Laura & Anton - "La Vie En Rose"

Tony Bennett, Amy Winehouse - Body and Soul

49,137,087 views Sep 14, 2011 #TonyBennett #Body #AmyWinhouse

49,137,087 views • Sep 14, 2011 • #TonyBennett #Body #AmyWinhouse

Tony Bennett performing Body and Soul with Amy Winehouse from Duets II: The Great Performances

19 January: Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 Was Premiered

By Georg Predota, Interlude

Saint-Saëns, 1875

On 19 January 1873, the French cellist, viola da gamba player and instrument maker Auguste Tolbecque premiered Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33, a work specifically composed for him. Tolbecque was a close personal friend, and the solo cellist of the Conservatoire orchestra. He was a composer himself, and also a published music historian. Tolbecque was influential in the performance of early music as he conducted research into historical instruments and their restoration.

Saint-Saëns as a boy, 1846

His compositions tend to be light in style and influenced by Mendelssohn and Schumann. Tolbecque retired before he was able to produce a recording, and he does not figure prominently in the review of the Saint-Saëns concerto published in the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris immediately after the premiere. “If Mr. Saint-Saëns should decide to continue in this vein,” the reviewer wrote, “which is consistent with his violin concerto, the Trio in F, and other works of lesser significance, he is certain to recover many of the votes that he lost with his all-too-obvious divergence from classicism and the tendencies in a number of his recent works. We must say that the Cello Concerto seems to us to be a beautiful and good work of excellent sentiment and perfect cohesiveness, and as usual the form is of greatest interest.” 

Auguste Tolbecque

At the time Saint-Saëns composed his first Cello Concerto he had already reached the age of thirty-seven. He was highly regarded in French musical circles, but as a composer he was still searching for his breakthrough work. He clearly possessed a mastery of compositional technique, and his ease, ingenuity, naturalness and productivity was compared to “a tree producing leaves.” Although he was living in a period of extreme musical experimentations, Saint-Saëns remained stubbornly traditional. Romain Rolland wrote in 1908, “He brings into the midst of our modern restlessness something of the sweetness and clarity of past periods, something that seems like fragments of a vanished world.” In his first Cello Concert, Saint-Saëns takes a deliberate stance away from what the critic calls “the (modernist) tendencies in a number of his recent works.” His unmistakable melodic charm and characteristic freshness and vitality are clothed in a formal clarity that undoubtedly accounts for the widespread popularity the 1st Cello Concerto enjoyed from the very onset. 

Opening of Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1

For Saint-Saëns, “form was the essence of art.” As he once wrote, “the music-lover is most of all enchanted by expressiveness and passion, but that is not the case for the artist. An artist who does not feel a deep sense of personal satisfaction with elegant lines, harmonious colors or a perfect progression of chords has no comprehension of true art.” As the anonymous critic had written after the premiere, “it should be clarified that this is in reality a “Concertstück,” since the three relatively short movements run together. The orchestra plays such a major role that it gives the work symphonic character, a tendency present in every concerto of any significance since Beethoven.” Saint-Saëns might have been looking at Franz Liszt, a composer he greatly admired, as the three movements of the concerto are interconnected. In fact, the principle theme is sounded in legato running triplets, and it appears in all movements of the concerto. 

Saint-Saëns, circa 1880

Sir Donald Francis Tovey later wrote “Here, for once, is a violoncello concerto in which the solo instrument displays every register without the slightest difficulty in penetrating the orchestra.” The orchestra clearly plays a role beyond that of mere accompaniment, “as this work never succumbs to the imbalance frequently encountered in cello concertos whereby for long stretches the soloist is seen bowing furiously but is scarcely heard.” As Saint-Saëns tellingly suggested, “Virtuosity gives a composer wings with which to soar above the commonplace and the platitudinous.” Uniting the lyrical quality of the cello with instrumental virtuosity and carful orchestral scoring produced a work valued by performers and loved by audiences. But what is more, a good many composers, including Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff considered Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 to be the greatest of all cello concertos.

Saint-Saëns: 1. Cellokonzert ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Gautier Capuçon ∙ ...

