Chopin Nocturne played by Yundi Li

This is such a beautiful piece. I really enjoyed watching Yundi Li's fingers as he played this Chopin Nocturne. He also has such amazing expressions on his face - he is really feeling this music.

Elton John Study

A student of mine came up with a great listening activity - to study Elton John. Usually we study classical composers in the studio, but I'd never thought of branching out to pop!

Here are several videos of Elton John at different times in his career. After each video are some questions for you to try and answer - good luck!

***Update: it seems that the video for "Your Song" is not viewable for everyone. If you are having trouble watching it, try "Crocodile Rock". The questions below can be used for both videos.***

Elton John: Your Song



Elton John: Crocodile Rock

1. Look at Elton John at the piano, especially at the beginning of the video. Pretend that you are the piano teacher - what are some good things that you see, and what things would you ask him to change?
2. How many beats are in each measure of this piece? Try clapping along with the song - this might help.

Elton John: Candle in the Wind

Sung at Princess Diana's funeral

1. Watch Elton John's hands: what do you notice about his fingers? How far away do they move from the keys?
2. Elton John is singing the melody of this piece. How loud is the piano when he is singing? How loud is the piano when he isn't singing?

Avro Part - Spiegel im Spiegel

I have made my way to the end of the 20th century in my music history course - and it has been a rough ride. Some of the music has been very difficult to listen to, and so I haven't been posting much of it on our blog.

However, my book closed the 20th century with a composer that I have come to enjoy quite a bit - Avro Part.
I've decided to include this beautiful piece for you to listen to. Spiegel im spiegel (German for "Mirror in mirror") is the perfect piece to listen to on a rainy, quiet day. I hope it brings you as much joy as it has for me.

Collection of Works by Gershwin

For those of you who are studying George Gershwin in your lessons, here is a collection of youtube videos of some of his works. You'll probably find that they are really different from what you are used to studying!



This is I've Got Rhythm, which is both for piano, and for voice.



Rhapsody in Blue is quite long, but it is a great one to listen to!

Schumann and the Lied

In the year of 1840, Robert Schumann wrote more than 150 songs - can you even imagine composing that many pieces? That just about like composing a piece every two days or so. He was a very busy man!

Schumann composed a lot of a type of piece called a Lied - a piece where a German poem is set to music.

Here is one that I will be busy studying this week. The translation of the German poem by Heinrich Heine is included below the video.


If only the little flowers knew,
How deeply wounded my heart is,
They would cry with me,
To hear my sorrow.

And if the nightingales knew,
How sad and sick I am,
They would gladly release a torrent
Of restorative sound.

And if they knew my pain,
The little golden stars,
Would come down from heaven,
To give me comfort.

But all of them cannot know,
One alone understands my suffering.
It is she who has rent,
Rent my heart.

(In true romantic fashion, Schumann uses a very emotional text and creates some equally emotional music to go with it!)

Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture

I can't say that I am the biggest fan of the Romeo and Juliet story, but Tchaikovsky certainly does a good job of showing the story in his Romeo and Juliet Overture. In the overture he includes special themes for characters and important events: the Friar Lawrence Theme, the Feud (or argument) Theme, the Love Theme, and Juliet's Theme (I'm not sure what happened to the Romeo Theme).

The Love theme gets used a lot in movies and commercials - you might just recognize it!

Composer: Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (born in 1840)
Title: Romeo and Juliet Overture






Right away you are going to hear the Friar Lawrence Theme.

5:43:  This is the Feud Theme. There is a huge difference between this theme and the other themes - this one sounds really angry, and you can almost hear different people yelling at each other.
7:03:  This is the Bridge Theme. You can tell you've found the Bridge Theme because after all that "yelling", it is suddenly very quiet (pp).
7:48:  This is the Love Theme. This is the really famous one. Movies often use this theme, but they usually take it from later in the piece, when it is a bit more dramatic.
8:06:  Here we are with the Juliet Theme. It has a lot of back-and-forth movement. I always picture her with a long dress and enormous sleeves when I hear her theme.
9:00: We're back at the Love Theme.


