Par OFFENBACH JACQUES. This is the last of nearly 100 operettas created by French composer Jacques Offenbach, a native of Germany whose works were most prominent in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His three-act drama Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), which includes a prologue and epilogue, recounts dramatic stories of passion, murder, and revenge. Left incomplete at the com…

Par BRALEY BERNARD. Bernard Braley This volume covers the lives of George Herbert, the seventeenth century religious poet and parson; Edward Plumptre, the nineteenth century educationalist and theologian who became Dean of Wells Cathedral; Robert Bridges, medical man, precentor in a village church, Poet Laureate and eccentric; and Fred Pratt Green, who took up hymnwriting seriously at an age when …

Edizione Critica A Cura Di Claudio Toscani. Par PERGOLESI GIOVANNI BATTISTA. EDIZIONE NAZIONALE DELLE OPERE DI GIOVANNI BATTISTA PERGOLESI (Casa Ricordi in collaborazione con la Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini di Jesi) Based on the anonymous recasting of a libretto derived in turn from La fede tradita e vendicata by Francesco Silvani (1705), Il prigionier superbo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was f…

As a keyboard musician, composer, arranger, music director, and record producer, Don Randi has thrilled music lovers for years, even if they weren't aware of it... until now. He played keyboards on over a thousand popular recordings and was a member of the remarkable 'Wrecking Crew? of studio musicians during the explosive pop music era of the 1960s and early 1970s. Nancy Sinatra, the Beach Boys, …

Par COUPERIN LOUIS / CURTIS. The complete Harpsichord work - Volume 2 by Louis Couperin is the second of a series of volumes with suites for Harpsichord. Composed in a Baroque style, the whole series features 133 pieces for advanced players. Louis Couperin (1626-1661) was a French composer and performer, who created many pieces for Organ and for Harpsichord who later became musician at the court. …

One must look long and hard to find a piano pupil who hasn't studied Beethoven's two 'sonate facile? op. 49. They are not only relatively easy to play but highly lyrical and effective, ideally combining joy in music-making with a mastery of early classical literature. The two works were composed much earlier than the opus number suggests. Beethoven wrote them around 1797/98, during a time when he …

Par WIDOR CHARLES-MARIE. Charles-Marie Widor 's Symphonies for Organ, Op. 42 No. 2. Charles-Marie Widor (b. Lyons 1844, d. Paris 1937) first began his studies in his hometown, but later pursued them in Brussels, taking lessons with Nicolas-Jacques Lemmens on the Organ, and composition lessons with François-Joseph Fetis. In 1868, he inaugurated the Organ at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. He also de…

Par NYIREGYHAZI ERVIN. Ervin Nyiregyhazi (1903-1987), a Hungarian who spent most of his life in America, was among the most gifted-and strangest-musicians of the twentieth century. He was an astonishing prodigy who became one of the greatest and most distinctive pianists ever heard, though his early international celebrity was followed by decades of obscurity and much personal and professional har…

In The Violin Concerto Op. 64 and Chamber Music For Strings. Par BROWN CLIVE. Mendelssohn' s Violin Concerto op. 64, is a key work of the 19th century, adhering to the classical style of Beethoven while pointing the way to the romantic ethos of Brahms. It has long been known that Mendelssohn performed the work with three soloists in succession: Ferdinand David, who worked closely with the composer…