Collection of music videos

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was a virtuoso Polish pianist and composer; as a pianist, he is considered one of the most important in history and as a composer, one of the benchmarks of Romanticism . He was born into a vocationally musical family; his mother played the piano and his father the violin and flute; His first teacher was a sister of his with whom he liked to play pieces with four hands. At the age of eight he gave his first public concert in the palace of the Radziwill family in Warsaw . Chopin 's work focuses exclusively on the piano, solo or concertante, with which he embarked on a solo career of technical perfection, expressive splendor and deepening in the rubato until he became the musical benchmark for that instrument.

The mazurka or mazurka was originally a ballroom dance of the Polish royal court and nobility, which over time became a dance of the popular class. Written in ternary time signature (3/4, 3/8), it is characterized by its accents on the 2nd and 3rd beats, in contrast to the waltz . It became known throughout Europe along with the polka (of a similar structure) during the second half of the 19th century and became the fashionable dance in the great European capitals during this century. It is danced in pairs, and it is a lively and gallant dance.

Frédéric Chopin was the main precursor of this stylized musical form in classical and concert music, whose album we offer today by the Russian pianist Rem Urasin , interpreter of all Chopin 's works.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) was a Brazilian composer and conductor, whose music was influenced by both Brazilian folk music and European classical music. He received some musical instruction from his father and before 1899, the year of his father's death, he had already begun to dedicate himself to music as a professional. He acted as a café musician playing the cello, although he was also an occasional guitar, clarinet and piano player. As a composer, he was notoriously prolific with a legacy of works for guitar, works for piano, 17 string quartets, 9 Bachianas brasileiras, 15 Choros for different musical formations, 12 symphonies, 18 concertante works, 4 operas, 2 film scores and numerous works of different kinds that include various ballet scores.

The Bachianas Brasileiras are a set of nine works written for different formations with a formal memory of Bach . It should be noted that the suffix "-ana" is often used in the titles of musical works, as a way for a composer to pay homage to a previous composer or famous performer.

O Trenzinho do Caipira is a composition for wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn) by Heitor Villa-Lobos and an integral part of the piece Bachianas Brasileiras nº 2 . The work is characterized by imitating the movement of a locomotive with the instruments of the orchestra. Today it is offered to us by the Villa-Lobos Quintet .

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) together with Bach and Mozart is part of the trio of giants of Western music. Born in Bonn , his father, of Flemish origin, tried to make a second Mozart of him, though it was a notable failure. Despite this, from the age of nine, the organist Christian Gottlob Neefe captivated him with the study of Bach , whom he would always keep in mind. In 1787 he moved to Vienna with the intention of receiving Mozart classes, but the death of his mother brought him back to Bonn after a few days. And so after five years, he returned to Vienna where he made contact with Haydn and Salieri , making himself known as a composer and pianist with well-known public recognition. However, his profession as a pianist could not be carried out due to the deafness that attacked him the following year until he was totally disabled from said faculty.

Beethoven 's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, written in 1806, is the composer's only concerto for this instrument. It is an important work in the violin repertoire , and is frequently performed and recorded today. There is also an adaptation for piano and orchestra composed by Beethoven himself, classified as Op. 61a. Beethoven wrote the concerto for his colleague Franz Clement , a prominent violinist of the day, who had previously advised him during the composition of his opera Fidelio . The work premiered on December 23, 1806 at Vienna's Theater an der Wien .

The concerto is articulated in three movements. I (0´40´´) ALLEGRO MA NON TROPPO with the structure of the sonata form with its two contrasting themes. II (25´05´ ) LARGHETTO The violin develops a single theme, on which it performs half a dozen variations that many scholars have agreed to define as “decorative”. III (34´25´´) RONDÓ ALLEGRO”. The violin begins directly with a sprightly theme that seems to have been Clement 's own idea. The orchestra plays with it over and over again. The most successful moment is a passage of extremely inspired beauty, in which the violin melody (37'24''), played in G minor, passes from it to the bassoon. After different episodes will come the cadenza . The concert concludes with a coda in which the exposition of Clement 's theme is collected.

( Extracted from Digital music lover )

Carmelo Alonso Bernaola (1929-2002) was a Basque composer, music teacher and clarinetist considered one of the greatest exponents of Spanish music in the second half of the 20th century . Throughout his career, he composed more than 300 works including classical music, popular songs such as the Athletic Club Anthem , and numerous soundtracks for film and television. He was a clarinetist in the Madrid Municipal Band , professor of harmony at the Madrid Conservatory and director of the Jesús Guridi Music Conservatory in Vitoria from 1981 to 1991. Among his recognitions, two National Music Awards stand out, the Gold Medal for merit in the Fine Arts and admission to the Music Section of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.

Symphony number 2 responds to a commission from Radio Nacional de España to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Carmelo Bernaola . It should have been a page of maturity and it has turned out to be the work of a master. The three outings to enthusiastic applause from the composer from Otxandiano clearly show that the proposed goal has been achieved: connecting with the general public without resigning from current thought in its radical substance. Four movements (linked by the intervention of a distant string sextet) give us a succession of extraordinarily beautiful images and sound events through a prodigious orchestral imagination and within proportions so precisely calibrated that we receive the sensation that there is no lack of Not a single note is left. (Extracted from an article by Enrique Franco in the Country)

Today's version is offered to us by the RTVE Symphony under the baton of the Levantine maestro Jordi Bernàcer Valdés (Alcoy, November 5, 1976).

The Winter's Tale is a ballet in three acts based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare ; It is a story of jealousy with moments that are sometimes dramatic and other times joyful; but it ends in a happy ending. Today we will see a scene from the first act starring Lauren Cuthbertson (1984), prima ballerina of The Royal Ballet of London . The music is written by Joby Talbot , (1971) a British composer who has worked on the most diverse genres of music such as a cappella choral works, instrumental music, film and television soundtracks, or ballet music.

Piotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was a Russian composer who graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and wrote works of different genres, although he achieved his greatest success with his ballets. In 1859 he obtained a position as a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice, which he would abandon at the age of three to be able to dedicate himself solely to music. His personal life was plagued by continuous crises since the death of his mother and his repressed homosexuality, which forced him into a marriage that only lasted a few months. He wrote more than 150 compositions, including piano works, quartets, suites, symphonies, concertos, chorales, cantatas, operas, and ballets. He died at the age of 53 and is considered one of the greatest composers in history.

The play we are viewing today, Nutcracker , is a fairy tale/ballet usually performed at Christmas parties. The premiere was held at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg , but before opening it, it had already formed an orchestral suite with eight of its numbers. The plot is based on a short story by ETA Hoffmann adapted by Alexandre Dumas ; The story takes place in the middle of Christmas in which a magician arrives at Clara 's home with a box of puppets and the Nutcracker doll who is actually a prince. After multiple incidents, it turns out that everything has been a dream of Clara 's.