Concert Review: “Orientalism in France”

On February 10th, I had the pleasure of enjoying Leon Botstein and The American Symphony Orchestra as they presented “Orientalism in France” at the world famous Carnegie Hall. With sky box seats, I not only witnessed the beauty of the Isaac Stern Auditorium and Ronald O. Perelman Stage, but I saw every instrumentalist and singer play as they interact with the audience and the conductor. This concert featured pieces ranging from Hindu poetry to piano features. Among the featured artists were soprano Julia Bullock, pianist Julia Zilberquit and The Collegiate Chorale Singers who sang a recitative giving the show an opera feeling as the congregants followed the French text in their programs.  The repertoire consisted of works from Camille Saint-Saens, Georges Bizet and many others. Among these great composers was Maurice Ravel with his piece entitled Sheherazade, ouverture de feerie. We will focus on how this particular piece was executed and the overall placement of this song in the theme of the night.

Before attending the concert, I listened to Ravel’s Sheherazade, ouverture de feerie with the intentions of comparing the live instrumentation and recording version of the song. Both the recording and the live performance were clean, smooth and overall well executed. Given the ambiance of the live performance, the recording seems perfect yet pale. The dynamics in the music such as arpeggios, crescendos and decrescendos are easier to detect in the performance due to the architectural design of the concert hall; the round walls and ceiling allow for the sound to travel with great ease allowing for those effects to be felt with heightened intensity. Nevertheless, the recording is less susceptible for mistakes in execution. There were instances where I heard unintended small mishaps in the live performance. This is natural due to our human nature. With recording, it is very easy to simple redo the recording until it is perfect. Overall, both versions of the songs have flaws but the execution of both was excellent.

Maurice Ravel’s Sheherazade, ouverture de feerie was composed in the early twentieth century. During this time, a common practice was taking elements of music from different cultures and infusing it into one’s composition. Ravel’s piece has characteristics of Gamelan music, which originates from Bali. In this piece of music, there were specific themes that are repeated in the music similar to how themes of music are repeated in Gamelan music. Within the first couple minutes, we hear a specific theme that was used in a section of music. This can be slightly compared to theme and variation; even though variation was present, it was not made distinctively event where a listener would recognize the difference in the theme.  Ravel was one of the multiple composers who practiced this craft.

Overall, “Orientalism in France” at the illustrious Carnegie Hall was an excellent experience. The music encompassed opera music, instrumental music and vocal music. The ambience of the hall was added to the live feel of the music. The music that was performed that night was from the twentieth century and borrowed characteristics of other musical genres.

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Tone painting for “sexy” classical music.

When dealing with classical music, it seems as though there is a myth that no erotic or sensual cues are placed within the instrumental music.  In Tom Huizenga’s article for NPR.org, “Who Says Classical Music Can’t Be Sexy?,” he gives us some examples of classical compositions where one can find themes such as sex and how the music expresses it.

In different types of arts, there are many ways of creating such themes and articulating them.  In music, this is a bit harder to do, but many composers will use tone painting, or word painting, to show and convey different emotions and emphasize what the music means.  The piece I chose to focus on, “Salome, opera, Op. 54,” or more famously known as “Dance of the Seven Veils” which is from Richard Strauss’ opera Salome.  In the fourth scene, Huizenga describes it as “a strip tease wherein the sensual and powerful Salome peels off clothing until finally she’s left with none.”  While in the process of composing the music for this very controversial opera, Strauss needed to have a way of accentuating the motions of the actors for the performance (and since it is an opera, being consciously aware of how he wanted the actors/singers to perform or how they might interpret the music and script is just as important as writing the music itself). You can hear in this recording that through his use of tone painting, Strauss was able to create this one particular scene with lots of tonal color and the use of cadences to emphasize certain parts.

In his review, Huizenga writes “This tantalizing music undulates and slithers,” which you can clearly see is true from the video (the link is posted below) and the choreography of the scene. This song has an ABA structure. The build ups in the beginning of the piece (the A section) are what I feel are like a roller coaster or hills, and in the song they become symbolism for the character, dancing while striping her down to the nude. The use of cadences allow the build up of the “hills” to create many layers. This section, especially 0:35-0:58, can be expressing the tension and desire.