Camille Saint-Saëns: 1. Cellokonzert a-Moll op. 33 ∙ Allegro non troppo – Allegro molto – Tempo I – Allegretto con moto – Tempo I – Un peu moins vite – Più allegro comme le premier mouvement – Molto allegro hr-Sinfonieorchester – Frankfurt Radio Symphony ∙ Gautier Capuçon, Violoncello ∙ Alain Altinoglu, Dirigent ∙ hr-Sinfoniekonzert ∙ Alte Oper Frankfurt, 14. Februar 2020 ∙

Stephen Hough-Rach 3rd, 1st Movement excerpt

Sir Stephen Hough: The Composer

by Georg Predota, Interlude

One of the most distinctive artists of his generation, Sir Stephen Hough combines an international career as a pianist with those of composer, writer, and painter. The first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (2001), Hough is a true renaissance man, exceedingly gifted as a pianist, educator, writer, painter, and composer.

Sir Stephen Hough

While his achievements as a pianist are well-known and documented, Hough is also a respected author with four books and hundreds of articles to his name. In addition, a solo exhibition of his paintings was presented in London in 2012. It’s hardly surprising that The Economist included him in the list of “Twenty Living Polymaths.”

In addition, Hough is also a published and frequently commissioned composer, having crafted works for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble, organ, harpsichord, and solo piano. He has received commissions from the Takács Quartet, the Cliburn, the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, and the Gilmore Foundation, among many others. 

First Compositions

According to his father, Hough had memorised seventy nursery rhymes by the age of two. Be that as it may, singing was indeed his first form of musical expression, “especially as we had no classical music in my childhood home.” Hough sang hymns in primary school and church; later, he joined a choir in high school, and he joined the compulsory chorus at Julliard.

Hough started piano lessons at the age of six, and he began to compose at around the same time. He remembers writing a “Mass” in his teenage years, but Hough is generally dismissive of his juvenilia compositions. As he writes, “the Mass 

Transcriptions

Apparently, Hough composed a substantial number of works, but as he related in an interview, “mercifully, that pile of smudged sketches has disappeared.” These early efforts culminated in a viola sonata, the only early work that was actually published. However, for the next twenty odd years, Hough composed next to nothing, except an odd transcription or two. Hough related the story that after a recital in New York in the late 1990s, when he played his transcription of Rodger’s Carousel Waltz, he was chatting with the composer John Corigliano. 

Corigliano told Hough, “You should compose your own music. The only real difference between a transcription and writing your own pieces is using your themes rather than someone else’s.” This conversation became the starting point for a renewed engagement with compositions. Hough started to write little pieces for friends, and the bassoonist Graham Salvage from the Hallé Orchestra asked him to write a concerto. As Hough explained, “In a mad moment or reckless courage, I agreed to have a go and started sketching what eventually became The Loneliest Wilderness, my first serious piece in two decades.”

First Commissions

The Loneliest Wilderness was inspired by the poem “My Company” by Herbert Read (1893–1968), containing the following lines:

But, God! I know that I’ll stand
Someday in the loneliest wilderness,
Someday my heart will cry
For the soul that has been, but that now
Is scatter’d with the winds,
Deceased and devoid.

I know that I’ll wander with a cry:
‘O beautiful men, O men I loved,
O whither are you gone, my company?’

The work is based on two main musical ideas: the interval of a descending fourth and a rising chain of thirds. Introvert and restrained, this musical oration has a strong Jewish flavour to it, taking its inspiration from “the heart-breaking regret of an army officer as he looks back at the loss of the company of soldiers under his command.” 

Takács Quartet

Stephen Hough’s String Quartet No. 1

Dedicated to the Takács Quartet, Hough’s first string quartet premiered in December 2021. As it was commissioned as a companion piece to works by Ravel and Dutilleux, the composer set out to explore “not so much what united their musical language, but what was absent from them.” Although there are no quotes or direct references to the composers of Les Six, as captioned in the subtitle, the composer imagines unspecified places and memory where meetings might have taken place.

This string quartet “evokes a flavour more than a style,” according to Hough, “but a flavour rarely found in the music of Ravel and Dutilleux. In Les Six it’s not so much a lack of seriousness, although seeing life through a burlesque lens is one recurring ingredient; rather it’s an aesthetic re-view of the world after the catastrophe of the Great War. Composers like Poulenc and Milhaud were able to discover poignance in the rough and tumble of daily human life in a way which escaped the fastidiousness of those other two composers.”

