For your morning coffee, a calming trumpet and orchestra to start the day smoothly with Lucienne Renaudin-Vary and Charlie Chaplin's "Swing High, Little Girl".
Have a great day!
Performed with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and conducted by Sascha Goetzel.
Tonight I say goodbye a bit more dramatically, with bass-baritone Eric Halfvarson singing Hagen's call from Wagner's Götterdämmerung. (1994, I believe...)
Sometimes you just have to slow down and listen. For a moment like this, Mascagni's Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana".
Lucca Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrea Colombini, Großer Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, 2014.
When I left home today, we had 12°C, and the real feel was 6°C. So let's dream together about Italy with "Love in Portofino" and wish happy birthday to Andrea Bocelli because today he's turning 68.
I wish you a great day with Lang Lang playing Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel's "Bist du bei mir" (formerly attributed to Bach, which is why you'll keep encountering it as BWV 508).
For today's goodbye, a personal "obsession " for the last week or so, Beethoven's Overture to Egmont. And to help reach perfection, Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker. (1985)
From last Friday at Isar Philharmonie in Munich, Martha Argerich and Lahav Shani (who is also the chief conductor!) playing an encore from Ravel’s "Ma mère l’Oye".
I'm not a Hervé Koubi fan, but the preview for his interpretation of "Swan Lake" looks good.
First, get yourself a coffee. Then, let the German hunters make your day while performing "The Sound of Silence".
For my old folks out there, a bit of nostalgia with André Rieu performing Vangelis' "Conquest of Paradise".
And with this, I wish you all a good evening and a fine weekend!
Probably my last post for today.
I found someone testing the organ at the Votive Church of Vienna (Votivkirche) and managed to take a short video, plus a few pictures.
Have a nice evening!
For today's afternoon coffee, I propose a fragment from "Summer 3" by the British composer Max Richter, from his 2022 work "The New Four Seasons - Vivaldi Recomposed".
Some purists dislike it because a Moog synth from the 70s might feel like blasphemy, among other reasons, though I can't help but ask myself, "What would Vivaldi do differently today?".
Today I say goodnight with one of my favourite pianists, Yuja Wang, playing Variations on the Turkish March during a concert in Odeonsplatz, Munich.
Münchner Philharmoniker, conducted by Valery Gergiev, July 16, 2017
This post is mostly self-serving, because I'm a big Jonas Kaufmann fan. I found a video from 1997, when he was (obviously) very young, singing "Credo" from Schubert's Mass No. 6 in E-flat major, D 950. (He appears from 1:08.)
It was recorded in Münster in Zwiefalten (a must-see Baroque church) during the Festival "Herbstliche Musiktage" in Bad Urach (a very well-preserved medieval city in southern Germany, which I highly recommend).
NDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sylvain Cambreling, with Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Juliane Banse (soprano), Hermine May (altus), Deon van der Walt (tenor), and Hermann Prey (bass).
For a quick afternoon espresso, a short but beautiful moment with Khatia and Gvantsa Buniatishvili improvising on Astor Piazzolla's "Libertango".
For a quick espresso, I have a history page from 1971 with Alexis Weissenberg, Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert von Karajan performing the ending of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto 2.
If you follow this account but you're also into techno music, maybe you should check out the Symphony of CAOS. In this video, Martin Garrix' "Animals".
Watch nature welcoming autumn and listen to Gautier Capuçon playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Here is the first movement, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antonio Pappano. (London, Barbican Centre, 2024)
Have a beautiful Sunday!
If you need to slow down for a bit, then Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" is exactly what you need. (In case you don't know why it sounds so familiar, you might have heard it in Shutter Island or Arrival.)
