Franck Pourcel - Morir de Amor

James Last - Abide With Me

Abide With Me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me. 

Swift to its close ebbs out lifes little day;

Earths joys grow dim; its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see;

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;

But as Thou dwellst with Thy disciples, Lord,

Familiar, condescending, patient, free.

Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,

But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,

Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—

Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;

And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,

Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,

On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.

What but Thy grace can foil the tempters power?

Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?

Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;

Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.

Where is deaths sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;

Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.

Heavens morning breaks, and earths vain shadows flee;

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

James Last - Abide With Me

Words: Henry Lyte, 1847.

The Stage Manager- A Musician’s Best Friend

 by Janet Horvath, Interlude

What Are the Duties of a Stage Manager?

Cello

Stage managers of orchestras have a very important role. A good one takes expert care of our instruments and the musicians, soloists and conductors— meeting their every wish and whim. The stage manager is the one who announces, “Orchestra… On stage please. Orchestra on stage.” They’re the ones that proffer a towel to a sweating conductor and indicate to the soloists how to maneuver through the string section to get to center stage. They’re the ones who set up the stage and who know exactly the instrumentation for every piece. Different set-ups often occur in one program.

Not the least of their duties is packing up all the instruments and equipment when the orchestra is on tour— a huge job. Our stage manager, Tim Eickholt, now retired, was someone we trusted implicitly with our instruments. From a family of stagehands, he has an impeccable background as a master designer and builder and he had lots of experience with showbiz. He understood that musicians often hastily exit after performances to get some food and a beer. Tim was so conscientious that after concerts, especially on tour, he would check backstage for any belongings that might have been left behind. He’d find items of clothing like cummerbunds, shoes, belts or socks and worse— instruments, even unpacked. Once I woke up in the middle of the night in a panic, realizing that I had left my cello backstage! Fortunately, it was a local concert and Tim took my cello home with him.

Tim at the ready at the Musikverien Vienna

One concert night the temperature dipped well below zero, as happens often in Minnesota. My warmest down coat was in for repairs. I borrowed my mother’s full-length mink coat to get to Orchestra Hall for that evening’s performance. I lugged the cello outside and into my car, which sputtered in protest when I tried to start it. On the highway my car lit up like a Christmas tree. Everything flashed. Then the car went dead. Somehow I got the car onto the shoulder.

Stranded. For a few moments I sat dumbfounded wondering what I was going to do. I couldn’t be late for the concert! But more important, I knew I couldn’t walk in this frigid weather carrying the cello. With trepidation I left the cello. I started running, in my full-length black mink coat, along the shoulder of the highway towards the nearest exit. A car pulled up and a man said, “Get in. It’s much too cold outside.” So I did, more worried about the cello than for my own safety. The driver took me to the Orchestra Hall. I literally flew down the stairs directly to our stage manager’s office. In tears I told Tim that I had left my cello on the highway. We made a hasty exit and jumped into Tim’s car to find where I left my car, despite the fact that it was almost 8:00 p.m. There was no time to lose. The tow truck had already pulled up beside my car to take it away. Believe it or not we made it back in time for the concert.

There are endless stories of the idiosyncratic behaviors of soloists and conductors. Some artists demand peculiar foods to be brought in backstage. Others need their outfits pressed, fresh towels delivered, ice buckets with drinks, even stationary bikes (as in the case of Christian Tetzlaff) or personal chefs (as in the case of Vladimir Horowitz) and every soloist was personally escorted to the wings of the stage. Tim, always respectful, handled it all.

I remember when renowned violinist Henryk Szeryng came to play the Beethoven Violin Concerto—impeccably, I might add. During the rehearsal he found the stage much too bright. Over and over he said, “The lights, the lights…” Tim turned the lights down and down until the musicians on the periphery of the stage couldn’t see their music. Post haste, Tim had stand lights for all the bass players affixed to their stands.

Ottorino Respighi: Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome), P. 14 – II. Pini presso una catacomba (Pines Near a Catacomb) (Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, cond.)

