Morning Classics

Our first morning classic is Morning Mood from the Peer Gynt suite.

Peer Gynt, Op. 23 is the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play of the same name, written by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1875. It premiered along with the play on 24 February 1876 in Christiania (now Oslo).

When Ibsen asked Grieg to write music for the play in 1874, the latter enthusiastically agreed. However, it was much more difficult for Grieg than he imagined.

He wrote to a friend in August 1874,

"Peer Gynt progresses slowly, and there is no possibility of having it finished by autumn. It is a terribly unmanageable subject.”

His wife wrote of him and his music.

"The more he saturated his mind with the powerful poem, the more clearly he saw that he was the right man for a work of such witchery and so permeated with the Norwegian spirit,"

Even though the premiere was a "triumphant success", it prompted Grieg to complain bitterly that the Swedish management of the theatre had given him specifications as to the duration of each number and its order: "I was thus compelled to do patchwork ... In no case had I opportunity to write as I wanted ... Hence the brevity of the pieces," he said

For many years, the suites were the only parts of the music that were available, as the original score was not published until 1908, one year after Grieg's death

Text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_Gynt_(Grieg)

You Tube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTRbweG0_Jz0SBZoZpmJAcvuILlb41Cr3

Something a little different for today's morning classic

Humoresques, Op. 101 (B. 187), is a piano cycle by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, written during the summer of 1894. One writer says "the seventh Humoresque is probably the most famous small piano work ever written after Beethoven's Für Elise." Perhaps not these days but it is defiantly a memorable tune.

Danza del Altiplano by Leo Brouwer

Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor, and classical guitarist.

Danza del Altiplano is the first of Tres piezas latinoamericanas written in 1962. It is an atmospheric arrangement of a Peruvian folk song.

The late Peter Sensier, the BBC Radio 3 presenter said of it:

"To me it embodies all the best aspects of guitar playing, it's authoritative, musicianly, it's stamped with the personality of the soloist and is full of the sheer joy of playing music on the guitar."

There's no doubt it is a beautiful piece of music to start the day with. Imagine opening the curtains to the new day and seeing the Andes, hearing the soaring condors. Keep this picture in mind and enjoy your day, where ever you are.

PDF Download of the music: http://www.classclef.com/danza-del-altiplano-by-leo-brouwer

Sunday Morning Classics: Pearl Fishers Duet for Two Flutes and Piano

Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. Set in ancient times on the island of Ceylon, the opera tells the story of how two men's vow of eternal friendship is threatened by their love for the same woman, whose own dilemma is the conflict between secular love and her sacred oath as a priestess. The friendship duet "Au fond du temple saint", generally known as "The Pearl Fishers Duet", is one of the best-known in Western opera.

The voices are as follows.

• Leïla; a priestess of Brahma-soprano

• Nadir;a fisherman-tenor

• Zurga; head fisherman-baritone

• Nourabad; high priest of Brahma bass

• Chorus of fishermen, virgins, priests and priestesses of Brahma

After a self-imposed absence, Nadir returns to the shores of Ceylon, where his friend Zurga has just been elected Fisher King by the local pearl fishermen. The two had once fallen in love with the same woman, but then vowed each other to renounce that love and remain true to each other.

On meeting again, they sing this duet, remembering how they first fell in love/were fascinated with a veiled priestess of Brahma whom they saw passing through the adoring crowd.

A key moment in the opera, this duet is the clearest depiction of the triangular relationships between the protagonists.

This duet reappears at the end of the opera, but is sung in unison as the soprano Leila and the tenor Nadir sing together of their love which will transcend all their trials--while Zurga sacrifices himself, knowing of their love, as he lets them flee to safety.

The full lyrics in English can be found on this link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_fond_du_temple_saint

If you like sung opera this is a lovely link to a version by Placido Domingo & Andrea Bocelli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-v-DZjZ9iY

MORNING CLASSICS FIND US WALKING THE DOG WITH GERSHWIN

The morning classic today is Walking the Dog by George Gershwin.

