Tag: Music Notes

MUSICAL NOTES – NANA MOUSKOURI

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 […]

Singing in Church is Huge Part of Russian Christianity, Profile of one of Russia’s Greatest Choirs (VIDEO)

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.

Why Happy People are Happy

First of all, you can’t drive a happy person crazy. They work on personal freedom and know how to not be ashamed of themselves. They are told: ‘your ass is fat, you can’t walk on the streets with such an ass, and pants are not fashionable and such lips are not worn this season.’

So, you thought classical musicians were pussies

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?

FOR THE LOVE OF CARMEN

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.’

There are many special kinds of women

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.

Whispering Hope

Whispering Hope is one of Western civilisation’s most engaging and enduring ballads. I was told by my Liverpool-Irish mother that at the onset of World War II, the suicide rate went through the roof, such was the anti-war sentiment.

The Oldest Love Letter

Although 23 years have passed since I missed that telephone call, I never forgot the message left on the answering machine. The caller was one of the world’s most successful balladeers. Charlie Landsborough’s voice was unmistakable as he thanked me for the impact my poetry had on him.

Why no Requiems for Europe’s Greatest Social Reformers

Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler had much in common. The first was Italian yet he liberated and led the French nation. The latter was of Austrian birth but freed and championed the German people. Napoleon put an end to French revolutionary abuses. Adolf Hitler brought an end to the corruption and banking houses usurious deprivation following the victors’ vicious terms inflicted upon Germany after World War One.