Manny at the top of the catwalk rehearsing the Pines of Rome

Other soloists need the heat turned up perhaps due to revealing dresses as well as trying to keep fingers warm. Tim would be the guy to take care of it. And when an offstage musician was required, he’d make sure everyone was set up in the audience balconies or stairwells backstage. Unless, as was the case recently with Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome, for the spooky ancient catacombs movement the solo trumpet, Manny Laureano, was requested to play from the fourth level—a system of catwalks about one-hundred feet above the stage. Manny had to race up the narrow flight of stairs to dizzying heights, where there is no room for even a music stand, just a TV monitor hooked up so could get his cue.

Tim relates that as a very young man he was one of the stagehands at Northrop Auditorium for a new production of a Mozart opera when the Metropolitan Opera still came annually to Minneapolis. Tim was asked to hang enormous, brilliantly painted murals, which he had to install in the middle of the night. Little did he know that these were the very Chagall paintings that now hang at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, which one can see through the windows as you approach the hall. He had no idea what he had in his hands.

Tim never failed to sit in the audience during rehearsals or concerts whenever he could. He always has perceptive opinion about the pieces being performed. And did I tell you that he’s a decorated Vietnam War veteran with a great ear and passion for classical music and the musicians? He especially loves Shostakovich.

THE ROSE / SOMEWHERE IN TIME - Roger Williams

37,332 views Mar 27, 2018 Roger Williams' recording, "Somewhere in Time" is the mesmerizing music score of the 1980 film. This performance, in 2009 was 3 days after his 85th birthday, is Roger Williams' exquisite medley of "The Rose" and "Somewhere In Time," and the epitome of his artistry. Marc Riley conducted the Crystal Cathedral Orchestra. Website: https://rogerwilliamsmusic.com

Mozart Piano Concerto No 9 E flat major K 271 Jeunehomme Maria / his music and his life

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

Biography

Johannes Chrystostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (1756–1791) was arguably the most gifted musician in the history of classical music. His inspiration is often described as 'divine', but he worked assiduously, not only to become the great composer he was, but also a conductor, virtuoso pianist, organist and violinist. Mozart's music embraces opera, symphony, concerto, chamber, choral, instrumental and vocal music, revealing an astonishing number of imperishable masterpieces.

Mozart was born in Salzburg, in 1756. Mozart's father, Leopold, was an ambitious composer and violinist.

Though he was and still is considered a genius, he was also tactless, arrogant and had a scatological sense of humour.

Mozart composed his first opera, Apollo et Hyacinthus when he was only 11. A year later the Emperor Joseph II commissioned him to write La finta semplice.

In August 1782 he married Constanze Weber. The Mozarts' marriage seemed to be a happy one. Constanze was easy-going, free-spending and usually pregnant. Only two of their six children survived.

Post-marriage, some of Mozart's best started to appear -the Haffner and Linz symphonies and five string quartets, for example.

Between 1784 and 1786, he composed nine piano concertos and three of these concurrently with The Marriage of Figaro.

The year 1787 saw the premiere of Mozart's second opera, Don Giovanni.

Mozart had a great run of successes in his final years - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the Clarinet Quintet in A, three of his 41 symphonies; Cosí fan Tutte, three piano trios, the Coronation piano concerto, two piano sonatas and three string quartets.

His health began to fail and his work rate slowed in 1790. He got better, though, and in 1791 alone composed the most famous The Magic Flute, the Requiem (unfinished), and the Clarinet Concerto.

Mozart did not live long enough to complete his Requiem. He died in Vienna, in 1791, before his 36th birthday.

Dmitri Shostakovich - his music and his life

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was a Russian composer and pianist and was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century.

Life and Music 

Despite Shostakovich's exceptional talent, it was not until he was nine that he received his first formal piano lessons from his mother, a professional pianist. 

