October 31 ~ in Music History

Posted by MaryO on October 31, 2018

Happy Halloween

Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve) is an ancient celebration dating back to the sixth or seventh centuries. This holiday combines the Druid autumn festival and the Christian celebration of Hallowtide, long associated with witches, ghosts, devils, spirits, magic … and all scary things that go bump in the night.

• 1896 ~ Ethel Waters, American blues and jazz singer

• 1906 ~ Louise Talma, American composer

• 1912 ~ Dale Evans (Frances Butts), Singer, songwriter of Happy Trails to You, actress, wife of ‘King of the Cowboys’ Roy Rogers

• 1922 ~ Illinois (Battiste) Jacquet, Tenor saxophone, played with Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, Count Basie

• 1927 ~ Anita Kerr, Pianist, singer, record producer, The Anita Kerr Singers, composer

• 1930 ~ In a rare recording, William ‘Count’ Basie sang with Bennie Moten’s orchestra, Somebody Stole My Gal, on Victor.

• 1934 ~ Tom Paxton, American folk singer, guitarist and songwriter

• 1947 ~ Russ Ballard, Singer, songwriter, guitar with Argent

• 1952 ~ Bernard Edwards, Bass with Chic

• 1953 ~ NBC televised “Carmen” on Opera Theatre in living color. It was the first major opera televised in anything other than black and white.

• 1956 ~ Tony Bowers, Bass with Simply Red

• 1961 ~ Larry Mullen, Grammy Award-winning drummer, with U2

• 1963 ~ Johnny Marr, Guitarist with The Smiths

• 1972 ~ Curtis Mayfield received a gold record for Freddie’s Dead from the movie, Superfly.

• 1984 ~ Caribbean Queen became a gold record for Billy Ocean. It was Ocean’s second hit song and the only one of his 11 hits to become a million-seller. He would have two other #1 songs and a pair of #2 hits, but none as big as Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run). Billy’s from Trinidad, and his real name is Leslie Sebastian Charles.

Just in Time for Halloween: Toccata and Fugue in d minor by J.S Bach

Posted by MaryO on October 31, 2018

Johann Sebastian Bach’s towering monument of organ music, with its deep sense of foreboding, will forever be associated with Halloween.

Get a free copy of the sheet music at IMSLP or borrow a copy from the O’Connor Music Studio. I have this arranged for organ, piano, duet, 2-piano, simplified…

If you want this in a book with other Bach transcriptions, amazon has this: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and the Other Bach Transcriptions for Solo Piano, arranged by Ferruccio Busoni.

Here, Virgil Fox performs it on his Allen Digital Touring Organ.

Diane Bish plays the Massey Memorial Organ at the Chautauqua Institution and talks about this instrument.

And, the most fun…

Just in Time for Halloween: Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky

Posted by MaryO on October 29, 2018

Night on Bald Mountain refers to a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky composed a “musical picture”, St. John’s Eve on Bald Mountain on the theme of a witches’ sabbath occurring on St. John’s Eve, which he completed on that very night, June 23, in 1867.

Get a free copy of the sheet music at IMSLP or buy it on amazon.com.

From Disney’s Fantasia

Piano version transcribed for solo piano by Konstantin Chernov (1865-1937).

The Ludwig Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Thomas Ludwig

Just in Time for Halloween: Funeral March of a Marionette by Charles Gounod

Posted by MaryO on October 28, 2018

The Funeral March of a Marionette (Marche funèbre d’une marionnette) is a short piece by Charles Gounod. It was written in 1872 for solo piano and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which originally aired from 1955 to 1965.

In 1871-72, while residing in London, Gounod started to write a suite for piano called “Suite Burlesque”. After completing one movement, the Funeral March of a Marionette, he abandoned the suite and had the single movement published by Goddard & Co. In 1879 he orchestrated the piece. The instrumentation is: piccolo, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in D, 2 trumpets in A, 3 trombones, ophicleide, timpani, bass drum, triangle, strings. The work is in the key of D minor, with a central section in D major. Various arrangements by other hands exist.

There is a program underlying the Funeral March of a Marionette: The Marionette has died in a duel. The funeral procession commences (D minor). A central section (D major) depicts the mourners taking refreshments, before returning to the funeral march (D minor).
The score contains the following inscriptions in appropriate places:

La Marionnette est cassée!!! (The Marionette is broken!!!)
Murmure de regrets de la troupe (Murmurs of regret from the troupe)
Le Cortège (The Procession)
Ici plusieurs des principaux personnages de la troupe s’arrêtent pour sa rafrâichir (Here many of the principal personages stop for refreshments)
Retour a la maison (Return to the house). (Wikipedia)

Download this music in several versions from IMSLP. Click on Arrangements and Transcriptions. There are also some arrangements for piano at the O’Connor Music Studio.

On Alfred Hitchcock:

From Faber Piano Adventures Performance Book Level 3B No.7 (Also available in the OCMS Library):

Piano 4-hands:

With animation:

On organ:

Mannheim Steamroller:

And, finally, a light show!

Just in Time for Halloween: Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath from Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz

Posted by MaryO on October 25, 2018

The final movement is the best known part of the symphony, thanks to its use in the Julia Roberts movie, Sleeping With The Enemy. It features a four-part structure, which Berlioz described in his own program notes from 1845 as follows:

“He sees himself at a witches’ Sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the Sabbath… Roar of delight at her arrival… She joins the diabolical orgy… The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae, the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae.”

The Dies irae melody is one of the most-quoted in musical literature, appearing in the works of many diverse composers.

