological forces and a wonderful tool of the Church.
https://youtu.be/bqpzSHiWdNI

I accidentally deleted the link https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CVKbDcDNcb0z0vE3K4rQ5?si=1xJ2vC7dQdyMO8G5OSLBJg

Mikhail Glinka (b. Novospasskoye 1805 - 1857) is known as the founder of Russian classical music. The son of a landowner, he developed an early interest in folk songs. He took lessons in piano, violin and harmony, and sang, but worked in the Civil Service until 1828 when he decided to study music seriously.

He travelled to Italy for musical instruction and in a fit of home-sickness decided he would write in a Russian style. Shortly after he returned home in 1836, he wrote A Life for the Tsar. This work helped usher in an epoch of Russian classical music.

The whole opera can be found on youtube, it is about 3 hours long. (Жизнь за царя)

Here is a short selection of some of the dances.
https://youtu.be/OIAeg4D8Wns

The tragedy of the first world war can never be understated. It stole some of the brightest and strongest minds of Europe and cast them into the depths of muddy trenches, hopelessness, and despair at a crumbling world. Some might say that even still, the world has not recovered from this 100 year old wound, as it has festered over the years.

One of the casualties was a vivacious Yorkshire lad, George Butterworth, who died at the Battle of the Somme at the age of 31. His body was never found, like countless others.

"George Butterworth is probably the best-known of the ‘war composers’, held up as emblematic of the lost talent of his generation. A keen folk dancer and cricketer, Butterworth and his music seem the very model of a particular type of Englishman.

Relentlessly self critical, Butterworth regrettably destroyed the majority of his early compositions in 1915 before leaving for the Front, leaving four completed orchestral works, plus a tantalising fragment of a longer orchestral fantasia, his eleven song settings of A.E. Housman, a still unrecorded string quartet and a handful of other songs and choral pieces, all dating from the period 1910-14.

Several of his works remain in the repertoire. The justly famous orchestral pastorale ‘The Banks of Green Willow’ of 1913 is a staple of the English music canon. With genuine mass appeal, a century after its premiere the public voted it 80th in the Classic FM Hall of Fame.

Gerald Finzi wrote in 1922 that Butterworth’s music 'sums up our countryside as very little else has ever done'. Indeed the silver thread of the first English folksong revival is woven throughout his music, the clarity of his melodies and folksong modality still sounding fresh to the ear; no composer since has made a solo clarinet seem so redolent of an Arcadian English summer of oversaturated green and golden sunlight. Later works such as his rhapsody A Shropshire Lad display a darker, more uncertain tone and the fragments of an unfinished Fantasia for Orchestra give hints that this is the direction his music would have taken."

Read more about him here https://www.warcomposers.co.uk/butterworthbio

Just a quick post for today, very busy tonight. https://youtu.be/VIWQwUIDl1w

"Granados was one of the great pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Virtually all his music relies heavily on the Catalan and Spanish folk idiom (e.g. Twelve Spanish Pieces, or Six Pieces on Spanish Popular Songs), which, along with fellow Spaniard Isaac Albéniz, Granados was instrumental in bringing to the attention of the contemporary European musical establishment. Goyescas, begun in 1902 but not finished until 1911, is perhaps his mightiest achievement. (Granados also produced an opera by the same name -- both the pianistic and operatic incarnations of the work take the striking visuals of Goya as their inspiration.)
In 1916, while returning from the U.S.A. (where the opera Goyescas had received a New York premiere on January 26, 1916, and where Granados had performed in the White House for President Wilson), the liner Sussex was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Among the casualties were Granados and his wife of 24 years."

If you're a musician, this video will make your ego as big as your enormous brain.

https://youtu.be/R0JKCYZ8hng



Teach your child to play an instrument, no matter what you want them to do in the future. Practicing an instrument is one of the best possible workouts a brain can get and will help them in almost every aspect of life.

- long-term goal setting
- delayed gratification
- memory
- hand-eye coordination
- reflexes
- concentration and discipline
- imagination
- big brains
- attention span
- language skills
- teamwork with other musicians
- dealing with stress and anxiety in performances

And much more.

They might not like it at first and it is a difficult road, but the road to happiness is often rocky and rough, it is not padded with pleasure and fluff.

Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) was one of the first American composers to be recognized on the same level as European ones.

Woodland Sketches takes scenes from old New England and paints them with sound. MacDowell's unique style of composition feels American. Not the America we know now, but a place lost to time, gone from our world though somehow still lingering in our hearts. A slow moving rural sentiment, of mulberry trees, maple syrup, and large families full of bright-eyed children.

https://youtu.be/zFfz5K3W4dc

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is dark, dense and highly enigmatic, like most of Poe's work. If you know Poe, you know what you're in for; a highly symbolic and detailed work of horror that says a lot with just a few pages. It stands out as one of his best short stories and I highly recommend reading it.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/932

Alternatively, you can read a short synopsis on sparknotes or wikipedia or something if you don't have the time.

Nikita Koshkin (b.1956), a Russian modern classical composer, wrote one of the most interesting pieces in the classical guitar repertoire: Usher Waltz. Koshkin wrote this after Poe's story, and it stands out as a brilliant example of storytelling with music.

Koshkin is well known for his unorthodox and inventive use of guitar technique, including using prepared guitar. One interesting technique he uses here is the Bartok pizzicato, a pulling out and releasing of the string with the right hand to slam into the frets, creating a jarring tone.
His use of modern harmonic choices includes strong and persistingly dissonant lines, which serve him well in evoking the spirit of Poe's work.

https://youtu.be/w3ulenPf_II