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HOW THE PIANO MAKES ITS MUSIC
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For the song of the siren go here. (under construction)

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IN MEMORIAM RAY GARRETT, JR. Chairman of the SEC My Dad. "It is the law that makes civilized life possible." Ray Garrett, Jr. And when it was time to say goodbye ... Andrea Bocelli's "Time to Say Goodbye" says it all.    My memories have music, do yours?   When my father was dying, I joined him to watch a production of Handel's "Messiah" on television.  He sang along with it, every word, with his beautiful but failing huge bass voice which used to frighten me so much as a kid ... and when  it was time for the Hallelujah Chorus, he pulled himself to his feet and stood, because, you see, "it is the law..."   "Listen to this, Susie. (Beethoven's "Eroica")  Listen!  And he was deaf!"      My dad fueled the fire of my passions.  He loved to teach me things.  He read to us every night through middle school (classics) and then would go downstairs and play the piano.   At the London premiere of "Messiah," King George II was so moved when he heard the beginning of the Hallelujah chorus, he stood up and remained standing.  Since decorum dictates that when the King stands, all must stand, and remain standing, this became a tradition.   TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HANDEL, GO HERE (under construction).     Hallelujah!  For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. The Kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, Hallelujah!  Think of this when you listen to an opera.   This is the sort of lyric a composer is handed.   The magnificence ... comes from the music, and the genius. HANDEL ... TO HIM I BOW THE KNEE. Ludwig von Beethoven Handel                          Handel at Home  "Raphael paints wisdom.  Handel sings it..." Ralph Waldo Emerson   "Handel understands effect better than any of us.   When he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt." MOZART   HANDEL IS THE MASTER OF ALL OF US. Haydn     *** "DOUBTLESSLY, CLASSICAL MUSIC LITERACY HAS BEEN LOST.   PERHAPS IT IS TIME FOR SCHOOLS TO GO BACK TO GIVING MUSICAL APPRECIATION COURSES."  www.naxos.com  Get YOUR Music Appreciation Course HERE. back to menu   back to home page ____________________________________________ Now you can shop with me at My Arbonne Susan Dunn is an Independent Arbonne Consultant. ARBONNE ... because What you put on your skin is absorbed into the bloodstream. Weight loss (NO EPHEDRA), hair loss, anti-aging, pure cosmetics, lotions, baby products, natural hormone replacement.   Susan Dunn is an Independent Arbonne Consultant. It's all about your Engineered by the Swiss, mfg in US . never tested on animals . pure, natural ingredients . proven support for immune system Let me help you become an Arbonne distributor.  Click HERE to join, then let me help you get started.  Costs as little as $29.   Neutraceuticals for your health.  Try GET WELL SOON DIETARY SUPPLEMENT, a technologically-advanced formula, scientifically proven to enhance the immune system.  Now you can shop with me safely online at MyArbonne.  Become one of my distributors and enjoy nearly 50% discount on product. *WHY VIVO PER LEI ? From "Vivo Per Lei" sung by Andrea Bocelli and Marta Sanchez   BACK TO TOP   VIVO PER LEI V. Zelli / M. Mengali / G. Panceri I LIVE FOR HER [MUSIC] Vivo per lei da quando sai la prima volta l’ho incontrata, non mi ricordo come ma mi è entrata dentro e c’è restata. Vivo per lei perchè mi fa vibrare forte l’anima, vivo per lei e non è un peso. I live for her, you know, since the first time I met her. I do not remember how, but she entered within me and stayed there. I live for her because she makes my soul vibrate so strongly. I live for her and it is not a burden. Vivo per lei anch’io lo sai e tu non esserne geloso, lei è di tutti quelli che hanno un bisogno sempre acceso, come uno stereo in camera, di chi è da solo e adesso sa, che è anche per lui, per questo io vivo per lei. I live for her too, you know, and don’t be jealous: she belongs to all those who have a need that is always switched on like a stereo in the bedroom, to someone who is alone and now knows that she is also for him; for this reason I live for her. È una musa che ci invita a sfiorarla con le dita, attraverso un pianoforte la morte è lontana, io vivo per lei. She is a muse who invites us to brush her with the fingers. Through a piano death remains far away; I live for her. Vivo per lei che spesso sa essere dolce e sensuale a volte picchia in testa ma è un puguo che non fa mai male. I live for her who often knows how to be sweet and sensual; sometimes she stuns you but it is a blow that never hurts. Vivo per lei lo so mi fa girare di città in città, soffrire un po’ma almeno io vivo. I live for her. I know she makes me travel from town to town and suffer a little, but at least I live. È un dolore quando parte. Vivo per lei dentro gli hotels. Con piacere estremo cresce. Vivo per lei nel vortice. Attraverso la mia voce si espande e amore produce. It is painful when she leaves. I live in hotels for her. It grows with supreme pleasure. I live for her in the vortex. Through my voice it expands and produces love. Vivo per lei nient’altro ho e quanti altri incontrerò che come me hanno scritto in viso: io vivo per lei. I live for her, I have nothing else, and how many others I shall meet who, like me, have written on their faces "I live for her." Io vivo per lei sopra un palco o contro ad un muro… Vivo per lei al limite. …anche in un domani duro. Vivo per lei al margine. Ogni giorno una conquista, la protagonista sarà sempre lei. I live for her on a dais or against a wall I live for her to the limit. ...also in a harsh tomorrow. I live for her to the very edge. Every day a conquest; the protagonist will always be her. Vivo per lei perchè oramai io non ho altra via d’uscita, perchè la musica lo sai davvero non l’ho mai tradita. I live for her because now I have no other way out, because, you know, music is something I have truly never betrayed. Vivo per lei perchè mi da pause e note in libertà. Ci fosse un’altra vita la vivo, la vivo per lei. I live for her because she gives me rests and notes with freedom. If there were another life I’d live it, I’d live it for her. Vivo per lei la musica. Io vivo per lei. Vivo per lei è unica. Io vivo per lei. Io vivo per lei. Io vivo per lei. I live for her, music. I live for her. I live for her, she is unique. I live for her. I live for her. I live for her. © 1995 Insieme Srl / Fozzio Srl / Sugarmusic Ed.  Musicali / PolyGram Italia Ed. Musicali Srl Listen to it in French with Helen Sagara                                  Listen to it in German with Judy Weiss Listen to it in Portuguese with Sandy Leah Lima                   Listen to it in Italian with Giorgia Listen to it in Spanish with Marta Sanchez   TELL US WHICH ONE YOU LIKE BEST!   Take the  SURVEY ____________________________ back to menu   back to home page OUR MUSIC BRINGS US MEMORIES LADEN WITH EMOTION All 6 in my family played the piano.  To hear piano is to return home. To stop the background music, click on the red "X" up on your toolbar. THE PIANO   ____________________________ DOES MUSIC HEAL? The wrong kind of music can harm us!   THE EXPERIMENT A college student set out to study the effects of music on learning.  He used rats, but since sound is sound, I think the "transfer" may be higher than usual to applications to humans. He wanted to see how music would effect their ability to remember how to run a maze.   He started with a baseline - the average maze-run for the rats was about 10 mins.   He then subjected one group to 10 hours of classical music a day, one group to 10 hours of hard rock a day, and the control group lived in the quiet and timed their maze-runs daily. THE RESULTS By the end of a month, The Classical group had cut the maze time down to about 1 min.  The Control group had cut it down to about 5 mins.  The hard rock group?  They were taking up to an hour ... "dazed and confused" is not so funny here. It should also be noted that this was his second try at the experiment.  The first go-round had to be canceled, because the rats subjected to hard rock, living in one cage, killed each other off.  So in the second experiment, he kept the rats doomed to listen to rap in separate cages.  THE TAKE HOME POINT What music is playing in your house right now, and who is listening to it?

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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE & MUSIC
Vivo Per Lei/I Live for Music

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MY GIFT FOR YOU ... VIVO PER LEI
Because I know you live for music!

 Warm Regards,  
Susan Dunn

"Music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all;
 But you are the music while the music lasts.”
                                      --T.S. Eliot

  MUSIC ... THE INTELLIGENT EMOTION

MUSIC .... VIVO PER LEI .... VIVO POR ELLA .... JE VIS POUR ELLE ....           
     ICH LEBE FÜR SIE .... VIVO POR ELLA 

                              .... I live for music ... MUSIC ...   

   Like Nietzsche, I wouldn’t want to live without it. 
   
