Swan Lake, Pyotr Tchaikovsky

What can be better that a magic fairy-tale – a fairy-tale with a beautiful romantic story in its essence, a story that would embed the good and the evil, the love and the hatred, the tears, the caress, the happiness and the death. All that is what’s to be found in the legendary ballet based on Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s music “The Lake of the Swans”. For over years it’s been gathering full theaters being admired by vast audiences.

Even up to now it’s hard to say that there is an ‘original’ version of the ballet. The ballet was staged many times since the 1877 premiere and every time something was changed about it, whether in the music score, or costumes, or decor, or dance movements.  Tchaikovsky himself was not happy at all about the debut performance of his work at the stage, he liked almost nothing about it calling the whole thing poor. But the ballet enjoys great success now, how come? The version staged at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow was revived in 1895 for the Imperial Ballet and the score was thoroughly revised Riccardo Drigo. The choreography was improved along with costumes. That version, both musically and artistically, is now considered a basic starting point for everyone who would consider staging his/her own interpretation of the famous ballet – like this arrangement for oboe trio, for instance. A memorable dance of the fragile devoted creatures with a deep innocent purport.

Toreador Singing to Oboe

One of the most characteristic cultural features of mostly Spain and Latin America (though not only), bullfighting still remains a major attraction luring tourists on visit from all over the world. And that is a pretty rewarding experience, a powerful tradition lasting no less than three thousand years since the times of bull worshiping and sacrificing.

Arenas where traditional corridas are held accumulate a great amount of energy as they become a place of joint emotions transmitted through the interaction of the masterful toreador, the indestructible bull and the stirred audience. The people of art never missed a chance to reflect the strongest emotions through creative work, especially music. And as for the beautiful opposition of the torero and the mighty bull, probably one of the most successful music pictures of that was painted by Georges Bizet in his famous aria from the opera Carmen. Perhaps the ‘peak-est’ moment of the opera picturing all that happens in the bullring, the fight, the cheering, the resistance. Oboists have a chance to sing the bull-fighters song in a new manner now – an interesting arrangement for oboe quintet and an optional cor anglais is up there for corrida music fans.

And the Sky Falls

It was all kept under the seal of mystery since September of 2011 when Adele dropped a by-the-way “I’m working on a special project”. 2012 saw the anniversary of the so called Bondiana – the 50 year old story of the unbeatable and unsurpassed Mister Bond, James Bond; particularly the celebration of the release of the very first movie “Dr. No” in 1962 with Sean Connery in the role of the first Agent 007.

When Adele was spotted at Abbey Road Studios in London, mass media caught up and carefully spread the rumour that she and no one else would be representing the new soundtrack to the promising movie and overall holiday of the "Global James Bond Day". As it was revealed in October 2012, the orchestration was done by J. A. C. Redford and among composers/so-authors were named Adele herself and her producer Paul Epworth.

And what do we have as a result? An epic movie and one of the best or probably THE best Bond theme ever recorded. That’s the first song in the row to win the Academy Award for best original song. The SkyFall also holds the Golden Globe Award and the Brit Award. Adele did make it the pride of the English nation and the record-setting song with the highest number of digital sales within a week – just after 10 hours after its official publishing the hit burst the iTunes beating all the previous records men.

Multitraditional “Oh Susanna” by Stephen Foster

Oh Stephen, who was that Susanna a dedication to whom made you the first fully professional songwriter in America? It is common to think that the name actually referred to Stephen’s sister Charlotte – “Susannah” being her middle name. But there is no accurate version. Who cares anyway – for what we have as a result is a unique song that embodies a few cultures at once and is one of the most popular American songs EVER written, since 1848 when it was first published.