In 1919, composer Alexander Glazunov considered the young Shostakovich ready to begin his studies at the Petrograd Conservatory, where he was director. 

The 19-year-old Shostakovich produced a First Symphony that is an astonishing act of creative prodigy. 

In 1936, Stalin attended a performance of Shostakovich's operatic grotesquerie, Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District. Dismayed by its lack of positivist flag-saving, the state newspaper, Pravda, slated this "bedlam of noise". 

With the gun of the Soviet regime pointed at his head - and Stalin's finger effectively on the trigger - Shostakovich knew he had to produce a surefire winner. 

The Fifth Symphony, with its universal message of triumph achieved out of adversity, was exactly what the State wanted, and it made him a public hero. 

In 1948, several composers, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev, were hauled over the coals by Pravda for "decadent formalism". 

In 1953 Shostakovich also composed his masterly Tenth Symphony, written - although no one was aware of it at the time - as a reaction against the Stalinist regime, and in the case of the vitriolic Scherzo, a sardonic portrait of Stalin. 

The constant psychological torture had taken its toll, and it seems that in 1960, following the completion of his Eighth String Quartet, Shostakovich contemplated suicide. In 1966 he suffered a heart attack from which he never fully recovered, and which hastened a preoccupation with death which is tangibly realised in his angst-ridden Fourteenth Symphony. 

Shostakovich died a broken man. 

Did you know? 

One of Shostakovich's songs was sung by the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin over the radio from his spacecraft to Mission Control down on earth.

(C) ClassicFM London

Mantovani & His Orchestra - I Only Know I Love You [1959]

Braveheart Theme (For the love of a Princess)

3,699,384 views Premiered Aug 3, 2021 Please visit http://www.joslinmusic.com For more info on bookings and live performances. Written and composed by James Horner. Music inspired from the movie 'Braveheart'. Arranged by Joslin. Recorded and produced by Joslin in his private Studios. Piano - Joslin (http://www.joslinmusic.com) Violin - Emily Burak (http://www.emilyburak.com) https://www.instagram.com/emilyburak/ Video Directed and edited by Joslin DP - Anh Nguyen (http://www.anhstudio.com) DP2 - Nicholas Burak (https://www.instagram.com/ddnickb/?hl=en) Drone - Jesus Mulato Special thanks to X Ernie and Wendy Merritt and Tony and Dulci Jensen. Filming locations: Silverthorne, Colorado, USA.

TITANIC- Joslin - My Heart Will Go On (Cover)

1,344,073 views Premiered Feb 8, 2022 - Please visit http://www.joslinmusic.com For more info on bookings and live performances. Written and composed by James Horner. Inspired from the movie 'Titanic'. Arranged by Joslin. Recorded, produced and mastered by Joslin in his private Studios. All artwork done by Joslin Piano - Joslin (http://www.joslinmusic.com) Violin - Emily Burak (http://www.emilyburak.com) https://www.instagram.com/emilyburak/ Flute - Rachel Woolf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelwoolf Website: http://www.rachelwoolf.net Video Directed and edited by Joslin DP - Joslin DP - Anh Nguyen (http://www.anhstudio.com) Special Thx to Natalie Dupre for additional footage Filming locations: - St Gabriel the Arch Angel Catholic Church, Mckinney TX - The Sanctuary, Mckinney TX

Davao City composer explains what is popular Kadayawan song ‘Bahaghari Tayo’ all about

 LANDERO (Keith Bacongco)

by Keith Bacongco, Manila Bulletin

DAVAO CITY – For almost 20 years, the iconic song “Bahaghari Tayo” composed by local music legend Popong Landero is always associated with the annual Kadayawan Festival every August.

Aside from Davaoeños, this festive song is also familiar among those who are frequent visitors of this city not just during the Kadayawan Festival but also the Araw ng Davao celebration.

The song is usually played in public places during festivities.

But what is really the inspiration behind the making of this festive song?