    Like Rachmaninoff ...  
                ah, but let them speak for themselves.  

~~~ 

"Is it not strange that sheep’s guts
should hale souls out of men’s bodies?”

William Shakespeare  

~~~  

“If music be the food of love, play on.”
Shakespeare

  ~~~

“When music and courtesy are better
understood there will be no war.”  
Confucius

~~~ 

"I am not easily shocked now and I was not easily shocked then either.  But shocked I was -- to the very core.  That feeling of utter disbelief which gives way to profound joy rippled out, leaving paths of ever widening tingles in it wake.  I was left not daring to breathe in case I missed one millisecond of that joy.  The memory of that feeling still has the power to leave my mind suspended, held in a timeless place where nothing matters except that remembered sound -- the sound of the opening bars of Che Gelida Manina."  -Laurelle Donovan

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"Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together."
Anais Nin

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   “Music is an outburst of the Soul.”    ~ Frederick Delius  

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THE MOST TREMENDOUS GENIUS RAISED MOZART ABOVE ALL MASTERS, IN ALL CENTURIES, AND IN ALL THE ARTS.
Richard Wagner

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"O MOZART, immortal MOZART, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life have you left in our soul."  ~ Franz Schubert
"I find consolation and rest in MOZART's music, wherein he gives expression to that joy of life which was part of his sane and wholesome temperament." Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	MOZART IS SWEET SUNSHINE Dvorak				21 piano sonatas 27 piano concertos 41 symphonies 18 masses 13 operas 9 oratorios and cantata  2 ballets 40+ concertos for various instruments... this outstanding output includes hardly one work less than a masterpiece." George Snell, editor of Viva Mozart
Lengthy immersion in the works of other composers can tire.   The music of MOZART does not tire, and this is one of its mircales
"Whether the angels play only Bach in praising God I am not quite sure.   I am sure, however, that en famille they play MOZART." Karl Barth
MOZART encompasses the entire domain of musical creation,  but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head. ~ Frédéric Chopin
MOZART is the greatest composer of all.  BEETHOVEN created his music, but the music of MOZART is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it--that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed."  ~Albert Einstein
THERE ARE THREE THINGS I LOVE MOST:  THE SEA, HAMLET, AND DON GIOVANNI ~ Gabriel Fauré
A PHENOMENON LIKE MOZART REMAINS ...				AN INEXPLICABLE THING.   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In BACH, BEETHOVEN, and WAGNER we admire  principally the depth and energy of the human mind; in MOZART, the divine instinct. ~ Edvard Grieg
MOZART's joy is made of serenity, and a phrase of his music is like a calm thought; his simplicity is merely purity.  It is a crystalline thing in which all the emotions play a role, but as if already celestially transposed.  Moderation consists in feeling emotions as angels do. (Andre Gide)			Mozart began his works in childhood and a childlike quality lurked in his compositions...  Will & Ariel Durant
Click to hear  Theme & Variations "Ah vous dirai-je maman" We call it  Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star       Mozart as a young boy  ... twinkle, twinkle, little star! Now guess what the words are! Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman, Ce qui cause mon tournment? Papa veut que je raisonne, Comme une grande personne; Moi, je dis que les bonbons Valent mieux que la raison. Ah! Let me tell you, Mother, What's the cause of my torment? Papa wants me to reason Like a grown-up. Me, I say that candy has Greater value than reason.

MOZART has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; BEETHOVEN the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of MOZART seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of  Olympus, that of BEETHOVEN climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai.  Blessed be they both!  Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good.  Our love is due to both.  ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel

~~~

“[The listener] will weep, believing that 
he really suffers with one who can weep so well.”  
Hippolyte Barbedette, re: Chopin’s music 

~~~

Valentina Listista plays Chopin's Polonaise in A-flat major
Too fast?

"If Frederic heard that I believe you would have had yourself a new teacher.  Although I am guessing your performance,
like much of the Chopin interpretations I hear today are more of how Listz would have played them.  Heroic, meaning
proud, polish hero.  The marcato section was to much of a show off point for you slow it down and imagine soldiers
marching after winning a great battle. Incredible, Bryan Joseph Capen, D. C., Physician and Musician

 

 

and, says her special fan again re: her version of Horowitz' Variations on a Theme from Bizet's Carmen

Not only are you beutiful, you are truley blessed. Or quite possibly you may be possessed by a demon with the
way those hands move, just kidding. You are capable of anything at the instrument, and Horowitz in his finest
day could have never played that as flawlessly as you have. Just remember show off with Listz and Horowitz,
but always make music with Chopin.  I am in love, Bryan Jospeh Capen, Physician and Musician

~~~
 

“When I was lost in saving my soul, I heard Bach's music.  All forms of western arts were forbidden in China at that period of time. This included western classical music. However, one of my schoolmates managed to save a couple of records in the midst of a major demolishment and Bach's works were part of the collection. Hiding ourselves in a dark room, we played the music secretly in the rain. Before long, we indulged in the music silently. In tears, we stared at each other.  As long as human beings are still suffering from agony, classical music will arise from the dark to console our souls and re-inject confidence and hopes into our lives.”          ~ Producer of movie, “Together”

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“Music is the silence between the notes." +Debussey

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”  +Lao Tzu

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“Words make you think a thought. 
Music makes you feel a feeling. 
 a song makes you feel a thought.” 
E. Y. Harburg, librettist

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Librettists are those who write the words to operas who are so rarely recognized for their contributions.  Did you know that Wagner was the only opera composer who wrote the words to all of his operas, as well as the music.  All the others -- Puccini, Verdi, MOZART -- used librettists almost exclusively. 

~~~ 

"Music produces a kind of pleasure
which human nature cannot do without."
+Confucius

 ~~~

Support our Sponsors THANKS BE TO THE TEACHERS OF THE WORLD GO GET THE KNOWLEDGE The REPLAY STORE:  Of the difference between good an evil, or whatever else captures your fancy.  Check out REPLAY:  Knowledge you've always craved, deliciously peeled, cored, seeded, diced, sliced and served up to you by the greatest teachers in the US.  Gently listened to tapes and CDs you can finally afford from The Teaching Company.

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"Do not take up music unless you would rather die  than not do so."  Nadia Boulanger

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“Music is perpetual,  and only the hearing is intermittent.”
Henry David Thoreau

 ~~~

“Without music, life would be an error. “ 
The German imagines even God singing songs.”
+ Nietzsche

~~~

I despise a world
which does not feel
that MUSIC is a higher revelation
than all wisdom and philosophy."
Ludwig van Beethoven

Ever wonder what Beethoven's Last Night was like?
Check out the wav from Trans-Siberian .
(As Greenberg says in his Opera course like everything else, 
the amount and rate of change in music in this century are exponential.)

~~~

When Wagner heard Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 
he decided he wanted to be a composer.  
When he saw Beethoven's opera, "Fidelio," 
he decided he wanted to be an opera composer.

 ~~~

“The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts.  Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love GOOD MUSIC, good books, good pictures, good company, good  conversation, are the happiest people in the world.  And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.”                                                                       ~ William Phelps

Painting by Nancy Fenn TheIntrovertzCoach

Are you an introvert?   Intuitive? Check out the Introverts BLOG!

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“Without music, life would be a mistake ...
I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance."
Nietzsche

 

 ~~~

Nicholas Clapton, sopranista, singing "Liber Scriptus"
from Verdi's' REQUIEM

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"I adore art... when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears 
stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear."
Giuseppi Verdi

 

~~~

 

“For me, music is always the language which permits one to converse with the Beyond.” Shumann

 

  ~~~

 

 

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear
and grief, that does not find relief in music.”
George Eliot

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Ave Maria

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“Music and rhythm find their ways
into the secret places of the  soul.”
Plato

 ~~~

“Music is the vernacular of the human soul.”
Geoffrey Lathan

  ~~~   

“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. 
It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain:  Of strength and freedom. 
The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. 
The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.    
Benjamin Britten

~~~ 

I do not know how to make a distinction
between tears and music.
Nietzsche

 ~~~

Sergei Rachmaninov	“MUSIC IS ENOUGH FOR       A LIFETIME,                              BUT A LIFETIME IS NOT ENOUGH                       FOR                                      MUSIC.”
Rhapsody on a Theme from Pagannini...Concerto No. 2...	Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов
"A composer's music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion, the books which have influenced him, the pictures he loves...My music is the product of my temperament, and so it is Russian music."     -Rachmaninoff

HIS HANDS
It is believed his hands could stretch out in an interval of 12th or 13th (C-A) which makes his works inaccessible to those with small hands.  He supposedly had a span of 12".

~~~

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Berthold Auerbach

 ~~~

According to the American Music Therapy Association, music is used in hospitals to alleviate pain, elevate mood, counteract depression, calm or sedate, induce sleep, manage anxiety, lessen muscle tension, and relax the Autonomic Nervous System. 

