It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
COVID-19 patient serenades hospital staff in Utah with violin. Picture: Intermountain Healthcare
By Sian Moore, ClassicFM London
The 70-year-old musician played church hymns and the ‘Tennessee Waltz’ as hospital staff watched on teary-eyed.
A retired orchestra teacher, who was in hospital with coronavirus, showed his appreciation for his caregivers the only way he knew how – by serenading them on his violin.
Grover Wilhelmsen was intubated and unable to speak, so requested in writing to perform on the ICU ward in Utah to thank the workers. “It’s the very least I could do,” he wrote.
Grover’s wife of 47 years, Diana, brought her husband’s violin and viola into the hospital.
To ensure a safe environment for the concert, medical staff closed the doors to Grover’s room and enjoyed the music from behind the glass.
“About a dozen caregivers gathered to watch and listen in the ICU,” said Grover’s nurse, Ciara Sase. “It brought tears to my eyes. For all the staff to see a patient doing this while intubated was unbelievable.”
“It was honestly shocking to be there when he picked up the violin,” nurse Matt Harper added. “It felt like I was in a dream.”
He continued: “I’m used to patients being miserable or sedated while being intubated, but Grover made an unfortunate situation into something positive.
“This was by far one of my favourite memories in the ICU that I’ve had. It was a small light in the darkness of COVID.”
Grover was recently discharged from the ward after staying for over a month, and is currently residing at an acute care facility where he is expected to recover.
“He truly is special and made a mark on all of us,” Sase said.
“When I started to cry in the room after he was done playing, he wrote to me, ‘Quit crying. Just smile,’ and he smiled at me.”
John Williams receives RPS Gold Medal award. Picture: Royal Philharmonic Society
By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London
‘He has dedicated his life to ensuring orchestral music continues to speak to and captivate millions of people worldwide.’
Internationally treasured composer John Williams, 88, is the recipient of this year’s RPS Gold Medal.
The legendary film maestro, who composed the enduring music for Star Wars, Harry Potter,Schindler’s Listand many more, won the coveted award at the 2020 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, for introducing millions to orchestral music.
His win, one of the highest honours in music recognising outstanding musicianship since 1870, was announced during a digital broadcast on 18 November featuring performances filmed at London’s Wigmore Hall.
Accepting the medal via video, Williams said: “To receive this award is beyond any expectation I could possibly have. For any composer to be able devote his or her life entirely to the composition of music is very fortunate indeed.”
Director Steven Spielberg presented a special congratulatory message to his long-time collaborator via video message, saying: “John, you have brought the classical idiom to young people all over the world through your scores, and through your classical training and your classical sensibilities. You are in the DNA of the musical culture of today.”
In his wonderful introduction to Williams’ win, which was determined by the RPS Board and Council and voted for by RPS members, RPS chairman John Gilhooly said:
“Some of us are born into classical music, never recalling a time without it. Others are drawn to its magic by the spell that orchestras cast in bringing soul, drama and humanity to motion pictures.
“The recipient of this year’s RPS Gold Medal has dedicated his life to ensuring orchestral music continues to speak to and captivate people worldwide in this way. Aged 88 and still at work, he is an international treasure, writing score after score of sophistication and impact, many transcendent of the films for which they were written.”
Elsewhere, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason was presented with the Young Artists Award for “captivating listeners worldwide”.
Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw received the Singer Award, while the Scottish Ensemble received the Ensemble Award for their innovation in their 50th birthday year.
92-year-old with dementia remembers how to play piano. Picture: Randi Lebar
By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM
Learning to play Beethoven on the piano is a joy that will never leave you, no matter what life throws at you…
This moving video of a 92-year-old pianist playing Beethoven speaks to the incredible power of music to unlock memories – even for people living with severe dementia.
Elaine Lebar, a former composer and music teacher, started playing the piano aged three and went on to study at a school for the performing arts in New York City. After getting her BA from Brooklyn College, majoring in Music, Elaine took her studies to the University of Missouri for an MA in music education.
She went on to compose traditional piano and vocal music and, after becoming intrigued by the skill it required, composed several piano solos for one hand.
