I find Ross Hamilton's analyses of pieces very useful. He has analysed about 1000 pieces from the standard repertoire. The pieces all come from Australian music exam syllabuses, but the vast majority of these would be in British exam systems as well.
I have used his analyses of Musicianship set works and have found them very helpful, though he has provided much more information than I have needed.
The only caveat is that they are not cheap, though he does provide some affordable specials.
See http://www.rosshamilton.com.au/index.cfm for more information.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Praise!
I have been subscribed to Praise! which is a British hymnbook that has an online website, which gives you the words and sometimes the music of about 900 hymns, as well as interesting stories about the hymn-writers and adapters.
My hard copy of the book arrived today. The web is great, but there is something about having the book. I was prompted to order a copy at last because the Aussie dollar is about 50 p at the moment, whereas it is often about 30 p or so.
Subscribing costs 25 pounds per year, which sounds expensive, but you do get access to 3 books and updates for this price. And a CCLI licence also gives you permission to use the hymns in your church, provided that you follow the correct procedure for doing so.
I notice that the hymn book also has a notice that gives permission for a one time use of any hymn in the book, provided that you give proper acknowledgement to the source of the hymn you are using.
I hope to post interesting hymns I've found in the book from time to time. The hymn for today is a setting of Psalm 125 by Christopher Idle. The words are terrific and sound great when sung to the old hymn Sanctissimus, which is the one we always used for singing Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness:
My hard copy of the book arrived today. The web is great, but there is something about having the book. I was prompted to order a copy at last because the Aussie dollar is about 50 p at the moment, whereas it is often about 30 p or so.
Subscribing costs 25 pounds per year, which sounds expensive, but you do get access to 3 books and updates for this price. And a CCLI licence also gives you permission to use the hymns in your church, provided that you follow the correct procedure for doing so.
I notice that the hymn book also has a notice that gives permission for a one time use of any hymn in the book, provided that you give proper acknowledgement to the source of the hymn you are using.
I hope to post interesting hymns I've found in the book from time to time. The hymn for today is a setting of Psalm 125 by Christopher Idle. The words are terrific and sound great when sung to the old hymn Sanctissimus, which is the one we always used for singing Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness:
Those who rely on the LORD are unshakeable,
firm as Mount Zion, supremely assured;
just as the mountains encircle Jerusalem,
round us forever is standing the LORD.
Evil shall not always trample on righteousness:
God's time will come when oppression shall cease.
LORD, bless the righteous, restrain the impenitent;
grant to your people the gift of your peace.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Geoffrey Tozer obit
Child prodigy hit the highest notes Sydney Morning Herald, August 27, 2009
Geoffrey Tozer, 1954-2009
GEOFFREY TOZER was 13 years old when the legendary headmaster of Geelong Grammar School, James Darling, advised him: ''You're wasting your time at school''.
Although Tozer was not a Grammarian, the sage had taken the boy under his wing after hearing him play in concert. He told him: ''What you really need to do is read, play the piano and meet famous people. Get out of Australia as fast as you can. Go and grow.''
Tozer, a child prodigy who would become one of Australia's most internationally acclaimed and recorded concert pianists, had made his professional debut at the age of eight, dressed in velvet shorts, playing Bach's Concerto in F Minor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
A year after Darling offered the advice, Tozer became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship, which took him to London. The next year he was a semi-finalist in an international piano competition in Leeds. At 15, he made his international debut at the Royal Albert Hall in London, performing Mozart's Concerto No 15 with Colin Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Tozer, who has died, aged 54, of liver failure at his Melbourne home, went on to extensively tour Europe, the US, Asia and Australia. In 2004 he marked his 40th anniversary in the business with 40 concerts. His recordings covered composers from Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, to Stravinsky, Ireland, Brahms, Bach, Schumann, Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt and Mozart. And he reintroduced international audiences to the works of the Russian Nikoli Medtner.
Geoffrey Peter Bede Hawkshaw Tozer was born in Mussoorie, a hill station in northern India, to Veronica Tozer and Geoffrey Conan-Davies, an Anglican minister. His mother had separated from her husband, an army colonel, by the time she arrived in Melbourne in 1958 with Geoffrey and his older brother, Peter.