Now that Tchaikovsky has introduced all the themes, he's going to mix them up. This is going to add a lot of excitement to the piece!

11:08:  We're back at the Feud Theme.
11:55:  Here's the Friar Lawrence Theme again - only it's disguised a little bit this time.
12:26:  Tchaikovsky is using a bit of everything now - he's throwing around the different themes between different instruments.

Tchaikovsky is getting towards the end of his piece now - he's going to play the different themes again one more time, just to wrap things up.

13:00:  Here we are again with the Feud Theme.
13:37:  Here comes Juliet again - only she's moving a little faster this time.
14:11:  And just in case you forgot, here is the Love Theme again. This is the part they love to use for movies. But just wait! At 15:47, the Love Theme gets interrupted by the Feud and Friar Lawrence.

We're almost there! Tchaikovsky is going to add a fancy ending piece called a coda to finish things off.

17:00:  We're back to the Love Theme - only, this time, it sounds much sadder. This is for after Romeo and Juliet have died. Tchaikovsky plays with this theme right until the end of the overture. At the end, he uses big drums - I think it really helps show that there is not a happy ending to this story!

And there you have it! I hope that this very detailed description helped walk you through this work!

Revisiting Smetana: Vltava

Composer: Bedrich Smetana (born 1824)
Title: Vltava (aka The Moldau)

I posted this video in a previous posting, but I'll post it again because it is such a beautiful piece. Also, I have more information on what is going on in this piece. As I mentioned before, Vltava is a symphonic poem: it "draws" a picture with music about the river Moldau in the Czech Republic.

The first thing you will hear is the Source of the River Theme. Two smaller rivers are flowing into one river.
1:02:  This is the River Theme. It will show up several times in this piece.
2:58:  This is the Hunting Scene. You can hear the trumpets from the hunting party along the river.
3:48:  This is the Peasant Wedding. Smetana uses melodies that sound like folk songs to "show" a wedding on the banks of the river.
5:43:  This is the Nocturnal Scene. You can actually hear moonbeams dancing off the river water!
8:09:  We're back to the River Theme!
8:57:  We're now at the St. John Rapids. Smetana uses clashing sounds in the orchestra to help us imagine the rapids.
10:15: Back to the River Theme!
10:52: This is the Ancient Castle Theme. Smetana actually borrowed this from another of his pieces.
11:18: We are getting towards the end of the piece. You can hear the river disappearing in the distance.

Liszt: La Campanella

Liszt is probably best known for his incredibly difficult pieces of music. He was the most famous pianist in his day, and apparently he was as famous as some rock stars are today. Some of us have talked about how Liszt had amazingly long thumbs - well, in this piece, you can really hear how much he would have put them to use!

Liszt was friends with so many composers - Chopin, Wagner, Schumann, Verdi, Berlioz...the list (no pun intended) goes on and on!

Here is an amazing piece of music, played by Arthur Rubenstein.

Composer: Franz Liszt (born in 1811)
Title: La Campanella
(I love this piece, and I love this performance!)

Listen for the two different themes that he uses: the first one starts right away, and the second one shows up at 1:09. Then Liszt repeats them over and over, making them fancier and fancier each time.

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor

This is a really beautiful piece: it was familiar to me, but I didn't know what it was called or who wrote it. Before now, I wasn't really too familiar with Mendelssohn's music. However, the last few weeks have been full of Mendelssohn for me! I hope you enjoy this recording - I know I did.


Composer: Felix Mendelssohn (born in 1809)
Title: Violin Concerto in E minor

(I really like this video, because the person who put it together also added in some really interesting notes about the music at the bottom of the video in blue.)

Upcoming videos from my Music History class

As some of you already  know, I am currently self-studying for my last music history exam through the Royal Conservatory of Music. I am very excited about this course - so far, it has been fantastic! I'm learning about composers in the Romantic era (Liszt, Smetana, Tchaikovsy and Mendelssohn), as well as 20th century composers.

The last two music history courses that I took seemed a little drier, but now that there are so many recordings of the material on youtube, I am having a wonderful time studying.

