“When it sounds good, it IS good.” Duke Ellington (1899-1974) “Somehow, I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself—he’d appreciate the combination of team spirit and informality, of academic knowledge and humor, of…
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John Rutter’s “The Lord Bless You and Keep You”
A lovely “Amen” at the end. 3 minutes For email subscribers click here to see the video.
Hallelujah in the Department Store
In a wonderful, memorable “random act of culture,” the Opera Company of Philadelphia and over 650 area choristers met at Macy’s Center in Philadelphia in 2010 and performed “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah for the sheer beauty of it. The magnificent…
The most beautiful piece
Perhaps the most beautiful piece of choral music is from Brahms’s A German Requiem. This recording is particularly beautiful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ED3zwz94x4 For email subscribers click here to see the video. Words Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, Herr Zebaoth!Meine Seele verlangetund sehnet…
Non nobis in the movie
One of the most inspiring speeches I’ve heard is the Saint Crispin’s Day speech delivered by the King in Henry V by Shakespeare. Kenneth Branagh’s film, accompanied by Patrick Doyle’s “Non Nobis,” almost does the impossible: improves on Shakespeare. 6…
Swingles swing Bach
Back in the 1960s I was entranced by the Swingle Singers. What these 8 singers did with their voices seemed impossible! They influenced me to highly esteem the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. Post your reaction in a comment. 2…
For the sheer beauty of it!
Today I’m starting a new series, For the Sheer Beauty of It! I plan to show you links to some of my favorite recordings and videos that are just plain beautiful. Johann Strauss’s Emperor Waltz with elegant dancing in ……
I am music….
For the final entry in this series of music quotes, I found this moving treatise on music, related in the first person as if music herself is speaking to us. If you have time to listen to some of the…
The particular and the universal
I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions…
Wilde on Music
After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one…
Merry Christmas to All!
I wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. For insights into what the actual birth of Jesus probably was like, see this article. He probably wasn’t born in a barn, relegated to a cave,…