Bach - 18 Chorale Preludes BWV 653 An Wasserflussen Babylon - Music | History
The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, are a set of chorale preludes for organ prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in his final decade (1740–1750), from earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist. The works form an encyclopedic collection of large-scale chorale preludes, in a variety of styles harking back to the previous century, that Bach gradually perfected during his career. Together with the Orgelbüchlein, the Schübler Chorales, the third book of the Clavier-Übung and the Canonic Variations, they represent the summit of Bach's sacred music for solo organ. Early versions of almost all the chorale preludes are thought to date back to 1710–1714, during the period 1708–1717 when Bach served as court organist and Konzertmeister (director of music) in Weimar, at the court of Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. As a result of encouragement from the Duke, a devout Lutheran and music lover, Bach developed secular and liturgical organ works in all forms, in what was to be his most productive period for organ composition. As his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach mentions in his obituary or nekrolog: "His grace's delight in his playing fired him to attempt everything possible in the art of how to treat the organ. Here he also wrote most of his organ works." During Bach's time at Weimar, the chapel organ there was extensively improved and enlarged; occupying a loft at the east end of the chapel just below the roof, it had two manual keyboards, a pedalboard and about a dozen stops, including at Bach's request a row of tuned bells. It is probable that the longer chorale preludes composed then served some ceremonial function during the services in the court chapel, such as accompanying communion. When Bach moved to his later positions as Kapellmeister in Köthen in 1717 and cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723, his obligations did not specifically include compositions for the organ. The autograph manuscript of the Great Eighteen, currently preserved as P 271 in the Berlin State Library, documents that Bach began to prepare the collection around 1740, after having completed Part III of the Clavier-Übung in 1739. The manuscript is made up of three parts: the six trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530 (1727–1732); the Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" BWV 769 added at the same time as the chorale preludes (1739–1750); and an early version of Nun komm' der heiden Heiland (1714–1717), appended after Bach's death. The first thirteen chorale preludes BWV 651–663 were added by Bach himself between 1739 and 1742, supplemented by BWV 664 and 665 in 1746–7. In 1750 when Bach began to suffer from blindness before his death in July, BWV 666 and 667 were dictated to his student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol and copied posthumously into the manuscript. Only the first page of the last choral prelude BWV 668, the so-called "deathbed chorale", has survived, recorded by an unknown copyist. The piece was posthumously published in 1751 as an appendix to the Art of the Fugue, with the title "Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein" (BWV 668a), instead of the original title "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit" ("Before your throne I now appear"). There have been various accounts of the circumstances surrounding the composition of this chorale. The biographical account from 1802 of Johann Nicolaus Forkel that Altnikol was copying the work at the composer's deathbed has since been discounted: in the second half of the eighteenth century, it had become an apocryphal legend, encouraged by Bach's heirs, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach and Wilhelm Friedmann Bach. The piece, however, is now accepted as a planned reworking of the shorter chorale prelude Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein (BWV 641) from the Orgelbüchlein (c 1715).
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Bach
Schumann - Symphony No. 1 - Music | History
The Symphony No. 1 in B♭ major, Op. 38, also known as the Spring Symphony, is the first symphonic work composed by Robert Schumann.
Although he had made some "symphonic attempts" in the autumn of 1840 soon after he married Clara Wieck, he did not compose his first symphony until early 1841. Until then, Schumann was largely known for his works for the piano and for voice. Clara encouraged him to write symphonic music, noting in her diary, "it would be best if he composed for orchestra; his imagination cannot find sufficient scope on the piano... His compositions are all orchestral in feeling... My highest wish is that he should compose for orchestra—that is his field! May I succeed in bringing him to it!"
Schumann sketched the symphony in four days from 23 to 26 January and completed the orchestration by 20 February. The premiere took place under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn on 31 March 1841 in Leipzig, where the symphony was warmly received. According to Clara's diary, the title "Spring Symphony" was bestowed upon it due to Adolf Böttger's poem Frühlingsgedicht. The symphony's opening has traditionally been associated with the closing lines of Böttger's poem, "O wende, wende deinen Lauf/Im Thale blüht der Frühling auf!" (“O, turn, O turn and change your course/In the valley, Spring blooms forth!"). This view has been challenged, and the call of a Leipzig nightwatchman has been mentioned as an alternative source.
In a letter to Wilhelm Taubert, Schumann wrote:
Could you breathe a little of the longing for spring into your orchestra as they play? That was what was most in my mind when I wrote [the symphony] in January 1841. I should like the very first trumpet entrance to sound as if it came from on high, like a summons to awakening. Further on in the introduction, I would like the music to suggest the world’s turning green, perhaps with a butterfly hovering in the air, and then, in the Allegro, to show how everything to do with spring is coming alive... These, however, are ideas that came into my mind only after I had completed the piece.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Schumann
Schumann - Symphony No. 3 in E flat major - Music | History
The Symphony No. 3 in E♭ major, Op. 97, also known as the Rhenish, is the last symphony composed by Robert Schumann (1810–1856), although not the last published. It was composed from 2 November to 9 December 1850, and comprises five movements:
I. Lebhaft
II. Scherzo: Sehr mäßig (in C major)
III. Nicht schnell (in A♭ major)
IV. Feierlich (in E♭ minor)
V. Lebhaft
The Third Symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in B♭, two bassoons, four French horns in E♭, two trumpets in E♭, three trombones, timpani and strings. It premiered on 6 February 1851 in Düsseldorf, conducted by Schumann himself, and was received with mixed reviews, "ranging from praise without qualification to bewilderment". However, according to Peter A. Brown, members of the audience applauded between every movement, and especially at the end of the work when the orchestra joined them in congratulating Schumann by shouting "hurrah!".
Throughout his life, Schumann explored a diversity of musical genres, including chamber, vocal, and symphonic music. Although Schumann wrote an incomplete G minor symphony as early as 1832–33 (of which the first movement was performed on two occasions to an unenthusiastic reception), he only began seriously composing for the symphonic genre after receiving his wife's encouragement in 1839.
Schumann gained quick success as a symphonic composer following his orchestral debut with his warmly-received First Symphony, composed in 1841 and premiered in Leipzig with Felix Mendelssohn conducting. The work which was later to be published as his Fourth Symphony was also finished in 1841. In 1845 he composed his C major Symphony, which was published in 1846 as No. 2, and, in 1850, his Third Symphony. By the end of his career Schumann had composed a total of four symphonies.
The published numbering of the symphonies is not chronological because his Fourth Symphony of 1841 was not well received at its Leipzig premiere; Schumann withdrew the score and revised it ten years later in Düsseldorf. This final version was published in 1851 after the "Rhenish" Symphony was published.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Schumann
Liszt - Ave Maria I, S. 20 - 2nd version - Music | History
"Ellens dritter Gesang" ("Ellens Gesang III", D. 839, Op. 52, No. 6, 1825), in English: "Ellen's Third Song", was composed by Franz Schubert in 1825 as part of his Op. 52, a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott's popular epic poem The Lady of the Lake, loosely translated into German.
It is one of Schubert's most popular works. Beyond the song as originally composed by Schubert, it is often performed and recorded by many singers under the title "Ave Maria" (the Latin name of the prayer Hail Mary, and also the opening words and refrain of Ellen's song, a song which is itself a prayer to the Virgin Mary), in musically simplified arrangements and with various lyrics that commonly differ from the original context of the poem. It was arranged in three versions for piano by Franz Liszt.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Liszt
Schumann - Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 - Music | History
Robert Schumann's Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, is a set of eight pieces for piano, written in 1837. The title was inspired by the 1814–15 collection of novellas, essays, treatises, letters, and writings about music, Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier (which also included the complete Kreisleriana, another source of inspiration for Schumann) by one of his favourite authors, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Schumann dedicated the pieces to Fräulein Anna Robena Laidlaw, an accomplished and attractive 18-year-old Scottish pianist with whom Schumann had become good friends.
Schumann composed the pieces with the characters Florestan and Eusebius in mind, representing the duality of his personality. Eusebius depicts the dreamer in Schumann while Florestan represents his passionate side. These two characters parlay with one another throughout the collection, ending self-reflectively with Eusebius in "Ende vom Lied".
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Schumann
Liszt - Konzertetüden, S. 145 - 1. Waldesrauschen - Music | History
Two Concert Études (Zwei Konzertetüden), S.145, is a set of two piano works composed in Rome around 1862/63 by Franz Liszt and dedicated to Dionys Pruckner, but intended for Sigmund Lebert and Ludwig Stark’s Klavierschule. It consists of two parts: "Waldesrauschen" (Forest Murmurs) and "Gnomenreigen" (Dance of the Gnomes).
"Waldesrauschen", in D-flat major, is the first of the two pieces in this set. It is known for its beauty and imitation of wind in the forest.
"Gnomenreigen" is in F-sharp minor. It is known for its technical difficulty in its fast and soft passages, where the pianist imitates the sound of gnomes. It first has a theme in F-sharp minor consisting of grace notes followed by eights. Then it goes to a fast, playful theme in A major. It repeats themes, and also has a theme with repeating bass notes, such as the sixty consecutive low Ds. Finally, the A major theme is repeated for a climactic part of the étude, this time in F-sharp major. The piece was heard in an orchestral arrangement as part of the Little Mermaid Ballet in the 1952 Danny Kaye film, Hans Christian Andersen.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Liszt
Bach - Chorale Harm. - Wir Glauben all an einen Gott, BWV 437 - Music | History
Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations, and for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he is generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.
The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at age 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical formation in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar, where he expanded his organ repertory, and Köthen, where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. From 1723 he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig. He composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university's student ensemble Collegium Musicum. From 1726 he published some of his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened during some of his earlier positions, he had difficult relations with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the title of court composer by his sovereign, Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in 1736. In the last decades of his life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65.
Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular. He composed Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs. He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments. He composed concertos, for instance for violin and for harpsichord, and suites, as chamber music as well as for orchestra. Many of his works employ the genres of canon and fugue.
Throughout the 18th century Bach was primarily valued as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some major Bach biographies, and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals (and later also websites) exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements, including, for instance, the Air on the G String, and of recordings, such as three different box sets with complete performances of the composer's oeuvre marking the 250th anniversary of his death.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Bach
Bach - Capriccio in E major, BWV 993 - Music | History
A magnificent baroque-era composer, Johann Sebastian Bach is revered through the ages for his work's musical complexities and stylistic innovations.
Born on March 31, 1685 (N.S.), in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, Johann Sebastian Bach had a prestigious musical lineage and took on various organist positions during the early 18th century, creating famous compositions like "Toccata and Fugue in D minor." Some of his best-known compositions are the "Mass in B Minor," the "Brandenburg Concertos" and "The Well-Tempered Clavier." Bach died in Leipzig, Germany, on July 28, 1750. Today, he is considered one of the greatest Western composers of all time.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Bach
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36 - IV. Finale. Allegro con Fuoco - Music | History
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written between 1877 and 1878. Its first performance was at a Russian Musical Society concert in Moscow on February 22 (or the 10th using the calendar of the time), 1878, with Nikolai Rubinstein as conductor. In Middle Europe it sometimes receives the nickname "Fatum", or "Fate".
During the composition of the symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, that he wanted "very much" to dedicate it to her, and that he would write on it "Dedicated to My Best Friend". He had begun composing the symphony not long after Meck had entered his life. He would complete it in the aftermath of his catastrophic marriage and claimed she would find in it "an echo of your most intimate thoughts and emotions." The dedication was significant in more than one way. One important facet of the paternalistic nature of Russian society was that, in artistic patronage, patron and artist were considered equals. Dedications of works to patrons were not gestures of humble gratitude but expressions of artistic partnership. By dedicating the Fourth Symphony to her, he was affirming her as an equal partner in its creation.
It is also due to Madame von Meck that, at her request, Tchaikovsky wrote a program explaining the symphony. This action encouraged numerous writers to quote it instead of focusing on the symphony's purely musical qualities, including what Hans Keller termed "one of the most towering symphonic structures in our whole literature" in the opening movement. This program hindered acceptance of the symphony for many years, prejudicing Alfred Einstein and other musicologists against it. But this must be seen in the context of Einstein's general lack of sympathy for Tchaikovsky's music.
But despite this negative impact on the symphony's reception history, the composer's program gives one very telling clue regarding the work's musical architecture. Assertions to the effect that "the first movement represents Fate" are oversimplifications: according to a letter the composer wrote to Madame von Meck in 1878, it is actually the fanfare first heard at the opening ("the kernel, the quintessence, the chief thought of the whole symphony") that stands for "Fate", with this being "the fatal power which prevents one from attaining the goal of happiness ... There is nothing to be done but to submit to it and lament in vain". As the composer explained it, the programme of the first movement is—"roughly"—that "all life is an unbroken alternation of hard reality with swiftly passing dreams and visions of happiness ...". He went on: "No haven exists ... Drift upon that sea until it engulfs and submerges you in its depths".
The composer's description of the symphony's opening fanfare as a metaphor for "Fate" becomes more telling in the context of a letter he wrote Sergei Taneyev. He wrote Taneyev that the Fourth Symphony was both program music and a reflection of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in the central idea of its program.[7] Keller has mentioned a parallel between the four-note motif which opens Beethoven's Fifth and the fanfare at the outset of Tchaikovsky's Fourth. Like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky uses his fanfare as a structural marker. Moreover, because of both the length and unorthodox form of the symphony, he may have felt using such a marker was a musical necessity.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Tchaikovsky
Mozart - String Quintet No. 4 in Gm, K. 516 - Music | History
The String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is like all of Mozart's string quintets a "viola quintet" in that it is scored for string quartet and an extra viola (that is, two violins, two violas and cello). The mood of the piece is dark and melancholic, typical of Mozart's G minor works.
The work was completed on May 16, 1787, less than a month after the completion of his grand C major Quintet, K. 515. This would not be the last time that a great pair of C major/G minor works of the same form would be published in close proximity and assigned consecutive Köchel numbers. The following year, the 40th (G minor) and 41st (C major) symphonies (respectively K. 550 and K. 551) would be completed within a few weeks of each other.
The first movement is in sonata form with both the first and second themes beginning in G minor. The movement does not resolve to the major key in the recapitulation, and it has a minor-key ending.
The minuet, placed second, is a minuet in name only, as the turbulent G minor theme and heavy third-beat chords make this movement very undancelike. The central trio, by contrast, is in a bright G major.
The third movement, in E-flat major, is slow, melancholic and wistful, furthering the despair brought forth by the previous movements. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky said of this movement: "No one has ever known as well how to interpret so exquisitely in music the sense of resigned and inconsolable sorrow."
The start of the fourth movement is not the typical quick-tempo finale, but a slow aria back in the home key of G minor. It is a dirge or lament that is even slower than the previous movement. The music remains in this dark area for a few minutes before reaching an ominous pause. At this point, Mozart launches into the ebullient G major Allegro, which creates a stark contrast between it and the movements that preceded it. Critics have often questioned how such an insouciant and carefree finale could follow after three-plus movements of intense pathos, even though it conforms perfectly to the Classical understanding of a finale as resolving everything that preceded it.
We are a cultural channel specializing in classical music.
Our goal is to spread classical music to the greatest number of people. Here you will find musics for studying, concentration, relaxing and working.
Explore our channel and listen to more works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Schumann, Schubert, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Debussy and more! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe. 🎧
🔴 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopClassicalMusic
🔴 WebSite: http://www.melhoresmusicasclassicas.com
#MusicHistory
#ClassicalMusic
#Mozart