Virtual Choir 4 - It's here!

Hello everyone!

So remember I posted about my experience of doing Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir, well the finished product is here! It is a sensational piece of music and Eric Whitacre is an absolute genius incorporating choral singing with EDM. I'm so excited about this piece of music, I only got the email of its release about 15 minutes ago! Every listen to this piece of incredible innovation and artistry and for goodness sake ... TURN THE VOLUME UP!!!

Look! There's my name in the credits! Oh my, I'm so proud to have been part of this project. This really is breathtaking. Please everyone, take 5 minutes of your time to listen to this!

Lots of love! Alice xxx

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Virtual Choir 4: Fly - A Paradise of Bliss

Hello everyone!
Well I've been up to a lot recently and one of the things includes one of my ambitions for this year - to become a member of Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir. Eric Whitacre, who is a modern composer, has invented this incredible thing which allows people from all over the world to join together to create a choir through the computer - a Virtual Choir.

It began in 2009 with Virtual Choir 1 and his piece 'Lux Aurumque' that included 185 singers from 12 different countries and has recieved nearly 4 million views on Youtube! In 2011, Virtual Choir 2.0 'Sleep' was released and involved over 2,000 singers from 58 countries. Virtual Choir 3 'Water Night' which was written in 1995 recieved 3,746 videos had been uploaded by 2,945 people in 73 countries! You can see how much the Virtual Choir has evolved over the years, and now with Virtual Choir 4: Fly - A Paradise of Bliss, it has expanded to over 8,000 singers from 101 different countries! Absolutely mindblowing! It has been a complete joy to be apart of this virtual choir and to be apart of a huge array of really talented singers from all over the world - I am certainly going to be joining every single one from now on.

For Virtual Choir 4, Eric Whitacre composed what was originally called 'Bliss' from his musical Paradise Lost (now called Fly - A Paradise of Bliss) and he wanted the focus to be on tall vowels, a pure tone, because getting loads of 'f's and vibratos together can be difficult! I was really worried when I first decided to do this about the technology and the fact you have to sing on your own but when I cracked it, its fairly easy!


I used the tools on the website to learn the soprano 1 part with the video of Eric Whitacre conducting. You could select the parts you wanted to hear when you practised, whether if it was just your part or all of them together with the beat and piano which was really helpful, so when I got to the recording I knew what I was doing!

When I was ready to record I put a nice black dress on and set up the laptop so it was against a plain, light wall, set the microphone up and I was ready! You can see how the video would look from the laptop camera picture. The website linked the microphone and camera onto the page so I see the video as as being able to see the conductor video. So I gave a big smile and tried to look directly at the camera throughout the recording.

To make things even easier to record, the system on the website allows you to listen to the piece whilst you record - you just have to plug your headphones into the computer, laptop, or the microphone in my case as it was an external microphone. That was a really nice touch because I felt like I was part of a choir, rather than just singing on my own.

I am so glad I pursued to do this, depsite my apprehensions because it was an excellent experience. The idea of being part of something so big and international is beyond my comprehension at the moment, but nonetheless wonderful. The finished project will be peformed in front of HM Queen Elizabeth II for her diamond jubilee celebrations! What an honour!

So that was my experience of doing the Virtual Choir! Have any of you done or thought about doing the Virtual Choir? I'll leave with the video of the first Virtual Choir and see what you think! Speak soon everyone!

Love Alice xxx

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La Sacre du Printemps

Hello Everyone!

Here it is! The moment I get all hyper and excited about classical music and tell you all about the concert I went to last thursday. The concert was held at the Royal Festival Hall in London and performed by the Philarmonia Orchestra. It marked and celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Stravinsky's revolutionary ballet La Sacre du Printemps, or 'The Rite of Spring'. Stravinsky's piece was not the only one in the program which included Prélude à L'Après Midi D'Un Faune by Debussy and Amériques by Varèse.

The background of The Rite of Spring is extremely interesting. Stravinsky had become an overnight sensation with his two previous ballets 'The Firebird' (1910) and 'Petrushka' (1911) but the premiere of 'The Rite of Spring' in 1913, where both Debussy and Varèse were in attendance, revolutionised the way people thought about music and dance. For starters, it was the first ballet where pointe shoes weren't used, breaking an incredibly important convention in French and Russian ballet. Debussy stated that it 'haunted him like a beautiful nightmare'. Together with Nijinsky's choreography, Stravinsky's ballet consisted of a multi-tonal, rhythmic nightmare for the French upper classes, but a truimph for the growing bourgeoisie and this clash amounted to a huge riot. The disturbances had begun from first moment music started to be played, punches were being thrown before the first half was over and by the end of the second half, the crowd was uncontrollable and Stravinsky fled before the show was over. There is no wonder that this piece is being celebrated for it has had an extremely important part in inspiring musicians and composers to stand against convention, to develop, not just musically, but socially and culturally too.

