Beautiful Music

Quick — when I say “Abbey Road Studios” what’s the first thing you think of?? The Beatles, of course! So can you imagine what a thrill it is for musicians to use Abbey Road Studios for their recordings? Today’s Beautiful Music is the terrific WindSync woodwind quintet from a concert performance of an excerpt (Back […]

French baroque era musician Francois Couperin composed a piece called Les Barricades Mystérieuses. The title of the 1717 solo harpsichord composition has inspired great speculation over the centuries about its meaning, and a variety of interpretations. Today’s Beautiful Music features A DIVINE DANCE — a Thai classical dance interpretation of Couperin’s tantalizing composition.

Today’s Beautiful Music is a spectacular gala concert from Santa Sabina College in Sydney, Australia. Their 2023 performance was a celebration of women composers. The program included 14 world premières of original compositions by current students, former students and staff of Santa Sabina College. These young musicians demonstrate an extraordinary variety of creativity featuring combinations

Today’s Beautiful Music is an introduction to an amazing 16th century instrument: the serpent! Andrew Kershaw demonstrates the instrument and explains its construction and historical use. You can also watch a performance of music by Michel Corrette on the instrument, Sonate #1 Les Délices de la Solitude.

Austrian musician Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) fled Europe to the United States in 1938, and pursued a wildly successful career as a composer of mainly film music. The Academy Award-winning musician was a child prodigy who composed his first opera at age 11. Today’s Beautiful Music is Korngold’s 1941 composition — his PASSOVER PSALM OP.30

Canadian musician Stewart Grant wrote his chamber work A SEDER FOR PEACE OP.5 in 2004. The composer is also an oboist and conductor, and he credits his interest in yoga and meditation and his love of nature as some of his main inspirations. Today’s Beautiful Music is a 2021 performance of A SEDER FOR PEACE by

Today’s Beautiful Music is a complete performance of George Frideric Handel’s 1739 biblical oratorio ISRAEL IN EGYPT by Croatian Baroque Ensemble. The large three-part composition received a lukewarm reception when Handel premiered it, but it has evolved to be considered as one of the composer’s finest works.

Today’s Beautiful Music is a moving favorite — Ennio Morricone’s Love Theme from Cinema Paradiso. This performance is from the 2018 Opus Klassik awards in Berlin. Two superstar soloists — violinist Lisa Batiashvili and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason — join Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra, a youth orchestra based in Slovenia. Close your eyes and let them transport

British conductor Andrew Davis was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1944, and as a small boy started piano lessons. Showing great promise, as a teenager he began studying the organ, too. Later he became an Organ Scholar at Kings College, Cambridge. These formative years led to a long international career. While still in his 20s,

Shall we dance? Today’s Beautiful Music is a tango with a baroque twist. Musician Leonhard Bartussek has arranged the Tango Malena and performs it on baroque cello with baroque violin player Alfia Bakieva. It’s enough to make you want to push the furniture out of the way and dance along.