Tag: Music
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Elgar the Enigma
This is an invitation to revisit two sublimely beautiful and meaningful pieces of Elgar’s music. One is mostly misunderstood, while the other is uniquely revelatory. First is “Nimrod” from his ‘Enigma Variations’. Let’s un-attach it, briefly, from the November Cenotaph observance, where It seems ‘custom-built’ to fit the remembrance of Great Britain’s part in two…
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Borodin – Amazing Man and Music
One of my loves is Russian music of the later 19th century, That was when Russian music began. Previously there were no Music Conservatories, and no symphony orchestras giving regular concerts. Music was dominated by opera – Italian opera. In his lifetime, Alexander Borodin was seen as a professional Scientist and an amateur Artist. He…
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Mahler and Life and Death
I haven’t blogged for a good few days because I’ve been too ‘re-absorbed’ in the music of one of my three favourite composers, Gustav Mahler, and now I’d like to write something about Mahler and death. I hope you haven’t fled away from that last word, because it’ll catch up with you regardless so, if…
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A Unique Love Story (Brahms and Clara Schumann)
This tender and beautiful poem, about the deep though troubled relationship between Brahms and Clara Schumann, was written by Lisel Mueller (a German-born American poet). On October 1st, 1853, 20 year old Johannes Brahms knocked on the door of Robert and Clara Schumann’s home in Düsseldorf. Schumann was one of the first composers of the…
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Wagner – Monstrous and Magnificent
How can we explain, or reconcile, the greatness of Wagner’s musical genius, with the baseness of so much of his life? He was an unsurpassed egotist. The focus of his endless monologues was entirely on himself and his self-assured opinions, to the exclusion or disparagement of others. He was a swindler who cheated people out…
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“Follow your Bliss”
I’ve found myself doing a fair amount of writing in these lockdown days. I’ve always been a ‘word person’. In the maths class at school, I sat myself at the back and perfected the art of being asleep without seeming to be. I like the discipline of writing something in 500 words, give or take.…
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