Sonatas and Beyond

Stephen Hough’s Broken Branches

The term “Sonata” had a multiplicity of meanings over the years, but for Hough “it has kept its wordlessness and its seriousness; a sonata, regardless of form, is a statement of unity, if not uniformity.” And although the composer is wary of words or descriptions attached to them, he argues that “music is neither a thought nor an emotion nor a person, but very much its own entity. His sonata “Broken Branches,” is an oblique tribute to Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path, and a passage from Scripture: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Cut off from me you can do nothing.”

The sonata is constructed of sixteen small and inconclusive sections, like branches from a single tree. “Broken branches” functions in three ways; fragments of fragility, related in theme but incomplete and damaged.” The work seems to grow naturally out of Hough’s style of playing, and it opens with a “Prelude” and ends with a “Postlude” of identical music, but the anguish of the opening G-sharp minor becomes a glowing G major at the end. “Branches beginning life anew in a new spring.” The climax of this sonata is a section called “non credo,” based on “material from the Credo of my Missa Mirabilis, which explores issues of doubt and despair in the context of the concrete affirmations of the Nicene Creed.” 

A Statement of Faith

Stephen Hough joined the Roman Catholic Church at the age of 19, and he considered becoming a priest, in particular joining the Franciscan Order. Hough has extensively written about his homosexuality and its relationship with music and his religion. As he wrote, “Catholicism is still home for me. And despite everything, I haven’t found anything that suits me better.” Hough is attracted to the idea that Catholicism doesn’t emphasise rich and powerful people, but embraces poverty and simplicity. “Christianity celebrates what is ultimately important about being human—community, and concern for the widows, the prisoners, the prostitutes, people who are outcasts. I find that very attractive.”

The Missa Mirabilis is connected with a highly personal experience. Hough had been working on the piece for about one year when he had a serious car accident, overturning his car on the motorway at 80 mph. “I stepped out of the one untouched door in my completely mangled car,” he remembers, “with my Mass manuscript and my body intact, then wrote part of the “Agnus Dei” in St. Mary’s Hospital, waiting for four hours for a brain scan. I was conscious, as I was somersaulting with screeching metallic acrobatics on the M1, of feeling regret that I would never get to hear the music on which I’d been working so intensely in the days before. Someone had other ideas.” 

The Partita was commissioned by the Naumburg Foundation for Albert Cano Smit in 2019. As Hough explains, “composing four sonatas of a serious, intense character, I wanted to write something different – something brighter, something more celebratory, more nostalgic.” Scored in five movements, the outer movements “Overture” and “Toccata” are inspired by the world of a grand cathedral organ. The short three inner movements, “Capriccio,” and “Canción y Danza I & II,” are based on the interval of a fifth and partially represent an explicit homage to Federico Mompou.

Stephen Hough’s Fanfare Toccata

In 2002, Hough was commissioned to write a work for the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, performed by all 30 competitors. Hough took his inspiration from a variety of toccatas he had learned over the years, including Scarlatti, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff, Poulenc, Prokofiev and Samuel Barber. This inspiration accounted for the fanfare flourish complemented by a deeply romantic tune. It really does speak well of Hough’s composition that all 30 competitors have decided to make the Fanfare Toccata a part of their regular recital repertoire.