He is thought to have showed an interest in music while still in his pram, aged six months, when his mother played Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony on the family's wind-up gramophone. He was soon taking records such as Benjamin Britten's Rape of Lucretia, rather than teddy bears, to bed. If one broke, he would cry like the baby he was and put all the pieces under his pillow.
At five years he astounded an audience at St Kilda Town Hall with flawless playing of Bach and Bartok. Besides, he was reciting passages from Oscar Wilde's fairy stories at three years, reading Homer at seven and, by 10, Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw.
Tozer auditioned successfully at the ABC at eight years, after which mother and son walked the six kilometres home. By the age of 12 he had played five Beethoven piano concerts with the MSO.
His early education was at a convent school and then with the Christian Brothers. His mother switched him to De La Salle College when canings began bruising his hands, affecting his violin and piano lessons. He gave up the violin after five years to concentrate on piano. His piano lessons came from his mother, a music teacher, and private teachers such as Eileen Ralf in Hobart, Maria Curcio and Theodore Tettvi.
Tozer pigeonholed his concert career to graduate from the London Opera Centre (1979-80) and work as a repetiteur at the centre and at Glyndebourne. He then taught at the University of Michigan in 1981-82 before returning to Australia.
His many triumphs included a bravura performance of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas in 16 hours, spread across seven concerts over 11 nights in 1994 in Melbourne. He played with the Berlin and Moscow symphony orchestras, but his biggest audience was in May 2001, when an estimated 80 million Chinese watched him live on television playing the Yellow River Concerto. He made several tours of China.
Geoffrey Tozer's illustrious career was not without controversy. He became a favourite of Paul Keating, the former prime minister, who, as treasurer in 1989, introduced creative fellowships after meeting Tozer, then the music teacher at the Canberra school where Keating's son, Patrick, was a student.
Keating, who believes that Tozer was Australia's greatest pianist, said he felt ''ashamed'' that a pianist of his talents was earning only $9000 a year. He introduced what became known as the Keatings and the first five-year award in 1989 ($329,000) went to Tozer.
When the pianist was awarded a second fellowship in 1994 ($219,098), there was an outcry led by the Opposition protesting that, with so many worthy figures in the arts community, it was outrageous that Keating's close friend was selected a second time. Tozer's supporters say there is nothing unusual in dual fellowships. Tozer himself had followed up his first Churchill fellowship at the age of 14 with a second at 17. He was also twice awarded Israel's Rubenstein Medal, in 1977 and 1980.
Keating had already paved the way for a Canberra enterprise to make Tozer's first Australian recordings, and he promoted the pianist's talents to London-based classical music giant Chandos. He was vindicated when the Chandos recordings won rapturous reviews in Europe, with further success in the US.
He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1992 for his recording of the three Medtner piano concertos with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The recording won a Diapason d'Or prize that year.
Tozer later attracted local criticism when he said he would have to pursue his career in London because Melbourne was a ''remote, provincial city'' and Australia had an indifference to the arts generally. He later said he had been caught in a moment of exasperation on a 40 degree day and that there was no question that Melbourne was ''home''.
His other awards included Hungary's Liszt Centenary Medallion, Belgium's Prix Alex De Varies and Britain's Royal Overseas League Medallion. He was never so honoured at home.
Geoffrey Tozer enjoyed the ballet and photography and liked to relax by going for long walks. He is survived by four of his five siblings - Peter, Tim, Meredith and Bliss.
Gerry Carman
Geoffrey Tozer, 1954-2009
GEOFFREY TOZER was 13 years old when the legendary headmaster of Geelong Grammar School, James Darling, advised him: ''You're wasting your time at school''.
Although Tozer was not a Grammarian, the sage had taken the boy under his wing after hearing him play in concert. He told him: ''What you really need to do is read, play the piano and meet famous people. Get out of Australia as fast as you can. Go and grow.''
Tozer, a child prodigy who would become one of Australia's most internationally acclaimed and recorded concert pianists, had made his professional debut at the age of eight, dressed in velvet shorts, playing Bach's Concerto in F Minor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
A year after Darling offered the advice, Tozer became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship, which took him to London. The next year he was a semi-finalist in an international piano competition in Leeds. At 15, he made his international debut at the Royal Albert Hall in London, performing Mozart's Concerto No 15 with Colin Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Tozer, who has died, aged 54, of liver failure at his Melbourne home, went on to extensively tour Europe, the US, Asia and Australia. In 2004 he marked his 40th anniversary in the business with 40 concerts. His recordings covered composers from Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, to Stravinsky, Ireland, Brahms, Bach, Schumann, Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt and Mozart. And he reintroduced international audiences to the works of the Russian Nikoli Medtner.
