The final month of our U3A musical journeying has seen us staying close to Beethoven as his world-wide 250th anniversary celebrations draw to a close. There have been a couple of jumps ahead to the 20th century in the first session as we explored the ‘jazziness’ of George Gershwin’s Concerto in F played with “pizzazz” by 18yo soloist Alexander Molofeev,  before allowing ourselves to be wafted away by Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp. But after that it was Beethoven all the way : his one and only Violin Concerto, the Waldstein Piano Sonata,  a Bagatelle “Für Elise” (whoever she was), and finally the monumental 9th Symphony with its message of the universal brotherhood of mankind to wrap up both the year and our acknowledgement of the place Beethoven occupies in musical history.
 
To say that we have explored Beethoven in depth would be to stretch the truth, but amongst the many of his compositions we have featured, we at least have included all of the “Top 20” as voted by the listening public in the ABC Classic FM Beethoven Top 100” survey.
 
You can check out all of Music Appreciation's twice-monthly sessions on this page.  If you like what you see, why not enrol with us for 2021? You would be most welcome.

Bill Squire

The following recording of 18 year old Alexander Malofeev playing Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F with the Russian National Orchestra is conducted by Mikail Pletnev.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was a little light on this month in terms of us trying to emulate the works they had planned to perform. Only five composers to choose from, so naturally all were selected, plus an extra Beethoven work to “make up the numbers” so to speak.   Nevertheless, some interesting works as well as a couple of old favourites.

Check out the notes for each session below - they include links to YouTube for the performances.  

Here are the class notes, which include links to videos to be watched, for 12th and 24th June.

​Class Notes 12th June- Beethoven 2020, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and more

​Class Notes 26th June - Beethoven 2020, Anton Bruckner, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saens

If you like what you see and haven’t joined up with our group as yet, either email me at wsquire68@bigpond.com or give a me call on 0429 626 334 and I will only be too happy to include you in our twice monthly electronic mailout or provide another means if the computer is not the best medium for you.

I know this is not best way of doing what we do, but because it doesn’t look as though we will be back in our normal venue for a while yet, we must do something……. for, as the ABC FM presenters keep telling their listeners: “…… life’s better with music”. 

So tune into your favourite music station at least, and keep well and keep safe.
​
Bill Squire
​27June 2020

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