Monday, February 24, 2014

Erik Satie


 
Satie, Erik, 1866-1925. Piano music of Erik Satie, vol. 6. 
Angel, [1972?] 
Trois petites pièces montées.--Ogives.--Danses gothiques.-
-Sonatine bureaucratique.--Poudre d'or (Valse).--Pages 
mystiques.--Douze petits chorals. 
Aldo Ciccolini, piano. 

Satie, Erik,1866-1925. Piano music of Erik Satie, vol. 4. 
Angel, [1971?] Gnossiennes, nos. 4-6.--Nouvelles pièces froides.--
Primière pensée et Sonneries de la Rose-Croix.--Deux rêveries nocturnes.
--Petite ouverture à danser.--Quatre préludes.--Le Fils des étoiles. 
Aldo Ciccolini, piano. 
 
Blood, Sweat and Tears Theme and Variations 
Eric Burdon, Going to America


Friday, February 14, 2014

Gabriel Fauré

The role of Sadko today is being played by Roman Gabriel. Scooter the Wonder Dog will be played by Gabriel Gonzaga.  The role of the Bobsie Twins is being played by Gabriel and  Labial Lipgloss. The role of Ken Moss is being played by Gabriel Landeskog. The role of Brian Carpenter is being played by Gabriel Iglesias.   In the third half of the program, the role of Lenny the Listener will  be played by Gabriel Olds.
Gabriel Urbain Fauré  (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many twentieth-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a harmonically and melodically much more complex style.
Fauré, Gabriel, 1845-1924. Fantasie for piano and orchestra, op.111. London,[1974] Alicia de Larrocha, piano; London Philharmonic Orchestra; Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, conductor.

Fauré, Gabriel, 1845-1924.  Cinq mélodies de Venise, op. 58.  Philips.   Cover title: Mandoline and other songs.  Souzay, Gérard, 1918-2004. baritone   Baldwin, Dalton. piano

Fauré, Gabriel, 1845-1924.  Piano quartet in G minor, op.45.  RCA Victor [1964]   For violin, viola, violoncello, and piano.   Festival Quartet. Nikolai Graudan, cello; Szymon Goldberg, violin; Victor Babin, piano;  William Primrose, viola

The complete songs of Gabriel Fauré. Westminster, [1956]   Renée Doria, Berthe Monmart, sopranos; Jacques Dutey, Pierre Mollet, baritones; Paul Derenne, tenor; Simone Gouat, Tasso Janopoulo, Harry Cox, piano.


In 1920, at the age of 75, Fauré retired from the Conservatoire because of his increasing deafness and frailty. In that year he received the Grand-Croix of the Légion d'honneur, an honour rare for a musician. In 1922 the president of the republic, Alexandre Millerand, led a public tribute to Fauré, a national hommage, described in The Musical Times as "a splendid celebration at the Sorbonne, in which the most illustrious French artists participated, [which] brought him great joy. It was a poignant spectacle, indeed: that of a man present at a concert of his own works and able to hear not a single note. He sat gazing before him pensively, and, in spite of everything, grateful and content."
Fauré suffered from poor health in his later years, brought on in part by heavy smoking. Despite this, he remained available to young composers, including members of Les Six, most of whom were devoted to him. Nectoux writes, "In old age he attained a kind of serenity, without losing any of his remarkable spiritual vitality, but rather removed from the sensualism and the passion of the works he wrote between 1875 and 1895."

In his last months, Fauré struggled to complete a string quartet. Twenty years earlier he had been the dedicatee of Ravel's String Quartet. Ravel and others urged Fauré to compose one of his own. He refused for many years, on the grounds that it was too difficult. When he finally decided to write it, he did so in trepidation, telling his wife, "I've started a Quartet for strings, without piano. This is a genre which Beethoven in particular made famous, and causes all those who are not Beethoven to be terrified of it."  He worked on the piece for a year, finishing it on 11 September 1924, less than two months before he died, working long hours towards the end to complete it.  The quartet was premiered after his death;  he declined an offer to have it performed privately for him in his last days, as his hearing had deteriorated to the point where musical sounds were horribly distorted in his ear.

Fauré died in Paris from pneumonia on 4 November 1924 at the age of 79. He was given a state funeral at the Église de la Madeleine and is buried in the Passy Cemetery in Paris.

Monday, February 03, 2014

Georges Bizet


The role of Sadko today is being played by Gorgeous George. Scooter the Wonder Dog will be played by  George Gobel.  The role of the Bobsie Twins is being played by George Crawley and Logan Weston. The role of Ken Moss is being played by George Patton. The role of Brian Carpenter is being played by George M. Cohan.   In the third half of the program, the role of Lenny the Listener will  be played by George Orwell .  
Georges Bizet ( 25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875), registered at birth as Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer of the romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.
During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which were abandoned. Neither of his two operas that reached the stage in this time—Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth—were immediately successful.
After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, during which Bizet served in the National Guard, he had little success with his one-act opera Djamileh, though an orchestral suite derived from his incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's play L'Arlésienne was instantly popular. The production of Bizet's final opera, Carmen, was delayed because of fears that its themes of betrayal and murder would offend audiences. After its premiere on 3 March 1875, Bizet was convinced that the work was a failure; he died of a heart attack three months later, unaware that it would prove a spectacular and enduring success.

Maria Callas/Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Paris/Georges Prêtre – Carmen (1997 Digital Remaster), Act 1: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera) Maria Callas/Nicolai Gedda/Andréa Guiot/Robert Massard/Georges Prêtre – Bizet: Carmen
Bizet – Carillon' from 'L'Arlésienne Various Artists – 150 Classical Masterpieces
Bizet, Georges – Bizet: Les Pecheurs des Perles / Act 1 - "Au fond du temple saint" Luciano Pavarotti – Pavarotti The 50 Greatest Tracks
Georges Bizet – L'Arlesienne - Prelude Various Artists – Classical Moods - 100 Top Classical Favorites Of All Time
Bizet, Georges – Bizet: Variations On A Theme From G. Bizet's "Carmen" (The Gypsy Song Act II) White House Version Yuja Wang – Fantasia
Bizet, Georges – Bizet: Ouvre ton coeur - Bolero Cecilia Bartoli & Myung-Whun Chung – Cecilia Bartoli - Chant d'Amour
Georges Bizet – March (from Jeux D'Enfants) Various Artists – A Calendar Of Classics - A 12 CD Set Of Romantic Classics For Every Month Of The Year
Les Brown – Bizet Had His Day – Truly Les Brown & His Band of Renown
Georges Bizet – Carmen: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera) Georges Bizet – The Classic 100 – Music of France Sally-Anne Russell
Bizet, Georges – Bizet: Absence - Absence  – Marilyn Horne: The Complete Decca Recitals  poem by Gautier, Théophile
Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra – Symphony in C Major: II. Adagio Various Artists – Best of Bizet
Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra – Symphony in C Major: IV. Allegro vivace Various Artists – Best of Bizet
Glenn Gould – Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 23: I. Drammatico
George Bizet – La Patrie: Overture