Your Classical Coffee Break

"I have nothing to say and I'm saying it," said John Cage. In this coffee break we listen to the compositions of the revolutionary John Cage. He used a a variety of every day objects--toy pianos, kitchen gadgets, metal sheets--to create "music." Chance and randomness were a part of his repertoire, even silence, all influenced by Asian influences and the harmony of nature.

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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/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfP5OMCfiZs

This coffee break takes a final listen to the extraordinary development of the use of percussion from the 1600s to the 20th Century. We listen to the coronation of Boris Godunov, thanks to Mr. Mussorgsky, then a hair-raising section from Verdi's Manzoni Requiem. Button up your windbreakers for a triple threat of storms blowing in: Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, and Peter Westergaard's Moby Dick. We close our survey with two wildly creative pieces, Antheil's Ballet Mechanique (with airplane engines as percussion) and Varese's Ionisation (fire engine sirens.) After this invigorating coffee break, you might have to switch to decaf.

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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/

This coffee break continues our survey of percussion, again listening to the avant garde sounds of Carl Neilson, this time his Symphony No. 6, a playful approach to nontonal music. We sample some wonderful compositions that use percussion in unique, exciting ways, particularly from composers Michael Torke, Derek Healy, and Warren Benson. We finish up with a lively piece from Malcolm Dagglish called Harmony of Earth and a piece for flute and marimba by Alec Wilder. Fun stuff.

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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/

This coffee break continues our look back at the history of percussion during the 1600s with the development of martial music. Royalty took over the art form to show, in some cases, how military-ready they were. We examine what music indicates in Shakespearean plays, how it sets the scenes for the audience, and lets them know the cast of characters, e.g. the use of flutes and lutes=the common folk. We also check in with Messrs. Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven and hear how their creative use of percussion changed music.

contact the show at [email protected]

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

In this coffee break Mr. Somers ushers us into the wayback machine to hear how percussion evolved from the 1300s. We listen to "In Pain He Said," a Middle Eastern piece featuring oud, drums, and clapping as independent rhythmic lines. Then we move into the Renaissance period and listen to a piece that could have been used as incidental music for Shakespearean plays.

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

Strap on your helmets because this coffee break comes on strong with timpani. Mr. Somers takes on a trip through the styles of timpani dynamics, including Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Symphony #9, as well as pieces from Haydn and Schuman. And we also discuss how the timps took over the parts written for the third trumpets. Those brass players can't get no respect.

contact the show at [email protected]

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

We celebrate our 100th coffee break with a discussion of some of our favorite moments of the previous 99. We listen to pieces by Copland and Robert Russell Bennett and the amazing Balinese Monkey Song. Some of our favorite topics included Richard Strauss and as an artist under the Nazi regime, Glenn Gould's remake of the Goldberg Variations, the importance of repetition, how Mendelssohn rescued the Beethoven Violin Concerto, among other subjects that make classical music an intriguing and rewarding art form.

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Thanks so much to Chris Orazi at CAS Music

http://casmusic.com/

We spend this coffee break exploring Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, the 20th Century's Greatest Work (and we're sticking to it.) Britten uses his musical mastery and dramatic skill to infuse the Latin Mass of the Dead with the war poems of Wilfred Owen, in powerful and, sometimes, ironic ways. We listen to the Dies Irae to hear Britten's power use of tritones to drive the music forward, as well as the compelling Sanctus and Libera Me, the conclusion. The complex piece uses both a full and chambers orchestras, 3 soloists, 2 choirs (adult and children) to create a simple but awesome message about the horrors of war.

Listen to the entire piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=625WOYzdvFw

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This coffee break continues the discussion of the 20th Century Crisis in classical music where atonality and electronic music divided listeners into separate camps. We listen to a piece by Milton Babbitt to illustrate how music became more academic. The music evolved in the later part of the century and reconnected with audiences in brilliant new ways, particularly in narratives such as Peter Westergaard's opera based on Moby Dick and Qiang Zhang's Nanking Nanking. We discuss Karel Husa's Apotheosis of This Earth (hear the piece by clicking below.)

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Listen to Karel Husa "Apotheosis of This Earth"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=hG6HHExLDzY

This coffee break discusses Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight")and its effect on the direction of classical music. The piece, premiering in 1912, abandoned a tonal center, reflected the political controversy of the day, and become a essential piece of the Second Viennese School. We listen to a piece by his student Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern and discuss how the twelve-tone technique created a sharp divide with the audiences of the day.

Listen to Pierrot Lunaire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsIATAaR-X0

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