To support your immune system, we recommend music, EQ, and Arbonne's GET WELL SOON DIETARY SUPPLEMENT,  a technologically-advanced combination of herbs and other ingredients scientifically proven to help nutritionally support the immune system.  

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LISTENING TO MUSIC MAKES THE IMMUNE SYSTEM STRONGER!

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast ..

Emotions such as grief, despair, rage, and chronic hostility take a toll on our immune system.
That's why it is not uncommon to suffer a serious illness a year after the death of a child, or why doctors have now been forced to diagnose a "broken heart" in the emergency room -- people who have suffered emotional shock or trauma and end up in the ER with symptoms mimicking a heart attack in an otherwise healthy heart.

 ~~~

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HOW IT BEGAN

1902, April:  Fred Gaisberg, talent scout for Gramophone Co. in London, heard Caruso sing at La Scala and asked him to record.  Wired back home that requested fee and was told, "Fee exorbitant, forbid you to record."  Good salesman that he was, he tore it up, and went ahead.  On April 11, in the Grand Hotel in Milan, Enrico Caruso recorded 10 songs for 100 £ ($10k in today' s money) and the rest, as they say, is history.   Gaisberg said Caruso's recordings "made the gramophone."

ENRICO CARUSO  (1873 - 1921) "...my throat, which I have sold to managers as Faust to Mephistopheles" Caruso is said to have "made" the gramophone (records).  He was the most popular recording artist in the US for the first two decades of the 20th century.

Caruso in Forza del Destino According to Dr. William Lloyd, his London throat specialist: Caruso's vocal tube (distance from front teeth to vocal chords) was 1/2" longer than of any other tenor's he'd seen His vocal chords were at least 1/8th " longer Tremendous lung capacity; he could sustain a note for 40 secs.+ In deep breathing, he could expand his chest and push a piano a couple of inches along a carpet with it.

 

Listen to Caruso sing Vesti la Guibba   Ave Maria  O Sole Mio    Bella Figlia dell'Amore   Celeste Aida   Un Bel Di
Go here for extensive selection of his recordings: BRAVO! CARUSO

  Aldo Mancuso, who has turned his house into a museum/shrine to Caruso,  says when he was a boy, he would listen to recordings of Caruso. 
"I often wondered why my father would sit there and cry," he recalls.    "Later, we had many crying sessions." 

FACTS ABOUT CARUSO

•  He delivered 861 performances; only Placido Domingo has sung more Met opening nights than Caruso, by just one, a total of 18

• His great love was Ada Giachetti,.  He never married her, but she bore him  4 children, 2 of whom died young.  They lived together for 10 years.  She walked out after a fight -- either he had an affair w/ her sister, she w/ someone else, or both. 

• His 1910 recording of Core 'nGrato ("ungrateful heart") is said to be "for her."

• We have his love notes -- one from Moscow announcing his return home.  In Italian:  "I'm coming to kiss you!"

• Did not marry again until 1919 - Dorothy Benjamin.

• A staple in his life -- strong Egyptian cigarettes he smoked through an elegant, tortoise-shell holder.  His contracts included he be allowed to smoke when he performed.  He claimed smoking was what made his voice what it was, adding to the rich texture.

• He broke a blood vessel in his throat while singing in 1920.  The performance was stopped and he only sang 3 more times after that, at the Met.

• He died shortly thereafter, at 48, from pleurisy he contracted after a piece of an opera set fell on him.  He collapsed after his last performance of Jacques Halevy's La Juive.

• Late in life he said, "I'm not a man at all.  I'm just a money-making machine.  It's not that they value me, Caruso, but only because of my throat which I have sold to managers as Faust sold to Mephistopheles."

• Other singers were unanimous in saying he was the perfect colleague.  Never tried to hog the limelight. Probably worked harder at singing than anyone else.

• Made Ada retire from her career as a soprano, saying, "In this household, I do all the singing."

• He attributed his success to:  "A big chest, a big mouth, 90% memory, 10% intelligence, lots of hard work, and something in the heart."

• He was known to be a warm, friendly man who was generous to his family and friends. 

 

When thou commandest me to sing 
it seems that my heart would break with pride; 
and look to thy face, and tears come to my eyes.
All that is harsh and dissonant in my life 
melts into one sweet harmony - - 
and my adoration spreads wings 
like a glad bird on its flight across the sea.

I know thou takest pleasure in my singing.  
I know that only as a singer I come before thy presence.  
I touch by the edge of the far-spreading wing of my song
thy feet with I could never aspire to reach.
Drunk with the joy of singing I forget myself
and call thee friend who art my lord.

Geetanjali - Rabindranath Tagore

~~~

THE VIRTUOSO:  “For the virtuoso, musical works are in fact nothing
but tragic and moving materializations of his emotions: 
he is called upon to make them speak, weep, sing, and sigh,
to re-create them in accordance with his own consciousness. 
In this way, like the composer, he is a creator, for he must have within
himself those passions that he wishes to bring so intensely to life.”   

Franz Liszt  

~~~

"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music."  -Clemenceau

THE POLONAISE 

"I love ALL music but the only one I'd want on my deathbed would be Chopin.  There's something about his music that is pure emotion -- though often suppressed emotion.  Vivaldi, MOZART etc. -- yes, bring in the crowds.  Great tunes.  But when I listen to  Chopin's studies I can hear his longing for a Poland free of Russian oppressors and his frustration."    ~Steve, a blog-guy

Frédéric Chopin 
His soul was Polish but his refinement was definitely French.
"Chopin gives you “whiffs” of emotion in his usually delicate piano music that are as polished and multifaceted as the diamond in an engagement ring. ..You are never bludgeoned.  Chopin is to the piano what Beethoven is to the orchestra.  His approach to the keyboard was fastidious and delicate; no fortissimos for Chopin."  
Source: www.naxos.com and worth joining (free) to hear
Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp Minor

Polonaise: http://classicalpiano.com/music/chopin/op40n01.mid
Minute Waltz: http://classicalpiano.com/music/chopin/minute.mid
Sonata, Largo:  http://www.classicalpiano.com/music/chopin/largo.mp3

Chopin was like his music, dreamy and melancholic ... 
The Polish characteristic is to lend oneself, but never to give oneself away, 
and "Chopin was more polish than Poland itself."

"Chopin has written two wonderful mazurkas (opus 50) which are worth more than forty novels and are more eloquent than the entire century's literature."
George Sand, his lover

 ~~~

"What would I do without Chopin.  Except for Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.  It's from that part of the world where the Western soul is."  Nancy Fenn, TheIntrovertzCoach.

~~~

"Music was invented to confirm human loneliness."
Lawrence Durrell

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“Massenet feels it as a Frenchman, with powder and minuets.
I shall feel it as an Italian, with desperate passion.”
-- Puccini (Madame Butterfly, Don Giovanni) 

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“His is the art of translating, by subtle gradations, all that is excessive, immense, ambitious in spiritual and natural mankind. On listening to this ardent and despotic music one feels at times as though one discovered again, painted in the depths of a gathering darkness torn asunder by dreams, the dizzy imaginations induced by opium.”

-- Charles Baudelaire re: Richard Wagner
et Tannhäuser à Paris 

~~~

Jessye Norman - Wesendonck lieder I, Der Engel, Barenboim conducting
Absolutely breathtaking

 

 

From Abraham, a Jewish money-lender.  A letter his family has preserved.

"I have given him [Wagner] a lot of money.  He hardly said thank you.  I told him I couldn't help being a Jew and he called me Shylock.  You see, my friend, the world is full of people who borrow and don't repay; who steal other men's wives, daughters and sweethearts.  But only one of them wrote Tristan und Isolde ... I only hope my children and their children will not listen to when old age might make me bitter,  but will listen to his music."

The Ride of the Valkyries

Verdi on Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde:  "I could never quite grasp the fact that it was created by a mere human being."   Tristan und Isolde is considered the most perfect romantic opera of all time.  Leibestod means "Love-Death."  Listen to it here.  Read the story and critique here.  Remember that Wagner was the ONLY composer who wrote his own lyrics and music.

