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Mr Robertson's Recommended Listening

The Director of Music shares his musical wisdom in this weekly blog. Head below to discover some his latest recommendations and just why you should be listening to each piece.

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  • Hoedown, from Rodeo - Aaron Copland

    Published 30/06/23

    Regarded as the quintessential American composer, Aaron Copland developed a unique musical language that captured the American landscapes, characters, and ideologies of the early part of the 20th century. He did this with expansive yet plain harmonies (lots of open fifths and octaves, for those with an interest in music theory), and by weaving together snippets of American folk music. You would recognise much of Copland’s work if you heard it - ‘Appalachian Spring’, ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’, ‘Billy the Kid’, et al. 

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  • The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Paul Dukas

    Published 23/06/23

    SAVE THE BASSOON! For some reason, this noble instrument which along with the Double Basses, Cellos, and Tubas, makes up the very foundation of an orchestra is in danger of dying out from a lack of players. Perhaps because it is a large instrument, or perhaps it is thought of as being musically less nimble that the other woodwind family members (the latter of which is not the case I assure you), who knows. The Bassoon is a wonderful instrument in every way – a big wooden bazooka you hold like an electric Guitar, it has tons of personality and makes a great sound – what’s not to love! 

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  • The Typewriter - Leroy Anderson

    Published 23/06/23

    Composers have often expanded the orchestra to include instruments not typically found in that setting. Ravel would add a saxophone; Holst wrote for a Euphonium; Tchaikovsky used cannons! Perhaps most unusual is Leroy Anderson’s use of a typewriter. The popular ‘Sleigh Ride’ composer casts a traditional office typewriter as a solo percussion instrument in his imaginatively titled ‘The Typewriter’. 

    Without the novelty solo line, this piece would work perfectly well as a jaunty polka, but with the solo, it transcends to the level of comedy gold. If you enjoy this, why not try his arrangement of ‘Old McDonald had a Farm’… 

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  • The Thieving Magpie, Overture - Gioachino Rossini

    Published 23/06/23

    The overture to Rossini’s opera, The Thieving Magpie, was written at the eleventh hour on the day of the first performance. The composer locked himself in a room at La Scala while he wrote and stationed four stagehands outside to stop anyone who tried to interrupt him. Rossini would throw pages of the overture out of a window as he completed them, down to a team of copyists below who would create parts for the orchestra to play from. 

    Despite its rushed creation, the overture to The Thieving Magpie is the most recognisable part of the opera, and one of Rossini’s most loved works. 

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  • Imperial March - John Williams

    Published 23/06/23

    Stravinsky once said, “lesser artists borrow, great artists steal”. I’m sure, in that case, that he wouldn’t have minded legendary film composer John Williams using elements of his Rite of Spring throughout the Star Wars soundtracks. 

    Stravinsky wasn’t the only composer that Williams paid tribute to through his work. The Jaws theme is based on the opening notes of the finale from Dvorak’s 9th Symphony, Superman’s theme alludes to Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, and, bringing us to today’s recommended listening, Chopin’s Marche Funebre was the basis for Darth Vader’s theme - the Imperial March. 

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  • Symphony No. 2; Finale - Pyotr Tchaikovsky

    Published 23/06/23

    Tchaikovsky, one of the heavyweight symphonic composers of the 19th century, and a member of the Russian musical mafia – a group of composers known simply as ‘the five’, wrote his uncharacteristically upbeat second symphony at his sister’s home in Ukraine. Tchaikovsky attributed the inspiration for this work to the family butler, who would sing Ukrainian folk songs for the composer which were to become the basis of this symphony, in particular the last movement. 

    The finale starts with a grandiose statement of just a few notes, which immediately gives way to a playful rendition of ‘the Crane’ – a popular Ukrainian song. We hear several variations on this theme before a galloping final flourish brings the symphony to a close. 

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  • Danse Macabre - Camille Saint-Saens

    Published 23/06/23

    Every Halloween, Death appears at the stroke of midnight, calls forth the dead from their graves, the skeletons dance while Death plays his fiddle, a cockerel crows at dawn, and the skeletons return to their graves until next year. Or so goes the story told in Camille Saint-Saens’ ‘Danse Macabre’. 

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  • Bolero - Maurice Ravel

    Published 23/06/23

    Composers like nothing more than coming up with a musical theme, and then elaborating on it, developing it, tweaking it, chopping and changing it, and rolling it out longer than a play-doh sausage. In the case of Ravel’s Bolero, popularised by the gold medal winning figure skating routine by Torvill and Dean at the 1984 Winter Olympics, the composer doesn’t alter his melody at all. Instead, Ravel takes us on an exploration of orchestration, using different combinations of instruments for each repetition of the tune, which gradually become louder and louder throughout. In this video of Ravel’s Bolero, maestro Daniel Barenboim takes a ‘less is more’ approach to conducting. 

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