May 7th is the Centenary of the Birth of Brahms and Tchaikovsky
Europe Day is celebrated on May 9.
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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) together with Bach and Mozart is part of the trio of giants of Western music. Born in Bonn , his father, of Flemish origin, tried to exhibit him as a second Mozart , but it was a notable failure. Despite this, from the age of nine, the organist Christian Gottlob Neefe captivated him with the study of Bach , whom he would always keep in mind. In 1787 he moved to Vienna with the intention of receiving Mozart classes, but the death of his mother brought him back to Bonn after a few days. And so after five years, he returned to Vienna where he was able to study with Haydn and Salieri . However, his profession as an excellent pianist could not be carried out due to the deafness that attacked him the following year until he was totally disabled from said faculty.
In 1793 , at the age of 23, Ludwig van Beethoven was introduced to the work of the German writer Schiller , and from that moment he expressed his desire to set it to music. On May 7, 1824, ten years after the Eighth Symphony , Beethoven presents at the Imperial Court Theater in Vienna his Ninth Symphony in D minor, Op. 125 -later known as "Choral"- whose fourth and last movement he conceived to be performed by a choir and soloists based on Schiller 's Ode to Joy .
The European Anthem is one of the four official symbols of the European Union , along with the motto, the flag, and Europe Day. The hymn has its origins in the Ode to Joy ( An die Freude in German), written by Friedrich von Schiller in 1785 and in the composition made by Ludwig van Beethoven for his Ninth Symphony . Thus, the European Anthem is an extract of its fourth movement officially adopted in 1985 in a version adapted by Herbert von Karajan .
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) born in Vienna where he spent most of his life, was the composer of the most conservative romanticism compared to the progressive current led by Liszt and Wagner . His music is firmly rooted in the compositional structures and techniques of the classical masters and its formal structures faithfully follow the patterns of classicism (1750-1810) , although it uses part of the coloring of romanticism (1810-1920) and popular music. Of an eminently perfectionist nature, he wrote for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, for solo voices and for choir. It was Hans von Bulow who proposed the "three B's" referring to Bach , Beethoven and Brahms as the three main pillars of the History of music .
The Hungarian Dances are a set of 21 dances based on Hungarian popular music. Number 4 , which we are presenting today, begins with a calm and serene theme that alternates with different episodes of a lively and cheerful character. The version is by the Cairo Opera Orchestra conducted by Lisa Xanthopoulou (1968), a Greek conductor who began her studies in Thessaloniki to perfect them in Germany and Italy . She is currently the principal of the Thessaloniki Symphony and frequently invited conductor of major European orchestras.
Piotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was a Russian composer who graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and wrote works of different genres, although he achieved his greatest success with his ballets. In 1859 he obtained a position as a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice , which he would abandon at the age of three to be able to dedicate himself solely to music. His personal life was plagued by continuous crises since the death of his mother and by a repressed homosexuality, which forced him into a marriage that only lasted a few months. He wrote more than 150 compositions, including piano works, quartets, suites, symphonies, concertos, chorales, cantatas, operas, and ballets. He died at the age of 53 and is considered one of the greatest composers in history.
The nocturne is a piece of vocal or instrumental music, with a sweet melody and free structure. The denomination "nocturne" was given, in the first instance, in the 18th century , to a piece played at night parties. In its most common form (that is, as a one-movement piece usually written for a piano solo), the genre was cultivated mainly in the 19th century . The most famous exponent of this music was Frédéric Chopin , who wrote 21 works in this genre. Today we offer Tchaikovsky 's Nocturne Op 19 No 4 with Corinne Morris on cello accompanied by the Macedonian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Philip Hesketh .
Georges Bizet (1836-1875) was a French pianist and composer who did not achieve much success during his lifetime. Bizet won several prizes throughout his brilliant career as a student at the Paris Conservatoire , including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognized as an exceptional pianist, though he preferred not to take advantage of his ability and rarely played in public. His best-known opera, Carmen , achieved a sensational success at its premiere that he did not enjoy as he died three months after it of a heart attack at the age of 39. The rest of his works were cornered and rescued little by little in the 20th century. Despite this, he is currently considered a reference to the 19th century and a brilliant and imaginative composer.
Georges Bizet did not make it easy for the tenor who sings the role of Nadir in the opera The Pearl Fishermen . In fact, he wrote a romance for him, Je crois entendre encore , which is most difficult for the lyrical tenor range. This romance is difficult because it is partly written on the passage notes , which are those two or three notes that lead a singer to the high zone, without being true high notes; this intermediate zone is extremely unstable. That's why Je crois entendre encore is so difficult. If the passage notes are not placed correctly, the player will not hit the treble well. However, if sung well, Je crois entendre encore is a magical and beautiful piece like no other. (Extracted from laopera.net ).
