SUNDAY MORNING CLASSICS ON TBP

A collaboration of: “The Classic Music Mafia”
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.

This feature along with two other ‘Shorts’ come to us from Llpoh. With our thanks.

Andrés Segovia – Concert at the Alhambra ( 1976 )

Back around the time the following video was filmed, I was wandering around the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, and came across an old guy playing a guitar in one of the isolated areas. He was playing the shit out of that guitar. I listened to him for quite some time, along with very few others who happened to be passing by.

The Alhambra didn’t draw big crowds back then, as it was a long way from Madrid – overnight on a rickety old train, and people did not travel so much. Anyway, turns out this old guy was some cat named Andres Segovia. And so began my love of his music, which I used to play to my babies to serenade them to sleep.

This is a pretty long video, but his music is magical, and carries me back to that beautiful place where I first found him, and I only really understood what I had found as the years passed. It was a magical moment.

That old cat could tickle those strings.

You will, unfortunately, have to watch the piece above on YouTube if you are interested. I highly recommend it.

Great stuff.

Andrés Segovia – Recital 1962 ( rare video live ! )

Here is another piece, also worth a listen.

John Williams – Concierto De Aranjuez (2nd Movement)

I think the John Williams piece is prettier, but the Segovia piece clearly shows his unique ability of string plucking. Plus the recording of the Williams piece is far better.

I take the old master, but I like both.

L’italiana in Algeri, Ouverture

I’ve written a good deal about Gioachino Rossini over the last year and a half, so we’ll get right to the music. And yes, Rossini is a personal favorite.

This first piece comes to you from Teatro La Fenice.

Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of “the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers – Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi – were performed.

As you can see, it is a gorgeous theatre.

La Cenerentola

This next piece is the overture from Rossini’s opera “La Cenerentola” (think Cinderella).

This, too, is from La Teatro Fenice. It is performed by the Teatro La Fenice Orchestra under the direction of Kazushi Ono.

Semiramide (Overture)

Finally we have Rossini’s overture from his last Italian opera “Semiramide”.

Semiramide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini.

The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire’s tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Babylon. The opera was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on February 3, 1823.

Semiramide (Semiramis) was Rossini’s final Italian opera, and took the form of a return to vocal traditions of his youth, a melodrama in which he “recreated the baroque tradition of decorative singing with unparalleled skill”. The ensemble-scenes (particularly the duos between Arsace and Semiramide) and choruses are of a high order, as is the orchestral writing, which makes full use of a large pit.

Rossini wrote the title role for his wife, Isabella Colbran.

The work starts with a well-known overture, and throughout it calls for outstanding singers in the leading roles. Although the overture is one of several of Rossini’s to be widely recorded, the opera is only occasionally performed. Because Rossini’s overtures were sometimes shuffled from one opera to another, Rossini would have found the fact that most music lovers today identify his operas by their overture to be ironic. It is well known, for example, that The Barber of Seville, one of the greatest of comic operas, is performed all over the world with an overture that had already served Rossini twice for serious operas. Semiramide, though, has its own overture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTauHYkul3c

I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have selecting these pieces.

Have a great Sunday!


J. S. Bach. Fugue in G minor by a sax quartet

As you know I love Bach.

This by an unnamed quartet.

UT Sax Ensemble plays Jupiter by Gustav Holst

Are there enough Saxes for you?

Pérez Prado: Mambo Potpourri

Mambo Potpourri by Dámaso Pérez Prado Performed by the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra under the direction of Antonio Delgado, February 18th 2012 at the Wesleyan Celebration Centre in Moncton.

Special guest artist encore appearance by Radio Radio.

Be sure and wait for the encore that starts at 9:30…

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

Heaven help us…

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