Blog Archives

March 22 - a selection of music by Neville Gibb

25/3/2019

Bill could not attend this week’s music session so I picked the music we were to listen to.

I have long been interested in the contradiction between popular versus excellence in music. Popular does not always equal excellence but sometimes excellent can be popular. Style and substance can come together and when it does it is exceptionally satisfying. I picked music that I felt fell into this category.

As such we listened to music by Johann Strauss Jnr, Antonio Vivaldi, Ludwig Van Beethoven, George Frederick Handel, Dimitri Shostakovich and Lennon and McCartney.

I tried to pick music that in any circumstance would be called genius.

Neville Gibb

March 8 - 'Ludwig Van Beethoven'

8/3/2019

From Bach who took the high baroque to its absolute height, and was probably the most astonishing technical composer of all time, to Mozart who wrote prolifically and perfectly on a level that’s never been rivalled, whose “genius” was so manifest as to dwarf every other composer of his time, to Beethoven who by comparison had to struggle for his craft more than either of the above.

This has been our musical journey so far this year.

Although he wrote far less music than many of his contemporaries and predecessors, it is argued that Beethoven produced music that was somehow richer: richer, simply because in ‘struggling for every note on the page” as one critic put it, he “transcended form and reinvented small forms and blew up the symphony forever thereafter”.

Beethoven as the bridge between the “classical and the “romantic ” periods of composition was the subject of this morning’s musical exploration. Bookending the programme with the overture to and the finale of “Fidelio” – the only opera Beethoven produced (and 10 years nearly in the making at that) – we traced his work sequentially from early to later by opus numbers including excerpts from the range of instruments and genres for which he composed.

A number of ‘significant’ compositions were deliberately omitted from this morning’s session with a mind to a larger celebration of Beethoven’s contribution to music around the time of the 250th anniversary of his birth next year.

From solo to septet and sonata to symphony, you can view our morning’s presentation, complete with Youtube links to the various performances, on the Music Appreciation page of the U3A website.

Would you like to read the class notes for this session?

Ludwig Van Beethoven - Music Appreciation Class notes Friday March 8

Bill Squire

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay our respects to their elders - past, present and emerging.

News
Newsletter
Facebook Page
Program Suggestions
CO-VID Safety

U3A Benalla & District Flier 2025
Membership Application/Renewal
Semester 2 Program Guide 2025
Semester 2 Timetable with Dates 2025

Developed and maintained by members, this website showcases U3A Benalla

Photographs - U3A members; Benalla Art Gallery website; Weebly 'Free' images;Travel Victoria and State Library of Victoria

Photo from TrishaLyn

March 22 - a selection of music by Neville Gibb

March 8 - 'Ludwig Van Beethoven'

About Music Appreciation

Convenor and Contact Details

Meeting Times

Categories

Archives