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Incredible piece of history we have for you here.  Wagner's Die Meistersinger Prelude & Act III Finale. Karl Böhm, conductor.  Wilhelm Rode as Hans Sachs.  Deutsches Opernhaus 1935.  Shows Goebbels asking for a ''Sieg Heil".  Which in no way reflects on Wagner, since he just had the bad luck of being Hitler's favorite composer.  As he was many people's favorite composer.  Hitler and Wagner never lived one year together on this earth.  This infinitely complex subject isn ever to be excused and will not be unraveled here.  Sensation-seekers, too, will be disappointed, because, as Destrich writes, "Left to speak for themselves, most of these fragments communicate little but musical eloquence."  Watch to the end.  Wagner is so disturbing.  BTW, this is a tribute to Albrecht Dürer.

 

 

"Music can never, regardless of what it is combined with, 
cease being the highest, the redemptive art."  
Richard Wagner

Nillson as Brunhilde

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"Wagner is the first composer to have inspired me, and he still does.  At the age of thirteen I declared that he was my favourite composer.  I conducted The Mastersingers overture in my front room many times!"  (Sample here)
Dr. David C. F. Wright    Read his bio of Wagner

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Air Cav raid from Apocalypse Now. Impact is from the music, Wagner's DieValkyrie.

 

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"My music is so often a lullaby I write to myself to make sense of things I can't tie together, or things I've lost, or things I'll never have."      Stephan Jenkins

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"Music -- the most abstract and sublime of all the arts -- is capable of transmitting an unbelievable amount of expressive, historical, and even philosophical information to us, provided that our antennas are up and pointed in the right direction.  A little education goes a long way to vitalizing and rendering relevant a body of music that many feel is beyond their grasp."   -- Dr. Robert Greenberg, (Order one of his Teaching Company courses here) 

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TEN 15 BREAKIN’ UP SONGS

Piscatore 'E Pussileco, Andrea Bocelli Hymne a L'Amour, Edith Piaf _______________________ your call (please take survey*) The Best I Know How, The Statler Brothers Con Te Partiro (Time to Say Goodbye), Andrea Bocelli with Sarah Brightman Core 'NGrato (Ungrateful Heart/Catari), Andrea Bocelli I Fall to Pieces, Patsy Cline Only Love Can Break a Heart, Gene Pitney And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, John McDermott The Big Hurt, Toni Fisher Always on My Mind, Willie Nelson, Elvis Killing Me Softly, Roberta Flack You've Lost That Loving Feeling, The Righteous Brothers Crying, Roy Orbison Red, Red Wine, UB40 Till I Can Make It on My Own, Tammy Wynette Springtime in Alberta/Irving Berlin is 100 Years Old Today, Ian Tyson

* Breaking up is so painful.  We work with many coaching clients struggling with break up or loss of love.  On TheCloser, we help people whose partners have cheated on them, had affairs, or walked away.  We'd like to hear about your experiences, what your favorite breakin' up song is, a time when you broke up, who did it and how, how long you were apart, if you would take them back, how you healed and what helped.  Please take the Breakin' Up Survey.
Click here to take survey

To take other surveys and share your wisdom, go HERE.

RESULTS OF BREAKIN' UP/LOST LOVE SURVEY SO FAR:

1.  Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Simon and Garfunkel (Editor: I don't think there's such an animal!)

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WANT TO KNOW MORE? LEARN FROM THE BEST VISIT OUR DISCOUNT LEARNING STORE "Music, like any pseudo-science, requires an adjectival palette by which we can isolate events that without proper terms we might not ever be able to notice. It's an interesting question to what degree language allows us to perceive things that are not language-associated.  I'm a strong believer that if you've got the right word to identify something, you can perceive it."    ++ Dr. Robert Greenberg, San Francisco Conservatory, one of your teachers (order one of Teaching Company courses HERE

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Franz Liszt, considered the most flamboyant pianist ever, 
and by some the greatest, was also the first to have a concert alone 
without an orchestra to allow the pianist to rest.  

Well, looking at this painting, it's hard to imagine that Liszt was like a rock super star in his day, considered to be gorgeously handsome and charismatic.  Quite the ladies' man.  In fact his father's last words to him were said to be:  "I fear for you and the women."  And this was when Liszt was 16 years old!

“My piano is to me what a ship is to the sailor, what a steed is to the Arab. It is the intimate personal depository of everything that stirred wildly in my brain during the most impassioned days of my youth. It was there that all my wishes, all my dreams, all my joys, and all my sorrows lay.”    -- Liszt

Continually wavering between the women and priesthood,  it is said that when he confessed his (many) (chronic) sins to the Pope, the Pope reportedly replied:  "Basta Liszt!   Go tell your sins to your piano."  ("Basta" means "That's enough!")

We recommend:  Liszt's Concerto #1 in E-Flat Major  
La Campanella, Etude in G# Minor

Personally, I love La Campanella.  Here's a video of Yundi Li playing it.  Enjoy!
To stop the background music, click on the red "X" up on your toolbar.

 

 

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My Teacher

Stefan Blondal, Lioness of the Piano			Piano Me by Susan Dunn September 2001

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Miss Vashti with hair the color of a bleached elephant’s tusk piled       above her stern and bony cheeks Piled books on the piano bench Put me on them and pulled me forward,           my feet left dangling precariously Ran her sharp and crooked finger down my spine And placed my 6-year-old index finger on one ivory key – [How can you feel your Soul through plastic? Surely if there is to be piano, if there is to be Soul, there must be ivory, And the cost of the Soul of the elephant must be accounted for elsewhere]. I stared at the child wandering the keyboard in print Who was being cautioned, in picture, to avoid the "Forest of Failure" The piano books then, even the piano books, spoke of character – And the "Bog of Sloth" terrified me then as it terrifies me now. My finger reached for the black thing as I swung my feet beneath me, And she fiercely moved my finger back to the ivory And firmly silenced my ankle with her clawed hand; I feared the "Nothingness of Not Knowing", The "Agony of Abandonment", And the "Wrath of Wrongful Behavior", And wondered why there was no one to tell me why I had been left there Captured by a witch, A piece of paper in front of me, A book beneath me, My fingers, my feet, my back no longer my own. And so, with my finger placed upon what I was told was “Middle C’ It began – The endless years of boring, demanding iron-disciplined scales That would one day Miraculously become Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No 1” which is my Philosophy of Life, (“Music,” said Beethoven, “is a higher revelation than philosophy”). and Chopin’s “Polonaise,” which is my Soul. Through the years I played my Soul – If we are feelings, I knew me only through my fingers; I became the music I played, and often it was heard. Nana beat me, yes, And destroyed my mother, yes, But she would ask me to play for her – The one thing that was never a command For in her German soul she knew one could not command the Soul of another So deeply she knew this, her asking was almost a plea; And she would sit quietly, all mine, Her eyes closed, Her hands clasped in rapture, And I knew what it was to captivate someone completely And please them deeply The <I> that was the music that played me. But as time passed, I found myself among those even Chopin could not please And to whom the Soul of an elephant was more important than the Soul of me, Which must be accounted for elsewhere, yes,       by the Accounter of all Souls, But the Soul of me was more important than the Soul of an elephant       to me And those who value the Soul of an elephant more should surely live            with an elephant Not me; So I and the music that played me became estranged, And we were no longer the same thing. Confused, I began to play the piano Instead of to play music, And the music that had always played me Left the piano that I played A piano with white plastic keys – The elephant had been saved But not me – "Susan," said Chopin. "Susan, play me. Play me though your house burns. Let it burn to the ground but play my Polonaise, my Polish Polonaise, my Polonaise to Poland . . . Poland beyond the Moon " This is a true story. Susan played Chopin's Polonaisethough it was her Soul that burned. And this was indeed how she came to know herself through her fingers…     (Art by TheIntrovertzCoach Nancy Fenn.  Nancy designs websites.  Mailto:parklanenancy@hotmail.com.  )

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IT HAS TO START SOMEWHERE!
Little Gianni at the Keyboard
5 years old
To stop the background music, click on the red "X" up on your toolbar.

   

Ah, but the violin!  I play the piano, and am partial to it.  However, at our symphony's Pops Christmas Concert, they had The Battle of the Instruments.  The instruments took turns playing the same piece.  We listened, then it was time to vote and they had each group play again.  It was unquestionably the violins.  The audience even stood to clap.
The sweet, sweet, violins.  
Listen here: http://www.yvettedefrance.com/LIVRE/conversation2.wav

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BACH inventions	"Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how  our brains work.  We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to the human mind."   +Lewis Thomas, American physician and writer
We recommend:   Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for Orchestra	If you took piano lessons, were you assigned the Inventions for "technique"?

