SUNDAY MORNING CLASSICS ON TBP

A collaboration of: “The Classic Music Mafia”
SMC, nkit, Austrian Peter, and Steve C.

Every Sunday morning we present selections for our TBP family to enjoy.

We present symphonies, ensembles, quartets, octets, etc.

Not all of our music is strictly ‘classical’. We may stray a little, but we strive to make all of our selections ‘classy’.

We offer tips on proper ‘symphony etiquette’ and even some selections that are a bit light-hearted and fun aimed at a younger audience. Those pieces will be so designated, and might be a good way to introduce kids to a world of music that they might not have been exposed to or think of as old and ‘stuffy’.

A full symphony will run as long as it will. We don’t want to cut a symphony short. However, we also include some shorter pieces that we try to keep under fifteen minutes in length. You can sample each and hopefully find one or more that pleases you.

We hope that you enjoy our Sunday selections.

Requiem in D Minor- Mozart KV 626

A requiem mass composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

He composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year.

Performed by the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and the Simon Bolivar National Youth Choir of Venezuela.

Conducted by Gregory Carreño.

BARBER Adagio for Strings

Haunting to the point of sadness, if coupled to disturbing visuals, as with 9/11 vids and a scene or two from Platoon.

Yet still, beautiful melody that slowly zigzags to peak highs, before stopping dead in its tracks…only to resume at the lower notes similar to the beginning.

Handel – Music for the Royal Fireworks (Proms 2012)

This is G.F. Handel’s music for the Royal Fireworks in Green Park, England on 4/27/1749.

He was contracted to write this by King George the Second, but only as a wind piece. It was to signal the end of the War of Austrian Succession and the signing of the treaty Aix-La-Chapelle.

Handel re-scored the suite for full orchestra for a performance on May 27th in the Foundling Hospital.

Handel noted in the score that the violins were to play the oboe parts, the cellos and double basses the bassoon part, and the violas either a lower wind or bass part.

The instruments from the original band instrumentation play all the movements in the revised orchestral edition except the Bourrée and the first Menuet, which are played by the oboes, bassoons, and strings alone.

This is the re-scored version.

“The Ride Of The Valkyries” – Richard Wagner

This is the popular term for the prelude to Act III of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas by German composer Richard Wagner that comprise The Ring of the Nibelungs (German Der Ring des Nibelungen).

The Ring of the Nibelungs is a sequence of four musical dramas based on the Norse saga, which concerns the turbulent family history of a race of gods and their pursuit of a magical golden ring.

It began as a single opera focusing on the death of Siegfried but grew into a vast cycle of four operas comprising Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried and Die Gotterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gods).

Wagner’s intention for The Ring was to create a “Gesamtkunstwerk,” a total work of art that fuses elements of music, drama, poetry, and stagecraft into an indivisible whole. It was a more ambitious piece of musical theater than any other devised up to that time and it arguably remains the most influential contribution by any composer to opera.

The entire cycle was completed in 1874, and the first complete performance of The Ring took place in 1876 at the Bayreuth Festival in a theater especially designed for the production by Wagner. The opera was an immediate success.

Richard Wagner devised the Wagner Tuba, a cross between the French Horn and Sax horn to enrich the harmonies for The Ring.

Other composers have since written for the instrument, include Anton Bruckner, whose Symphony No. 7 utilizes four of them in memory of Wagner during the slow movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P73Z6291Pt8

Ravel’s Bolero

Performed by the Mi-Bemol Saxophone Ensemble in Osaka, Japan.

A one-movement orchestral piece written by the French composer Maurice Ravel.

The piece premiered in 1928.

You will not believe how good this all saxophone version sounds…

The Classic Music Mafia – Adding some class to this joint one Sunday at a time.

Heaven help us…

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