The B section of the song is the part of the song where it has a much lighter, happier, and less stressful feeling, but then goes right back to the theme and A section with the cadences and creating the same, almost extreme tension at the end. The tone painting and dramatic structure of this song allows the listener to really feel the passion of the music and what is meant to be conveyed in this scene.

Do you think the use of tone painting is essential for classical or instrumental music? Do you think the use of a visual aid (such as a dancer in a performance) helps convey the meaning behind a classical song?

______

I was able to find a video of this scene performed by Maria Ewing in case anyone is interested in seeing it. There is nudity at the end, just a warning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3jF3g4KBbw

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“Who Says Classical Music Can’t be Sexy?”

With the coming of Valentine’s Day, considered to be the steamiest and romantic holiday of the year, Tom Huizenga brings up two interesting topics; sex and music. He notices that sex is found in all sorts of art form such as literature, painting, sculptures, etc…but what about in classical music? Huizenga demonstrates five classical musical examples to which he finds the songs were intentionally created to seem “sexy” or project a sexual idea. Selection of (1) Gionvanni Pierluigi da Palestrina “Osculetur me”, (2) Strauss: “Dance of the Seven Veils” (from Salome) (3) Scriabin: “Poem of Ecstasy” (4) Schulhoff: “Sonata Erotica”, and (5) Adés: “Come here…” (from Powder Her Face) are five examples Tom is delivering to his readers to be found as “sexy”.

I decided to pick Strauss: “Dance of the Seven Veils” from the Opera Salome to listen to and compare Tom’s ideas to my own. Before reading the context of the piece, I decided to listen to the song and paint a picture in my mind of what I Interpret of the music. “Dance of the Seven Veils” was a piece performed during a striptease of an opera.

From the start of the clip, I closed my eyes and felt a sense of a soothing sensual vibe; as if something were about to occur and slowly was building up to the point. Soon after at the 1 minute mark of the clip, the build-up seems disappear and begin to sound more playful and to me gave off a floating around kind of feeling. At 1:53, the tension again emerges. Its sounds a bit devilish to my ear. The build-up starts again and keeps me waiting to see how it will end. The finale comes to a close and I have an uneasy feeling of uncertainty.

Listening to “Dance of the Seven Veils”, I felt a mix of emotions from soothing to uncertainty. The word “sexy”, I personally find it to be subjective and personable to one’s own taste. “Dance of the Seven Veils” was not sexy to my ears. It brought up an array of emotions that many people could associate as soothing, playful, tension, and possibly create a sort of build-up to sexy but what threw me off was the uncertainty I interpreted in my mind while listening to the clip.

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A Hot Topic for Such a Sexy Genre of Music

In Tom Huizenga’s article, “Who Says Classical Music Can’t Be Sexy?” on NPR, the journalist poses a very good question.  As we started to discuss in class last week, there have always been ongoing debates about what musical genre holds more value – instrumental or vocal works.  Part of that debate is the quantity of meaning that an instrumental versus a vocal work can possess.  If there are no lyrics attached to a piece of music, who’s to say what the piece is really trying to capture or what the composer is looking for the listener to take.  Then again, even when words are attached to a piece of music or by themselves for that matter, as in poetry, what one individual gathers from the work may be completely different from what another individual interprets.

Huizenga argues that instrumental music can indeed possess meaning and quite a bit of sexual meaning at that.  He cites two works within the brief article and then goes on to list five other works which he provides musical excerpts from and descriptions.  Chopin and Wagner make Huizenga’s list, as well Palestrina, Strauss, Scriabin, Schulhoff and Ades.

I chose to take a closer listen to the Scriabin piece, “Le Poème de l’extase” or, Poem of Ecstasy.  While Alexander Scriabin was a composer of music, he was also a composer of words.  Huizenga tells us that this 20-minute piece is actually “based on one of Scriabin’s own poems, which speaks of a ‘thirst for life’ and surrendering to the ‘bliss of love.’”  This initially reminded of when the poet and playwright, Gerstenberg added text from Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” monologue to CPE Bach’s Fantasy, written in 1753.  However, this is different in a couple of ways.  First off, the music was written in response to the Poem of Ecstasy, whereas the words came after with Gerstenberg and Bach.  Also, in the case of Scriabin, both the words and the music belong to him so it can be argued that there is more truth or accurate meaning behind the sexual nature of the music.