 

"I really can't think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that--its humanity.  I would tire of a repetition of lush Tchaikovsky melodies* day in and day out." Glenn Gould on Johann Sebastian Bach WHAT SAY YOU?  Is it Bach or Tchaikovsky?  Or MOZART?  Or Rachmaninoff?  TAKE THE SURVEY. *Here is a lush Tchaikovsky melody:   The Seasons, Opus 37a, December - Christmas The classical music sequence is used by permission from the Classical Piano Midi Page  ©Bernd Krueger

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CHOPIN IS OFTEN CALLED THE POET OF THE PIANO

“[Chopin’s] unique ability to move the listener in such a direct, personal and succinct manner.  SUCCINCT:  Chopin minced few words when he wanted to tell you what he was thinking .  Some of his shortest Preludes are the most complete and perfect expressions of musical thought to be found.  PERSONAL:  no composer before him exposed his most inner self so nakedly.  He literally tore himself open and showed you what was inside of him, no matter how painful, whimsical, lonely, confused, frightening.  DIRECT:  [These two qualities combine to have a powerful and direct effect on the listener.  The emotion or thought in the music is not parenthetical to or an aspect of the piece, but is the whole of the piece – simple or even complex emotions expressed in musical terms. ..

 

 

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"Music is love in search of a word."
+Sidonie Gabrielle

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Catarí, Catarí…Catarí, Catarí…Catarí, Catarí…Catarí, Catari
Core, core 'ngrato, t'aie pigliato 'a vita mia, tutt'è passato e nun'nce pienze chiù.	"When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had,  and never will have." +Edgar Watson Howe    Core N'Grato Andrea Bocelli

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Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.

Oscar Wilde

 

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"When the Feeling's Gone: A Selective Loss of Musical Emotion"

by Griffiths, Warren, Dean and Howard

Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2004;75:344-345  

"Here we describe loss of the feeling or emotion produced by music itself. Musical emotion can be considered at a number of levels. At the most fundamental level, dissonance produces a perception that is unpleasant to most listeners.  More variable is the intense pleasure that certain music may evoke in particular listeners, often described as a "shiver down the spine" or "chills",  which is likely to represent a more complex aesthetic response. We describe a patient with selective loss of this emotional response to music, due to a focal brain lesion.   

A 52 year old ... radio announcer collapsed ... and was found afterwards to have a total loss of speech comprehension and output ... His speech recovered well ... motor functions recovered completely  ... However, he reported a persistent alteration in his auditory experience. He was in the habit of listening to classical music, to relax after working his night shift at the radio station, and had derived particular pleasure from listening to Rachmaninov preludes. He experienced an intense, altered emotional state or "transformation" when he did this In common with other subjects who have this experience, the transformation was only produced by particular pieces, and he did not describe such an experience in response to music other than Rachmaninov’s, nor to other sensory experiences.”

 

 

 "The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection-even
though nothing more than the pounding of an old piano -- is
what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star."
                                                --Logan Pearsall Smith

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"I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument 
while the song I came to sing remains unsung."

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Rostopovich

Cello & Tango? Take a deep breath - Astor Piazzolla's Libertango with Yo Yo Ma on the cello.
 

 
 

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I LOVE TO COACH!  I HELP PEOPLE QUIT STRINGING AND UNSTRINGING THEIR INSTRUMENTS & GET TO PLAYING THEM!.   It's been so long.  I'm beginning to focus more and really, really enjoy reading the EQ course.  I was really able to grasp the resilience thing. That's where I realized - this thing is good, this EQ.  I'm saying to myself where was I all the time?  How come I've now found me?  I think it was when you told me that thing about anger.  Now I think,  What have I lost on the stretch to get to this point?  Can I recapture it?   I know it's good to feel alive again."  -- P.W., Florida

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SOME OF MY FAVORITES
If you have better midis of these, please send me them!  EMAIL.

Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma, Puccini's "Turandot"
Chopin, Grand Valse Brilliante*
Rachmaninoff's 14 Songs Vocalise
Schumann, Abegg Variations, Opus I*
Nicholas Clapton, Liber Scriptus, from Verdi's Requiem
Schubert's March Militaire( Schubert died at the age of 31!)
Schubert Duet
Tchaikovsky, Sugar Plum Fairy from Nutcracker Suite
Chopin's Polonaise Op. 53
Chopin, Mazurka
Chopin, Winter Wind Prelude
Wagner, Tannhauser Overture
Debussy, Claire de Lune
Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1
Tchaikovsky, Sleeping Beauty Waltz
Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Andrew Lloyd Weber, Phantom of the Opera
Verdi's Va' Pensiero from Nabucco
Hungarian (name this piece)
Handel (name this piece)
Carmina Burana
Rossini, Largo al Factotum
John Philip Sousa, Washington Post
Shubert's, Ave Maria
Conversation (tell me what song this is if you recognize it)

 

*The music sequence is used by permission from the Classical Piano Midi Page http://www.piano-midi.de, Copyright by Bernd Krueger

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MUSIC & DEPRESSION (by Sintilia Miercovole)

What is music? All sounds are comprised of sound waves. What distinguishes music from other sound waves is the manner in which the sound waves vibrate and decrease from loud to soft.  Dropping a metal pan on the floor presents jarring, erratic vibrations. Striking a note on a piano chord presents a softer more uniform and smooth transition from loud to soft.  Obviously, a musical note is going to be much more pleasant to the ear. 
 
There's an old adage about how "music sooths the savage beast."  [NB -- it's savage breastI]  Not only is this true, it is actually an understatement. Music plays such a profound part of our lives, that we will barely scratch the surface here, but let's give it an overview. 
 
All of us grew up with certain songs or instrumentals that strike a chord that reverberates through our entire being. For example, when I hear "A Summer Place," it immediately carries me back to summer months in the fifties. The experience is so profound that I can remember the feel of the sun on my face, the smell of hot dogs cooked over an open fire and the laughter of friends and family. 
 
There is a theory that certain notes or chords resonate with a vibration that is particularly harmonious to specific people. Have you ever heard a song that gave you "goose bumps?" If so, then you give validation to this theory. When this occurs, the music has a profound affect on the subconscious. Add intense emotion to the equation and you have one powerful, indelible, blueprint on your subconscious that will follow you the rest of your life. 
 
For example, let's say that you receive news of the death of a loved one while a specific piece of music is playing on the radio. That particular music may have a lasting impression. Years later, for no apparent reason, you may find yourself
immediately thrown into a state of depression upon hearing that same tune. The same can be true of "positive" feelings as described in the story above. 
 
The subliminal effect of music is a proven fact. How often do you find yourself humming a fragment of a tune that you can't identify only to discover that it's a new "commercial" message you heard on your television. The advertising industry pays huge amounts of money to conduct research into why and how music works on the subconscious mind. This is also the reason why you see the recent trend by large companies to reconstitute classics originally performed by some of the greats of stage and screen. 
 
Just for fun, the next time you find yourself humming a tune, try and remember when, where and under what circumstances you heard it for the very first time. The exercise will probably help you to better understand how past events have shaped your musical preferences. And, I'll wager that the next time you hear "A Summer Place," you will remember reading this article.
 
Happy Listening!

Required Byline (not a recommendation):  About The Author: If you are mad, worried or unhappy it may be depression. Visit http://www.depressiongla.com with host, Sintilia Miecevole and get the facts on how to live with this condition and how to manage it. Be sure to visit http://www.depressiongla.com. 

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Don't you love the works of Temistocle Solear, Antonio Ghislanzoni, Henri Meilhac, Jules Barbier, Michael Carre, Guiseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica, Renato Semoni, and Nicola Haym ?  

These men are librettists.  They wrote the words, without which you would be listening to a symphony, not an opera.  And we never hear their names!

They’re called “librettists” because the words to the songs, which basically comprise the script of the opera, is called a “libretto.”  It’s Italian for little book. 

Like Gilbert and Sullivan, the pairs worked together.  The inimitable Richard Wagner was the only one to compose all his operas entirely by himself, creating both music and lyrics, which may account for why they are so powerful, so “Wagnerian.”   This is quite a feat because composing music and writing words require different parts of the brain.  

Most music scholars will stress that the opera is the music; that the music must, and does, over-ride the lyrics, but ... it wouldn't be an OPERA without the LYRICS.  

Did you know that first the story was decided upon (and few were original), and then the librettists submitted the lyrics to the composer.  Sometimes in opera the music goes with what the singer is singing, and sometimes against it, i.e., the tenor may be saying he will win, but the music tells you he won't; or the soprano may be singing that she loves him, but the music tells you she isn't sure.      

