Your Classical Coffee Break

We wrap up the retrospective on the influences on Mr. Somer's career by listening to, of course, a bit of Bach's b minor Mass. We go a little brass crazy and listen to a wonderful piece by Giovanni Gabrieli, then pivot to the work of de Falla, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Mozart, and Ralph Vaughan Williams in a whirlwind tour of meaningful music in our esteemed friend's life. A truly heartfelt coffee break of tender memories and powerful music.

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This coffee break continues exploring Mr. Somer's career and his compositions for the theater. Even though he had access to an early version of the MOOG synthesizer, he decided to use acoustic instruments for background music for The Scottish Play. We also discuss how Charles Ives, Benjamin Briton, and spiritual music have influenced his work. And maybe, just maybe one of Mr. Somer's pieces was the inspiration for John William's Jaws Theme.

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This coffee break goes on a trip through memory to discover the pieces of music that were crucial to Mr. Somer's love of music and his career as a musician, composer, and critic. We travel back with Samuel Barber to "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," go a train trip with Villa-Lobos' "The Little Train to Caipira," and sing along with Norman Dello Joio's A Jubilant Song. We even dip in Dave Brubeck's "The Riddle" and taste some Dixieland jazz.

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This is a special coffee break where we go back to hear the music that was important to Paul Somers as he began his career in classical music. Offenbach was an early composer he remembers. Love of music was instilled by his family when he was very young, In fact it was Bach's B minor Mass that brought his grandparents together in a large concert in Bethlehem, PA. And many years later the Mass became important to him as well. We also listen to some Mendelssohn and Beethoven pieces that helped form his perspective on music.

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This coffee break takes a quick look at the War of the Romantics where Franz Liszt was the radical progressive in a shift against the older order of absolute music. As he aged he composed more religious-based, dramatic music, even began to dress as monk. We explore his piece "Sonata," a important work that creates chromatic tunes that can be challenging as to what key it's in. A ground breaking composer, an extraordinary performer, Liszt pushed boundaries, yet seemed to have a sense of sadness about him. He was quoted as saying, "Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist."

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How much of Franz Liszt's music is bling, how much is great? This coffee break signs on in the "great" category as it delves into the music of Franz Liszt. He was a composer of grand orchestral music, wrote the first composition to be called a "tone poem," as well as numerous works based on literary pieces An extraordinary pianist, Liszt wrote pieces that showed off his great skill but ultimately went for bigger and grander sounds. He toured extensively and brought opera music to the masses, although in a scaled down version. A creator of extraordinary and varied music, Liszt is an all-time great.

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“Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars . . . Beethoven embraced the universe with the power of his spirit . . . I do not climb so high. A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man” - Chopin. We continue our discussion of Chopin and listen to more of his elegant, yet passionate music. We answer a few questions, like How did Chopin name his compositions? Why we can't hear Chopin's music today the way it was performed in his time? What Chopin tune might you hear at a baseball game?

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This coffee break explores the composition and music aesthetic of Frederic Chopin, a genius of the keyboard. Did his compositions emulate the "bel canto" Italian operas of the time? What was his impact on classical music? And, for Chopin, was it all about that base? For all of his beautiful, textured music, he strove for simplicity and was quoted as saying, "After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."

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The coffee break focuses on the bright, inventive music of Trent Johnson, a composer and organist who lives in Montclair, NJ (Montclair seems to attract numerous American composers).

Why current composers have to be flexible in writing all genres of music to be successful. We listen to an e minor piano sonata of Florence Price, the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra. In closing our series on composers of African descent, we listen to "Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed," Adolphus Hailstork's extraordinary homage to Martin Luther King.

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This coffee break discusses how some classical pieces became the Classical Canon, and other great music did not break through. Is it just the quality of music? Or are politics or race reasons why some pieces never find an audience. We listen to more extraordinary music from composers of African descent, including William Levi Dawson, Henry Thacker "Harry" Burleigh, and George Walker.

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