The Whole Music Experience

Maurice Ravel 1. Prokofiev, Piano Concerto 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKJm3Wre1iU 2. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto 3 (Olga Kern) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAoQoZBTqLs 3. Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of the Faun http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7b1FkZYarU 4. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT7_IZPHHb0 5. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (Dance of the Swans) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd4VsbM4fOo&feature=related 6. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOxX0xGTOyE 7. Mozart's Magic Flute (Queen of the Night Aria) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJW0dE5GF0 8. Bach's Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Xb3qiXR9Y 9. Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez (Yepes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxwceLlaODM 10. Ravel Piano Concerto in G (Grimaud performing 2nd movement) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTWLQ4nI6Q This list of pieces runs...

Did you know that animals enjoy human music? Yes, I realize that you probably already know that various creatures enjoy their own music.  Wolves and coyotes enjoy howling, whales sing their songs, and we can add crickets, bees, birds, and frogs to this list. I often wondered about a connection between human musical expression and the animals themselves.  Then I started observing birds and squirrels, especially around various types of music.  For instance, when I lived in my last apartment in Seattle, I befriended a family of squirrels.  These squirrels would find delight in listening to Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3. At first, I thought hmmm, what a coincidence.  But every time I played that piece of music on my CD/cassette player, the squirrels would run back and forth on the roof and even let out gleeful cries, if no better words to describe the experience. They also like traditional guitar music from the Dominican Republic. The music matched the ...

London Symphony Orchestra Live Valery Gergiev (Conductor) Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 LSO Russian Late-Romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff composed music for listeners with strong hearts and the ability to run the gamut of emotions within the course of a single symphony or concerto, as in Piano Concerto No. 3 , for example. While the movie, Shine gave the impression that a musician dealing with an emotional imbalance (that includes a lot of musicians), would suffer insanity performing Rachmaninoff’s technically and emotionally-challenging music, I believe the movie’s sentiment gave the wrong impression. While Rachmaninoff couldn’t be called an average man by any stretch, he also did not spend his time in a sanatorium and he composed music that excited plenty of sane people. So why would his compositions drive anyone over the edge? On the contrary I find the classical works of Russian composers (Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, etc), emotionally stimulating and invi...

Gloriae Dei Cantores Unto Ages of Ages Sacred Choral Music of Sviridov, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky Paraclete Press/Harmonia Mundi I have never stepped foot in a Russian Orthodox Church, but in 2005 I attended a concert given by a Greek Orthodox choir at a Greek Orthodox Church in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood. It felt like stepping into a surreal universe, icons and stories appearing on gold painted ceilings and walls, and I can’t even begin to describe the men’s choir which sang chants rich in chromatic scales and otherworldly harmonies. Five years later I recall the experience as if it happened yesterday. The Massachusetts-based mixed choir Gloriae Dei Cantores (Orleans, MA) performs sacred works composed for the Russian Orthodox Church by Russian composers Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) and Georgy Sviridov (1915-1998). I’m of course familiar with the repertoires of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, but not of the 20th century composer Sviridov (whos...