Sometimes the composer and librettist met in person, while other times the work was done by correspondence.  Strauss worked exclusively with one librettist, after writing his own lyrics for his first opera and finding out he wasn’t good at it, but most other composers switched around, finding the right librettist for the job, or one who was available.  It’s not unlike the way a lot of us work these days – long distance and by contract.   

From Puccini's point of view, of course, it was the librettists who were difficult.  We can read his letters begging them to do their work.  He wrote frantically to Semoni, in charge of Act III, “The third!  The third!  The third!” 

At one point, he confessed to a friend “Music disgusts me…”, as he evidently had periods of self-doubt and composer’s block.  Toscanini paid him a visit and gave him the encouragement to keep going.    

Puccini was justified in urging completion of the opera as he died before the team had completed the third act.  The collaboration continued on, as Toscanini found a composer named Franco Alfano  to complete it, and the world premier took place on April 25^th, 1926 of one of the world's most beloved operas, a join effort by many, with one guiding genius.   

What we don’t see at an opera is the orchestra, perhaps the most important element of all.  They’re listed in the program, of course, and given their bows at the curtain calls, but we only hear them, seated down below in the orchestra pit as they are.   

Score from In Questa Reggia, Turandot

THE TEACHERS
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"His talent was confirmed and a teacher was found..."

So begins the story of Thomas Quasthoff, bass-baritone, and any other sports figure, artist, or musician.  It all begins with middle C, with the lessons.  We pause here to praise those who 'only stand and serve.'  Without them where would  we be?  Teachers and coaches are not teaching because they can't "do," they are doing so that others have the chance to fulfill their potential, so that others can do.      

Whenever I hear someone say "Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach," I pity them.  They must never have had a great teacher to understand the role great teachers play in our lives.    

It's a special gift, almost a calling.  It is not the teacher's job, you see, to "teach something," it is to light a fire.  There are those who put the shoe on the other foot and feel that those who are "doing things" are acting out the vision and intellect supplied by the thinkers and teachers.  

Teachers are in charge of the emotional aspects of the art or skill.  Their presence alone reassures the budding artist.  They appear on the scene like Apollo in his chariot of light!  The lessons are all skills and techniques, but they are also about emotional management, and about passion.   Read the statements of any genius, and you will hear of the work.       

It is also true that you don't really know something until you teach it, so our teachers work at the meta-level.      

In other times, a person named and honored his teacher (remember it was years before women were allowed to be taught -- if that doesn't tell you what a privilege it is, nothing will!)  Farinelli's real name, for instance, was Carlo Broschi, but he became the protege of the Farina Brothers, and thus took the name "Farinelli" as was the custom.  As noted above, the castrati were extraordinary singers, nothing less of course would do for the Pope's Sistine choir.  Many were trained by a teacher named Porpora, considered by some to be the greatest teacher who ever lived.  Aristotle would disagree!  

TELL US ABOUT YOUR TEACHERS!  
EMAIL ME and I'll post it.     

This is a photo of me and my sister, Nancy, at age 5.  At age 6 We were finally "allowed" to start piano lessons with Miss Vashti.  The poem Piano Me is about the experience.  Miss Vashti had also taught my mother piano.  She lived in an old Victorian mansion, such a house it was ultimately lifted by helicopter and carried 600 miles to Houston, TX, having been bought by the owner of a professional football team.  Just entering the house was a trip.  How well I remember when Miss Vashti  took my index finger and placed it on Middle C .  My mother and father both played the piano, and all 4 of us children were given lessons until we graduated from high school.  My last teacher was Mrs. Lightner.  She gave in and let me play only my beloved Chopin.  My sister and I played many two-piano pieces as well.

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Maestro "[Bocelli] had soul..."

Luciano Pavarotti & Andrea Bocelli A teacher promotes the student, often from his or her own largesse.  Andrea Bocelli got his big break thanks to Pavarotti.  According to Bocelli's website, Italian legend Zucchero held auditions for tenors to make a demo tape of the duet Miserere, in an attempt to persuade Pavarotti to record the song with him.  Zucchero recalled: "Andrea was just unbelievable! He had something not one of the other tenors possessed. He had soul."  When Pavarotti received the demo, he said, "Zucchero!  Who is this guy?  Thank you for writing such a wonderful song. Yet you do not need me to sing it - Let Andrea sing Miserere with you, for there is no one finer."  Though not Bocelli's teacher, Pavarotti was gracious enough to recognize talent.  He went on to record Miserere w/ Zucchero and it was a pan-European hit.   When Zucchero decided to go on tour w/ the song, he invited Bocelli to perform with him ... and the rest is history.   _______________________________________

BEETHOVEN'S TEACHER - Haydn Letter from Beethoven's powerful friend, Count Ferdinand Waldstein: Dear Beethoven:  You are going to Vienna in fulfillment of your long-frustrated wishes.  The Genius of Mozart is still mourning and weeping over the death of her pupil.  She found a refuge but no occupation with the inexhaustible Haydn; through him she wishes once more to form a union with another.  With the help of assiduous labour you shall receive Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hands.  Your true friend, Waldstein   Haydn referred to Beethoven as "my dear pupil," and said, "I shall be proud to call myself his teacher."   Beethoven studied with Haydn for about a year in Vienna, but it was a poor match of personalities.  Haydn, who liked that he was called "Papa" Haydn, and had no children, found the relationship with Beethoven unsatisfying in that respect (read about Beethoven's father above.)       _____________________________________________ On readers contribution.  John with his former teacher, Shireen. This is Gianni with his teacher, Shireen.  They were recently reunited after 40 years.                   Gianni remembers when his Teacher placed his finger on Middle C.   John tells the story of his teachers . . . My love for the Russian romantics, particularly Sergei Rachmaninoff's soul-stirring music, had its roots even farther back.  Shireen taught me from the moment she placed my 7-year-old finger on middle C up until I was 17, and then her husband, Dr. Harold Schlagel, taught me from 17 to 26 years old. Harold had a strict disciplinarian philosophy of teaching piano and in my teens I thought he was a harsh grouch who never smiled.  I learned the truth of this passion of mine, and of this wonderful dedicated teacher I was fortunate enough to have, when I met Shireen on a visit to Florida in 2004. Harold had himself trained at Leipzig Music Conservatory in Germany as a young boy, and his professor was taught by a composer/pianist named Franz Liszt.  When Hal came to the US and trained at Julliard in New York, Hal, my piano teacher, was taught by none other than Sergei Rachmaninoff, who was living on Long Island, NY, teaching at Julliard, and concert-touring the USA, during the 1940s. No wonder Hal grew impatient with this teenager who would rather play tennis than practice the piano, seldom had a good lesson, and exasperated both him and Shireen.  (That may be why Hal never smiled.)   Hal died of the ravages of Alzheimer's at the age of 92, in his wheelchair, in Sarasota  Shireen took care of him, with complete devotion and sacrifice, until the end.  Of great medical fascination is the fact that, although Hal could not even care for, eat or dress himself, or recognize his wife and old friends, he was still able to play the piano, and quite well, up until his last breath, including the demanding music of his old teacher, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and his teacher's teacher, Franz Liszt. "Vivo per lei."  It does do it for me.                                                                                                      JJA _______________________________________ Here is where your story about your teacher will go ... EMAIL it to me for inclusion.

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THE ARTIST AS WOUNDED HEALER
The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away

HOW ARE COMPOSERS AND ARTISTS able to convey the emotions we can hardly name?  Our yearnings, our sorrow, our angst ... our suffering.  Here are some life stories.  Sometimes you can see it in their eyes.  

"The great geniuses suffer and must suffer, but they need not complain; they have known intoxication unknown to the rest of men and, if they have wept tears of sadness, they have poured tears of ineffable joy.  That in itself is a heaven for which one never pays what it is worth."  ~Charles Gounod

The most obvious exception to this rule, if a rule it is, is MOZART.  How could MOZART  not have suffered?  He was used, from about the age of 5, by his father, to make money.  At one point when he became ill, his father expressed concern over loss of income, not MOZART.  