Mozart: Requiem – Lacrimosa | SO & GC | CM Berlin

884,114 views Apr 22, 2023 BERLINER PHILHARMONIE

Symphony Orchestra & Grand Choir of the Collegium Musicum Berlin Conductor: Donka Miteva Wolfgang A. Mozart: Requiem – Lacrimosa & Amen newly edited and completed by Michael Ostrzyga ( @MichaelOstrzyga ) Recorded on July 1, 2022 at Berlin Philharmonic, Germany In the 1960s, a sketch by Mozart of an Amen Fugue surfaced. It can be assumed that it was intended for the Requiem when Mozart wrote it down: Not only is there a sketch for the Rex tremendae and the Magic Flute on the same page, written like the Requiem in 1791, but there are also striking compositional references to the Introit. Moreover, Mozart did not work on any other work during this period in which the word "Amen" appears. The arrangement of the reeds in Mozart's manuscript, as has sometimes been pointed out, does indeed leave far too little space for an extensive fugue at this point, but the exchange and insertion of further reeds was common and also occurred in Mozart's work. It is surely no coincidence that in the years immediately before his death Mozart devoted himself to Handel's Messiah, which concludes with an extended Amen fugue. For the overall architecture of the Requiem, such an Amen Fugue, roughly in the middle of the work, can form a supporting pillar which, together with the pillars at the beginning and end of the work, Kyrie and Cum sanctis tuis, forms a great arched architecture. In the Amen Fugue, which was realised for the new edition, Mozart's view of Bach is particularly evident, partly because it is also very clear in the Kyrie Fugue. It is impossible to imagine what Mozart would have invented, or perhaps had already invented. Nevertheless, the new addition was about the thought experiment of deducing the extent and nature of Mozart's instructions from everything that exists in someone else's hand. In this way, it is possible to derive - only incompletely, hypothetically, of course - instructions for completing the Requiem as a "whole", based on Mozart's presumed intentions in the form of general procedures, melodic material, contrapuntal constellations, harmonic progressions, instrumental accompaniments, concrete borrowings from older works by Mozart or Handel and Bach, and so on. Once I had uncovered this "composing backwards", I tried to compose the Requiem forwards again, starting from the music Mozart had written up to his death and the influences he bundled in the Requiem. ~ Michael Ostrzyga

Morissette Amon & David Foster ( 13/19) I Will Always Love You & I Have...

Diana Krall - So Nice (Live In Rio)

iana Krall has had a long time fascination with bossa nova, a type of music which perfectly suits her sophisticated yet sensual style. This culminated in her new studio album Quiet Nights (released by Verve in spring 2009) and in this stunning concert filmed in the home of the bossa nova, Rio de Janeiro, in November 2008. Accompanied by her band and an orchestra, Diana Krall delivers a superb set of standards in true bossa nova style but clearly bearing her unique stamp. This DVD captures Diana Krall at her scintillating best. Tracklising: 1) I Love Being Here With You 2) Lets Fall In Love 3) Where Or When 4) Too Marvellous For Words 5) Ive Grown Accustomed To His Face 6) Walk On By 7) Frim Fram Sauce 8) Cheek To Cheek 9) Youre My Thrill 10) Lets Face The Music And Dance 11) Every Time We Say Goodbye 12) So Nice 13) Quiet Nights 14) Este Seu Olhar 15) The Boy From Ipanema 16) I Dont Know Enough About You 17) SWonderful 18) Exactly Like You Someone to hold me tight That would be very nice Someone to love me right That would be very nice Someone to understand Each little dream in me Someone to take my hand And be a team with me So nice, life would be so nice If one day I'd find Someone who would take my hand And samba through life with me Someone to cling to me Stay with me right or wrong Someone to sing to me Some little samba song Someone to take my heart And give his heart to me Someone who's ready to Give love a start with me Oh yes, that would be so nice, nice Shouldn't we, you and me? I could see it would be nice Someone to cling to me Stay with me right or wrong Someone to sing to me Some little samba song Someone to take my heart And give his heart to me Someone who's ready to Give love a start with me Oh yes, life would be so nice, nice Shouldn't we, you and me? I can see it would be nice

Tony Bennett - Fly Me to the Moon (Official Audio)

Tony Bennett performing "Fly Me to the Moon" Listen to Tony Bennett: https://TonyBennett.lnk.to/listenYD

 

'La Donna E Mobile' 

Hiroyuki Ito/Hulton Archive / Getty Images

By 

Aaron Green

Updated on 01/05/19

The aria for lyric tenors known as "La donna e mobile" is the centerpiece of the opera "Rigoletto," Giuseppe Verdi's twisted tale of lust, desire, love, and deceit. Composed between 1850 and 1851, Rigoletto was adored by audiences when it first premiered at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851, and even now, over 150 years later, it is one of the world's most performed operas. According to Operabase, which gathers statistical information from opera houses around the world, Verdi's "Rigoletto" was the 8th-most performed opera in the world during the 2014/15 season.

The Context of "La Donna e Mobile"

The Duke of Mantua sings this unforgettable aria in the third act of Verdi's Rigoletto as he flirts with Maddalena, the sister of the assassin Sparafucile. Rigoletto, the Duke's right-hand man, and his daughter, Gilda, who has fallen in love with the Duke, pay a visit to Sparafucile. Rigoletto is very protective of his daughter and wants to have the Duke killed since he is a man that cannot be trusted with women.

