Today has a bumper crop of composer birthdays, so I'll briefly highlight each.
Heinrich Schütz is generally regarded as the most important German composer before J. S. Bach. He led the transition from Renaissance music to Baroque north of the Alps.
Walter Kittridge was a self-taught musician and composer who wrote hundreds of songs, many with a Civil War theme. This is his most famous one:
Pierre Chrétien De Geyter was a Belgian socialist most famous as the composer of The Internationnale. Yeah he was a dirty commie, but even commies have birthdays.
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was organist at Notre Dame de Paris for almost 40 years. As you'd imagine, he wrote a lot of organ music.
Happy birthday to all, even the dirty commie.
An interesting collection with the common birthday as a theme. I can only imagine how difficult the organ piece is to play. I hear the music and watch the score and can't begin to comprehend how it can be done at the pace it is played. Let's see, five flats, and then accidentals spaced throughout as you go a mile a minute through the piece. Wow.
ReplyDeleteA nice rendition of Tenting Tonight with great harmony.
Great class tonight -- I am just back from Bath, Maine this afternoon.