Walking the Dog is one of many musical numbers written in 1937 by George Gershwin for the Fred Astaire – Ginger Rogers film score for Shall We Dance. In the film, the music accompanies a sequence of walking a dog on board a luxury liner.

Since its use in the film, though, the ditty has taken on a life of its own and become a popular showing-off piece for clarinettists everywhere. Interestingly, it's also the only section of score from the whole of Shall We Dance that remains - the rest of the movie's music remains sadly unpublished.

Information from Wikki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_the_Dog_(Gershwin) and Classic FM http://www.classicfm.com/composers/gershwin/music/walking-the-dog/

MORNING CLASSICS TODAY SEEM TO BRING MEMORIES OF TRIPS TO OTHER WORLDS

A sun inspired piece by Strauss, the opening to this piece is more commonly known for being the theme to Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The prelude is known as ‘Sunrise’, beginning in the depths of the orchestra, slowly building with the majestic ‘dawn’ motif of three intervals, which are developed slowly but surely towards the climax of sunrise. It is a piece so majestic in fact, that the legendary Elvis Presley used it to open his concerts.

Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel of the same name.

The piece starts with a sustained double low C on the double basses, contrabassoon and organ. This transforms into the brass fanfare of the Introduction and introduces the "dawn" motif (from "Zarathustra's Prologue", the text of which is included in the printed score) that is common throughout the work: the motif includes three notes, in intervals of a fifth and octave, as C–G–C (known also as the Nature-motif).

On its first appearance, the motif is a part of the first five notes of the natural overtone series: octave, octave and fifth, two octaves, two octaves and major third (played as part of a C major chord with the third doubled). The major third is immediately changed to a minor third, which is the first note played in the work (E flat) that is not part of the overtone series.

Information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Also_sprach_Zarathustra_(Strauss) & http://www.classical-music.com/article/nine-best-classical-works-inspired-sun

A MORNING IN THE ALPINE RANGES

As you are sipping your coffee let your mind wander to early morning in the Alpine mountains. The sun is not yet but but the sky is starting to brighten, this is where this piece starts, at the turn of night to day. Listen as the light of the early dawn starts to clear the darkness of night. Allow the music, and your imagination to take you through the sunrise and feel the power and energy as the new day dawns. The piece concludes with the return of night. This is the story told by the Alpine Symphony, the experiences of eleven hours (from daybreak just before dawn to the following nightfall) spent climbing an Alpine mountain.

This is a tone poem; a piece of orchestral music on a descriptive or rhapsodic theme. Strauss extending its boundaries and taking the concept of realism in music to an unprecedented level. In these works, he widened the expressive range of music while depicting subjects many times thought unsuitable for musical depiction.

It is written by German composer Richard Strauss in 1915. Though labelled as a symphony by the composer, this piece forgoes the conventions of the traditional multi-movement symphony and consists of twenty-two continuous sections of music. An Alpine Symphony is one of Strauss's largest non-operatic works in terms of performing forces: the score calls for about 125 players in total. A typical performance usually lasts around 50 minutes.

Strauss scored An Alpine Symphony for the large orchestra:

Woodwinds

• 4 flutes (flutes 3 and 4 double piccolos),

• 3 oboes (oboe 3 doubles English horn),

• heckelphone,

• clarinet in E-flat,

• 2 clarinets in B-flat,

• bass clarinet (doubles clarinet in C),

• 4 bassoons (bassoon 4 doubles contrabassoon)

Brass

• 8 French horns (horns 5–8 double Wagner tubas),

• 4 trumpets,

• 4 trombones,

• 2 tubas,

• 12 offstage horns,

• 2 offstage trumpets,

• 2 offstage trombones

Percussion

• timpani (2 players),

• snare drum,

• bass drum,

• cymbals,

• triangle,

• tam-tam,

• cowbells,

• wind machine,

• thunder machine,

• glockenspiel

Keyboards

• celesta,

• organ

• Strings

• 2 harps,

• 18 violins I,

• 16 violins II,

• 12 violas,

• 10 cellos,

• 8 double basses.