The evening itself was magical. The program complemented eachother exquisitely with the Debussy and Varèse also being turning points in musical development. Prélude à L'Après Midi D'Un Faune by Debussy, which was performed first, was wonderful. The piece is based on a poem by Stèphane Mallarmé which describes the sensual experiences of a faun who has just woken up from his afternoon sleep and discusses his encounters with several nymphs during the morning in a dreamlike monologue. The iconic opening flute solo was played absolutely beautiful by the soloist of the Philarmonia. It was rich in tone and was silky in its lyricism of the melody. The blend of the whole orchestra felt so complete and displayed the mystical picture of the faun and woodland exquisitely - it was like hearing a water colour painting. The harmonies that come through are heartbreaking. By the end of the piece I was in tears from its sensitivity and beauty - an incredibly moving performance.

Amériques by Varèse is a piece I had never heard before so I had no idea what to expect. Prélude à L'Après Midi D'Un Faune was the piece that actually made him want to be a composer and in the piece you can hear similarities with Debussy's piece, particularly the alto flute solo at the beginning of Amériques but you will also hear Modernist influences, such as that from Stravinsky. Varèse began writing Amériques when he arrived in America in 1915 - in the words of Esa-Pekka Salonen, the conductor of the Philarmonia, it was first piece that you are launched into a 'cacophony of dense, urban environment' which Varèse drew from his first impressions of the noises of the West Side of Manhattan: an aural explosion of street noises, police cars, firetrucks, river sounds, foghorns, and skyscraper constructions which are extremely well represented in the piece. Varèse swells the orchestra to ginormous proportions and even the reduced scoring calls for 9 percussionists, as well as depicting an unusal array of sounds, including lion's roar and the piece's signature sound of the wailing siren. The performance by the Philarmonia itself is mindblowing! Auralling, the performance was extremely powerful, but visually too the orchestra breathed of excitement - the percussionists were particularly entertaining to watch and you can understand why in the sheer volume created by the percussion. Their sticks were flying about everywhere. The end of the piece blew my head off!!! I don't know if it exists, but it sounded like 'ffffff'. The extended dissonant chord with an incredible crescendo drummed through the hearts of every audience member - it was met with a tumultuous roar and applause. Speechless I was!

And finally came The Rite of Spring. I've written a lot about this, so I won't go on for too long and I think it would be better if you listened to it instead. But, the performance was a dream. I'd wanted to see this piece performed for so long and it was met with a punchy, exciting, mind-boggling, tear-jerking spectacle. The Varèse was a hard act to follow, but by God did it follow triumphantly. Happy 100th Birthday Rite of Spring - lets hope people will still be celebrating it in another 100 years.

The performance itself was live on Radio 3 and you can still listen to it here on BBC iPlayer including some brilliant commentary - http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01slnqk/ - I urge you to have a listen!

Until next time lovelies! Peace. Love Alice xxx

Musical Remedies

Hello Lovelies!

So right now my brother is the middle of taking his AS exams and it took me back to this time last year when I was finishing my A Levels and reminded me of the tiring hours of revision and the STRESS STRESS STRESS of thinking I was going to fail. I was terrible at revision because I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't have dead silence because I was very aware there was nothing else but me revising and the television was far too distracting. It made me think about, potentially, the many of you who are doing A levels, AS levels, GSCEs or even university exams who are going through the same thing and how you find revision and whether its hard to concentrate.

Well, during my revision sessions last year, I discovered a couple of really good musical choices that I would put on that were the perfect balance between having silence and having something that was way too distracting, so I thought I would share!

The first is a Spanish viol player by the name of Jordi Savall (for those of you who don't know what a viol is, it is a 6-stringed instrument that was developed in the mid-1400s - almost a precursor to the cello). His repertoire specialises around Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque, so date-wise from around 1400-1700 and mainly consists of early stringed ensembles with some vocal works. He is a really important figure in promoting early music and bringing instruments like the viol back to the stage which I really admire. Although the music itself is not something you would choose to put on, for me it is perfect background music. The music doesn't feel imposing, it's very easy listening so you can carry on with work whilst feeling you have some warm, exotic company with you - the nature of the music and the use of the percussion takes me back in time to Medieval Spain which is lovely and lightens my mood everytime, which is definately something you need during exam time!! His albums La Folia (1490-1701) and Lluís del Milà: Fantasies, Pavanes & Gallardes are two in particular that I find very easy to work to. Here a couple of his examples of his music, but they are available on iTunes if you wanted to listen further. I REALLY hope you enjoy them :)

