When people think of classical music, they usually think of Bach or Mozart or Beethoven, but there were others making music before them and alongside them that don't get the same prestige. We categorize them as "folk" music or something like this, yet they inspire and are often directly responsible for many of the forms of classical music and the inspiration that drove the great composers, like Bartok. They will always be the essence that classical music built on, the songs of the people, the true spirit of a culture, the religious music and the secular "folk" music.

Turlough O'Carolan (Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin) was born in 1670 near Nobber, County Meath and died March 25, 1738 at the home of his patron Mrs. MacDermott Roe in Alderford, County Roscommon. He was one of the last Irish harpers who composed and a significant number of his works survive in single line melody. Carolan's fame was not due to his skill with the harp (having started at 18), but to his gift for composition and verse.

Around the age of 18 Carolan was blinded by smallpox. Even before his illness Carolan had shown talent for poetry and may have been taught, even before his illness, by a harper Named MacDermott Roe (possibly Ruari dall who lived with the MacDermott Roes). Carolan studied for three years at the end of which Mrs. MacDermott Roe gave him a harp, a horse and some money to begin his career as an itinerant harper. For forty-five years Carolan would travel throughout Ireland composing tunes (planxties) for his patrons.

Carolan's music reflects his personality. He was "cheerful and gregarious" (Complete Works, 5), enjoying ludicrous stories, practical jokes and, according to Donal O'Sullivan was excellent at backgammon. Like many harpers, he drank a great deal and he had a temper.
Several anecdotes illustrate these characteristics. Carolan was drinking with an old friend, McCabe when MacCabe challenged Carolan to a contest. Whoever got drunk first would pay for all of the drinks. After some time MacCabe fell silent. Unable to see, Carolan asked why and was told MacCabe was sound asleep. Suspecting MacCabe would refuse to honor the bet, Carolan called for a sack and tied MacCabe up. MacCabe slept through the night. MacCabe woke, somewhat annoyed, but forced to concede the bet to Carolan. The incident led, however, to an exchange of "scolding" poems between the two men. Carolan scolded "smelly-fingered Charles, son of Cabe" for not taking the joke as intended and McCabe bid "bad luck and ill-chance befall" Carolan, and berated him for his "insignificant, elementary humor" (O'Sullivan, 78-79). McCabe would later write a touching Elegy to Carolan.
At one point a doctor advised Carolan to stop drinking for a period of time. Complying with this, Carolan began to feel worse instead of better. He then found a doctor who gave him the opposite advice whereupon Carolan spirits immediately became "lively and cheerful". He composed the following poem (translated from the Gaelic).

He's a fool who give over the liquor,
It softens the skinflint at once,
It urges the slow coach on quicker,
Gives spirit and brains to the dunce.
The man who is dumb as a rule
Discovers a great deal to say,
While he who is bashful since Yule
Will talk in an amorous way.
It's drink that uplifts the poltroon
To give battle in France and in Spain,
Now here is an end of my turn-
And fill me that bumper again!

In The Complete Works of Turlough O'Carolan Grainne Yeats relates the tale of Carolan and David Murphy (who was harper to Lord Mayo and once played before King Louis XIV of France). Murphy told Carolan that his tunes were like "bones without beef". Carolan thereupon dragged Murphy kicking and screaming through the room. While Murphy screamed Carolan remarked, "Put beef to that air, you puppy."
Carolan married Mary Maguire who he settled on a farm near Mohill, County Leitrim. They had seven children, six daughters and a son. His wife died in 1733. There is little record of Carolan's children. His daughter Siobhan married Captain Sudley and his son published a collection of Carolan's tunes in 1747. Following the publication Carolan's son began an affair with a married woman and fled to London, where he taught the harp.
Grainne Yeats sums up her biography with an excellent tribute to Carolan. Carolan "bridge the gap between continental art music on the one hand, and the Gaelic harp and folk music on the other." "At his best he wrote music that is distinctively Irish, yet has an international flavor as well. It is this achievement that suggests that Turlough Carolan does indeed deserve the title of Ireland's "National Composer"

Some say that Carolan's Farewell to Music is the last piece of music he wrote before he died, possibly even on the day of his death.

Some also say that his final composition was to his butler, Flinn, who brought him his final drink.
https://youtu.be/RNo-4k6knvo

It is my opinion that many people play Mozart and many other classical composers too fast. Liszt, surprisingly, also lamented this after having been questioned by a famous artist. The general public wants virtuosity and excitement, but what if that is not what the music truly wants, and what were the composers intentions? These questions are not as easy to answer as they may seem and are still debated to this day.

So, try listening to Gould playing a very familiar piece that we all know, but slower and with more expression than is usually seen in the common faster tempos.

To me, it has much more of a Turkish feeling played this way.

https://youtu.be/eTZ33EVK3Ug

Dusan Bogdanović (b1955) is a Serbian-born American classical guitarist and composer.

https://youtu.be/wayeqSR4weo

Double post for today
https://youtu.be/Vbw53GO2JGI

https://youtu.be/hcfl3lYQy9M

Clavichord - it has vibrato! (Kind of)

This isn't classical music, but I just wanted to highlight this artist. Incredible music is still being made today, though it is often difficult to find. The classical performance repertoire is often full of names you know. Turn on the classical radio and more often than not you'll be hearing familiar names of composers like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, or Mozart and Brahms, Debussy or Vivaldi. This isn't a bad thing, but it makes it difficult for new pieces and artists to enter the repertoire on a larger stage and even then they have to fit in a certain stylistic way.

It is good to branch outside of what you know and look for what you don't know yet. Our modern age muffles the voices of genius in favor of the mundane and mediocre, so it takes individual effort to really find the gold in the mountain of dirt.

Here's some gold.

https://youtu.be/xmScqhDSJrI

Camille Saint-Saëns claimed that he lived in music "like a fish in water". He composed over 300 works and began composing at three years old, wrote his first symphony at sixteen.

Whatever you want to do with your life, take that attitude and you will go far. Raise your kids with that attitude.


https://youtu.be/5LOFhsksAYw

Rico Stover tells us that Barrios wrote Julia Florida in December of 1938 while living in Costa Rica. It was apparently a difficult time for the composer due to diminishing health and a lack of regular employment. Julia Florida was dedicated to Francisco Salazar’s niece, Julia Martinez whom Barrios taught.

In a recent email Richard elaborated:
“I met Julia in Costa Rica. She told me that Barrios smoked a lot and was a bit nervous. Maybe because she was so beautiful and he of course wanted her but restrained himself…. or maybe not? She never let on to me that anything at all went down between them and I somehow think that was the case. But, knowing Mangore’s history with women, I wouldn’t rule it out either.

And of course you know why she was called “ Julia Florida” by her family? She grew very fast in adolecence, ”bloomed” and “shot up” at an early age (“florida’ means “bloomed” form florece = to bloom or flower).”

He must have been extremely fond of Ms. Martinez to write such a masterpiece. To quote again from Rico’s wonderful book, Leo Brouwer remarked:" Barrios’s mind and the structure of his thoughts were romantic. Just as Bach continued to write suburb baroque music up to the year of his death (1750), well after the high baroque period had come to an end, Barrios was writing exquisite romantic music long after its passing in Europe”

From:

http://www.benjaminverdery.com/bens-deep-thoughts/2014/12/12/reflections-on-agustin-barrios-mangores-julia-florida