MusiLLection

The optimism and serenity of Mozart's music is in stark contrast to a life of debt-chewing and an incurable anxiety.   Mozart was a child prodigy. Born on January 27, 1756, he played without difficulty any melody he heard on the piano at the age of three, violin at four and composed music at the time he gave his first public concerto, that is, when he was five and a half years old. A painting of the time, presents the Mozart  playing with his father and his sister Maria-Anna in  the garden of the house of his children’s years in Salzburg.  His life was full of music. Even in his games, young Wolfgang used to move from room to room, to the lively melody of a march. In the age of 12 years he had written three operas, six symphonies and hundreds of other works. European tours Mozart's father, Leopold, was a composer and a virtuoso violinist in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg. He understood that Wolfgang's extraordinary talent could bring significant economic ...

   Smetana loved polka and often used its rhythm in his work, as in String Quartet No. 1. The intensity of this autobiographical work with nationalistic elements has an emotional depth unprecedented throughout Smetana's work. Smetana's hearing loss was heralded in 1847 by a permanent and unbearable hum in his ears (medical tinnitus). When in 1876 he found that his hearing would never be restored, he began composing the String Quartet No. 1 a four-movement chamber composition. With this work, Bedřich Smetana musically expressed the anguish and pain caused by his hearing loss. Twenty-one years had passed since his last chamber music composition, the Piano Trio in G minor, with which he had expressed his sadness at the loss of his four-year-old daughter. Once again, he turned to chamber music in search of solace in his personal tragedy. Smetana himself described the String Quartet as "a memory of my life and the destruction of absolute deafness". Each of the first three...

The harpsichord has been sounding for about six hundred years. It's a keyboard instrument, but its strings are stimulated in a nocturnal way and not by hammering like on the piano. The sound produced is characteristic and easily recognized. When the harpsichord first appeared, it immediately became beloved and its reputation spread throughout Europe. With the begining of the 16th century it became extremely popular and the composers used it in almost every organic combination. It served more as an accompaniment, providing the harmonious substrate, rather than as a solo instrument. The body of the harpsichord has the shape of a wing. For each note there are two or more strings - the performer can choose how many are used at a time, allowing the instrument to produce loud and soft sounds. Some later instruments used a mechanism to change the volume, opening and closing some grilles on the body of the instrument, allowing the sound to strengthen. Usually the harpsichords have two, som...

The lyrics in "Gott, erhalte den Kaiser!" ("God save the Emperor") were written by Lorenz Leopold Haschka.  The winter of 1797-8 Joseph Haydn composed six String Quartets and dedicated them to the Hungarian count Joseph Georg von Erdődy.   The Quartet No. 62 in C major, Op. 76, No. 3, boasts the nickname Emperor (or Kaiser), because in the second movement is a set of variations on "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" ("God save Emperor Francis"), an anthem he wrote for Emperor Francis II, which later, is the national anthem of Austria-Hungary. This same melody is known to modern listeners for its later use in the German national anthem, the Deutschlandlied , which is used since Austria-Hungary and the Nazi era, known today as "Deutschland uber alles". Μovements : Ι. Allegro The first part , Allegro , although it begins with a pattern of just five notes, the rest of the part is developed from this simple phrase. As in the case of the "...

  Performance of the ballet "Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs" in 1912. The seven "Valses nobles et sentimentales" and the epilogue of this orchestral suite were originally written for piano in 1911.  Maurice Ravel  chose the title in homage to Franz Schubert , who had released collections of waltzes in 1823 entitled Valses nobles and Valses sentimentales.  The work was first presented in Paris in a recital of anonymous compositions. Many of Ravel's fans disapproved of the music, not imagining that the deliberate "wrong notes" belonged to one of the most beloved French composers. In 1912 Ravel orchestrated the suite and presented it as a ballet under the title "Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs (Adelaide: The Language of Flowers). The dynamic start reminds us that this is an unusual waltz. On the contrary, the second part is slow and expressive. For this lanzy subject, Ravel chose the flute, which plays in its lower extension. With a relaxed ob...

Debussy was influenced by Western and Eastern art. His work "Pagodes" from the series Estampes for piano, expresses his admiration for the East. This work comes from a wider group of pianistic compositions and is one of the three pianistic works of the series "Estampes". It was written in 1903 and presented in Paris in 1904. Once again the theme of water appears in a work by Claude Debussy . The fast motivo of tones and harmony that submit a view seen through a veil of rain, is typical in Debusy's compositions.  The central part of the work mentions the melody of an old French children's song.  Towards the end, the music brightens, submitting the appearance of the sun.

Josef Anton Bruckner A "poor man of god" was Anton Bruckner , who worshipped just as much as the divine and the human, whether it is found in music, in nature, or in the view of the supreme being. Meek, thoughtful, modest and incomparably sincere, he expressed his introversion and insecurity by leaning more and more into his musical writings and constantly revising his already masterful inspirations.  If he had been bolder, more determined, perhaps he would have occupied Wagner 's place in the history of music - he has been his idol since he met him - since Bruckner composed music of "Wagnerian" quality before... Wagner himself. An amazing virtuoso in the performance of the organ, he crushed the faithful audiences both in Leeds and Vienna, as well as in Paris - in 1869 he performed at Notre Dame - and in London. If he had recorded his astonishing - according to written testimonies - improvisations on the organ, he would have submitted work for this instrument pe...