Ten years ago, she started showing signs of dementia. And in 2017, she was moved to a care home, Buzzards Bay memory care facility in Sagamore, Massachusetts.
Elaine’s short-term memory is now nearly non-existent. She can’t always remember the names of staff and often struggles to remember whether her daughter has visited that day. But one memory that always comes back to her is music.
“I don’t know it,” Elaine claims, before rattling off the movement’s electrifying opening broken chords with astounding accuracy.
Randi regularly posts videos of her mother playing piano on Facebook. But she recently decided to also share her talents on TikTok under the username @orifbone, with the message, ‘Sharing my mom with the world to raise awareness of dementia’. The above video now has nearly 7m views on the platform.
Speaking about her mother’s story to Metro, Randi says: “Although she can dress and feed herself, she has almost no short-term memory. Five minutes after playing piano, she will not remember that she played.
“Thankfully, she does recognise me most of the time. Her mind is sharp despite the dementia, as you can see in the videos with the conversation.
“Although music has always been important in her life, now it’s really the only thing that makes sense.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Randi’s visits to her mum’s care home have sadly been limited since March. But when she does manage to see her, she makes sure to grab a video of her mother doing her favourite activity.
“The first time I was allowed to visit with her in person at the piano was 18 Sept 2020,” Randi says. “As she struggled through ‘Clair de lune’ – my favourite – I realised how much she (and I) had lost in the preceding six months.”
The Debussy piece (watch above) was Elaine’s first foray on TikTok, and the video now has more than 60,000 views, with nearly seven million on the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata clip.
Telling of her mother’s amusing reaction to her own viral success, Randi said: “After explaining the site as clearly as I could, her response to the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were watching her videos was, ‘They must have too much time on their hands. They need something better to do.’
“Sadly, I was not recording at that time!”
Ballerina with Alzheimer’s listens to Swan Lake, and it all comes back
A number of videos have been doing the rounds in recent months with proof of the memories unlocked by the power of melody. Paul Harvey, a 92-year-old former composer with dementia, went viral this year for his remarkable off-the-cuff piano improvisations on live TV.
And just last week, the Internet collectively wiped away a tear at the moment Marta González, a former prima ballerina with Alzheimer’s, listened to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and remembered all the choreography.
Studies actually show that music may actually alleviate symptoms for people living with dementia and make them feel much happier.
Speaking to Classic FM, Grace Meadows, programme director of Music for Dementia, said: “Music can be a lifeline for people with dementia. It facilitates shared, quality musical moments with friends, family and carers. Music for people living with dementia isn’t a nicety, it’s a necessity.”
This is the kind of love that warms the cockles...
An 81-year-old Italian man has been filmed serenading his hospital-bound wife with an accordion, after he was told he couldn’t visit her due to coronavirus restrictions.
Sitting in the courtyard outside her hospital window, Stefano Bozzini found a way to show his love for his partner of 47 years, Carla, without entering the ward.
As Carla and several nurses watched on from a window, Bozzini gave a rendition of Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘Spanish Eyes’, a piece of music he told The Guardian his wife “was so in love with”.
“I did it for Carla – to show her how much I love her and to thank her for all she has given me,” he said.
Carla was taken to a hospital in Castel San Giovanni, Italy, so that medical staff could carry out tests for suspected cancer.
“I wasn’t able to see her in hospital and so went to the courtyard with the accordion – my heart told me to go,” her husband explained.
“After she heard the music she looked out of the window, so at least I got to see her.”
He added: “I played others that everyone knows, one song after the other, I didn’t stop. A lot of the sick people in the hospital were looking out of their windows.”
A beautiful Scarlatti sonata, played on a BUTTON accordion
Stefano, a former member of the Italian army’s Alpini mountain infantry speciality, wore his uniform hat while giving the street performance.
He had earned the nickname “Gianni Morandi”, after the Italian pop singer, from his comrades because he was always playing the accordion, The Guardianreports.
Stefano and Carla first met when they were in their 20s and have three children, but they lost their youngest to cancer at the age of 25.
Carla has since been discharged after spending 10 days in hospital.
