Blog

Today’s Beautiful Music offering is a trip down memory lane. Perhaps it was your first introduction to classical music? It’s iconic music by Johann Sebastian Bach — the Toccata and Fugue in d minor — orchestrated by Leopold Stokowski and used to open the beloved Disney film FANTASIA.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6u-2NDsEgA  

My Beautiful Music offering today is pure self indulgence! These are two of my favorite compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. First, flutist Emmanuel Pahud and harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock play a Flute Sonata that is near and dear to my heart as a flutist. I learned it as a teenager and have performed it many times,

The word “philharmonic” means, literally, “loving harmony.” Mrs. Philharmonica was the pen name of an English musician in the 18th century — a still-unidentified harmony-loving woman. who anonymously published at least a dozen compositions. Today’s Beautiful Music is a performance of one of them: Mrs. Philharmonica’s Chamber Divertimento #1.  

Agave Baroque is a quintet based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their specialty is playing string chamber music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially unusual repertory. This is Agave Baroque from a performance in January 2020 of the Cancíon a 3 from the Cusco Cathedral Archive. It’s Beautiful Music from Peru!    

From the time he was just a little boy, listening to his father make music, Julian Bream was drawn to music. For his 11th birthday, Julian Bream received his own guitar, and showed an instant aptitude for playing it. As an internationally acclaimed performer, he helped put guitar, as well as lute, on the musical

Happy Birthday to American soprano Kathleen Battle! The opera star was born on August 13, 1948 in Portsmouth, Ohio.  In celebration of her birthday, today’s Beautiful Music offering features a few of her stunningly gorgeous performances of music by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3-w4QP-104   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJSOsILYe8  

A friend recently tipped me off about a new recording featuring a terrific flutist: Brandon Patrick George. He’s an active soloist, as well as a member of Imani Winds. I look forward to sharing the new recording once I’ve secured a copy for Sunday Baroque. In the meantime, I wanted you to have a little

I’m pleased to share Beautiful Music by Johann Sebastian Bach — KOMM, SUSSES KREUZ — highlighting the intricate and intimate interplay of voice and viola da gamba. Bass-Baritone Dashon Burton and viola da gamba player Lisa Terry are featured in this April 2011 performance in NYC.  You will also find links to both artists’ bios.