Alfredo Kraus (1927-1999) was a Spanish tenor and singing teacher, born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and considered one of the best light lyric tenors of the second half of the 20th century . Born to a Spanish mother and an Austrian father, Kraus began his musical studies with piano lessons at the age of four, and singing in the Corazón de María parish choir at the age of eight. He made his international debut at the Royal Theater in Cairo in 1956 with the role of the Duke of Mantua in Verdi 's opera Rigoletto ; He was also a prominent zarzuela interpreter. He received the Canarias Award for Fine Arts and Interpretation in 1985, and the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 1991. Recipient of countless awards, even the Bilbao City Council named a square in the Rekalde neighborhood after him.
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Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) was a French composer of Italian origin (he was born in Florence ) and naturalized French at age 21 (his real name was Giovanni Battista Lulli ). He soon stood out as a violinist and dancer and at the age of twenty he became part of Louis XIV 's service as musical director of the royal family; from then on, its importance in the development of classical ballet has been paramount. In 1672 he obtained the position of director of the Academie Royale de Musique, renewing the essence of the opera with greater solemnity in its staging, a determined emphasis on the clarity of the text and careful preparation of the ballets and choruses. His musical production is fundamentally based on three pillars: opera, ballets and religious music.
The Te Deum is a Christian hymn of thanksgiving originating in the fourth century and set to music by numerous composers of all ages. Today we visualize Lully 's Te Deum in the version of Musica Florea , a Czech baroque music group founded in 1992 by Marek Štryncl , current director.
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony , also known as "Choral", is one of the most important musical compositions in history. The last movement caused astonishment in its time due to the incorporation of a vocal quartet of soloists and a mixed choir, something unprecedented at that time; movement, on the other hand, which has become a symbol of freedom. In our days it has had innumerable arrangements and adaptations; the text he uses is a reduction of the Ode to Joy by the German poet Friedrich Schiller . The symphony consists of four movements and its premiere took place in Vienna in 1824 with resounding success with Beethoven present. In 2001, the original score of the symphony was inscribed in UNESCO 's Memory of the World Register , who in 2003 declared it a World Heritage Site.
Today it is offered to us by soprano Erin Wall , mezzo-soprano Sonia Prina , tenor Simon O'Neill and bass Alexander Vinogradov with the CBSO Choir , the BBC National Choir of Wales and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales , all @ They are led by the Chinese teacher Xian Zhang .
Variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. Changes can affect melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration, or any of those combinations. As a composition, it is characterized by containing a main theme that is imitated in other related subthemes or variations between them.
Haydn's Variations on a Theme is a musical work in the form of a theme and variations composed by Johannes Brahms in 1873. Brahms composed two versions of the work: one for two pianos and one for symphony orchestra, which we offer today. SUBJECT (0´02´´) Choir St. Antoni. Andante .-. VARIATION I (2´03´´) Little more lively .-. VARIATION II (3´28´´) Più vivace .-. VARIATION III (4´31´´) With motorcycle .-. VARIATION IV (6´22´´) Andante con moto .-. VARIATION V (8´37´´) Vivace .-. VARIATION VI (9´37´´) Vivace .-. VARIATION VII (10´58´´) Graceful .-. VARIATION VIII (13´49´´) Presto non troppo .-. FINAL (14'55'') Andante. The work is today performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its main conductor, the Romanian maestro Cristian Măcelaru (1980).
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) was a French composer, educator and conductor whose influence on the contemporary musical and intellectual field has been remarkable. He began studying mathematics at the Lyon Polytechnic , before entering Olivier Messiaen 's classes on harmony in 1944, counterpoint with Andrée Vaurabourg and twelve-tone technique with René Leibowitz . He cultivated an atonal music within a serial style applied to the height of the notes and the rest of the sound variables: rhythms, dynamics, attacks, etc., which would give rise to the so-called integral serialism . In 1970, French President Georges Pompidou invited Boulez to create and direct an institution for the exploration and development of modern music, giving rise to IRCAM , of which Boulez was director until 1992.
Douze Notations : I (0:04) Fantasque - Modéré .-. II (0:56) Très vif .-. III (1:19) Assez lent .-. IV (2:11) Rhythmique .-. V (2:41) Doux et improvise .-. VI (3:31) Rapid .-. VII (3:57) Hieratic .-. VIII (5:03) Modéré jusqu' à très vif .-. IX (6:06) Lointain – Calm down .-. X (7:34) Mechanical and three sec .-. XI (8:03) Scintillant .-. XII (8:50) Lent - Puissant etâpre. Today's version is offered to us by María Mazo on piano.