When they reach the inn in which Sparafucile is staying, they hear the Duke's voice bellowing within singing "La donna e mobile" ("Woman is fickle") as he puts on a show for Maddalena with hopes of seducing her. Rigoletto tells Gilda to disguise herself as a man and escape to a nearby town. She follows his instructions and sets out into the night while Rigoletto enters the inn after the Duke leaves.

When Rigoletto makes a deal with Sparafucile and hands over his payment, a calamitous storm rolls in for the night. Rigoletto decides to pay for a room at the inn, and Gilda is forced to return to her father after the road to the nearby town becomes too dangerous to traverse. Gilda, still disguised as a man, arrives just in time to hear Maddalena make a deal with her brother to spare the Duke's life and instead kill the next man that walks into the inn. They will bag the body together and give it to the duped Rigoletto. Despite his nature, Gilda still loves the Duke deeply and resolves herself to put an end to this dilemma.

Italian Lyrics of "La donna e mobile"

La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento — e di pensier.
Sempre un amabile,
Leggiadro viso,
In pianto o in riso, — è menzognero.
È sempre misero
Chi a lei s'affida,
Chi le confida — mal cauto il cuore!
Pur mai non sentesi
Felice appieno
Chi su quel seno — non liba amore!
La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento — e di pensier,
E di pensier,
E di pensier!

English Translation

Woman is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter, — she is always lying.
Always miserable
Is he who trusts her,
He who confides in her — his unwary heart!
Yet one never feels
Fully happy
Who on that bosom — does not drink love!
Woman is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind,
And her mind,
And her mind!

Giuseppe Verdi, Và pensiero (Nabucco)

Giuseppe Verdi, Và pensiero sull'ali dorate (Nabucco) Orchestra e Coro del Teatro La Fenice Maestro del Coro Claudio Marino Moretti Direttore - James Conlon La pubblicazione di questo video non intende violare nessun copyright e/o di essere usato a scopo di lucro. In caso contrario siamo a disposizione per l'eventuale rimozione

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 • Volker Hartung • Cologne New Philharmonie

Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2, originally written for solo piano comes to much life in its orchestral version in this fiery performance by the Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Volker Hartung. Recorded live at Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Germany

MSO celebrates 98 years of music with grand concert

Guest conductor Olivier Ochanine and Filipino violinist Diomedes Saraza Jr.

By MANILA TIMES

Embarking on the illustrious journey towards its centennial milestone, the Manila Symphony Orchestra joyously commemorates its 98th anniversary with a captivating concert gala that will bring together the elegant and graceful sound of the violin and the majestic but lyrical timbre of the MSO.

Titled "Peña, Nielsen, & Tchaikovsky: The MSO 98th Anniversary Concert," this performance is scheduled on January 31 at 7 pm at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium in RCBC Plaza.

Headlining the concert is esteemed Filipino Violinist, Diomedes Saraza, Jr., a distinguished Juilliard graduate and the first Filipino violin soloist to grace Carnegie Hall. Saraza currently serves as the concertmaster of the MSO.

Guiding the orchestra with expertise is guest conductor Olivier Ochanine, the acclaimed winner of the 2015 Antal Dorati International Conducting Competition in Budapest, Hungary. Ochanine is also recognized as the former musical director of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, which previously performed at Carnegie Hall alongside Saraza. The event promises to be an exciting and memorable musical experience that will leave concert-goers enthralled.

The repertoire for the evening includes Angel Peña's "Trinity," Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 1, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto No. 1, all masterpieces poised to elevate the senses and transport the audience to new musical heights.

You Don't Have To Say You Love Me ( 1966 ) - DUSTY SPRINGFIELD - Lyrics

Sorry for a mistyping: at 1:16, it's "you don't have to stay for ever" and not "you don't have to say". Thank our fan. You Don't Have To Say You Love Me ( 1966 ) - DUSTY SPRINGFIELD - Lyrics When I said I needed you You said you would always stay It wasn't me who changed but you and now you've gone away Don't you see that now you've gone And I'm left here on my own That I have to follow you and beg you to come home You don't have to say you love me just be close at hand You don't have to stay forever I will understand Believe me, believe me I can't help but love you But believe me I'll never tie you down Left alone with just a memory Life seems dead and quite unreal All that's left is loneliness there's nothing left to feel