For the greatest impact, Huizenga decided to present the readers with a six-and-a-half minute excerpt from the 20-minute piece, that he argues displays “the very act of lovemaking, cresting in a blazing climax of eight horns, pipe organ, bells, harp and trills high up in the winds.”  The word “climax” was certainly chosen consciously and while I can hear that interpretation quite easily after I read the author’s description, I’m not sure if that’s the first image or act that to which I would have related it.  Since Classical scores are used so frequently in films, I often find myself imagining movie scenes when I hear orchestras playing momentous music such as this Scriabin example.  The first thing that came to mind was some sort of suspense involved with witchcraft (kind of weird) which isn’t enough to go off of to choose characters and pick a set design but that’s what popped into my head.  However if I try to listen with the ears of Huizenga, an old black-and-white film comes to mind first.

For reference, here is Tom Huizenga’s article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/02/10/146687324/who-says-classical-music-cant-be-sexy

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Jonathan Biss Uncovers A Brahms Blind Spot

One of the main questions that is raised in this review is why we have “blind spots,” meaning “genres, bands or pieces you know you should love and listen to but don’t, or haven’t gotten around to yet.” The article talks about personal experience of a young American classical pianist, a winner of many awards, Jonathan Biss. At first, he mentions Haydn. Jonathan asks himself why he is only familiar with a certain amount of symphonies/trios/string quartets that were written by the composer, when he knows that there are many more. Then Jonathan claims that he heard almost “every chamber music work” of Johannes Brahms and was very surprised to find out that there are scores of vocal duets and choral songs by the composer. He had no idea they existed. Biss wonders, why things like that happen. Why this “first-rate,” in his opinion, music is not known and not popular. I guess all of us, at least once, in a lifetime ask the same question. One of the possible reasons, why these duets are known less than other pieces by Brahms, is a taste of certain audience at that time. I say “certain” because not all people who were interested in music had access to it (could not afford to go to a concert) or simply were busy helping their families to make a living. There was no radio, no TV and no internet. Therefore, we had some “group” of people who made music famous. I think many compositions were forgotten because the “group” had no interest in them. As a result, many music works are still unknown to us.

One of the reasons why we have “blind spots” today seems to be obvious. We just cannot listen to everything. In many cases people are simply not interested to listen to everything that has ever been written. It does not mean that we are not open for new music; we just do not look for it. People usually just add a new “favorite” work to their “music library.” I also do not see anything dramatic if you listen one particular genre or artist, we all make our choices, but by doing so you limit yourself. Many people criticize professional musicians (piano/string players etc.) for being ignorant of anything but music pieces they play. The question is what is a role of professional performer? People expect them to know more about music than non-musician knows. I think it is reasonable as they usually have music education. However, professional musicians are trained and practice every day to give an excellent performance, not to know every single music work of every composer.

The work that Biss offers us to listen is Duet “Weg der Liebe(Way of Love) II, Op. 20, No. 2.” The pianist says that when he heard this piece for the first time he was “blown away.” This music is pleasant to my ears. It is a very pure and romantic piece. And it should be this way because Brahms is the composer of Romantic period. At the same time, the duet has a sense of drama. Maybe, it is because of some dissonances in the melody. It also feels like this work has a lot of alternations between “happy” and “sad” moods. The composition is very emotional. I do not understand the words but I can feel that it is about something personal. I can perfectly imagine two people sitting on shore of some small river, somewhere in a forest, singing about difficulties of love.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/02/07/146473471/jonathan-biss-uncovers-a-brahms-blind-spot

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Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

The concert I recently attended, on February 11, 2012, was held at Carnegie Hall, in New York City. Needless to say how inspiring this venue can be, even while undergoing restoration, and especially when the performance is held at the Stern Auditorium, on Perelman Stage. The featured program named Another Time, Another Place, performed by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, included the following four pieces, in the order they were performed:

It must be noted, in contrast to the material tackled in the class, none of the pieces fall within the time frame of the Classical Period, as we know it, for the earliest work from the above-mentioned list was written in 1880, which is the Serenade for Strings by Tchaikovsky. And yet, the piece that will be further discussed is even more recent, by Dmitry Shostakovich. Prior moving forward with more details on the piece, however, there are several observations I would like to share pertaining to the overall experience of attending this concert.

