Bach's Prelude and Fugue No.1 on Non-Instruments

The Well-Tempered Clavier is by far one of the most influential music works of all time (though I think it could easily be called THE most). Composed by Bach in 1722, this unique multi-purpose book of preludes and fugues was the starting point of many beginners as well a training material for music pros. The most popular prelude-and-fugue out of 48 compositions in the book is the first one – the one on the basis of which the famous Gounod’s setting for Ave Maria was made.

Now, since 1722, can you imagine how many times this prelude was performed? Incalculable, perhaps. Some play it indeed for studying purposes, others for sharpening the skills, and others for pure pleasure. And those who are always in search of new creative performances are trying to make something special even out of works as ‘over-played’ as this. I’ve just found a curious performance of Bach’s masterpiece on guess what – boomwhackers. How cool is that?

Eurovision 2015 Winning Song Score

Do you like to watch Eurovision? I’m personally a big fan of this song contest and I’m looking forward to it every year ready to vote for the best song. I know there have been a lot of rumors about the other side of this competition and the financial games behind it but that’s what happens, more or less, within any significant contest of such a scale. In my view, the most important thing in this case is the fact that in the end we do get some really great quality music product. The songs that sound on the stage become really popular among people, the nations get so knit together, for the time of competition at least, and the artists get a chance to deliver the result of their hard creative work to the listener who’s waiting for it.

This year was marked by another bright event and as a result brought us some really lovely music works. The winner of Eurovision 2015 – a Swedish singer Måns Zelmerlöw conquered the listeners’ hearts with his symbolic song “Heroes”. Now it can be played by any musician worldwide. I personally think that’s a very decent choice. Among other contestants that I believe could have shared the biggest prize are Belgium, Estonia, Russia… Though every contestant did a very good job representing his/her country.

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy Is Universal

Why do certain music works become the most performed in music halls of the world? To think about it, the list of such classical compositions is not that long considering the scale of the planet. So what made them cross the numerous borders and penetrate into so different cultures of the world? Let’s see how this happened at the example of one of world’s most well-known compositions to date – Beethoven’s SymphonyNo.9.

Since the bright premiere night of the symphony in Vienna in 1824, with Beethoven’s own rare appearance on the stage, the sounds of composer’s greatest work have been so widespread that there is hardly any hall – big or small – where it wasn’t performed. The symphony is known as ‘choral’ due to the vocals added to it: the final movement contains words from the poem by Friedrich Schiller “Ode to Joy”. This made a big novelty in classical music and made Beethoven (who was almost deaf at that time, by the way) the first composer to use voice in a symphony. Some experts criticized him for that but in the end many outstanding composers to come were deeply influenced by this work – Brahms, Bruckner, Dvořák, to name some.

The symphony became so iconic that a lot was measured by it. Just take the regular CD that was designed in such a way that it could be enough to hold the complete recording of the 9th.

Today, the 9th voices sound all over the world, words sung by so many different people from different cultures. Beethoven’s masterpiece is not just a symphony, it can be literally called an Ode to Joy in so many ways. The ‘ode’ used to sound as the Olympic Games anthem, it’s the Anthem of European Union and it’s been more than popular in Japan until now, sounding at all major symbolic events.

It’s something that’s already universal, no matter where it came from. The music legacy of humanity.