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.
Someone has inverted all the intervals in Beethoven’s Für Elise because everything exists somewhere on the internet
1 February 2017, 11:42
By Lizzie Davis
5K
Beethoven’s piano miniature is one of the most famous pieces ever written – every young pianist has had a bash at playing that famous melody. But what would it sounds like if every interval between the notes were inverted?
YouTuber Andrew Huang, whose channel explores music of all genres, has created what he called ‘the Beethoven flip challenge’.
Essentially, using the first as the guide, he flipped all the other notes in the piece.
Here’s what it sounded like
In the words of Andrew himself “you know, I expected it to be worse”.
You can watch the full video of Andrew explaining how he did it right here:
YouTuber Grant Woolard has created an amazing mashup using some of the most famous works by composers including Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mozart and Bizet
There’s music from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, iconic melodies from Bizet's Carmen, music by Brahms, Chopin – and even a starring role for the less well-known composer, John Philip Sousa.
So, how many famous works can you spot? Here's a clip:
Play
52 works by 31 composers – all in one piece of music
A 7-year-old with leukaemia was given his dream job - conducting a symphony orchestra
By Daniel Ross, ClassicFM London
7-year-old Jordan Cartwright has leukaemia, but that hasn’t stopped him conducting the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra playing the Canadian national anthem.
Cartwright is a long-time music fan, and so the orchestra decided he deserved a shot at the top job - conducting one of Canada’s premier ensembles himself.
So up stepped Cartwright, concert dress immaculate, to show the orchestra the way through a stirring reading of ‘O Canada’. We think he’s got this conducting thing nailed - confident stance, even tempo and gestural control are all en pointe.
Look at the super-casual hand-in-the-pocket stance, too: what a pro!
Hold on to your hats - if you haven’t heard any of these, your life is about to be changed 10 times in a row. Needless to say, each of these examples should be digested in a single sitting.
What is it? It’s one of two ‘Passion’ oratorios that have survived since Bach died (he could’ve written up to five), but it’s also become one of his most celebrated pieces. The original title is Passio Domini nostri J.C. secundum Evangelistam Matthæum (the ‘J.C.’ stands for Jesus Christ, which is maybe a bit familiar for someone he hadn’t met… but we’ll let him off).
Why it will change your life: If you thought that Baroque music mostly dealt with plinky-plinky harpsichords paid for by wealthy and obscure members of Royal family, the St Matthew Passion will obliterate your puny mind. There are biblical proclamations of impending apocalypse littered throughout, and for each of them, Bach wangles in some sort of crushing atonality or strange chord, as if he’s wincing with pain each time it happens. This is such a human experience, composed at a time when human experiences weren’t chief among the aims of most Baroque composer composers.
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 6
What is it? Tchaikovsky’s final symphony, nicknamed ‘Pathétique’. The premiere performance was given just nine days before the composer died.
Why it will change your life: Tchaikovsky was surely one of the most personally troubled of the great composers - and this symphony was essentially the outpouring of many of his issues, in a way. Many initially thought it was a lengthy suicide note, others pointed to the hugely controversial homosexual leanings Tchaikovsky was known to have, while some thought it was just a tragic, sad, glorious and indulgent artistic expression. But the reason it’ll stay with you forever is that all of these contexts work in their own way, but it never detracts from how magisterial the music itself is. It’s a lesson in the very best ways of expressing emotions through music.
Mahler - Symphony No. 2
What is it? Massive, that’s what it is. Ruddy massive. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (known as the ’Resurrection’) is a 90-minute attempt to put the whole nature of existence into a piece music. So pretty ambitious.
Why it will change your life: If you think any bit of music over 3 minutes long is a bit indulgent and full of itself, this single piece will convince you that sometimes it’s completely worth spending an hour and a half on one musical concept (even if it is a huge concept). No other composer could’ve made it more entertaining (listen out for death shrieks!), or more rewarding. The epic final few minutes are a stupidly generous reward on their own, but getting there is half the fun.
Beethoven - Grosse Fuge
What is it? One of the last pieces Beethoven wrote for string quartet, one of his celebrated ‘Late’ quartets. It’s a one-movement experiment in structure that was universally hated when it was first composed.
Why it will change your life: It’s proof that not only can critics and audiences get it really, really wrong, but also that it’s all about interpretation. You can actually hear the struggle and the effort it must’ve taken to compose, which means it’s not always a relaxing listen, but few pieces in history have so nakedly shown how a composer can throw absolutely everything into a single work. And, in the end, it was hugely influential to serialist composers of the 20th century with none other than Igor Stravinsky proclaiming it a miracle of music. How about that for delayed gratification?
