stonepicnicking_okapi

I wasn't planning to do another year of Year of Wonder but I was stumped for what to post today. Chopin is always good! This one is called 'waterfall.'

How 'bout we go for baroque on this sunny Monday morning?

It's Black History Month in the US. Here is a piano work from African American composer Florence Price.

Florence Price dedicated Fantasie Negre (1929) to Margaret Bonds. The theme comes directly from the Negro Spiritual “Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass.” Soon after its composition, a dance troupe, led by Russian ballet teacher Ludmilla Speranza and pioneering African-American choreographer Katherine Dunham, premiered Fantasie Negre as a ballet. Bonds, a frequent and familiar interpreter of Price’s works, accompanied the performance.

This was too lovely to wait until Monday. It was written in 6 hours in response to the death of King George V.

This is today's entry from Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Smith. It's Toccata arpeggiata by Kapsberger. The instrument is a theorbo, a Baroque lute.

I have found a superior resource/guide to Classical Music for Dummies and that is Clemency Burton-Hill's Year of Wonders, which has a short piece of classical music with accompanying vignette about the composer for every day of the year. I remember Clemency Burton-Hill's voice from the Open Ears project where people from different walks of life talk about pieces of classical music that are important to them. She has a beautiful, beautiful radio voice. Here's today's offering: James P. Johnson's Harlem Symphony 3, Night Club (1932).



The other thing I've found is instrumental background music creator Mr. Snooze on youtube. I am working on The Sniper Vanishes (my Fandom for Oz auction fic, BBC Sherlock, Moriarty/Moran, based on the 1938 Hitchcock film The Lady Vanishes) and I am playing this Spy video on repeat to keep me in the zone. Mr. Snooze has other videos with other moods: Comedy, Love, Thrillers & Pranks. The other one I like is Film Noir.

It's been more than a month since the last classical music post, so here's an update.

So far, my favourite has been Kodaly's Dances of Galanta. I have also liked Franck's Symphony in D minor and been impressed by Holst's The Planets. I am glad I listened to Elgar's Enigma Variations because of the joke in Good Omens about him and Liszt being the only composers in heaven.

Appreciation for and the nuances of most, however, have passed me by.

( The list )

I have, however, done another nocturne piece, inspired by the first in a set of the nocturnes by the father of nocturnes, John Field. It is chapter 11 of A Little Night Music called I do without an answer [Sherlock Holmes (ACD), Holmes/Watson, 1015, Hurt/comfort. Massage. A case frustrates Holmes. Watson helps.] And here's the nocturne. It's very sweet.