May, 2018

45 Posts
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Audience Watching
One of the secondary pleasures of going to live music in concert is “audience watching”. Different artists and repertoire attract different audiences, and I love observing audience behaviour before, during and after a concert. The ritual of concert going and
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Cellists Klengel and Becker: Towering Figures of the 19th Century
Like many other young cellists, I encountered Julius Klengel through his books of Technical Exercises in All Keys and his Daily Exercises. I wanted to play concertos not hours fixated on scales, arpeggios, and bowing exercises. But my father insisted,
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SIBELIUS, J.: Tapiola / En Saga / Songs (arr. A. Sallinen for voice and orchestra)
7 Songs, Op. 13 (arr. A. Sallinen for voice and orchestra) – No. 1. Under strandens granar (‘Neath the Fir Trees) From SIBELIUS, J.: Tapiola / En Saga / Songs (arr. A. Sallinen for voice and orchestra) (2017) Released by
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Meet the Artist – François-Frédéric Guy
“Playing a concerto with orchestra is the utmost gift a pianist can receive!” Ahead of his Hong Kong Sinfonietta début under Gabor Kali in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3, French pianist François-Frédéric Guy talks to Frances Wilson about influences and
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Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana
Premiered Today in 1890
What do you get when you mix religiosity with sexual passion? Audiences got the answer on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. It was on that date that Pietro Mascagni’s one-act melodrama Cavalleria Rusticana saw its official
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Polish Sensibility: the Mazurkas of Chopin and Szymanowski
Say ‘Mazurka’ and most people will reply ‘Chopin’. Fryderyk Chopin wrote at least 69 pieces in this form: 45 published during his lifetime, 13 published posthumously, and a further 11, which are known but where the manuscripts are in private
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Gershwin’s Preludes
From Bach onward, the idea of a cycle of preludes has intrigued composer. George Gershwin (1898-1937) took up the task of writing an intended 24, only completed 6 and only published 3.
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Mapping the Musical Genome
The Mason Family
It’s not an exaggeration to declare that the Mason family decidedly and uniquely contributed to American music during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The patriarch Lowell Mason (1792-1872) was a significant composer of church music, including many original hymns.
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