I like music.
Correction.
I love music!
In particular I love listening to music of the Baroque period - or if you prefer from the Stuart and Early Georgian period. But, as Handel is alleged to have said in a disparaging tone, I am one of those Englishmen who likes music I can tap my feet to. I love fairly fast flowing Baroque pieces which frolic and prance across the air.
Happy music to gladden the soul and make one feel like joining in.
I like to cook to Baroque music too.
Baroque music
My favourite composers are Handel, Rameau and CPE Bach.
AGA likes JS Bach, Telemann and Veracini
And I can play, albeit badly, the harpsichord. . .
AGA plays the harpsichord very well and my mother has a harpsichord, a clavichord and a piano at her house although she prefers to play the likes of Mozart and Chopin . . .
AGA hates me playing Oh Susanna on the harpsichord but I quite like it - as well as the Irish Washerwoman and the Sailors' Hornpipe too neither of which are Baroque pieces. . .
At the moment I am practising a Musette by J S Bach. Practising and practising because I am slow and make lots of mistakes.
The other day I heard one of the neighbours in our apartment building walking up the stairs humming the same tune. . . so it seems that gradually I am brainwashing everyone!
By the way, that is indeed my hand playing the harpsichord in the photo.
6 comments:
One of my favorite sayings (framed and hanging in my office)
"If only the most gifted bird sang,
the forest would be a quiet place"
Keep playing and enjoying...
Kirk-
I LOVE Baroque music!! I have the same unswerving affection for Medieval and Renaissance music, too. In particular, I find the sacred music of Victoria, Tallis, Palestrina, Tavenor, and Morales fascinating and imbued with a profound and palpable sense of mysticism (mystery of God). I listen to Morales every morning in my car as I drive to work
You must love Bach’s “Brandenburg Concertos.” I find the Allegro Movement of his Brandenburg Concerto No.1 so positive, so joyous, so uplifting that it should include “Easter Sunday” next to the name.
BTW, have you ever heard St. Matthew Passion? Although not played at the timing you prefer, the piece is mesmerizing.
Good luck with your harpsichord!
How true Auntie A how true. My other grandmother was a trained opera singer but my grandfather could not sing a note in tune. However that didn't stop him singing away to his hearts content...
Cyber-cousin Tom,
AGA loves the St Matthew Passion. He has it on CD and I think from memory he sang it as part of a choir.
What about Purcell's Coronation Music for King James II. That is indeed beautiful choral music.
Yes the Brandenburgs are fab. We went and heard Trevor Pinnock playing them at the local Music Hall in Dusseldorf last year.
Scarlatti has a big of a bad name in our aparmtent as his harpsichord peices are apparently too 'heavy' however I do like his Sonata in C Minor (K15) I coud play that over and over and over!
I also like Mediaeval music and that of the Renaissance. Years ag I had a friend who was veryt much into madrigals and I went to a couple of concerts and fell in love. Those vocal harmonies can be so very alluring even if you don't know the words. I could listen to them all day. And as for Vittoria. . . a true genius on par with Tallis.
Yikes! My comments are longer than my post!
My favourite Purcell has to be Dido & Aeneas, what other piece of music can effortlessly shift from the sublime to the gloriously daft and back again in the course of a few minutes? Brilliant!
The British composers of that era don't get enough attention, methinks. It might not have been a good time to be a Catholic in England, but is was probably a great time to be a musician.
I love the harpsichord: a plucked string sounds much better than one hit by a hammer, in my opinion.
Oh I certainly agree Rita. Boyce, Avisson, Blow etc - along with Purcell, truly great composers
I have a very nice recording of Dido and Aeneas. It is always pleasure to listen to it.
Elderflower I agree with you too!
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