Relaxing Piano Playlist Series 5 Episode 5

Feeling tired? Need to unwind? Then how about some gentle, soothing piano music? Welcome to the Episode 3 of the Fifth Series in the Relaxing Piano Playlist! In this episode, I perform for you music by Mozart, Faure, Dvorak, Tchaicovsky, Isaac Albeniz and Alfred Tofft.

Transcript

00:30 - James Quinn

Hello and welcome to Episode 5 of Series 5 in the Relaxing Piano Playlist, with your host, James Quinn here at the piano, thank you very much for joining me.

In this episode, you’re going to hear a number of pieces ranging from a wide variety of composers, covering the Classical and the Romantic periods.

The first piece that you’re going to hear, sees the return of the Classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The piece you will hear comes from one of his Piano Sonatas, and in this instance you will hear the second movement set to speed of Andante cantabile from his Sonata in B Flat, which was published as K.333. This was known as the "Linze" sonata.

The next set of pieces all come from the Romantic period. For the first of these we revisit the  French composer Gabriel Faure, and you will hear a short work which in this case is his Romance sans Paroles, and here you will hear the first of these in A Flat. He wrote three of these in a set that was published as Op.17.

Afterwards, we then have a another return to the Czechoslovakian composer Antonin Dvorak, and you will hear one of his well known works for the instrument, Humoresque in G Flat in his cycle of Eight Humoresques published as Op.101

We then follow this with another revisit to the Russian composer Tchaicovsky, and in this instance you will hear the movement known as “Song of The Lark”, which he put as the third movement to portray the month of March from his piano work known as The Seasons from Op.37a

After this we have a couple of additions. The first of these comes from the Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz. Born in Camprodon in Catalonia in 1860, he was a virtuoso pianist, composer and conductor. He was a child prodigy when he first performed at the tender age of just 4 and later at the age of 7 had passed the entrance exam for the Paris Conservatoire, but sadly was refused entry as they believed he was too young. His concert career started at the age of 9 when his father Angel toured both him and his sister Clementina around Northern Spain. He would continue his musical studies and career by traveling extensively from Leipzig and Budapest to London and Paris to name just a few! His musical style can be categorised into an early, middle and late periods, all of which have their wide use of Spanish dance music, scales, guitar idioms, and a deep singing style known as cante jondo, which really gives the true spirit and flavour of his compositions. The piece that you will hear is perhaps one of most recognisable works, his Tango in D Major, which he composed in a piano cycle called Espana, published as Op.165

Finally, we finish this episode with one more addition in the form of the Danish composer Alfred Tofft, who was born in 1865 and lived until his sad death in 1931. It was at the age of 20, he embarked on a music career and started as an organist and composer at Saint John Church in Copenhagen. He was established throughout his life for his compositions for voice but he also composed many pieces for the piano. He would later become the Chairman of the Danish Composers Union, as well as the copyright organisation known as KODA. To give you an idea of his compositional style, the piece you will hear is a short piece simply called “Sunset” from his cycle, translated from the original title as ‘Atmospheric Pictures’ which he wrote and published as Op46.

So to recap, here is the order just once more: Mvt 2 from Piano Sonata in B Flat K.333 by Mozart, Romance sans Paroles No.1 from Op.17 by Faure, Humoresque in G Flat from Op.101by Dvorak, “Song of the Lark” from The Seasons Op37a by Tchaicovsky, Tango in D Major from Espena Op165 by Albeniz, and finally “Sunset” from Op46 by Alfred Tofft.

So sit back, relax, and I hope that you enjoy all of the music. Thank you.