Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) wrote 4 Overtures (as he called them), known as his four Orchestra Suites between 1724 and 1731. Each of these suites consists of several movements that are dance-pieces. The form was extremely popular in Bach’s time,
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Musical Postcards: Albeniz’s Recuerdos de viaje April 19th, 2024 The seven images memorialized in Recuerdos de viaje (Memories of Travel) by Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) take us around Spain from the sea to the Alhambra. His use of his melodies that sound like Spanish folksong was a large part of -
Shaking for Queen Victoria April 18th, 2024 In her 64 years as the reigning monarch of the British Empire, Queen Victoria oversaw a prolific era of cultural, industrial, and political change. Even more remarkable was the fact that music occupied a central place in the lives of -
A Tour of the Galaxy
Leopold van der Pals’ Mönch Wanderer: Sphären-Musik April 13th, 2024Leopold van der Pals (1884–1966) took a different approach to the music of the planets in his 1931/1956 work Sphere-Music to the Dramatic Poem Mönch Wanderer, Op. 84. His Monk Wanderer was originally intended as a stage piece for actors, -
A Tour Around Vienna
Suppé: Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien April 12th, 2024The Austrian dramatist Franz Xaver Told (1793–1849) had a home on the stage of the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, producing a large number of plays for the theatre. He was talented, but worked so quickly that most of -
World Piano Day 2024
The Persian Connection April 6th, 2024Did you know that “World Piano Day” is always celebrated on the 88th day of the year? The reasoning is relatively simple, 88 keys on the piano, celebration on the 88th day of the year, get it? Basically, that means -
Keeping Track of the Days in Music
Michael Zev Gordon’s Diary Pieces April 4th, 2024Starting in 2015, British composer Michael Zev Gordon started to create a musical diary of 6 or 7 pieces per year that capture a ‘one idea or emotional state or a kind of sound’. Sometimes the fragments in the pieces -
Victoria Bond: Ancient Keys March 11th, 2024 The spa town Baden-Baden is located in the German state of Baden Württemberg, at the border of the Black Forest and within ten kilometers of the Rhine River. The Romans knew the curing springs at Baden-Baden, and in the 19th -
Variations on Variations
Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M.C.B. March 9th, 2024The English conductor Martyn Brabbins decided that, after 120 years, Elgar’s Enigma Variations needed an update. As his own 60th birthday was coming in 2019, Brabbins commissioned, with the help of the BBC, ‘a new set of Enigma Variations’. Elgar