Last week’s Tuesday Tunes was themed around Autumn – here, if you missed it – and I closed the set with Vivaldi’s Autumn from his Four Seasons suite. Several readers remarked on how much they liked it and, as ever, I took an idea from that. I have played a huge amount of music over the years, but very little of that has been classical. I don’t profess to be an expert on it, but I’m definitely in the “I know what I like” camp, so I thought I’d play you a selection of some of my favourites. I began making a list and already have more than enough for several posts, so if you like this maybe I’ll do it again.
The first thing to note is that classical pieces tend to be a lot longer than the average rock or pop song, so it would be easy to overload you with too much in one post. Even playing just one movement of a piece can extend a bit, so what I’m doing with this first post is to play three pieces of music, all of which are part of a longer whole, but all of which are lovely to listen to on their own.
The problem for me was in choosing where to begin. Don’t expect any surprises – these are all well-known names – and you may well know some or all of these pieces. But so what? They all stand up to repeated listening, and have been around for centuries to prove their staying power. My taste tends towards the Classical and Baroque periods, both of which are represented today. My first piece is one of the most uplifting that I know: I have heard this played in concert and it is a wonderful experience. This is by some guy called Beethoven:
That was the opening movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, known as the Pastoral, which is subtitled Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside. It conveys that feeling beautifully, doesn’t it. Beethoven lived from December 1770 until March 1826, and this piece was first performed in December 1808, as part of a four hour concert which also included his Fifth Symphony (the Morse Code one). Concert goers in those days got their money’s worth, a bit like anyone who has been to see the Grateful Dead or Bruce Springsteen!
As I said, this is such a joyous piece and I looked on Wikipedia for some further information about it. But having done so, I fear I would have looked like a pseud if I had copied and pasted what they said, much of which went over my head anyway. Just enjoy the music, Clive! This performance is led by Gustavo Dudamel with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona in March 2017. Dudamel is one of my favourite conductors: he brings everything alive and is renowned for encouraging the best out of any orchestra with which he performs. This felt like a good place to start.
My second choice for today is of similar vintage, also from the Classical period, which is considered to have run from around 1750 to 1820. This is a beautiful piece of music which I have also heard in concert: I went on my own, in my teenage years, and the lady sitting next to me offered a tissue on seeing my reaction to it. It still does that to me today:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major was completed in October 1791 for the clarinettist Anton Stadler, who was a close friend of the composer. It consists of three movements, in a fast–slow–fast succession. This, not surprisingly, is the second movement, the Adagio, played here in 2019 by the European Youth Orchestra under the baton of Stéfane Dèneve, with Andreas Ottensamer as the soloist. The piece is thought to have received its first performance on 16 October 1791, just seven weeks before Mozart’s death on 5 December at only 35 years of age. He was a child prodigy who had begun writing music from the age of 5, and was incredibly prolific, completing more than 800 works in his short lifetime. I’ve always thought this a beautifully evocative piece, which you may well recognise from its use as background for the movie Out Of Africa – I take that fact on advice, as I’ve never seen the movie.
I thought I’d close this first dip of my toe into the classical waters with another movement from the piece which prompted this in the first place. From the same concert that I played previously, though taken out of sequence, this is Spring, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons:
That was the excellent Voices Of Music ensemble, with Alana Youssefian playing the lead baroque violin, in a performance published in February 2020 (just before the world went to hell in a handcart). Antonio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi’s influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe, giving rise to many imitators and admirers. The Four Seasons is probably his best known composition: a series of four concertos which has become enormously popular through the years since it was first published in around 1718. To complete the set, this is another piece I have heard in concert – all forty minutes of the four concertos, and I can assure you that it is a fabulous experience.
So, that’s my first attempt at sharing some of my favourite classical music. Three works coming in at around a combined total of 30 minutes, offering a blend of styles and emotions. Do please let me know if you enjoyed these, or if you have any favourites you’d like to hear too. Depending on the outcome I may do this again, or this could turn out to be an ignominious one-off! Fingers crossed!
I’ll see you again for Song Lyric Sunday, and until then I wish you well 😊