 

If you seriously can't get on with the 'classical' music then I've found The Leisure Society and their album The Sleeper to be very relaxing and unimposing in the same way as Jordi Savall. Dynamically, the music is pretty consistent throughout some of their songs and the use of the instruments, particuarly in using pizzicato or 'plucking' I should say with the guitar creates a very lovely mellow atmosphere. The song The Last of the Melting Snow is beautiful, with a sweet legato accompaniment, married with a rocking under current of plucked guitar to give just enough energy to the piece. You can listen to a few of their songs on their own website, if you click here including We Were Wasted which is also lovely and again you can listen to them on Youtube, iTunes, Spotify, whatever you fancy!

If you do have exams going on right now I wish you the best of luck and I hope I have provided a little remedy for the stress of revision. Just think, it doesn't last forever. It will all be over soon!

Lots of love and see you soon yummy people

 

Alice xxx

'Twas the Season

Hello Everyone!

I'm sorry for the massively long absence but I've been so busy lately and have had NO camera to take pictures of anything with! So I've had plenty to post about but no pictures. Oh, and my computers completely packed in, so now there's no Photoshop! Fab times. Anyway - Christmas has been absolutely wonderful this year and I've been completely spoilt so I wanted to show you my lovely presents. I've been able to take this photos off my NEW IPHONE 5. It's the most incredible phone ever and the cameras pretty decent so I hope you enjoy these!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So those were my Christmas presents! There are a few that are missing but this is the bulk of them so sorry for bombarding you with so many photos! You can see I was completely spoilt. Some of my faves are my Cranberry coloured disco pants, my Seiko watch, my music, my 'Sopranos are Superior' jim jams and my amazing 'Gryffindor' pillow - my mum got this when I invited her to my place of work in Leavesden. Any guesses? ;) But I love ALL my presents so much, I'm incredibly lucky.

 

I hope you have all had an amazing Christmas! It's quite sad thinking it's over, but we still have the New Year to celebrate! I am sorry about my lack of posting, but thankyou to everyone whose been popping in, I really appreciate it. Thankyou again, and until next time, Merry Christmas :)



 

 

Lots of Love, Alice xxx


p.s With my lovely new iPhone I've set up an instagram so please follow me! > alicewonderrland
Thankyou, you are all babes!

Desert Island Discs no.5

Hello everyone,

It's been WAY too long since my last Desert Island Discs and I apologise for that! If you've read my previous posts, you'll know I attended the Eton Choral Course in Oxford this summer which has inspired me to do this particular DID. We sang an array of INCREDIBLE choral works but I couldn't possible include all of them in one post! I'll spread them out! I chose a piece that really stood out for me: 'Greater love hath no man' by John Ireland.

I love John Ireland. He had a rather difficult life, always feeling inadequate, he was very introverted, had few friends and had a disastrous marriage which was eventually annulled. One of his pupils Benjamin Britten (A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra) gave up on him after a year, deeming him 'drunk, hungover or absent' during tutorials. I can't help but feel huge sympathy for him. Nevertheless, he gained honorary degrees from RAM and RCM (Royal Academy and College of Music) and a doctorate from Durham, so not all bad. Ireland was a composer that is branded as an 'English Impressionist' whose works were more redolent of French and Russian music like Ravel and Stravinsky; two of my favourite genres of music are French Impressionism and English music of the early 20th Century so John Ireland is the perfect mix! Unfortunately, Ireland destroyed a lot of his early works thinking they weren't good enough, but I'm hoping that after listening to this piece you'll feel an element of disappointment that he did it, because 'Greater Love' is so beautiful. Can you imagine what treats we would have been granted if he had faith in himself?

'Greater love' was written in 1912 for choir and organ and the words are taken from the Song of Solomon, the Gospel of John and various letters of Peter and Paul:

Many waters cannot quench love,

neither can the floods drown it. Love is strong as death.

Greater love hath no man than this,

that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,

That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.

Ye are washed, ye are sanctified,

ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation;

That ye should show forth the praises of him

who hath call'd you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

 

I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God,

that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy,

acceptable unto to God, which is your reasonable service.