Unknown to many, Bahaghari Tayo does not simply depict festivity but it is more about the recovery from fear, pain, and suffering from terrorist attacks in this city, Landero admitted to the Manila Bulletin.

“When I heard that a bomb exploded at the airport, I was very worried because my wife was working there. Although she was safe because they were inside,” he recalled, referring to the bomb attack on March 4, 2003 that killed 21 people and injured hundreds here.

The incident, the musician added, reminded him of a grenade blast during college days at the University of Mindanao in the 1980s that injured several people. “The explosion was quite close to the spot where we were playing guitar. We saw some people injured and the debris even hit our heads. We were shocked and a lot of people panicked.”

Based on this experience, Landero added, he tried making a song but it never materialized. “So I just tried to forget that experience.”

And the 2003 twin bombings happened.

Aside from the airport bombing, another bomb went off ear the gate of the Sasa International Seaport on April 2 that killed 16 persons and injured 45 others.

These incidents fueled him once again to write the song, Landero recalled. But he also wanted to the song to be his entry to the Huni sa Dabaw, a songwriting contest, which was a part of the Araw ng Dabaw celebrations in 2004.

Released in 2004, the song is part of a locally-produced album with the same title that contains nine other tracks that talk about love, abundance in harvest, peace, and harmony.

While the song is based on the pain and suffering, Landero further disclosed that he wanted to write the song the opposite way.

“I thought of writing the song that would not touch on fear and loneliness. So that explains the lyrics that talks about recovery from sufferings, sustained development amid the adversities, as well as to urge the Davaoeños tounite for peace,” the seasoned musician explained.

In 2008, Landero added, the city council adopted the song as the official theme song of the Araw ng Dabaw celebrations.

The song’s festive melody has inspired various local artists and school-based drum and bugle corps to play it with their own renditions during their performances in different events.

The entire album is now available on Spotify.

Yuja Wang: Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor Op. 54 [HD]

Robert Schumann was a German composer and critic born in Zwickau on June 8, 1810. A quirky, problematic genius, he wrote some of the greatest music of the Romantic era, and also some of the weakest. Severely affected by what was most likely bipolar disorder, he achieved almost superhuman productivity during his manic periods. His life ended early and miserably with a descent into insanity brought on by syphilis. He did his best work when younger, in small forms: piano pieces and songs.

Early Years Of Study

Schumann's bookseller father was also a novelist and translator of Walter Scott and Byron; highly nervous, he married a violently passionate woman, and Schumann was brought up in an environment both literary and unstable. He began piano lessons at seven, and studied Latin and Greek in school in Zwickau, developing a keen interest in literature and in writing as he entered his teens. He continued to develop as a pianist and wrote novels. When he was 16 his father died and in the same month his sister committed suicide. His father had stipulated that for Robert to receive his inheritance he had to take a three-year course of study at the university level, and the next year Schumann enrolled as a law student at the University of Leipzig. He spent his time reading Jean Paul Richter and soon became a piano student of (and border with) Friedrich Wieck, whose daughter Clara, then nine, he would eventually marry. He developed a consuming interest in the music of Schubert, which opened a window on his own creative yearnings.

In 1830, Schumann opted out of law and resumed his studies with Wieck. Despite incessant practice, he never became the virtuoso pianist he hoped to be, owing to a "numbness" in the middle finger of his right hand. The problem may have resulted from his use, over Wieck's objection, of a splint contraption to strengthen the hand, or from mercury poisoning related to the treatment of syphilis, which he probably contracted in his teens. Fortunately, he would not need to be a virtuoso — because he married one.

Music — And Trouble — In The 1830s

The 1830s were turbulent for Schumann. He fought with Wieck over his training and his relationship with Clara, which Wieck opposed. Under stress, he drank and smoked heavily and suffered his first bouts of depression. Gradually, Schumann let go of the dream of keyboard virtuosity and became active as a critic, for which he was, during his lifetime, as well known as he was for his music. Simultaneously, he developed into quite a capable composer.