Geoffrey Peter Bede Hawkshaw Tozer was born in Mussoorie, a hill station in northern India, to Veronica Tozer and Geoffrey Conan-Davies, an Anglican minister. His mother had separated from her husband, an army colonel, by the time she arrived in Melbourne in 1958 with Geoffrey and his older brother, Peter.
He is thought to have showed an interest in music while still in his pram, aged six months, when his mother played Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony on the family's wind-up gramophone. He was soon taking records such as Benjamin Britten's Rape of Lucretia, rather than teddy bears, to bed. If one broke, he would cry like the baby he was and put all the pieces under his pillow.
At five years he astounded an audience at St Kilda Town Hall with flawless playing of Bach and Bartok. Besides, he was reciting passages from Oscar Wilde's fairy stories at three years, reading Homer at seven and, by 10, Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw.
Tozer auditioned successfully at the ABC at eight years, after which mother and son walked the six kilometres home. By the age of 12 he had played five Beethoven piano concerts with the MSO.
His early education was at a convent school and then with the Christian Brothers. His mother switched him to De La Salle College when canings began bruising his hands, affecting his violin and piano lessons. He gave up the violin after five years to concentrate on piano. His piano lessons came from his mother, a music teacher, and private teachers such as Eileen Ralf in Hobart, Maria Curcio and Theodore Tettvi.
Tozer pigeonholed his concert career to graduate from the London Opera Centre (1979-80) and work as a repetiteur at the centre and at Glyndebourne. He then taught at the University of Michigan in 1981-82 before returning to Australia.
His many triumphs included a bravura performance of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas in 16 hours, spread across seven concerts over 11 nights in 1994 in Melbourne. He played with the Berlin and Moscow symphony orchestras, but his biggest audience was in May 2001, when an estimated 80 million Chinese watched him live on television playing the Yellow River Concerto. He made several tours of China.
Geoffrey Tozer's illustrious career was not without controversy. He became a favourite of Paul Keating, the former prime minister, who, as treasurer in 1989, introduced creative fellowships after meeting Tozer, then the music teacher at the Canberra school where Keating's son, Patrick, was a student.
Keating, who believes that Tozer was Australia's greatest pianist, said he felt ''ashamed'' that a pianist of his talents was earning only $9000 a year. He introduced what became known as the Keatings and the first five-year award in 1989 ($329,000) went to Tozer.
When the pianist was awarded a second fellowship in 1994 ($219,098), there was an outcry led by the Opposition protesting that, with so many worthy figures in the arts community, it was outrageous that Keating's close friend was selected a second time. Tozer's supporters say there is nothing unusual in dual fellowships. Tozer himself had followed up his first Churchill fellowship at the age of 14 with a second at 17. He was also twice awarded Israel's Rubenstein Medal, in 1977 and 1980.
Keating had already paved the way for a Canberra enterprise to make Tozer's first Australian recordings, and he promoted the pianist's talents to London-based classical music giant Chandos. He was vindicated when the Chandos recordings won rapturous reviews in Europe, with further success in the US.
He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1992 for his recording of the three Medtner piano concertos with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The recording won a Diapason d'Or prize that year.
Tozer later attracted local criticism when he said he would have to pursue his career in London because Melbourne was a ''remote, provincial city'' and Australia had an indifference to the arts generally. He later said he had been caught in a moment of exasperation on a 40 degree day and that there was no question that Melbourne was ''home''.
His other awards included Hungary's Liszt Centenary Medallion, Belgium's Prix Alex De Varies and Britain's Royal Overseas League Medallion. He was never so honoured at home.
Geoffrey Tozer enjoyed the ballet and photography and liked to relax by going for long walks. He is survived by four of his five siblings - Peter, Tim, Meredith and Bliss.
Gerry Carman
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Caveat Wiktor
I enjoy using Wikipedia and am grateful to all those folk who voluntarily keep it up-to-date and, as far as I've discovered, usually accurate.
