Preview, purchase, and download Stravinsky: Symphony in C, Symphony in Three Movements, Octet for Winds conducted by Robert Craft
Luciano Pavarotti led a wonderful life and fantastic career. Here are translations of some of his most popular opera arias.
Grammy Award season is upon us and soon all the hard work and dedication will be rewarded with the coveted golden gramophone statue. Though only a handful will win the prized award, those who go home empty handed really haven't lost at all!
Preview, purchase, and download Stravinsky: Symphony in C, Symphony in Three Movements, Octet for Winds conducted by Robert Craft
"It must be mentioned as a particular merit of this, the longest and, in every respect, the grandest of Chopin's studies, that, while producing the greatest fulness of sound imaginable, it keeps itself so entirely and utterly unorchestral, and represents piano music in the most accurate sense of the word. To Chopin is due the honor and credit of having set fast the boundary between piano and orchestral music, which through other composers of the romantic school, especially Robert Schumann, has been defaced and blotted out, to the prejudice and damage of both species."*
The esteemed American music critic James Huneker (1857-1921) also said of this piece,
"It takes prodigious power and endurance to play this work, prodigious power, passion and no little poetry. It is open air music, storm music, and at times moves in processional splendor. Small souled men, no matter how agile their fingers, should avoid it."*
I don't think I could have said it better myself. So for those of you who have never heard this marvolous work, here's a YouTube video for you to enjoy. Chopin's "Winter Wind" Etude performed by Wen-Yu Shen.
*Chopin: The Man and His Music, by James Huneker
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