“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain” – Abraham Tucker
A profoundly English masterpiece, if all of your emotional machinery is working properly, this piece is guaranteed to cause anything from goosebumps to tears. Vaughan Williams' music is very distinctive--another example of his inspiration includes the well-loved The Lark Ascending. Both of these piece share a strong reliance on beautiful strings textures, as well as …
Continue reading "Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis"
Among music's incredible powers is the ability to encapsulate a moment, or a feeling, and preserve it until the next hearing, whereupon it is released like the smell of mothballs from an old dresser, to use an unpleasant metaphor for a pleasant experience. Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for strings is a 15-minute piece that …
Continue reading "Edward Elgar—Introduction and Allegro for Strings"
Brilliant scientist though he may have been, Alexander Borodin's first love was music. As a recognized master of melodies, Borodin does not disappoint in his suite of Polovtsian dances, from Prince Igor. The casual listener may recall having heard some of the themes in this work before, in different settings. Indeed, the compelling second theme …
Even the most intellectual of music critics cannot help but suffer a fondness for this enthralling symphony and its haunting melodies. The composer Robert Simpson criticized Symphony No. 2 as having "forced climaxes" and "lyrical inflation." But to criticize Symphony No. 2 for its "lyrical inflation" is like criticizing the Accelerator at Knott’s Berry Farm …
Without a doubt, the most incredible quality that music has is the capacity to evoke imagery. It wasn't until Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique that program music, or music written with a story to illustrate, was formally introduced to listeners. Yet rewind roughly 100 years to 1725, and you find that Antonio Vivaldi was already onto …
The conductor has hypnotized the orchestra. His remarkably long baton, over two feet in length, is electric, possessing a strange power that mesmerizes all observers. With tremendous economy of gesture, the maestro moves his lightning rod of a baton with only his wrist, gently displaying a tender L shape. Strangely, he appears, for a brief …
All the Feels 