3 Musical Allusions to Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”

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And He shall reign forever and ever… It’s one of the most recognizable passages in all of music…ten downward-stepping pitches which somehow evoke the ultimate sense of joy and triumph. The Hallelujah Chorus closes Part II of Messiah, Handel’s most famous oratorio, with a burst of D major combined with trumpets and drums. George II was so moved when he heard the opening introduction that he rose to his feet and remained standing for the …

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Re-Imagining Sondheim on the Composer’s 86th Birthday

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Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim turned 86 yesterday. His contributions include the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959), and music and lyrics for A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd (1979), Into the Woods (1987), and numerous other groundbreaking shows. His sophisticated, envelope-pushing musicals will almost certainly rank among the Broadway theater’s most enduring works. Sondheim’s genius has always gone beyond “songwriting” in the Tin Pan Alley (or even Andrew Lloyd Webber) sense. Writing stand-alone commercial hits has …

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Helene Grimaud’s New Album: “Water”

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Here is a taste of Water, a new album by French pianist Hélène Grimaud which came out at the end of January on the Deutsche Grammophon label. The recording showcases water-inspired solo piano music, mostly from the twentieth century, including Luciano Berio’s haunting Wasserklavier from 6 Encores for Piano, Toru Takemitsu’s atmospheric Rain Tree Sketch II, and Debussy’s  La cathédrale engloutie. Beyond assembling a great collection of music, Grimaud wanted to draw attention to the fragility of this fundamental and …

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Remembering Peter Maxwell Davies

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Earlier in the week, the music world lost another original voice. British composer and conductor Sir Peter Maxwell Davies passed away on Monday following a battle with leukemia. He was 81. A longtime resident of the remote Orkney Islands, Davies was a prolific composer whose works include ten symphonies, chamber music, operas, and concertos. He was an outspoken cultural critic and an advocate for music education, serving as music director at Cirencester …

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Mendelssohn’s Wee Bit of Irish

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Tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s Day, an occasion when everyone seems to claim a “wee bit of Irish” heritage, if only in spirit. So let’s hear what happens when a beautiful Irish folk song ends up in the hands of a composer otherwise unconnected to the Emerald Isle. Felix Mendelssohn drew upon a popular Irish folk song for his Fantasia on “The Last Rose of Summer”, Op. 15, a piano work written around 1830. It’s …

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Beware the Ides of March: Musical Reflections on Julius Caesar

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Beware the ides of March. -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Tomorrow marks the “Ides of March,” the date when Julius Caesar was assassinated on the floor of the Roman Senate in 44 B.C. Dramatized by Shakespeare in 1599, Caesar’s stabbing coincided with Rome’s irreversible evolution from Republic to Empire. Let’s listen to two pieces which were inspired by the life and legend of Julius Caesar: Handel’s Julius Caesar Julius Caesar, George Frideric Handel’s 1724 …

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Keith Jarrett and the Power of Two Chords

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Two chords, set in a continuous loop between tension and resolution, provide the foundation for this powerful solo improvisation by pianist and composer Keith Jarrett. It was the final encore from a concert in Tokyo in 1984. Jarrett (b. 1945) is an American pianist and composer who moves freely between the worlds of jazz and classical. (Listen to part of his recording of J.S. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier here.) He talks about improvisation in …

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