How could he not?  It isn't what happens to you, it's how we take it.  He seemed impervious to situations that might have disturbed a less resilient child  MOZART must have processed emotions like an angel ... all sweetness and light.  
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VERDI -- Italy's own. Verdi's two children by his first marriage died in infancy in quick succession, and his wife not two months later.  28 years old, devastated, penniless and living in a garret consumed with despair, he met Merelli one night on a walk, who convinced him to do the opera "Nabucco."  The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (Va' Pensiero in Nabbuco,) the lament of the captives in Babylonia, was so popular it was proposed for the Italian national anthem, and sung in the streets of Milan, which was at the time under Austrian occupation. Click HERE to hear Va' Pensiero. It's lyrics ... where the sweet airs of our native soil smell soft and mild! ... Oh, my country, so lovely and lost!  Oh remembrance so dear yet unhappy!  You can list to it here.  The resurgence at the end is so typical of an indefinable energy we find in Verdi's work.  Resilience, perhaps? This opera coincided with Risorgimiento, the Italian reunification campaign, whose cry was "Viva VERDI," a secret acronym for Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy.) Guiseppina Strepponi When Verdi was finally married to his long-term lover Strepponi, a soprano, well off, well know, and in love, he wrote what's considered his grandest opera, Rigoletto.  It was one of many operas he wrote with the theme of parent and child.  Bella Figlia dell'Amore is one of the most beautiful songs you will ever hear.  Verdi lost his own two children.  Strepponi was known to have abandoned or aborted several babies, and continued to do so with Verdi.  At least one female infant was left off at an orphanage. Verdi's state funeral - - He was truly a national hero and his operas were sung on the streets.  Toscanini directed the La Scala chorus, whose voices were joined by the tens of thousands who attended, in Va'Pensiero.  HEAR IT HERE.

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	Have your listened to the melody in "The Unfinished Symphony"?  Schubert said: "My music is the product of my talent and my misery.  And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best."
Schubert, The King of Melody? He spoke of the power of Beethoven's music and "my own little melodies."	Schubert at the Piano
Herman Prey sings Erlkonig
THE LYRICS Erlkönig Erlking von J.W. Goethe Translation by Hyde Flippo Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? Who rides so late through the night and wind? Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind; It's the father with his child; Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm, He has the boy safe in his arm, Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm. He holds him secure, he holds him warm.     «Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?» – “My son, what makes you hide your face in fear?” – Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht? Father, don't you see the Erlking? Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif? – The Erlking with crown and flowing robe? – «Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.» – “My son, it's a wisp of fog.” –     «Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir! “You dear child, come along with me! Gar schöne Spiele spiel' ich mit dir; Such lovely games I'll play with you; Manch bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand, Many colorful flowers are at the shore, Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.» My mother has many a golden garment.”     Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht, My father, my father, and do you not hear Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht? – What the Erlking promises me so softly? – «Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind; “Be quiet, stay quiet, my child; In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.» – In the dry leaves the wind is rustling.” –     «Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn? “Won't you come along with me, my fine boy? Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön; My daughters shall attend to you so nicely. Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn, My daughters do their nightly dance, Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.» And they'll rock you and dance you and sing you to sleep.”     Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort My father, my father, and do you not see over there Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort? – Erlking's daughters in that dark place? – «Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau: “My son, my son, I see it most definitely: Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau.» It's the willow trees looking so grey.”     «Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt; “I love you; I'm charmed by your beautiful form; Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.» And if you're not willing, then I'll use force.” Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an! My father, my father, now he's grabbing hold of me! Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan! – Erlking has done me harm! –     Dem Vater grausets, er reitet geschwind, The father shudders, he rides swiftly, Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind, He holds in (his) arms the moaning child. Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not; He reaches the farmhouse with effort and urgency. In seinen Armen das Kind war tot. In his arms the child was dead.

The incredible Haydn attributed his composing to his joy!  "I write according to the thoughts I feel.  When I think upon my God, my heart is so full of joy that notes dance and leap from my pen; and since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned me that I serve Him with a cheerful spirit."  (Frank Joseph Haydn)
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One of the greatest bass-baritone voices around today,  he underwent innumerable operations as an infant, and was consigned to a school for cerebral palsy sufferers.  Finally his father, a frustrated singer, took him to an audition when he was 10 years old.  His talent was confirmed and a teacher was found.   Later he was rejected by the music academy because ... he couldn't play the piano.!   The rest, as they say, is history, for this man of indomitable spirit.  
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PUCCINI Puccini suffered periods of great doubt and frustration.  At 31, it seemed his career was going nowehre.  After the failure of his first opera, he was unable to write at all for a while.  Finally he visited a therapist who taught him the "self-talk" we refer to in Emotional Intelligence. Eventually he forged ahead again. At one point during the writing of Turandot he wrote to a friend, "Music disgusts me ..." and this was at the age of 61, shortly before his death. At this time, Toscanini paid him a visit and gave him the encouragement to keep going. Puccini said Madame Butterfly  was his favorite work. Check out this site for information on Puccini and lots of sound clips.

Many people's favorite opera is Turandot , and to just as many, Nessun Dorma is the test of a tenor.    Below is Puccini's study in Torre del Lago.  He was a perfectionist, as you can see from this beautiful place where he wrote.  He was known for being hands-on and very demanding.  He told one soprano diva if he called her at 3 am and wanted to hear her high C, she must do it.  She said he made her the success he was. He never strayed far from his beloved Tuscany and musical Italian roots.  He bought this villa as soon as he could afford it, and stayed there till driven away by the smell of peat from a factory build for World War I.

Puccini's Study in Italy -------------> Madame Butterfly premiered on 17 February 1904 to catcalls and boos  from the audience, probably staged by rival publisher Sonzogno and his stable of composers.  The "business" side of opera was always rough, it seems. The next morning, Puccini wrote, "...It was a real lynching!  Those cannibals didn't listen to one note.  What a horrible orgy of madmen, drunk with hate!  But my Butterfly remains what it is:  the most deeply-felt and imaginative opera I have conceived! It remained his lifelong favorite.

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THE CONDUCTORS

Toscanini If someone can only mention one conductor, it is likely to be Tocanini. Watch this treasure I found: He is often quoted as saying, re: Beethoven's Symphony #3, the "Eroica" -- "To some it is Napoleon, to some it is philosophical struggle; to me it is Allegro con brio."  Don't you love it? He was born in Parma, Italy.  (Why all the musicians from Italy?  Has anyone ever tried to answer that one?)  He became the head at La Scala, then left there in 1908 to join the Met in NR.  He left there in 1915, ostensibly over some tiff with management, but most believe it was to escape Geraldine Farrar, beautiful diva who bore his child and insisted on marriage . . . not uncommon for Toscanini was an especially ardent philanderer, though married from 1987 until his wife' death in 1951.  His 'popularity' was attributed to his "talent, energy, and ravishing good looks," plus his easy acceptance of the Italian double standard.

He spent WWI in Italy with limited activity, depressed about his country's losses.  At first enamored of Mussolini, when he turned fascist, and ordered the fascist national anthem played before all concerts, Toscanini refused to comply. He resumed activity in 1920, forming an orchestra which he took on tour.  At the age of 69, after a 50 year career, he made a huge comeback on radio in the US.

In the later years, many say he adopted a more ritualistic style, and, writes one reviewer, "the subtle plasticity of expression that had cemented his fame dissolved into a rigid pulse that he maintained throughout an entire movement ... climaxes often fell flat as [he] refused to "lean" into them ... The notes were all there as precisely as ever, but the human emotion was nearly all gone." His ending was dramatic.  A final session, 1953-54, and an all-Wagner program found him unable to remember the music - - when he was known for his memory, generally conducting without a score.  He stumbled through, ambled off stage and never returned.  enjoy this incredible video of him performing at madison square garden at the end of world war ii TOSCANINI: LINNO DELLE NAZIONI - CLICK HERE

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THAT NAMELESS THING ...

I Will Shape A Merman,
Someone Knowledgeable of the Sea
by Susan Dunn

Summons from a Nearby Sea, Kaskela

From the earliest time I can remember
I heard my mother crying,
A cry no human child could understand;
Not the cry of someone who’s been hit,
Or any other kind of physical pain,
And not the ordinary husband’s-had-an-affair,
Or I’m growing old and there is gray in my hair,|
Or I’m sick and tired of these kids,
Or any sort of ordinary despair,

It was something much worse than that:
It was the cry of a water creature stranded on land
Who’s longing for the sea.

Her madness lingers in me
When she has long returned to the deep.
With the call of the siren she summons me,
From my happiness on dry land.

She calls my name and there I am
Sprouting scales and fins, and heading for the sea

Sometimes I’ll see a photo someone’s taken of me
When I’m at ease,
And the look in my eyes is hers
And I despair –
When I’m most at ease, when I’m most myself, I'm her.
There on my neck is a gill;

A land creature, I inherited her longing for the sea,
Something I’d never even seen,
Knowing all the feelings but none of the antecedents,
The pain for which there is no cure.

