Dusting off the Cobwebs.......

Wow! It's been a long time since I looked around in here.....we need a serious facelift for the new piano year, don't we?

Just for fun, I went looking for some more Modest Mussorgsky music on YouTube.....since Halloween is this Friday, you might enjoy listening to A Night on Bald Mountain. This is in the original Fantasia, and it was very spooky to me as a kid, so some of you may prefer to NOT watch the Disney version below, and just listen to the music.

Other spooky classical music to listen to:
Toccata and Fugue in Dm by J.S. Bach
In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg
Hungarian Dance No. 5 by Johannes Brahms

On the opposite spectrum of music moods, I also posted Mussorgsky's Ballet of the Chickens in their Shells. A nice performance by the Bekova sisters. Enjoyable!

So I'll be updating this with our new teams of Kabalevsky and Dvorak, as well as whatever occurs to me to make this more user friendly.

Be sure to leave a comment in the comments section if you watch one or more of the videos, so I can give credit to your team.

Fantasia - Night on Bald Mountain

Mussorgsky's work set to a scary-lookin' cartoon. Takes about 8 minutes. Some of you would prefer to listen rather than watch, which is fine by me!

Modest Mussorgsky - The Bekova Sisters

Ballet of the Chickens in their Shells. A quick, enjoyable romp!

Mussorgsky - The Great Gate of Kiev

Majestic! Amazing the different moods carried in this one body of work.

Bolero - Torvill and Dean - 1984 Olympics

Wow, did TV really look that bad back then? :) This was amazing to watch, both then and even now. But I like ice skating anyway--how about you?

Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte

This is Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess. The recording is on the quiet side, so turn up your speakers. Notice how she brings out the melody and keeps the inner chords quiet! If you have time, why not compare her performance to several others on YouTube?

Listen and watch! Bolero by Ravel

Here's a stellar example of Ravel's Bolero. You can read about it on page 10 of your February 2008 Piano Explorer. I find it interesting that Ravel never really liked this particular work he wrote!