Strauss further suggested that the harps and some woodwind instruments should be doubled if possible, and indicated that the stated number of string players should be regarded as a minimum.

Program of movements (aka Imagination pointers)

Time on You Tube link - Topic

0:00 Night

3:04 Sunrise

4:33 The Ascent

6:51 Entry into the Forest

9:49 Wandering by the Brook

12:27 At the Waterfall

12:44 Apparition

13:35 On Flowering Meadows

14:31 On the Alpine Pasture

16:38 Through Thickets and Undergrowth on the Wrong Path

18:12 On the Glacier

19:29 Dangerous Moments

20:57 On the Summit

25:28 Vision

29:09 Mists Rise

29:27 The Sun Gradually Becomes Obscured

30:16 Elegy

32:34 Calm Before the Storm

35:36 Thunder and Tempest, Descent

39:33 Sunset

42:15 Quiet Settles

48:17 Night

MORNING CLASSICS ... off to work

The Typewriter" is a novelty instrumental piece written by Leroy Anderson in 1950, and first performed by the Boston Pops.

Its name refers to the fact that its performance requires a typewriter, which is used on stage: keystrokes, the typewriter bell, and the carriage return mechanism provide a major component of the piece, although Anderson demonstrated that a musical gourd could be used instead of a carriage return.

The typewriter is modified so that only two keys work; although many listeners have suspected that stenographers are enlisted to "play" the typewriter, Anderson reported that only professional drummers have sufficient wrist flexibility.

It has been called one of "the wittiest and most clever pieces in the orchestral repertoire".

info from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typewriter

MORNING CLASSICS POMP and CIRCUMSTANCE by E. Elgar

March No. 1 was composed in 1901 by Edward Elgar and dedicated "to my friend Alfred E. Rodewald and the members of the Liverpool Orchestral Society".

The best known of the set, it had its premiere, along with March No. 2, in Liverpool on 19 October 1901, with Alfred Rodewald conducting the Liverpool Orchestral Society. Elgar and his wife attended, and it was a "frantic" success. Both marches were played two days later at a London Promenade Concert (which the Elgars unintentionally missed) in the Queen's Hall London, conducted by Henry Wood, with March No. 1 played second. Wood remembered that the audience "...rose and yelled... the one and only time in the history of the Promenade concerts that an orchestral item was accorded a double encore."

The Trio contains the tune known as "Land of Hope and Glory". In 1902 the tune was re-used, in modified form, for the Land of hope and glory section of his Coronation Ode for King Edward VII. The words were further modified to fit the original tune, and the result has since become a fixture at the Last Night of the Proms, and an English sporting anthem.

March No. 1 opens with an introduction marked Allegro, con molto fuoco. The introduction leads to a new theme: strong pairs of beats alternating with short notes, and a bass which persistently clashes with the tune. The bass tuba and full brass is held back until the section is repeated by the full orchestra.

A little rhythmic pattern is played by the strings, then repeated high and low in the orchestra before the section is concluded by a chromatic upward scale from the woodwind. The whole of this lively march section is repeated. The bridging section between this and the well-known Trio has rhythmic chords from the brass punctuating high held notes from the wind and strings, before a fanfare from trumpets and trombones leads into the theme with which the march started. There are a few single notes that quieten, ending with a single quiet tap from side drum and cymbal accompanied by all the bassoons.

The famous, lyrical "Land of Hope and Glory" trio follows (in the subdominant key of G), played softly (by the first violins, four horns and two clarinets) and repeated by the full orchestra including two harps. What follows is a repetition of what has been heard before, including a fuller statement of the Trio (this time in the 'home' key of D) in which the orchestra is joined by organ as well as the two harps. The march ends, not with the big tune, but with a short section containing a brief reminder of the brisk opening march.

Info from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomp_and_Circumstance_Marches#March_No._1_in_D

MORNING CLASSICS ... It is too rainy today, I think we need a reminder of SPRING

The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi's works. Unusual for the time, Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was later called program music—music with a narrative element.

Sonnet

Springtime is upon us.