To begin with, it’s awesome to be a student when it comes to buying tickets. Student programs offered by such cultural venues as Carnegie Hall are indeed praiseworthy and should certainly be taken advantage of. Even though I’m almost certain most of the readers of this post are already aware of student deals out there, and yet, it doesn’t hurt to emphasize the fact. Another thing I always attempted to rationalize is the predominance of elderly in audience. While I understand that, for the most part, “classical” music can be “boring” to majority of mid-aged audience, I always wondered whether one comes to enjoy it as one grows older or whether these elderly folks enjoyed it even when they were in their thirties.  And lastly, I have finally come to realize why they have glass candy at such concert–I guess I never thought about it before…

And now back to Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The following is the breakdown of the piece:

  1. Allegretto (6:10)
  2. Lento (8:34)
  3. Moderato (1:47)
  4. Allegro con brio (6:51)

The overall structure is not that much different from the concertos of the Classical Period, while this one was finished in 1933. The major difference in the form, when compared to concertos of Mozart and Beethoven, is the extra movement. Most of their concertos, as portrayed throughout history, were written in three movements. To be a bit more specific, the following is the structure as per wikipedia:

  1. A quick opening movement in sonata form including a cadenza (which may be improvised by the soloist).
  2. A slow, free expressive movement
  3. A faster rondo

As can be seen and heard, the form used by Schostakovich was fairly within concerto form used by Classical composers, with the only difference of having the third, Moderato movement. And even this can be interpreted as a build-up to the fourth movement, essentially not changing the whole “texture” of the concerto form.

Another reason I chose this piece over the other three is for its unusual use of the trumpet. The full title of this concerto is Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra. As the title suggests, and as one hears throughout the concerto, use of the trumpet in this piece is rather highlighted. Because of this, the piece can be perceived by many listeners as double concerto, where both piano and the trumpet are equally credited as leaders. And yet, upon closer observation and listening, it will become evident that this is a true concerto with piano being the king, despite the fact that, toward the end, the trumpet becomes almost equally “important” as the piano.

Overall, this piece is well balanced and rather smooth, especially when compared to some of Beethoven’s concertos. I liked it, nonetheless.

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Can Classical Music Be Sexy?

Music has the power to evoke many emotions from people. Since the beginning of time, music has provoked humans and inspired them to act and feel a certain way. While reading Tom Huizenga’s article “Who Says Classical Music Can’t Be Sexy?” I feel that it has officially convinced me that Classical music is not sexy at all. It is commonly known that people attempt to find meaning in things that are not there. I feel that Huizenga’s article is just another case of the aforementioned. I took the time to listen to the various tracks that Huizenga provided in the article and tried to understand the “sexiness” that he speaks of but I could not find it. I believe that with classical pieces, if put in the right context (such as the one in the Huizenga’s article) could program the reader to believe that there may be some elements of “sexy” in it. It is similar to the placebo effect, any song can be considered sexy if given the appropriate background. However, I do agree with Huizenga about music being extremely amorphous. Classical music on its own, with no Hollywood lovemaking scenes, or erotic imagery is not sexy to me.

One feature that vocal music has over instrumental music is its ability to set a mood through colorful wordplay and lyrics. Musicians use the power of words to strike the listener in such a way that he/she feels in touch with the message they are trying to convey. In my opinion, various literary techniques such as alliteration, metaphors, and symbolism are used to paint a much more vivid picture than any instrumental song could.

Another reason I feel that classical music is not sexy is perhaps because it does not really call to my age group. My age group is not really known for listening to Classical Music. Some of us have developed an appreciation for it but we are not aficionados of the genre as perhaps older generations may be. The debate of whether Classical Music is sexy or not reminds me of the popular saying “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” because there is definitely no right or wrong answer. Although Classical Music is not sexy to me, it may have the power to strike a chord in the next person. At the end of the day, its all up to the listener to make a choice!