The piece goes through a number of keys, moods and tempi that make so interesting to listen to. The harmonies created are absolutely stunning, particularly when created by many voices uniting as one.The piece explores the faith and love of God in a way that is so intimate and delicate as well as demonstrating the power of their faith and God's power to raise people out of darkness; and the lovely quiet prayer that ends the piece. The solos are beautifully constructed with a mixture of sweet scalic passages and powerful sweeping leaps - the baritone solo is gorgeous, but I'm a sucker for a bass :P I love how the tonality changes to a lovely delicate minor for the treble solo, ending on a warm Tierce de Picardie (this is when the 3rd note of a chord is changed to make the chord sound major after being in a minor key).Moreover, the shift of tonalities of the baritone solo set up the next section which sees the choir preaching in such a glorious manner to end with the burst of 'marvellous light'. One part that gets to me everytime is 'that you present your bodies, holy, acceptable unto God'. The harmonies are so beautiful it's heartbreaking, and singing it made me want to cry everytime. The piece is supported with huge power from the wonderful organ which gives it so much depth and substance, particularly the roaring bass! Although it sounds incredible and this is now one of my favourite pieces, I can't help thinking that it's much more enjoyable to sing with other wonderful singers as I had the pleasure of doing.

Anywho, I hope you love this piece as much as I do or can appreciate it's beauty. I'm not religious and I can appreciate its message for what it is and how faith has inspired it, so I really hope religious factors don't hinder your listening to it! Here's two youtube recordings which inevitably don't do the piece justice but I'm sure you can find a recording on itunes for 84p or whatever!

 

This first recording is sung by the choir of All Saints' Church, Northampton. I prefer the baritone solo in this one.

 

This second recording is sung by the choir of St Paul's Cathedral; the treble solo in this one is lovely and personally I like it better than the first one.

That's it for this Desert Island Disc! I hope you enjoy the piece and I'm not gonna say that the next one will be soon because I might be lying! :P Until next time my lovely peoples!

 

Lots of love xxx

 

Alice

Eton Choral Course

Hello everyone!

It's been an incredibly long time so sorry about that! I've had a really busy summer: I went to Zante mid-July, Cyprus in the beginning of August and I went on a choral course in Oxford for a week shortly after that so I haven't had much time to blog about anything I'm afraid! But today is dedicated to my life for the past week.

I went on a course for choral singers which is run by 'Eton Choral Courses' which was set up by Ralph Allwood, a previous Director of Music at Eton College (yes, the private school of the royals which sounds incredibly pretentious but Ralph was actually really nice and not pretentious in anyway) and the course I was on was based in Queen's College at Oxford University.

It was absolutely incredible. I learnt more than I could have imagined, kearning new singing techniques, singing wonderful pieces with a bunch of amazing people. I'm not gonna lie, I was slightly put off by some of the posh and pretentious people; the course is quite expensive so most of the people that went go to boarding school and private, so for a while I felt really out of place, but I was judgemental far too early and discovered how wonderful they are.

 



This is The Queen's College and the chapel which we rehearsed and performed in. It is absolutely beautiful. Singing in the lovely chapel was an absolute pleasure, the acoustics are incredible. During rehearsals sometimes I'd be bored sodless and then look around at the intricate architecture, the vibrant stained glass window and the amazing circular painting and realise where I was.

 

 

This is Merton College chapel which we did our recital in. This is only a fraction of the college as well as the chapel. The college is set in beautiful grounds and there a few more quads than the one I am showing which are equally as beautiful. In the chapel, the image only shows the front part; behind this is a vast hall with a bell tower and grand pillars: it is quite a spectacle! At the beginning of the recital, we waited until the bell had struck 4 o'clock and instantly came in with 'HAIL GLADDENING LIGHT' by Charles Wood; an absolutely beautiful piece! Here are a few photos of my time there. Oh, and I take no credit for any of these photos because my camera is broken and so I wasn't able to take any, so thankyou so google and my friends on facebook!

 

 

 

 

 

The second picture is of my consort group which I had immense fun with. The point of concorts was to improve sight reading and interactions with smaller ensemble groups, plus we had to prepare a piece to sing grace at a lunctime and we sung 'The Lord's Prayer' by Sheppard and it was incredibly hard - it was the most complicated polyphony I have come across, but really enjoyable. One of our practises was in Magdelen College Chapel, the most beautiful college in Oxford so singing in the chapel was an absolute thrill.

 

Since I've been singing choral music all week I think I have soem inspiration for the next Desert Island Discs which I have completely neglected, I apologise. Anyway, I hope everyone is okay! Hopefully I'll blog soon. Speak soon.

 

Lots of love, Alice xxx 

 

Desert Island Discs no. 4

Hello everyone!
Welcome to number 4 of my Desert Island Discs. I said this week I'd do something a bit different and I think I'm going to achieve it this week, sort ot. It's not completely out of the norm, but it's certainly not mainstream. So this week, it's the Lento E Largo, Tranquillissimo from - Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) by Henryk Górecki.

