Music Set #205 - Bizet - Symphony in C

Georges Bizet 

(1838-1875)

   

Symphony in C

was completed by Bizet at age 17.
Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4 
Totaling about 37 minutes
     

Professor Rogoff gives an interesting briefing on Symphony in C. 

In 1947, George Balanchine adopted Symphony in C to ballet, as beautifully performed by the following companies:

* Houston Ballet   (cute dolly ballerinas)

* Miami City Ballet:   Part 1   Part 2   
   

See the ballerinas' chopstick legs in amazingly beautiful ballet movements?

Music Set #205 - Bizet - Carmen

Georges Bizet  

(1838-1875)

  

Bizet is well-known for his opera (in French) Carmen, the name of this wild factory gypsy girl in Sèville (/səˈvɪl/), Spain.
* to watch the complete opera  (4 acts, in 20 parts)
  
Or, just 4 well-known extracts:
* Prelude  (Overture)
* Habanera: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle  (Love is a rebellious bird)
* Seguidilla: Près de remparts de Sèville  (Near the ramparts of Seville)
* Toreador (bullfighter) song: Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre  (Your toast, I can make it)

Plus: Avec La Garde Montante  (Street Boys March)

= = = = =
Bonus:
* four hands
* 葛蘭 in 卡門 電影《野玫瑰之戀》 

* 陳美鳳

Music Set #204 - Berlioz - March to the Scaffold

Hector Berlioz  

[ɛk'tɔʁ bɛʁ'ljoːz] [BARE-lee-O’s] (1803-1869)

Symphonie Fantastique 

The Fantastic Symphony has 5 movements:

1.      Rêveries - Passions (Daydreams - Passions) – day-dreaming for love

2.      Un bal (A ball) – meeting the dream girl

3.      Scène aux champs (Scene in the Country) – passion of love; pain of failure; killing the girl

4.      Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold) – for the crime of killing 

5.      Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath)

Mvt.4 - March to the Scaffold

Music Set #203 - Berlioz - Rakoczy March

Hector Berlioz  

[ɛk'tɔʁ bɛʁ'ljoːz] [BARE-lee-O’s] (1803-1869)

The Damnation of Faust / La damnation de Faust – Rakoczy March

by the YouTube Symphony Orchestra

Originally a slow and sad song by an unknown writer, it was then frequently rewritten to various tempos and versions, and named after Prince Rakoczy, a Hungarian national hero. 

Berlioz rewrote it as a Hungarian March (La Marche Hongroise) for concerto, and made it the 4^th song in Part 1 of his operatic Damnation of Faust. 

       
Here, the aging scholar Faust (as Goethe’s Faust 歌德名著浮士德) hears an army marching past in the distance.   

Music Set #202 - Beethoven

A biography (1 hour) 

Ludwig van Beethoven  
(1770 – 1827)

Missa Solemnis (1.5 hours)
Sir Colin Davis conducting

He has a long list of compositions.

  

Für Elise - Valentina Lisitsa

or a digitized version
or a glass version

Violin Concerto 
Mvt 3 Itzhak Perlman

Mvt 1-3 Arabella Steinbacher

Violin Romance No.2

Kolja Blacher

Wellington's Victory
over Joseph Bonaparte's forces 
at the Battle of Vitoria in Spain

It uses older themes, such as 

"God Save the King," 

"Rule Britannia," and 

"Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre" / "Marlborough Has Left for the War" (Marlborough is the name of an English general [an ancestor of Winston Churchill] who fought against the French at the Battle of Malpaquet in 1709, during the reign of Louis XIV.)
– the tune now known as "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" or "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

  

Music Set #201 - Beethoven - Sonata

Ludwig van Beethoven  

(1770 – 1827)   

Piano Sonata No. 8 in c
- aka Sonata Pathétique
- Op. 13

* Mvt.1 Grave – Allegro di molto e con brio
* Mvt.2 Adagio cantabile
* Mvt.3 Rondo: Allegro --- or appreciate its digital dimension
Totaling about 19 minutes

Piano Sonata No. 14 in c#   

- aka "Quasi una fantasia" / "the Moonlight Sonata"
- Op. 27, No. 2

* Mvt.1 Adagio sostenuto
* Mvt.2 Allegretto
* Mvt.3 Presto agitato --- or appreciate its digital dimension
Totaling about 16 minutes

Music Set #200 - Beethoven - Piano Concertos

Ludwig van Beethoven 

(1770 – 1827)

Piano Concerto no. 1   Alice Sara Ott 
Piano Concerto no. 2   Martha Argerich 
Piano Concerto no. 3   Daniel Barenboim
Piano Concerto no. 4   Lang Lang
Piano Concerto no. 5    - aka "Emperor Concerto"  Friedrich Gulda