Someone needs to bring the sea to me.

She never taught me the names,
She only taught me the longing.
If I must long for something,
At least let me know what it is. 

 

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The Human Condition - "Like Humans Do"
David Byrne

For millions of years, In millions of homes
A man loved a woman, A child was born
It learned how to hurt and it learned how to cry
Like Humans Do

I'm breathin' in, I'm breathin' out
So slip inside this funky house
Dishes in the sink
The TV's in repair
Don't look at the floor
Don't go up the stairs

I'm achin', I'm breakin'
Like Humans do

I work and I sleep and I dance and I'm dead
I'm eatin', I'm laughin' and I'm lovin' myself
We're  eatin' off plates and we kiss with our tongue
Like humans do

I'm achin'
I'm shakin'
I'm breakin'
Like Humans do
I'm breathin' in
I'm breathin' out

I'M LISTENIN' TO MUSIC

LIKE HUMANS DO ...

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MUSIC MEMORIES

AS the tomato sauce bUbbled in the large pot on the stove, the sounds of Madame Butterfly, Tosca, or La Boheme blared from the hifi...My Dad truly enjoyed this portion of time.  He sat at the kitchen table reading the Sunday newspaper and sang along with the opera.  

"there was Always music playing in my house.  My  mom and dad and all 4 of us kids played the piano.  We had one piano upstairs, and another one downstairs.  But the time my dad listened to symphonies would be on a wintry Sunday afternoon.  I remember one ... there was a roaring fire in the fireplace and he was working on a brief in the conservatory.  I could hear the strains of some symphony as I walked past.  "Susie!" he called out with his big bass voice, "Come listen to this!"  His father had given up a career in opera for the law, and Dad had inherited the voice, singing in paid church choirs for years, but using his resonance for judges these days.

"This is Beethoven," he began.  It was to be a lecture about courage. 

"This is the most magnificent music on earth," he said, "and the man was going deaf."  It was "Eroica" I was now listening to.  "Life requires courage," he said, and he went on, building a watch the way he did, oratorically, and I tuned him out, the way I did, though I caught the part about Tchaikovsky being pathetic and lacking in will-to-live.   

Dad should have been an opera singer.  He had the charisma, and he was built like Pavarotti.  It was wasted on judges, I thought; even when he was chairman of the SEC he should've had a different stage.  Maybe he would've lived longer ...

The timbre of his voice scared me when I was a kid.  Since then I've always been one for "a word to the wise is sufficient," and say it softly, please.  I've been reprimanded by worse than you, after all; by someone with the thoracic  cavity of two Carusos. 

I sat down by the fire, stared into it,  and thought about courage, from the standpoint of a 14 year old.  "I don't know, Daddy," I said, feeling I should say something.  I mean if someone told me to put my hand in the fire, I guess I could."  

He looked at me with the eyes of these men we see on these pages.  He knew what courage I would need, as life progressed,  though, mercifully, I did not.  

It was Handel I chose when it was time to bury my son, and we stood for  The Hallelujah Chorus.  CHopin I played myself on the piano when I buried my dreams of marriage to the father of my children.  And Andrea Bocelli  has bound my broken heart, the Statler Brothers have given me perspective (Why Me Lord?) as well as a fight song (Susan When She Tried) ... many others ... I am never far from music.    

Beethoven?  The Colossus at Rhodes?  I save "Eroica" for the wintry Sunday afternoons of the soul, and the rare times I have the luxury of treating courage as a theoretical concept.  I put "Eroica" on and think of courage ... and Dad ... other things.  It bolsters my resilience, like the Get Well Soon Dietary Supplement® from Arbonne, "scientifically proven to support the immune system."  It's intellectual, proactive, and emotionally intelligent.  

Memories of Mom, too.  The Libra (if you're into astrology), living with three Leos, an Aries and a Taurus.  What she did was direct the 4 of us fire signs to the piano to express and bleed out our passionate intensity.  The Taurus?  She was a singer, and is now a lawyer.  She, like Mom, listened to our piano playing, and sang along with it."   (Susan Dunn, San Antonio, Texas)
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SAVED FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS.  EMAIL ME.

Dad should have been an opera singer.  He had the charisma, and he was built like Pavarotti.  It was wasted on judges, I thought; even when he was chairman of the SEC he should've had a different stage.  Maybe he would've lived longer ...

cha

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WHO'S BETTER, PAVAROTTI OR ANDREA BOCELLI? 

The debate rages.  Read about it on every review of an Andrea Bocelli album on amazon.com, one of the most annoying debates going on these days.  It comes to the fore regarding his album, “Verdi.”  Do we ask if Jonathan Rhys-Myers is “better” than Peter O’Toole?   There are some people who go beyond their craft, who are more than the sum of their parts.  (And how can I think enough to analyze when Jonathan Rhys-Myers is on the screen?  Please!)    

I'm an emotional intelligence coach.  In my field, the academicians find it terribly important to differentiate between "compassion" and "empathy," and to differentiate among "mood," "feelings, and "emotion."  

Do I?  Well, I'm also a linguist, and I could bore you till your eyes glaze over with the nuances, and trust me they are extreme, but my clients could care less.  If you catch my drift. (Notice I used "among" when 3 were mentioned!)  We love Andrea Bocelli.  His singing makes us feel.  He makes us feel.  Feel good, feel sad, feel miserable, long, yearn.  

No song has ever touched me like his duet "Time to Say Goodbye" with Sarah Brightman, except Opera Band's "Prayer in the Night" (which isn't even opera, is it?), and Pavarotti's "Panis Angelicus," and many others, each in its time, each in its own way.  I have 50 absolute favorites.  

Who could be better than Pavarotti?  His "Nessun Dorma" leaves me weak in the knees, gasping for air.  The power of that man’s voice is astounding.  I idolize Pavarotti, I sit at his feet ... who doesn’t, but I don't eat caviar at every meal.  I like some soul food.  I like a good pot of ragu bubbling on the back burner, and that's Bocelli.  He's young.  He's blind.  He's got little kids.  He chooses, or they choose for him, great songs.  None of which is meant to trivialize his talent.  It’s just that it all comes together in a way that makes his work appealing beyond technique or voice quality. 

The fact that one of these men goes by one name only should be at end to one discussion and the beginning of another.    

But, speaking of Verdi, I think Nicholas Clapton's Liber Scriptus is beyond words, but I can't listen to it for too long; it's too much.  It's at the edge.  Bocelli can sing to me all day, all night, all right!  Also I'm learning Italian, and Bocelli's enunciation is easy to pick up.  I've included this album in my EQ Foundation Course (which is heavy on the arts for reason we music lovers know) .  That's another thing, Bocelli does great things, like doing that duet, Vivo Per Lei, with 5 different women, 5 different nationalities.   

I leave it to the critics to count the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin.  Let me ask you this:  Which do you like better?  Homemade apple pie with crumb topping or Reine de Saba?  

Are you kidding? Bring it on!   

P.S.  Andrea Bocelli has brought a lot of young people into the vicinity of opera, and what's not to like about that?  He's an easy sell.  There's enough of the grand Verdi to go around.  Buy the album and enjoy it!  Then buy 5 more and send them to five young adult who heard the commercial on TV but shudder at the very word "opera" and watch the magic happen.  Bravo!  

Then take my Favorite Music Survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=710641429182 ) and voice your opinion. I'd like to hear from you.   

Pavarotti was gracious enough to give Bocelli the nod for "Miserer."  I concur.  Bocelli has the propensity, or is it proclivity ... zzzzzzzz.

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CHRISTMAS MUSIC

ROUSING SONGS (To me these are inspirational, like when I need to get 
work done like housekeeping.  Also good for getting over a broken heart.)

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Synopses of Operas
Building a Classical CD Collection
How to Enjoy a Live Concert
Discover the Classics, Part I
Introduction to Opera
Websites of Operas, Choruses & Ensembles Worldwide
Music Quotes
Pianos Need TLC Too
Before You Buy a Piano
Wonderful midis
Don't Move a Piano Until You Read This

MORE MIDIS

www.yvettedefrance.com/repertoire.htm   
http://www.piano-midi.de/midis/schumann/schum_abegg.mid
http://www.classicalmusicmidipage.com
http://www.midicenter.com/midi/midi_files/classical/index.htm
Listen and Download, www.classical.com  

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Now playing Schumann's Abegg Variations.  
The classical music sequence is used by permission from the Classical Piano Midi Page  ©Bernd Krueger,

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