I've started to collect quality youtube recordings of the pieces that I am studying. I suddenly realized that there is no better place to keep them than here, on the studio blog, so that you can see them too!

To help my studying and also so that you have a bit of a road map to use as you are listening to these pieces, I have included the times at which important parts of the music happen - it is always more interesting to listen to a big piece if you have some idea of what is going on!

My next post will include the four videos that I have been currently studying - but there will be more to come!

Bach's Toccata and Fugue

Most of you already know Johann Sebastian Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue - it was one of the first pieces on the original Fantasia movie by Disney. Today someone sent me a beautiful video of it being played on the glass harp.

The glass harp is a special instrument that was very popular in the 18th century. Each glass holds just the right amount of water to make a certain pitch when the rim of the glass is rubbed. You can try this at home!

I've posted the glass harp version, but I have also included the original organ version below. Which one do you like best?

Glass Harp:



Organ:

(I really like this video because not only do they show the huge pipes where the sound is coming out of, but they also take care to show the hands AND the feet working hard!)

 

The Honky-Tonk Piano, Ragtime and Scott Joplin

Thanks to the aspirations of one of my students, I have been delving into and heavily researching saloon-style music that appears in old cowboy movies. While on this path, I have discovered a set of closely related piano themes: the honky-tonk piano style, ragtime music, and the famous piano roll music.

Here's a quick peek at the honky-tonk style of piano playing. While I'm not sure if this is an official term, it seems to be the way that the music community describes this style of playing...




According to Wikipedia, there is a small difference between the honky-tonk piano style and the ragtime piano style. Honky-tonk music focuses on rhythm, while the focus of ragtime is on the melody.

I used to press my ear to the upstairs living room floor to listen to my older brother play Scott Joplin's ragtime music on what is now the studio piano downstairs. Listening to ragtime always brings back good memories for me! Here is a video to The Maple Leaf Rag actually played by Scott Joplin and recorded on a piano roll used for player pianos.



 Here is one of Joplin's most famous pieces: The Entertainer. You might just recognize it!



 If you are interested in seeing a real player piano working on a piano roll, they have a beautiful one at the Burnaby Village Museum in the Music Shop: they have opened it up so that you can see the roll moving inside. Just remember to bring a few quarters to pop into the slot to make it play!

***If you are looking for great transcriptions of piano roll music, check out the Ragtime Piano Rolls webpage for free ragtime sheet music.***

Philip Glass' Birthday

This past week was the birthday of Philip Glass. I have to admit, I didn't always like Glass' work growing up. I loved Bach and Beethoven, and I didn't really understand what Glass was trying to do. However, now I just can't get enough of his music!

You can't listen to Glass' music and expect the explosive sound of Beethoven or the traditional sound of Bach. When listening to Glass, you need to shut the rest of the world out, quiet down your body, and just listen.

Aside from ensemble and piano solo music, Glass has also written soundtracks for movies. He has won awards for his music in both The Hours and The Truman Show.

Glass is known for his "minimalist" composing; he loves to repeat a section over and over again, and once in a while he'll change a note or two to keep the piece moving. As a result, his pieces can be long and repetitive, but if you take the time to listen quietly, I think that you will be surprised at how calm and refreshed you feel afterwards.

Below is a piece called "Glassworks" by Philip Glass. I hope you enjoy it!
 

Happy B.C. Day!

I hope that you all are enjoying a beautiful, sunshine-filled B.C. day. After a cool summer, today is quite a treat!

To celebrate B.C. day, I thought I'd post about a local B.C. composer - Stephen Chatman. Stephen Chatman was born in the U.S., but later moved here to British Columbia. He has been the head of the composition division of the UBC School of Music, and in 1988 became British Columbia's first composer in residence. Aside from choral music, he also writes piano music and orchestral works.

I chose to post Remember, one of Stephen Chatman's choral works, because I have sung it with the British Columbia Youth Choir; it is as beautiful to sing as it is to listen to!

