Music for the Community

 
Welcome to our Music for the Community page! Since we can't take our music out to local nursing homes and libraries at the moment, we're inviting you in to enjoy it here instead. Each day you'll find a new student performance on this page, along with some info about the composer or instrument - and sometimes words too so you can sing along. 

If you're interested in a particular category, you can sort performances by student age, instrument, singalong music, composer and so on - click on the orange tags under the text. We hope you and your family will enjoy watching our students share their music! 

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Displaying items by tag: Mozart

Friday, June 26 2020 00:00

Day 60 - Mozart Violin Concerto in D major

Violinist age 14 plays Mozart's Violin Concerto #4 in D, first movement

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born 1756) wrote at least five violin concertos between 1773 and 1776, when he was not much older than this student. He probably wrote them for himself to play in his position as concertmaster (first chair) of the Archbishop of Salzburg’s orchestra.

This one was written in 1775, when he was 19. He did perform it at the time – but after he left the orchestra, he updated it and made it harder for the new concertmaster (Antonio Brunetti) who took over his job! It’s nicknamed the “Military” concerto, and if you listen to the violinist’s opening few measures you’ll hear why – they sound rather like a brass fanfare.

We love it when our older students play beautiful works like this with ease, inspiring beginner and intermediate students with a vision of what can happen if they keep on practicing. But as we make sure to point out to them: students like this were also once beginners learning to pluck open strings, just like the young man in yesterday’s video!

For more music by Mozart, see here and here.

Published in Music For Community
Monday, May 25 2020 00:00

Day 36: Mozart Minuet and Trio

Violist age 12 plays Minuet & Trio by Mozart

 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1766 in the beautiful Austrian city of Salzburg. When he was 3, his father starting teaching his 7-year-old sister Nannerl the clavier (the forerunner of the modern piano). Wolfgang was fascinated and began picking out simple intervals right away, so his father began teaching him too. He began composing at the age of 5 – by which time he was already performing on both violin and keyboard. 
 
After spending his childhood performing all over Europe, at age 17 Mozart was appointed court musician at Salzburg. But he had bigger dreams, and soon resigned the position to move to Vienna to seek more fame and fortune. He found plenty of the first and less of the second, as he frequently more money than he earned. By the time he died at the age of 35 he had composed more than 600 works and was the most highly-regarded composer of the classical period. Older classical composer Joseph Haydn, who at one point had given him composition lessons, wrote: "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."
 
We talked about “sandwich construction” on a small scale in Twinkle. A Minuet and Trio set is the same idea on a larger scale – a short “A” piece, followed by a “B” piece, then back to “A”. As discussed here, the minuet was a very popular dance music form of the 18th century. Minuets are always in triple time: see if you can hear the “ONE two three, ONE two three”.
Published in Music For Community

Violinist age 16 plays Mozart's Violin Concerto #3 in G major, 1st movement

 
We hope you’ve enjoyed a peek behind the scenes of students’ musical and technical development in this week’s entries. Our aim as teachers is to help students enjoy and celebrate all these stages on a well-planned journey, giving them appropriate music for their age and skill level along the way. But we do this also with - from their very first lesson - the long-term goal of giving them full ownership of their own musical and expressive voice.
 
So to finish our week, here’s a video to show where this has all been heading: a performance by a student who is well past the basic and intermediate stages, and is now ready and equipped to explore professional-level repertoire in the form of one of Mozart’s sparkling violin concertos. 
 
While the video was not taken from the best angle, we’re pretty sure you’ll enjoy this young man’s sensitive and expressive playing, and how he's now able to put his technical skills at the service of Mozart's beautiful and timeless music.
Published in Music For Community