Your Classical Coffee Break

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” ― Dr. Seuss. This coffee break discovers that there are many ways to say "I Love You" as we continue our exploration in the dreamy world of love songs. We start with instrumental pieces--first, light and yearning, then move into some songs composed for the dream world the of the cinema--Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, North By Northwest, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The love continues with solo songs of Faure, Kern, and Bernstein, and a quick dip into a Mozart opera.

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This coffee break delves into love as a many splendored thing and a source of inspiration for wonderful music. We begin with Roy Harris' Symphony No. 4 sense of the longing love of the one not here. We hear Harry Burleigh's maternal love for the Little Mother of Mine. Then we go way, way back to some secular, but not quite romantic, love songs of the 13th and 14th Centuries with composers Adam de la Halle and Guillaume de Machaut. Next we hear a mixture of 15th Century poetry of Christine de Pizan updated by musician Claire Gignac. We jump into the 16th Century with a Pierre Passereau piece then into the 17th Century with romantic to Reinhard Keiser's opera Croesus--"Love, what are you beginning?" We listen to a quick piece from Don Carlo Gesualdo then a dirty little ditty Matona mir cara by Orlando Lasso, which has been properly censored by the always proper Mr. Somers.

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This coffee break dips back in Bizet's Carmen, this time listening to the opera version rather than the orchestral version, the "Habanera" from act 1 and the "Toreador Song" from act 2, among the best known of all operatic arias, including a fast, fun quintet and the tragic last scene. We also listen to selections from his incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's play L'Arlésienne and a piece called Children's Games. Lots of wonderful music from a composer who had a tragically short life. We again apologize for the Bizet puns and promise we won't make any more.

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YCCB apologizes for the Bizet pun, but we finally got it our of our systems. In this coffee break we explore the brief career of this French composer. Bizet struggled throughout his career to make a living. Berlioz hailed Bizet and said that he had a "masterpiece in him." He was right, but Bizet became famous weeks after his death. We listen to his long-lost symphony and, of course, selections of Carmen. What a great overture! We also learn a little bit about the origins of musical theater.

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Berlioz wrote to a friend: "If I were threatened with the destruction of the whole of my works save one, I should crave mercy for the Messe des morts." This coffee break explores the power and drama of the Berlioz Requiem, written for a massive orchestra and chorus. But it is the Trojans, his most ambitious work, that many consider the summation of his entire artistic career. Based on Virgil's Aeneid this five-act opera underscores the composer's love of literature and his ability to write grand music.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-4p4Nsh194

This coffee break digs deeper into the brilliant career of Hector Berlioz. A Shakeperean expert who read the Bard and English and French, he composed music for King Lear. But Hector was a wanderer and refused to be defined by any prexisting order of music. He delved into Lord Byron's Romanticism and produced the wonderful Harold in Italy, which reproduced his own travels in Italy. The piece, though lovely, was not virtuosic enough for Niccolò Paganini, for whom it was written. Yet it was cinematic before cinema. And what did Berlioz teach Wagner about leitmotif?

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It was only three years between Beethoven's last piece to Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique, but in many ways they were light years in mood, tempo, and technique. This coffee break explores Berlioz' free-flowing and emotional music. We follow his recurrent theme, his idée fixe that represented his love, into the fields to the guillotine to a witches' sabbath in this large orchestral piece which challenged the more conservative listener, but thrilled Franz List and other brilliant musicians.

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We continue training a young pianist to utilize full potential. We listen to a piece which requires a pianist to create two voices on the keyboard. How to toss the voices back and forth from each hand. How does one hand create two voices? We use a Mozart sonata to highlight the "sleight of hand" a master must utilize to hide the mastery. We talk about technique, practice, intelligence, memorization, textbook learning, and artistry and how they all combine to produce a performance of genius.

We apologize for mentioning we have listeners in White House, England. The correct town is White Haven. Sorry.

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This coffee break explores how to teach a promising student piano. Mr. Somers, a life-long teacher, discusses how he approaches teaching piano techniques and how his professional experience playing for the NJ Ballet helped expand his ability to teach others. We listen to some Bach and ask "How the music works?" Beyond the finger techniques, the teacher needs to direct the student to begin to understand the sense of the music and the composer's intention. Next we add complexity with a Robert Schumann piece. And the importance of the physical traits of the student's hands. And must we add that everyone who is "overnight success" must practice, practice, practice?

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Your Classical Coffee Break is partially sponsored by CAS Music. Contact Chris Orazi for all your worldwide recording needs. casmusic.com/

We listen to the YCCB's version of John Cage's 4'33". Is there underpinning music surrounding us all the time? We listen to John Cage's lecture Composition as Process where he states that contemporary music is music that is NOW! How recording music freezes it, perhaps kills it. We are not afraid of silence during this podcast. Mr, Cage would be proud. We finish up with a wonderful percussion piece that shows the rich playfulness of his sound (or lack of). Lou Reed once said that John Cage taught him that EVERYTHING IS MUSIC.

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Your Classical Coffee Break is partially sponsored by CAS Music. Contact Chris Orazi for all your worldwide recording needs. casmusic.com/