The birds celebrate her return with festive song,

and murmuring streams are

softly caressed by the breezes.

Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar,

casting their dark mantle over heaven,

Then they die away to silence,

and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, born in Venice, he is recognised as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi (who had been ordained as a Catholic priest) was employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740.

Vivaldi's health was problematic. His symptoms, strettezza di petto ("tightness of the chest"), have been interpreted as a form of asthma. This did not prevent him from learning to play the violin, composing or taking part in musical activities, although it did stop him from playing wind instruments. In 1693, at the age of fifteen, he began studying to become a priest. He was ordained in 1703, aged 25, and was soon nicknamed il Prete Rosso, "The Red Priest". (Rosso is Italian for "red", and would have referred to the color of his hair, a family trait.)

Info from Wikki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Vivaldi & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Seasons_(Vivaldi)

MORNING CLASSICS with SCHEHERAZADE

Scheherazade Op. 35, is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888 and based on One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as The Arabian Nights. This orchestral work combines two features typical of Russian music and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colorful orchestration and an interest in the East, which figured greatly in the history of Imperial Russia, as well as orientalism in general. The name "Scheherazade" refers to the main character "Shahrazad" of the "One Thousand and One Nights". It is considered Rimsky-Korsakov's most popular work.

Rimsky wrote a brief introduction that he intended for use with the score, as well as the program for the premiere:

The Sultan Schariar, convinced that all women are false and faithless, vowed to put to death each of his wives after the first nuptial night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by entertaining her lord with fascinating tales, told seriatim, for a thousand and one nights. The Sultan, consumed with curiosity, postponed from day to day the execution of his wife, and finally repudiated his bloody vow entirely.

The grim bass motif that opens the first movement represents the domineering Sultan[4] (see the first theme, below). This theme emphasizes four notes of a descending whole tone scale: E-D-C-B♭[9] (each note is a down beat, i.e. first note in each measure, with A♯ for B♭). Soon after a few chords in the woodwinds, reminiscent of the opening of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream overture,[7] the audience hears the leitmotif that represents the character of the storyteller herself, Scheherazade. This theme, the second below, is a tender, sensuous winding melody for violin solo, accompanied by harp.

Rimsky-Korsakov stated "The unison phrase, as though depicting Scheherazade’s stern spouse, at the beginning of the suite appears as a datum, in the Kalendar’s Narrative, where there cannot, however, be any mention of Sultan Shakhriar. In this manner, developing quite freely the musical data taken as a basis of composition, I had to view the creation of an orchestral suite in four movements, closely knit by the community of its themes and motives, yet presenting, as it were, a kaleidoscope of fairy-tale images and designs of Oriental character." Rimsky-Korsakov had a tendency to juxtapose keys a major third apart, which can be seen in the strong relationship between E and C major in the first movement. This, along with his distinctive orchestration of melodies which are easily comprehensible, assembled rhythms, and talent for soloistic writing allowed for such a piece as Scheherazade to be written

The reasons for its popularity are clear enough; it is a score replete with beguiling orchestral colours, fresh and piquant melodies, with a mild oriental flavor, a rhythmic vitality largely absent from many major orchestral works of the later 19th century, and a directness of expression unhampered by quasi-symphonic complexities of texture and structure.

Text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade_(Rimsky-Korsakov)

MORNING CLASSICS

Listening to this piece reminded me of the bustle and chaos of a Monday morning, the traffic of rush hour, trying to reach school or work in time, then the coffee break and on into the day.

The busyness of it is characteristic of music from the early 1900s.

This Septet was composed in 1932 when he was around 35 years old.

The course of Alexander Tansman's life almost matches the sequence of major historical events in the 20th century. It comprises four principal periods:

• 1897-1919 Childhood and adolescence in Poland

• 1919-1941 Youth and early career in the Paris of the inter-war years

• 1941-1946 Exile in America

• 1946-1986 Maturity and final years in France

There is an excellent resource of information on the site http://www.musimem.com/tansman_eng.htm regarding his life and works.