Post-VSO Thoughts - The Moldau by Smetana

Last night the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) held their 23rd free concert in beautiful Deer Lake Park. Despite the rain, we took our chairs and picnic dinner and enjoyed a fantastic (if a little damp) performance. The VSO played a wide range of music, and finished off with their traditional finale for this concert, the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. You can find a recording of this piece earlier in our blog by clicking here.

There was one piece that I particularly liked, though I was not incredibly familiar with it. The VSO played Bedrich Smetana's Die Moldau (or, in Czech, Vltava). This piece is part of his symphonic poem entitled Ma Vlast in which Smetana uses music to describe his homeland. Die Moldau describes the route that the Moldau river takes; it starts when the river is formed by two smaller streams, and continues to describe the river flowing through meadows, past the wedding of a farmer, past mermaids dancing at night, past palaces and castles, and finally as it flows off into the distance.

This is a great example of a composer creating a piece of music to try and paint a picture for his audience. I've included a recording of Die Moldau in this post. Enjoy!

Carl Orff

This past Sunday (July 10th) was Carl Orff's 116th birthday. You may not recognize Carl Orff's name, but I'll bet that you'll recognize one of his most famous works: O Fortuna from Carmina Burana; it has been used in lots movies and commercials as a backdrop for dramatic events. Carl Orff took the medieval poem O Fortuna and set it to music, and, apparently, it has been listed as one of the most played pieces of classical music in the United Kingdom.

Guiding Listening Questions

I'm very excited about continuing on our personal reflections for different composers in the new year. You all have been doing a wonderful job of putting your most honest comments on paper when listening to composers, and it is a great record of your journey into music appreciation.

But what happens when you are listening to a composer's pieces, and you can't think of anything to write down? I've found a handy list of "helping questions" to guide you through creating a personal reflection.

Questions for Guided Listening and Reflection:

• How does the music make you feel?
• When you close your eyes, what do you see?
• What do you think the composer was feeling when he wrote this piece?
• Does the music tell a story?
• Are there patterns in the music?
• What instruments do you hear?
• Is the music fast? Slow? Loud? Soft?
• Do you like this piece? Why or why not?
• Does this piece remind you of another piece?
• If this piece was a drawing, what would it look like? Can you "draw" the music as a picture?

You don't have to answer all of these questions, but they do give you a good starting point for thinking about the music. Best of luck!

Happy Birthday Tchaikovsky!

Today is Tchaikovsky's 170th birthday - a milestone for even the best of us! Some of you have had the pleasure of listening to his music through our composer series. For those of you who haven't, today would be a wonderful day to put on Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, or The Nutcracker Suite.

Below is the finale from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; it definitely shares the stage with Beethoven's symphonies and Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries in terms of exciting pieces of music. Listen for the massive tempo changes, the "canons", and the church bells. The first time I heard this piece live was when the VSO performed it at Deer Lake Park; they used real (though not loaded) canons and set off fireworks during the last moments of the piece. This version doesn't have all of that, but it is quite amazing. Enjoy!

Beethoven on Knowledge Network

This spring, Knowledge Network (channel 5) is focusing on Beethoven; they are airing several documentaries filled with tidbits about his life as well as laden with his music. I have not personally seen any of these documentaries, but I plan on catching a few of them! Here are the listings:

Wednesday, April 14th at 9:00 pm - Beethoven, the Rebel

Wednesday, April 21st at 9:00 pm - Beethoven, Love and Loss

Wednesday, April 28th at 9:00 pm - Beethoven, Faith and Fury

Wednesday, April 14th at 10:00 pm - Beethoven's Hair

More details can be found at

http://www.knowledge.ca/program/beethoven and

http://www.knowledge.ca/program/beethovens-hair

Because I haven't previewed these documentaries, I can't give you a heads up with regards to the content. So watch with discretion and with a parent!

Happy Birthday Vivaldi!

Today is Antonio Vivaldi (aka the Red Priest)'s 332nd birthday. He was born in and spent the better part of his life composing in Venice, in great part for the orchestras and choirs of a Venetian girl's orphanage. Although he wrote a huge number of works, he is best known for his Four Seasons, which was considered very avant garde for its time. So today's the day to pull out some good old fashioned Vivaldi and travel back in time to 17th century Venice...