“Oh! Susanna” is a minstrel song that incorporates American, European and African cultures all at once. The lyrics and music itself were influenced by such cultural elements as African banjo, European polka and US ‘Afro-Americans’ culture' – that’s one of the few song where the author openly uses the word ‘nigger’. Although the lyrics are somewhat ‘nonsense’ as some say, the wordplay actually makes a truly vivid picture. The popularity of Susanna is reflected in the numerous recordings, for example those by The Singing Dogs, James Taylor, Neil Young. Here is one more lovely arrangement of the song for a mixed-level cello quartet (all the score explanations in the description attached). The fun fact about the song itself is that all in all it was copyrighted and published 21 times! Everyone longed the fame of the author of this unique work. And it would be totally worth it – even most popular songs sold no more than 5000 copies while “Oh! Susanna” sold more than 100.000! Though Stephen himself earned a relatively small sum for his creation at the very beginning.

2 Classical Favorites in One Bottle

We all have our favorite artists and composers no matter if it’s pop, rock, blues or classical music genre. But as to me, classical music preferences are somewhat more refined and special, when the choice of a certain favorite becomes particularly well-thought and weighted. The music style of each composer differs a lot and we may just like a separate part of it, not the entire creativity line. And what if you had to pick two your most loved composers and combine their styles in one piece?

Here’s one quite interesting selection in this sense. The two virtuosos have been chosen to get along together in two fun arrangements by David Burndrett – “2 Classical Favourites”. The ‘volume one’ features pieces by Antonio Vivaldi and Edvard Grieg. The first one is the “Autumn” part of the noted Four Seasons concert series of program music, where the wind quartet is aiming to reproduce the colorful charm of Vivaldi’s autumn allegro.  The second one is where the wind quartet – flute, clarinet, bassoon and oboe – are rendering the orchestral piece “In the Hall of Mountain King” from the Peer Gynt play, the very moment when Peer Gynt enters the royal roaring hall full of magic creatures like gnomes, trolls and goblins:

Read All About It, Emeli Sande

Let’s fix our attention today on one of those girls whose popularity in music shoot off quite fast bringing her songs to billboards’ tops. It’s all about Adele Emeli Sande, or simply known as Emeli Sande. The girl had to opt for her middle name for performing because of the simultaneous growth of Adele’s career at that time. A talented Scottish songwriter, she was brought up by her dad who was a teacher and became spotted at various music competitions from early childhood. Subsequently Emeli signed contracts with EMI, Virgin and Capitol and started writing song texts for such well-known performers as Cher Lloyd, Rihanna, Cheryl Cole, Leona Lewis. Her music style was strongly influenced by Nina Simone (Emeli’s idol), Joni Mitchell and Lauryn Hill. Simon Cowell named her as his favorite songwriter.

Emeli Sande

Emeli wrote a lot for other performers but at the same time she is a splendid performer herself. One of her most recognized songs today is the “Read All About It” that was originally written for the British rapper Professor Green. Emeli herself appears in the “Part III” version of the song that was included in the album “Our Version of Events”. The song hit the records in the UK becoming the 1st number-one hit both for Emeli and Professor Green. The two also appeared live in “The X Factor” show performing the freshly popular song. According to Emeli, the key to creating a good song is the honesty and raw emotion, most of her songs touch politics and world peace issues.

New Year’s Day, U2

Once again – congratulations on the beginning of the New Year! I do hope you’ve had a terrific celebration and are still being in the festive atmosphere of holidays. So so, let’s proceed into the new year with a fresh post about some curious song, shall we?

Not to step too far from the topic of holidays, today’s post will be dedicated to a song titled “New Year’s Day” by the rock band U2. For those who never heard it, it will seem that the contents of the song are all about this joyous time of the year with all the usual NY symbols. But it’s much more than that. Though originally composed by Bono as a gift for his wife, the song was later reshaped and received a completely new form and sense, too. It acquired an inspirational touch of the Polish Solidarity movement having become not just a one-week-pop-hit but a long-living single. It was the obligatory part of band’s tour program and one of its most performed live singles. The video has quite an interesting story too. It was shot in Sweden in the coldest peak of its winter. The members of the band were so frozen that by the end of the clip could hardly articulate the lyrics and had to hire double to take part in some shots instead of them.

It all was not in vain and as a result the single got its fine reviews by the Rolling Stone magazine, hit the Billboard 100 and got in the list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".