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Music Review for new Manhattan Venue

This review was very short and after listening to the mentioned pieces, very hard to review. The main point of this review is not necessarily about the music but about the venue and the new ideas they have to attract listeners. The Miller Theater is located at 116th street and Broadway in Manhattan. It is part of the Columbia University School of Arts and host a production titled “POP UP!” This theater is home to many artists that come in and out, but this article specifically mentioned the string quartet JACK. The quartet played Giacinto Scelsi’s String Quartet No.4 as a group followed by breaking up into individual performances. Ms. Radnofsky, a solo cellist performed Helmut Lachenmann’s “Pression,” Ari Streisfeld, played the six solo violin pieces in Salvatore Sciarrino’s “Caprices” and ended with Iannis Xenakis’s sextet “Ittidra.”

Anthony Tommasini, the author of the review, seemed to really like the performances. Tommasini made comments like “Mr. Streisfeld gave a dazzling performance of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Caprices…” and “Tuesday’s program began with the JACK Quartet…offering a gripping account of Giacinto Scelsi’s String Quartet No. 4 (1964).” However, I believe the main focus is on the venue. Melissa Smey, the director of the Miller Theater, offers free beer and drinks to all paying customers. She says it “brings audiences closer to the music.” She also lets people sit in one of the 90 chairs surrounding the performers on stage. Smey also added lanterns hanging overhead to give the stage the feeling of being inside of a salon. With the new ideas in mind, “Pop Up! offers a relaxing way to hear challenging modern music.”

I have some things I agree with and some things I disagree with in this review. First, I completely agree with the novel idea of free drinks and putting the crowd around the performers. There are two main things I agree about the free drinks; one being the fact that we are still in a recession and people always love free stuff especially booze, and second, it’s on a college campus. College kids will go see anything if they are handed free alcohol. I also think that allowing the audience to sit on stage creates a feeling of uniformity. One thing I disagree with is the feeling of awe of the performances. Not in the sense of talent but in the sense of music selection. I don’t know why these pieces were chosen but after listening to the ones I could find, no wonder they wanted people drunk for this. Lachenmann’s piece wasn’t at all what I was expecting when I think of a solo cello performance. The performer put it “to a catalog of ‘different pressures,’ used to make not ‘sound effects’ she said, but unconventional, deeply musical sounds.” That’s exactly what the piece was, just sounds. Weird, unpleasant, dissonant sounds that made little sense to an untrained ear. Initially I was hoping for a pretty typical quartet performance. Cello, viola and violins performing something with nice melodies and harmonies. I really love hearing the cello and was most excited to hear that. Instead, the performance sounded like the sound effects used in a horror film. Here is the link to hear for yourself. I couldn’t even find Scelsi’s String Quartet No.4. I guess that is why I am writing this for a class and not working for the New York Times as a music critic.

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NPR: “Who Says Classical Music Can’t Be Sexy?” by Tom Huizenga

The fact that classical music can be perceived as sexy is pretty foreign to me, so when the NPR article was sent out I had a pretty good idea that I would be using that article to write my first blog post. Up until this point, classical music only made it to two types of playlists on my iPod: “Studying” and “Falling Asleep.” On those two fronts, it does its job very well. Even after reading Tom Huizenga’s take on classical music as sensual, I’m still not entirely convinced. I listened to every single track that he listed that was within our class timeframe, and I worked my way up from the bottom.

Let’s take Huizenga’s example of “Come Here” composed by Thomas Ades from the chamber opera Powder Her Face. My 17-year-old brother, who was in the next room and overheard me listening to it, ran in and demanded to know why I was listening to such creepy music. Need I say more? No sexy stamp for Ades.

Then I hit play on Sonata Erotica by Erwin Shulhoff. After reading the summary and seeing “He decided to match Grosz in music with his Sonata Erotica, a short piece scored for a single female vocalist whose task is to fake an orgasm…,” I was slightly apprehensive but charged forward. Perhaps this is sexier from a male perspective because in all honesty I felt incredibly awkward.

