13th April - Because of the continuing problems our group has had with both faulty equipment and interruption from the main hall at the Senior Citizens this week’s Music Appreciation was held at the home of John Avery.  This week John presented work from Polish Composer Karol Mikuli. This man was a devotee of Frederick Chopin who gained acceptance in his lifetime as a concert pianist. We listened to music that was not as melodic or romantic as Chopin but was sweet and balanced and well worth listening to. Mikuli has been completely ignored since his death and is unfortunately currently not listed in any repertoire. We listened to this on John’s sound system.

We then listened to the complete Bach Sonata in E Minor BWV 1023 for Violin and Basso in 3 movements. This is a lesser known work of Bach's. But as Bach wrote such a substantial body of work some of his music is not played as much as some of his more popular work is and, as a consequence, is not so well known. But never the less well worth the listen.  This work was played on a Bose Wave Music System and showed how miraculous some music systems can be. Such rich sound out of such small a system.

27th April -  Our unknown composer today was Thomas Dyke Ackland Tellefsen. This Norwegian was another pupil of Chopin who became a teacher himself as well as a virtuoso piano player. We listened to his Violin Sonata No 1 in G Minor. This had lots of violin music in it as well as piano music. If he was a pupil of Chopin he was not influenced much by him in this instance. The music was clean and melodic. 

We then listened to Mahlers 5th Symphony. Its a while before you get to the Adagietto but its worth the wait. Lots of unresolved chords blending from one into another which is the Mahler trademark. This music was used as the soundtrack in Visconti's  Death In Venice and is perfect to have in the background while experiencing Venice. Seems to sum the place up perfectly.

We experimented with playing parts of Mahler on the Bose sound system as well as a sound bar.  Hopefully we now have all our technical problems sorted out.
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Neville Gibb

In late February our lesser known composer was Jean-Marie Leclair.  An obviously talented man, he was born into a lace making family and this was his first profession.  By some miracle in his twenties he became a ballet dancer and from there he progressed to music where he was both musician and composer.  He was able to present music that was clear, harmonic, balanced and rational - all things that sum up the enlightenment.  He was also influential in developing techniques for playing the violin. All in all a very impressive man and we greatly enjoyed the presentation John brought to us.
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We also heard selections from the Czech composer Dvorák.  Dvorák is generally considered to be the great composer of Eastern Europe and the selections we heard certainly had an  Eastern European sound to it.  He was able to bring a folk music influence and a peasant dance sound into his works and the selections we heard were examples of this.

We finished up listening to all 3 movements of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4. This is an example of Beethoven's early work and who could not be thrilled by it.

On Mar 9th we began by listening to two pieces of violin music by Karol Lipinski (1790-1861 both titled Three Capriccious. Op 10 and Op 27.

The talented child of a Polish Court musician both Lipinski and his fathers’ careers were cut short by the partition of Poland in 1795 when the court was virtually disbanded. In adolescence Lipiski took up the violin and became a virtuoso to the point where Paganini became an admirer and played his music. Paganini remained an admirer so much so that when he died he left Lipinski one of his violins.

We then listened to all 4 parts of Sibelius Symphony No 2 in D Major. Op 43

Sibelius is considered to be the classic Finish Composer although he became popular in Europe and especially in England. His music has a softly softly feel to it and it is felt promotes Finnish myths and legends and excites Finnish patriotism. The music is melodic with seemingly unresolved chordal structures and incorporates elements of Mahler and Wagner.

At the end of the meeting it was resolved to approach the executive with a request for more equipment

Neville Gibb