We all know Bess’ song from Porgy and Bess: ‘Summertime, and the Livin’ is Easy’. We decided to do a survey of what other composers thought about summer and were surprised at the very different moods and modes composers used
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Music and Art: Goya May 24th, 2015 Francisco Goya (1746 – 1828) lead a life in and out of favour with the Spanish king and his highly dramatic paintings and etchings, particularly in relation to the various Spanish wars, were highly influential. His pictures of woman, his -
Old Wine in New Bottles
Chopin in the 20th Century May 23rd, 2015The first transcriptions of Chopin’s music appeared as early as the 1830s, shortly after the publication of the original compositions. In time, some 1500 composers took up the task, with some popular works transformed hundreds of times for all possible -
Swept Away Festival May 22nd, 2015 Tired of hearing summer festivals filled with the same old Mozart and Bach? The Swept Away Festival, organized by The Continuum Ensemble, will be looking at music from Berlin and Vienna in the Twenties and will take place in London -
In the Service of Music
Béla Bartók and Ditta Pásztory May 21st, 2015Béla Bartók had always been interested in young girls. His first wife Márta was only sixteen when they married, and he did have an extramarital affair with the fifteen-year-old poetess Klára. Bartók also vigorously but unsuccessfully pursued the young violinist -
Score it for Richard Strauss May 20th, 2015 The idea that orchestration, the technique of employing instruments to portray any musical aspect, is an integral and creative aspect of the compositional art has only gradually been accepted. -
Béla Bartók
“Competitions are for horses, not artists” May 19th, 2015Composed to celebrate the union of the cities of Buda and Pest into the present-day Hungarian capital in 1923, the Dance Suite quickly became one of Béla Bartók’s most popular works. It did more for Bartók’s reputation, in the positive -
Bogányi: The Piano from Planet Stealth May 18th, 2015 What do you get when you mate a grand piano with a spaceship from planet Stealth? The answer is simple, you get a Bogányi! If you are still confused, just have a look at the attached picture! This appears to -
Charlie Chaplin
The Fiddle and the Tramp May 17th, 2015Did you know that Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889-1977), probably the most famous and most important actor in the silent film era, was a committed amateur violinist who also composed a number of his film scores? Long before Chaplin contemplated