Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Queen.
There’s only one way to identify truly classic music, and that’s with the test of time. The list above has music that’s stood the test of time over centuries.
Except for Queen. But this British rock band of the 1970s and 80s has already stood the test of time. There’s no question they will go down as a classic in music history.
The golden age of rock and roll was the ’60s and ’70s, with some spillage into the ’50s and ’80s. I declare it, so it must be true! Some of the greatest music of the century sprang into existence during those times.
It just so happens that the longest running television and movie franchise also began during that classic age in 1966. Among the top charting songs for the year were:
I absolutely love musicals, and I’m not even gay. Go figure!
Modern musicals are closely related to earlier forms of musical theater. Opera is a play where the whole story is sung, both dialog (recitative) and the songs themselves (aria). Operettas are operas where the recitative is spoken, not sung, but the arias still remain. The modern musical is a contemporary form of operetta, with an added emphasis on dance and contemporary style of music.
Continue reading Musicals: Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
It’s the day after Thanksgiving, 2019, and that makes it okay for me to turn my sights to Christmas, because letting Christmas intrude on Thanksgiving is evil.
One thing that makes Christmas the joy it is are the many carols out there. But there’s one in particular that seems to inspire musicians to come out with the most epic versions imaginable: “Carol of the Bells.” There’s something about that song that shouts, “Play with me!” So I’m gonna play with exploring different versions of it that can only be described as epic.
Continue reading The Christmas Carol Everyone Loves To Play With
As a young French composer in his mid-twenties, Joseph Maurice Ravel joined with a number of other artists, musicians, poets, and assorted friends in Paris to form a group called “The Hooligans” ( Les Apaches in French, which makes you wonder about how a certain Native American tribe got its name). This was at the turn of the century—the 19th to 20th century, that is. Imagining the antics of twenty-something creative souls getting together makes the name they chose somehow appropriate. Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky were also members at one time or another.
That hooligan spirit must have followed Ravel into his career when he composed his most famous and popular musical piece that he described as having “no form, properly speaking, no development, no or almost no modulation.” He said the music was inspired by the sounds of the machines in the factory his father worked in. His goal was to create a work of music that repeated over and over and over again, to see how long he could get away with it. The answer apparently was something in the neighborhood of fifteen to twenty minutes.
In 1786, Prince Charles Edward Stuart fought the Battle of Culloden to make good his claim to the throne of England and Scotland. His backers were called Jacobites. He failed in that attempt and had to flee the British armies multiple times until he finally ended up fleeing on a boat to the Island of Skye.
If this sounds familiar to fans of the television series Outlander, that’s because this is the same Bonnie Prince Charles and the same Battle of Culloden that Claire passed through the time portal back to the 20th century to avoid, and that she assumed her lover and husband Jamie Fraser had died in.
Way back in 1953—one year before I was born (oh my that’s a long time ago!)—this handsome young pair of fellows met in a school in Queens, New York. Paul Simon noticed Art Garfunkel when he sang in a talent show—in fourth grade. They got together and discovered they could make beautiful music together, so they joined and formed a duo called…Tom & Jerry.
In part 1, I presented eight rock and roll or folk songs that were based on classical music from as far as back as the early 1000’s. In part 2, I’ll let you hear the original classical works they were based on. Obviously, you should read part 1 first, which I’m certain you did. You did read part 1 first, didn’t you? What? You didn’t? Then get your ass over there and read it!
Let’s face it, most regular people aren’t that into classical music. My condolences to them. They don’t know what they’re missing. There’s a reason that classical music is classic and stood the test of time.
But there are those among the rock and rolling and folk musicians of our times that are familiar with classical music and have based some of their songs on it. Perhaps you didn’t know that some of your favorite tunes of the classical age of rock and roll derive from the classical age of classical music, written by such noteworthies as Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin.
As Chuck Berry once sang, roll over Beethoven. A new crop of musicians has arrived.
Of course he didn’t! It’s a stupid question! Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote The Sound of Music.
But I ask that question because James Horner, among all composers, produced some of the most beautiful sounds of music ever to grace the silver screen. He’s easily in my top five favorite movie score composers, and I say that only because once you reach that level of greatness, it’s meaningless to rank them any further.