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Dado Moroni (1962) is an Italian jazz pianist and composer. He started playing the piano at the age of four. As a teenager he dedicated himself to playing professionally and at the age of 17 he recorded his first album. In the eighties he worked in Europe playing festivals and in jazz clubs, as part of Jimmy Woode 's trio. In 1991 he moved to the USA appearing regularly in prestigious clubs in New York . Established in Italy , Dado continues to perform all over the world. In 2007 he won the Italian Jazz Awards for Best Jazz Act . In 2009 he was named the best Italian jazz pianist in a vote sponsored by Musica Jazz magazine. In 2010 he was appointed Professor of Jazz Piano at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Turin , where he currently practices.
Britney Spears (Mississippi, 1981) is an American singer, dancer, songwriter, model, actress, fashion designer, and businesswoman. She began acting as a child, and gained fame by participating in the television program The Mickey Mouse Club (1992). Her first two albums established her as a pop icon and experts accredited her as the best teen artist of all time, for which she was honored with the title of " Princess of Pop ". In 2003, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the age of 21, becoming the youngest singer to receive it. Spears has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Sorotan Bele was a folk music group from Hondarribia (Gipuzkoa), whose sound fused folk with overtones of pop . They achieved notable success in the Basque Country in the 90s, and left three albums and a live video before disbanding. At first, they did not have a venue, until they managed to get the Lezo Conservatory to lend them a room. The father of one of them proposed to record a demo, which they sent to a contest that they won. As a result of this, they were encouraged to send the demo to the Elkar label and from there they proposed to add another four songs to publish an album. Following the publication of this album, the group is dedicated to giving numerous live shows. Later, they put Celtic folk aside to complicate their style and self-published their third album, with which they disbanded. On November 30, 1996, they gave their last concert in Irún .
Sia (Adelaide, Australia, 1975) is an Australian singer-songwriter, producer, actress, director and writer. In 2014 he published a new album with the title 1000 Forms of Fear . The album debuted at number 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart. It also reached the top of the Australian and Canadian charts. His first single, "Chandelier" became a global top 10 hit on the charts. It also peaked at number 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2018 he formed the musical group LSD together with Labrinth and Diplo , his first single was Genius that went viral on Tik Tok . She is currently one of the most influential artists in the music industry worldwide and responsible for many hits by other artists, since she has written or co-written them.
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The Brahms Quartet premiered in Hamburg in 1861; Schoenberg orchestrated the work in 1937, and it was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of then-music director Otto Klemperer in one of the orchestra's Saturday Night Concerts. Schoenberg explained the reason for his orchestration almost a year after the premiere. The composer wrote: "1) I like the piece. 2) It is rarely played. 3) It is always played very badly, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you don't hear anything from the strings. I wanted to listen all at once, and I have succeeded." ( excerpted from John Mangum's article). Today we can see it choreographed by George Balanchine in Damian Woetzel 's interpretation with the New York City Ballet .
Swan Lake , Tchaikovsky 's first ballet, is a ballet-fairy tale structured in four acts; it was commissioned by the Bolshoi Theater for the first time in 1877. The work, initially choreographed by Julius Reisinger , was not well received by either the public or critics; which forced Tchaikovsky to a new approach and a new choreography, this time by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov ; its revival at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg achieved its first great success, which has continued to the present day in which it has become one of the most renowned titles in world ballet.
The story narrates an impossible love between Prince Siegfried and Odette , a young queen turned into a swan along with her entire court by the spell of the evil wizard Rothbar . The young woman can only recover her human form at night and will only be freed from the curse by the one who promises her eternal love. Today we can watch it in a version by Svetlana Zhakarova, Roberto Bolle and the La Scala Theater Dance Corps .
Kolattama is a very popular stick dance in Andhra Pradesh (southeast India). The dance form originated in the 7th century and goes by various names, in various regions of India . In Andhra Pradesh , this dance is called KolKollannalu, Kolattam and Kolannalu. At first, the dance was performed only by women; Gradually changes were appearing in this dance and now the dance is performed by both men and women. Generally, this art form is performed during village festivals. Dance is the combination of rhythmic movements, songs and music. The dance is performed by various artists in groups agrupad@s in pairs. The inclination of the body, the steps and other body movements are essential for the dancer during the dance performance.
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 55, by Ludwig van Beethoven , known as Eroica is a work considered by many to be the dawn of musical romanticism. This symphony is one of Beethoven 's most famous works, originally intending to dedicate it to Napoleon Bonaparte , but when the latter crowned himself emperor in May 1804, Beethoven was so disgusted that he erased Bonaparte 's name from the title page with such force that he broke his pencil and left a torn hole in the paper. This video offers us part of a rehearsal of Ludwig van Beethoven 's Symphony No. 3 under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann , who, as conductor, shines for her refined technique born of analytical rigor combined with a special congenital fantasy and energy.
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Various Wikipedia articles have been used to write these texts.
The texts of Videomusicalis are written in Basque, Spanish and English.