Mozart - Requiem
What is it? The piece that Mozart wrote on his deathbed, in a furious fever. Well, if the movies are to be believed, anyway.
Why it will change your life: From the opening Introitus, the mournful tone is set. It might just be us, but doesn’t it actually sound like Mozart is scared of death here? Aside from being spooky as anything, the Requiem is a haunting patchwork of things - completed by one of Mozart’s pupils, Franz Süssmayr, it’s become a legendary mystery and the perfect way to end the story of one of history’s most celebrated geniuses - i.e. not end it all. What an enigma.
Monteverdi - Vespers
What is it? It’s beardy Baroque denizen Claudio Monteverdi’s defining work, a gigantic noise that some argue bridged the gap between the Renaissance and the early Baroque periods.
Why it will change your life: It makes you realise that just because something’s really old, it doesn’t mean it’s automatically boring, or simply lauded because it was ‘groundbreaking’. Make no mistake about it - Monteverdi’s Vespers are hugely entertaining on their own terms. For starters, it’s simply enormous in scale. If you want to be crude about it (and we do) then you could describe it as Monteverdi taking church music to the opera, with all the drama that implies. Trumpets, drums, massive choruses, florid vocal lines… this really is the greatest hits of the early Baroque.
Elgar - Cello Concerto
What is it? The only cello concerto that Edward Elgar wrote, and one of the most famous concertos of all time.
Why it will change your life: It’s proof that intense emotion can come from the most unlikely of people. We don’t want to get all mushy on you, but there’s something spectacularly English about how the ultimate stiff-upper-lipped curmudgeon, Edward Elgar, was able to convey his emotions in music rather than in words or actions. His private life was surprisingly tumultuous (that’s another story), and in pieces like the Cello Concerto it’s as if the gasket has blown and Elgar is finally able to let out all the pent-up emotion in a focused blast.
Wagner - The Ring Cycle
What is it? IT IS EVERYTHING.
Why it will change your life: Realising for the first time that the world of opera could actually be this immersive is a very, very special feeling - if you don’t feel bereft at the end of the whole four-opera cycle, we fear for your ability to function in the real world. It’s got a terrible reputation among non-aficionados as ‘that really long opera that no-one likes’, and in a way it represents all the most exclusive, cerebral and faux-worthy stereotypes of the opera world. But we tell you: that perception is WRONG and the Ring Cycle is a fundamentally unhinged work of staggering genius. Ignore at your peril.
Max Richter - Vivaldi: Recomposed
What is it? A radical, beautiful re-invention of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos, by modern indie-classical composer Max Richter.
Why it will change your life: Listening to Vivaldi: Recomposed is like discovering an old jumper that you used to love has magically, miraculously lost all its bobbly bits and is actually at the height of fashion despite everyone saying to you “mate, I’ve seen that jumper a thousand times and it offers me nothing new.” What Richter manages to do so incredibly well is to subtly sneak in delightful additions, tweaks and reinventions to a classic you already know extremely well, and freshen it up not just for the modern era, but for the eras to come too.
Gorecki - Symphony No. 3
What is it? Possibly the most emotionally draining piece of music ever written.
Why it will change your life: There’s a reason Polish composer Henryck Górecki called his third symphony the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Each movement features a solo soprano singing texts inspired by war and separation - but it’s the second movement that really stands out. The text is taken from the scribblings on the wall of a Gestapo cell during the Second World War and, as you can imagine, it’s pretty harrowing stuff - but Górecki makes it sound so transcendental that it’s hard to believe it was written in such dire circumstances. He said himself that he wanted the soprano line “towering over the orchestra”, and it certainly does that.
VOCES8, considered to be one of the world’s most versatile and best-loved a cappella groups, performed ‘Nimrod: Lux Aeterna’ from the English composer Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations as a tribute on Armistice Day 2016.
Their delicate tones resonate exquisitely in the church of St Anne and St Agnes as they pay their respects to those who served in First World War and veterans of all the subsequent wars involving British and Commonwealth troops:
"Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua leceat eis.
May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord, with Thy saints forever, for Thou art Kind. Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them."
VOCES8 new album is out now and available to buy on Amazon.
Read more at http://www.classicfm.com/composers/elgar/news/voces8-nimrod/#pp1d1OQ4LMytjaCk.99
Queen’s ’We Are The Champions’ is a bombastic monument of a song, one of the most iconic in rock history - but what happens if you strip away all the instrumentation and leave only Freddie Mercury’s voice?
As it turns out, you’re left with a crystal clear bravura tenor that rivals any operatic performance for sheer intensity. Mercury’s gorgeous tone may be rough around the edges, but it has so much character that you’re compelled to overlook the technical shortcomings.
And how about that for a range? Fred, we salute you: