MICHAEL WALSH MUSIC CORRESPONDENT: As the molten evening sun settles over Seville’s Plaza de Espana the melancholic melody of a guitar completes the rapture. Your head swims with delight to Sueno en la Floresta (Dreams in the Magic Garden). As T.S Elliot observed: ‘Music heard so deeply / […]
MICHAEL WALSH MUSIC CORRESPONDENT: Musically nothing evokes the Spanish experience as does Richard Harvey’s melody Concerto Antico; especially when it is played by John Williams, the internationally acclaimed guitarist. The sincerest form of flattery being imitation, this guitar concerto is adorned in a rich filigree of Spanish lace. […]
MICHAEL WALSH MUSIC CORRESPONDENT: If X-rated entertainment is music to your ears, then orchestral music may be just what you are looking for. Enthusiasts of soaps would eat their hearts out if they knew what we classical fans have been enjoying for the last few hundred years. If […]
Mike Walsh Classical Music Correspondent: If you are looking for rags-to-riches stories, or dismiss the tale of Cinderella as being impossibly fanciful, think again. Russian-born (1971) Anna Netrebko is increasingly regarded as heiress to the Crown of Maria Callas and not without good reason. The American-Greek legendary opera […]
MICHAEL WALSH CLASSICAL MUSIC CORRESPONDENT: She was internationally famous for her song Non, je ne regrette rien (No Regrets). When she sang it, accompanied only by a pianist, Edith’s body language and expression screamed the opposite. Edith Piaf, otherwise known as the Little Sparrow, was constantly embittered by […]
Nana Mouskouri is an international nightingale who has sold 300 million records and recorded over 1,500 songs in fifteen different languages on 450 albums. Over a career spanning five decades, she has been awarded more than 230 gold and platinum albums, which surely makes her the top female […]
The Moscow Synodal Choir was founded in 1721 and is now the oldest professional choir in Russia. In fact, its origins can be traced further back to 1589, when the first professional church choir was formed, then known as the Patriarchal for it was the choir, which used to sing at the church services officiated by the Patriarch. Patriarch was the top position in the Church hierarchy in Russia well up to 1700, when the Russian reformist Tzar Peter the Great reformed the church administrative system.
How often we relax to the quintessential melodies of Spain’s Isaac Albéniz (1860 – 1909). His Rapsodia Espanola, Sevilla and Granada, based on Catalan folk songs, are perhaps the better-known of his compositions. These exquisite heartrending melodies evoke the Spanish dream more than could any Goya painting but what of the man behind the music?
In a letter dated October 1866, French composer Georges Bizet (1838 – 1875) went straight to the point of opera: ‘As a musician, I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.’
Happy Birthday to You is said to be the most popular song in the English language. Being translated into at least 18 languages, it has been promoted all over the world and is sung for the birthday boy or girl by the guests celebrating the occasion. The melody used in this song dates back to the late 19th century, and it was used for the song Good Morning to All.
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