In 1834 he founded the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, turning it into a platform for his philosophizing on the music of the past and present and for notices and analyses of new works. Among his own important works of the decade were the majority of the pieces that established his reputation as a composer for the piano: Carnaval, the Davidsbündler Tänze, the Symphonic Etudes, the Fantasy in C, Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Kreisleriana, and others. During this time, he befriended Chopin and Mendelssohn.

Marriage, Music, And Mania

By 1840, Clara Wieck, 20, was a distinguished pianist and had been in the public eye for more than a decade. Schumann's marriage to her — which took place a year after he prevailed in a lawsuit against her father — resulted in an enormous creative outpouring. First came the "year of song." Anticipating marriage in a decidedly lyrical state of mind, Schumann focused his pent-up emotion on vocal music, composing nearly 140 songs in 1840, most of them in the anxious months before August, when the marriage permission suit he and Clara had filed against her father was decided in their favor. The following year, in a mood of celebration, he turned to the orchestra. His works included two symphonies — No. 1 in B-flat and No. 4 in D minor — as well as Overture, Scherzo and Finale, and a Fantasie in A minor for piano and orchestra. In 1842 Schumann focused on chamber music, composing three string quartets, the often heard Piano Quintet in E-flat, and the wonderful Piano Quartet in E-flat.

Such feverish concentration on a single genre at a time can be seen as typical manic behavior. The other side of the coin — phobias and terrifying slides into depression — turned up as the 1840s wore on, leaving the composer incapacitated. At the end of 1844 Schumann and Clara moved to Dresden, at one of the lowest of his low points. During his next few years, he completed the Piano Concerto in A minor, his Symphony No. 2 in C, his one opera, Genoveva, and an extraordinary dramatic poem based on Byron's Manfred.

Düsseldorf And Downhill

In 1850, Schumann accepted a position as municipal music director in Düsseldorf. One of the first works he composed after his arrival was the Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, the Rhenish, inspired by the majestic Cologne Cathedral. During the three seasons he held the job, Schumann experienced difficulties with city administrators and ultimately, owing to his increasingly erratic behavior on the podium, lost the respect of the orchestra and chorus. He was fired in the fall of 1853. A bright spot during that sad season was the time the Schumanns spent with the renowned violinist Joseph Joaquim and the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms, whose budding genius Schumann immediately recognized.

During the winter of 1854, Schumann's insanity manifested itself dramatically: He heard "angelic" voices that quickly morphed into a bestial noise of "tigers and hyenas." On a February morning he walked to a bridge over the Rhine and threw himself in; he was rescued by fishermen. Insisting that for Clara's protection he be institutionalized, he was placed in a sanatorium. His doctors prevented Clara from seeing him for more than two years, until days before his death.

The Music Of Poetic Personalities

Schumann's literary sensitivity and introspective nature led him to imbue nearly everything he wrote with personality — in the case of his best songs and piano pieces, often the multiple sides of his own personality. Nearly all of his piano music is referential, attempting to embody emotions aroused by literature or to characterize actors' interactions in some ongoing novel or lyric poem of the mind. One of Schumann's favorite conceits was the "Davidsbund" ("Tribe of David"), peopled by imaginary characters who, like the biblical David, were willing to stand up to the artistic Philistines of the day. The members of this society included Meister Raro, probably an idealization of his teacher and father-in-law, as well as Schumann's two major personae: the impetuous extrovert Florestan and the pale, studious, introverted Eusebius. The Davidsbündler Tänze (Dances of the Tribe of David) specifically chronicles an emotional and musical journey with these two alter egos at the wheel — but so do most of Schumann's works, especially those for piano.

Schumann's lyrical, intense musicality produced some of the most beautiful and moving lieder in the repertoire. His Dichterliebe (Poet's Love), a setting of 16 poems by Heinrich Heine, is his best-known song cycle and a supreme achievement in German lied. Other cycles include Frauenliebe und Leben (Women's Love and Life) and two sets titled Liederkreis (one to poems of Heine, one to poems of Joseph von Eichendorf). There is a substantial amount of chamber music; the best pieces are the Piano Quintet (the first piece ever written for that complement), the Piano Quartet, and the Three Romances for oboe and piano.

