By Jacob Stockinger
This past week -– on Tuesday to be exact -– we celebrated the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was born in 1756 and died in 1791.
It was his 259th birthday.
For all his fame, familiarity and popularity, Mozart is a curiously underestimated composer. His best work is so sublimely beautiful that it is easy to overlook how different and revolutionary it was in its day. Mozart changed music, and we don’t always appreciate that fact.
Anyway, a lot of radio stations, including Sirius XM Satellite Radio, WFMT in Chicago, WQXR in New York City and Wisconsin Public Radio, broadcast a lot of Mozart on that day.
But one of the most interesting celebrations that The Ear saw came from BBC Music Magazine. It asked 10 celebrated Mozart performers — including pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, conductor Sir Neville Marriner, pianist Dame Mitsuko Uchida, conductor Sir Roger Norrington and singer Barbara Bonney — to name their favorite work.
It covered the range of Mozart’s enormous output: piano music, string quartets, operas, symphonies, violin works, operas and of course choral works. And the website provided generous sound samples of the works.
Here is a link:
http://www.classical-music.com/article/which-your-favourite-piece-mozart
At the bottom is a YouTube video of one of my favorite Mozart works — the Piano Sonata in C minor, played by Daniel Barenboim. It was also a favorite of Ludwig van Beethoven who seemed to use some of it in the slow movement of the familiar “Pathetique” Sonata.
What is your favorite Mozart work?
What else do you want to say about Mozart?
The Ear wants to hear.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has been waiting for this.
And now it is at hand,
Today we are about to turn the corner.
Today is the Winter Solstice (below), the first day of winter, when the days finally start getting longer and the nights shorter.
Officially, the Winter Solstice arrives at 5:03 p.m. CST in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Ear has even heard about quite a few parties being held to mark the event.
And parties need music.
Here are a few selections of classical music to get you in the right frame of mind to celebrate the Winter Solstice.
The composers include well-known works and composers like the Baroque violin concertos “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi; the Classical-era oratorios “The Creation” and “The Seasons” by Franz Joseph Haydn; a section of a Romantic symphony by Peter Illich Tchaikovsky, and a piano miniature by the Impressionist Claude Debussy.
But there are unknown ones too.
http://www.heraldnews.com/article/20131217/Blogs/312179869
But perhaps you have other favorites.
If so, please tell The Ear all about the music you listen to when you want to mark the Winter Solstice.
And here, in another version by Roger Norrington with the Handel and Haydn Society, is the “Winter” part of Haydn’s oratorio “The Four Seasons” that looks like it has been blocked from the link because of copyright infringement.
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