Up next:  Poem of Ecstasy by Alexander Scriabin. To say I was thrilled to discover there were no vocals on this one is an understatement. I can see how this can maybe be perceived as sensual. It’s got a slower, more seductive tempo in the beginning and then speeds up. Plus, in my own opinion I’ve always thought strings can make anything sexy if the arrangement is right.

Finally, I put on Strauss’s “Dance of the Seven Veils,” which was the most convincing example by far. The first minute is what sold me. Once again you’ve got strings kind of gliding along at a moderate to slow-ish tempo, which crescendo into a sort of climax that comes back down around the minute mark. The rest of the song wasn’t as sexy – the ending was a little too chaotic – but I get Huizenga’s point.

The whole experience prompted me to do a little digging of my own. Maybe Huizenga’s examples just weren’t the best choices. I decided to find some of my own. Check them out below.

1.  First discovery was from one of my absolute favorite movies, Black Swan. The whole movie is based around a dance company doing a modernized version of Swan Lake, which was originally composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky between 1875 and 1876. The music in this scene is not only beautiful, but I’m a little more convinced of it’s sex appeal. This might be due in part to the fact that it comes with a visual. However, the entire movie has sexual themes and is backed by compositions inspired by Swan Lake, so I have to assume that the director found something sexy in Swan Lake to choose it for the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsvtIzebNcw

2. Next I learned that one of my favorite classical compositions “Clair de Lune” composed by Claude Debussy in 1890, is on the soundtrack for the movie Atonement. I’ve never seen the movie, but I did some serious Youtubing and found this compilation of scenes set to the music. I think this is definitely one of the more romantic sounding pieces, but who says romance isn’t sexy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dMxzC36_BQ 

So to conclude, I don’t think I’ll be able to convince my boyfriend to add any classical music to the Valentine’s Day playlist, but by the end of this whole experience I can see the appeal.

 

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NPR Jonathan Biss Uncovers a Brahms Blind Spot

In a NPR article, Jonathan Biss discussed musical blind spots. He mentioned Brahms vocal Duets, Op. 20. Most people are only familiar with every other genre except his vocal works. Biss was shocked to find out that there were many choral works. After listening to the piece, I was astonished that the work was not a known Brahms piece. It is one of the most beautiful vocal pieces I have heard. What makes the song so beautiful is that it is not elaborate. It is just two voices and piano and is homophonic. I was captivated all five minutes. I’m shocked that this song is not at well know as his other works. This made me wonder how many other musical blind spots are out there.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/02/07/146473471/jonathan-biss-uncovers-a-brahms-blind-spot

It made me want to start searching around. Is there Mozart music that is rarely performed? A lot of times with composers like these, their vocal works are under performed. As a singer, I wanted to find vocal music because in music classes have never heard about their vocal works. I looked at CDs my parents used to play as a child of Chopin and Mozart as well as Beethoven. I realized that my search would be harder than it seemed because both CDs had works that are well known. Then I realized that the CDs said “the best of.” That caught my attention. What made these works “the best” or “greatest hits”? Who are the people that determine what the best works of these famous composers are? Did they look at the composition and compare it to other works or was it based on sales? This made me want to search for my musical blind spot.

That is when I began to think of looking at vocal compositions of Mozart. Just out of random curiosity I chose to focus on Mozart. (Before I mention the piece I found let me make a disclaimer. I am no expert when it comes to these composers. I am only familiar with the music learned in previous music classes I have taken and a few greatest hits CDs. This piece may not be a musical blind spot for you as it is for me).

So the search began for a vocal blind spot from Mozart. I knew Mozart wrote operas, but maybe there was a piece, not apart of his greatest hits. That began my search for music that I was not familiar with. There was one piece that stuck out. It was just one page of sheet music called “God is My Refuge”. It is a choral work written for SATB. The text is English and it is polyphonic. The Soprano started the song and the rest echo “God is my refuge” one by one. The piece is very short, but is a lovely piece. I would not have expected a song like that from Mozart. What is so amazing is that Mozart was 9 when he composed this motet.

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After listening to this work it made me think, what else have I been missing out on? What is your musical blind spot?

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