As a symphonic composer Schumann sports a long rap sheet: awkwardness in larger forms, muddy scoring, excessive doublings that always sound a little out of tune. But he was capable of achieving splendid orchestral effects, and his Third and Fourth Symphonies also reveal original and innovative approaches to form. In an effort to reinforce a feeling of unity in the Fourth Symphony, he specified that its four movements be played without a break, with the aim that the entire work would form a large, cyclical structure. The underlying unity of the piece asserts itself in the treatment of the key and in the thematic linking of the last movement to the first, and of parts of the third movement to the second. The material is so closely knit that musicologists have come to regard it as a landmark in the history of the genre. Of the concerted works, the Piano Concerto is Schumann at his best. The Cello Concerto is a solid piece but the Violin Concerto, a late work of troubled delicacy, requires very sympathetic treatment to be effective. None of Schumann's efforts for the stage has found a place in the repertoire.

There is little doubt that Schumann will remain a canonic figure, though if quality of work is the only gauge, his importance has long been overrated. His abilities, at times, fell short of his ambitions, but he brought enthusiasm and a rare poetic genius to everything he attempted. As a critic he was remarkably astute in some judgments, wildly off the mark in others, and in all cases generous. He never became a great pianist, was a failure as a conductor, and at times was not even a very good composer. But his entire being was music, informed by dream and fantasy. He was music's quintessential Romantic, always ardent, always striving for the ideal.

(Ted Libbey is the author of "The NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music")

Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet - Joslin - Henri Mancini, Nino Rota

16,209,601 views Feb 14, 2021 Please visit http://www.joslinmusic.com For more info on bookings and live performances. Track available for purchase at https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-ti... Listen on Apple music : https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-ti... Written by Nino Rota and Henry Mancini. Arranged by Joslin. Recorded and produced by Joslin in his private Studios. Final Mix and Master by : Martin Baird (http://www.vergemusicworks.com) Piano - Joslin (http://www.joslinmusic.com) Violin - Emily Burak (http://www.emilyburak.com) https://www.instagram.com/emilyburak/ Video Directed and edited by Joslin DP - Anh Nguyen (http://www.anhstudio.com) Filmed in Mckinney, Texas.

"Anak" by Freddie Aguilar, Transcribed for Cello and Strings by Jeffrey...

Manila Symphony Orchestra | Medley of Philippine Folk Songs by Bernard G...

Manila Symphony Orchestra | Medley of Philippine Folk Songs by Bernard Greene

11,669 views  Premiered Aug 7, 2020  On March 13, 2019, the Manila Symphony Orchestra performed in the FEU Auditorium in cooperation with the Silaw Foundation.  

The Manila Symphony Orchestra was based in the FEU Auditorium for 8 years in the 1950s. This concert was part of the celebration of FEU's 91st anniversary and the 70th birthday of the Auditorium. 

Watch as they perform a medley of Philippine Folk Songs by American Composer Bernard Greene under the baton of Professor Marlon Chen. 

© Video courtesy of the FEU Media Center 

Yuja Wang: Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 [HD]

20,430 views  Aug 1, 2021  Verbier Festival, Salle Médran. Verbier Festival Orchestra conducted by Kurt Masur Jul 31 2009

Here Wang is of similar age as the orchestra players. Verbier host Charlotte Gardner describes Masur as "Mr. Mendelssohn". https://www.facebook.com/1663099812/v...

In 2009 Masur was already affected by Parkinson's disease, and he would pass away in 2015 from the disease.

0:00 Molto allegro con fuoco in G minor

6:57 Andante in E major

12:00 Presto—Molto allegro e vivace in G major

#YujaWang #Mendelssohn #Verbier #KurtMasur