MICHAEL WALSH MUSIC CORRESPONDENT Of humble background I can’t imagine what introduced me to good music. Certainly, there was little to be cheerful about in post-war Britain. In our humble home, with its primitive radio that broadcast only four programmes’ we kids were told to be very quiet […]
MICHAEL WALSH MUSIC CORRESPONDENT. I often wonder if the staff of advertising agencies are on illegal substances. ‘If it isn’t classical, it isn’t music’ is my approach to music. My favourite station is Venice Classical Radio (VCR) simply because the station provides 100 per cent classical music. There […]
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 […]
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.
There are some extraordinary women. The extraordinary is to be discovered on the inside of women. They are the women who feel, those who think deeply and passionately. Their inner world is so vast, it seems that this scope has no bottom. Their speech is beautiful as if reading a wonderful book, listening to Chopin, looking at Botticelli’s paintings… – filling up their hearts and intellect.
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