But, you do have to be wary. I was reading an article about Wieniawski's lovely Legende today, which is in ternary form, with the outer sections in G minor and the middle part in the parallel major. But not according to the article I found. The writer had been confused by the occasional G major chords in the first section, I think.
People will tell you that Wiki is no more inaccurate than Encyclopedia Britannica, but I can't believe that any professional musician would have made the error I found in the Wieniawski article today.
Caveat Wiktor!
But, you do have to be wary. I was reading an article about Wieniawski's lovely Legende today, which is in ternary form, with the outer sections in G minor and the middle part in the parallel major. But not according to the article I found. The writer had been confused by the occasional G major chords in the first section, I think.
People will tell you that Wiki is no more inaccurate than Encyclopedia Britannica, but I can't believe that any professional musician would have made the error I found in the Wieniawski article today.
Caveat Wiktor!
Joe Green, continued
We were delighted to discover that our old friend, Bernard Hull, was performing the role of Radames when we attended AIDA. The man playing the lead role was ill, and it was so good to see Bernard doing the part and doing it superbly. It must be tough being an understudy and knowing the part perfectly, but not often getting the chance to perform, yet always having to be ready.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Joe Green's Egyptian thingy
My wife's mother has kindly given us two tickets to see the Australian Opera perform Aida at the Sydney Opera House.
We owned a CD of highlights, but I've never really engaged with it. It's Claudia Abbado, Placido Domingo and some other geezers, but it doesn't even include the triumphal march. How can you have a highlights CD without the triumphal march?
Today we've been listening to Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Bergonzi and the mob. It is magnificent. Several reviewers say it is still the best ever recording. We haven't heard many others [the odd triumphal march, of course, when people don't leave it out!], but it is everything that has been claimed for it.
And there are so many great moments left off the highlights CD. Verdi good, as Basil would say!
We owned a CD of highlights, but I've never really engaged with it. It's Claudia Abbado, Placido Domingo and some other geezers, but it doesn't even include the triumphal march. How can you have a highlights CD without the triumphal march?
Today we've been listening to Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Bergonzi and the mob. It is magnificent. Several reviewers say it is still the best ever recording. We haven't heard many others [the odd triumphal march, of course, when people don't leave it out!], but it is everything that has been claimed for it.
And there are so many great moments left off the highlights CD. Verdi good, as Basil would say!
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Q and A
The Finale Music Notation Software users group has always helped me with my queries about using the program, but also with general music queries.
Here is an example, which I'm posting here so that I can perhaps find it again when I've forgotten the answer.
Very soon after posting my question, I received this informative reply:
Here is an example, which I'm posting here so that I can perhaps find it again when I've forgotten the answer.
I notice in looking at Haydn and Scarlatti sonatas that sometimes the key signature is written differently from the way we write them now. In both instances there was a flat left off, so it can't have been copied by Lefty Sharpoff, I suppose...
The current example is Scarlatti Sonata in F minor, which has a key signature of 3, not 4 flats. [Was he only evicted from 2 flats while writing?] I notice that there are a lot of D naturals in the melody and wonder if this is the reason, but it is clearly in F minor. [K 466, L118, if you are interested.]
I'm interested to know why it was left off, and also when we began writing them as we do, if anyone knows, please.
Very soon after posting my question, I received this informative reply:
It wasn't exactly "left off." In fact it was a carryover from 16th century theory into baroque theory. In renaissance theory a flat in the key signature was an indication that the mode of the piece was transposed up a 4th. (And these were still the medieval church modes, which were still taught by theorists even though composers were gradually working their way toward major/minor tonality.)
Thus the Dorian mode, with its final on D, was a minor mode (using a minor third above the final), that had no key signature. One flat indicated Dorian once-transposed, with its final on G. Two flats indicated Dorian twice-transposed, with its final on C.
Thus G minor in the 17th and early 18th centuries was still indicated by one flat, with accidentals used in the body of the piece for Eb, and the same for C minor, in 2 flats, with accidentals used for Ab. (And of course not all the Ebs or Abs were, in fact, lowered, since the melodic minor scale used a raised 6th and 7th degree in rising passages.)
So it was a simple carryover from earlier practice which, obviously, still made sense to people. As to when the modern convention was adopted (which of course still requires accidentals for the raised 6th and 7th degrees), I don't really know, but I'd bet someone who has studied a lot of late 18th and early 19th century music will have an idea.
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