The traditional Gregorian melody has also been used as a theme or musical quotation in a number of classical compositions, notable among them:

Charles-Valentin Alkan – Souvenirs: Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique, Op. 15 (No. 3: Morte)
Ernest Bloch – Suite Symphonique
Hector Berlioz – Symphonie fantastique
Johannes Brahms – Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118, No. 6, Intermezzo in E-flat minor
George Crumb – Black Angels
Michael Daugherty – Metropolis Symphony 5th movement, “Red Cape Tango”; Dead Elvis (1993) for bassoon and chamber ensemble
Luigi Dallapiccola – Canti di prigionia
Diamanda Galás – Masque of the Red Death: Part I – The Divine Punishment
Donald Grantham – Baron Cimetiére’s Mambo
Charles Gounod – Faust opera, act 4
Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 103, “The Drumroll”
Bernard Herrmann – Jason and the Argonauts (1963) – quoted during the scene of the scattering of the hydra’s teeth
Gustav Holst – The Planets, movement 5, “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age”
Arthur Honegger – La Danse des Morts, H. 131
Aram Khachaturian – Symphony No. 2 in E minor
Franz Liszt – Totentanz
Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 2, movements 1 and 5
Modest Mussorgsky – Songs and Dances of Death, No.3 “Trepak”
Nikolai Myaskovsky – Symphony No. 6, Op. 23, Piano Sonata No.2, Op.13
Lionel Newman – Compulsion (1959 film)
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 1, Op. 13; Symphony No. 2, Op. 27; Symphony No. 3, Op. 44; Isle of the Dead, Op. 29; The Bells choral symphony, Op. 35; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43; Symphonic Dances, Op. 45
Ottorino Respighi – quoted near the end of the second movement of Impressioni Brasiliane (Brazilian Impressions)
Camille Saint-Saëns – Danse Macabre, Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony)
Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No. 14
Stephen Sondheim – Sweeney Todd – quoted in the accompaniment to “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” and “Epiphany”
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji – Sequentia cyclica super “Dies irae” ex Missa pro defunctis and eight other works
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Manfred Symphony, Orchestral Suite No. 3
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco – 24 Caprichos de Goya, Op. 195: “XII. No hubo remedio” (plate 24)
Eugène Ysaÿe – Solo Violin Sonata in A minor, Op. 27, No. 2 “Obsession”
Bernd Alois Zimmermann – Musique pour les soupers du roi Ubu
Hans Zimmer – “Rock House Jail” from The Rock soundtrack
Vítězslav Novák – used the theme near the end of his May Symphony
Hans Huber – used the theme in his third symphony.
Bathory – on their album Blood Fire Death (1988)
Alan Menken – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film)
Death Note (2006)
The Melvins – on their album “Nude with Boots” (2008)
Carolina Crown – in its DCI program entitled “Inferno” (2015)

Free sheet music from IMSLP for the basic Dies irae

Free sheet music from IMSLP for the basic Symphonie fantastique (look under Arrangements and Transcriptions)

The basic Gregorian Chant

An animated version of the Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath from Symphonie fantastique. Can you hear the Dies irae in this? It starts around 3:18.

Leonard Bernstein conducts the “Orchestre National de France” in Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique
5th Movement

Fall LIstening and Coloring Pages

Posted by MaryO on October 21, 2018

I have purchased a set of Shades of Sound Listening & Coloring Book: Halloween for the studio.

Each week, I will print out some of the pages for your student and put them in his/her notebook. After listening to the music on YouTube, the student may color the pages.

After they are colored, please return them to the notebook so that there will be a complete book when finished.

If you are an adult and want to listen and color, too, just let me know and I’ll print you a set.

From the website:

The Shades of Sound Listening and Coloring Books are a great way to encourage students to listen to great piano and orchestral repertoire. Students of all ages will love coloring the fun pictures while listening to and learning from the music of the great composers.

This Shades of Sound Halloween edition includes 13 spooky pieces of piano and orchestral literature, ranging from the Baroque to the Modern period. By spending just 5-10 minutes per day listening for just a few days per week, students can listen to and complete the whole book in a few weeks.

Aspiring pianists need to know the literature, hear the greats perform, and be inspired and excited by the great music that is available! Just as writers need to read, read, read, pianists need to listen! Through this fun curriculum, students will learn about the musical periods and the great composers and their works. Listening repertoire selected includes selections from the standard solo piano literature, as well as solo piano and orchestra literature and orchestral works.

My hope is that students can add just 5-10 minutes of listening per day to their normal practicing. Listening to great music will change their understanding of music and will vastly increase their music history knowledge. It will excite and inspire them, encourage further study and listening, give them new pieces to add to their own repertoire wish list, infuse more great music into their lives, homes and families, and will boost their musicianship and expression to the next level.

The Halloween Shades of Sound book includes 13 different pieces, including:

Totentanz by Liszt

Le Cimetiere, from Clairs de Lune by Abel Decaux

Graceful Ghost Rag by William Bolcom

Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov

Tarantelle, from Music for Children Op. 65 No. 4 by Prokofiev

Tarantella by Albert Pieczonka

In the Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 by Bach

Funeral March, from Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor by Chopin

Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens

The Banshee by Henry Cowell

Scarbo, from Gaspard de la nuit by Ravel

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas

Students may use The Playful Piano – Halloween Listening YouTube playlist to listen along with their book using quality recordings. The playlist is ordered to go right along with the book, and also includes 5 extra pieces (some pages include optional “Further Listening” examples students may listen to).

July 6 ~ Daily Listening Assignment

Posted by MaryO on July 6, 2018