So, just to tell you a bit about the composer. Górecki was a Polish born composer who died quite recently in November 2010. In his early career he composed Serialist music during the 1950s and 60s, influenced by Webern (one of the composers of the 2nd Viennese School), Stockhausen, Penderecki and Serocki. and his music was characterised by dissonant modernism from these influences.
However, during the 1970s, he started to move towards sacred minimalism which is exemplified in this piece. His Symphony no. 3, from whihch this piece is from is his most popular and was composed in memory of those who died in the Holocaust, which really comes across in the piece.


The piece itself is one of the most heart-breaking pieces I have ever heard, it makes me cry. (Sorry, another heartbreaking song). I think in light of what its attributed to, the melody and harmony bring it across perfectly and having the idea of the Holocaust in the back of your mind really makes you feel overwhelmed emotionally. The harmonies are simple and make use of Medieval modes which I think is absolutely beautiful, because I love tonal ambiguity. It's a very mournful piece, full of bereavement, but it's very sublte to bring this across. It doesn't include huge great crashes of percussion to heighten the emotion which I like about this piece, because it almost touches your emotions in a way that allows you to be overwhelmed in your own way, rather than someone obviously trying to drum it in to you. I do love the emotional works, for instance by Beethoven, but I think for this occassion, in light of the Holocaust, it's not something you can generalise.

The beginning of the piece is so beautiful. It opens with a folk drone of A-E, and a melodic fragment of E-G#-F# which sounds like you're at the top of a mountain. Gorecki said that 'I wanted the second movement to be of a highland character, not in the sense of pure folklore, but the climate of Podhale ... I wanted the girl's monologue as if hummed ... on the one hand almost unreal, on the other towering over the orchestra'. The girl he referring to is 18-year-old Helena Wanda Błażusiakówna, who was a highland woman who left an inscription on the wall of her prison cell in a Gestapo prison at the foot of the Tatra mountains in Southern Poland, and she only thinks of her mother, which is what Górecki was fascinated by.

Although this piece is incredible sad, it is absolutely beautiful and is most definately worth listening to. It's a very thoughtful piece. I would love to take this piece to a desert island, although, not without a remedy to pick me up again afterwards.

I hope you love the piece as much as I do. I really is an incredible piece, particu/arly with its ability to bring out such emotion. Net time, I will do something cheery! And perhaps a little faster! Thankyou for reading! :)

Love Alice xxx

Old School Music

Hey peoples!
Okay, so, basically we have a lot of shit in our house which is all shoved in the lodge which is a seperate mini house thing outside our house. Not all of it is shit though and we found this record player which I imagine is from the '60s or '70s, hence, Old School Music. It's so amazing!

It plays LPs but it's got an 8-inch on it at the moment. The sound it makes is incredibly. It's really old, grainy and crackly which may sound horrible but it really makes you sound as if you're in the '70s and, as a lover of vintage, its a real treat to feel that way. I think it's beautiful!



My mum was telling about the times when she used to go her firends house and a bunch of them would listen to vinyls and chill. Very indie like! And they alll used to have arguements when it was time to turn it over. 'Well, I'm not turning it over, you turn it over' 'No, I'm getting up otherwise someone will nick my seat, you turn it over' 'No, I'm comfy and I don't wanna lose my seat'. In the end, someone gets up and another nicks their seat. It made me laugh. Sorry if the humour didn't translate! :S







Anywa, this was our new find. I love it! I'm going shopping in a bit so hopefully I'll have a few things to show you.

Bye for now :)

Alice xxx



Desert Island Discs no. 2

Hello Darlings!
Welcome to Desert Island Discs no 2! Today, I'm starting a journey of expressing one my loves: French Impressionist music - music by French composers of the late 19th/ early 20th century and we're starting with one the fathers of Impressionism, Maurice Ravel and the piece I would want to take with me to a Desert Island is Daphnis at Chloé Suite no. 2.

In all honesty I feel slightly reluctant to talk about this piece becasuse I have only discovered it recently, but I fell in love with the piece as soon as I heard it. Impressionism has a very unique sound as the harmony is more brilliant and some of the pieces are constructed by whole tone scales (when the notes of the scale are all one tone apart - for instance, a whole tone scale starting on C would be C D E F# G# A# for those who don't know). This piece embodies absolute orchestral genius.

A bit about the piece in context, the Russian art critic and ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev commisioned the piece Although its reception was generally tame, only reaching 2 performances, it was revived a year later with an incredible reception. Stravinsky called the piece 'one of the most beautiful products of all French music' and I completely agree with him.

I wanted to draw attention to why Ravel's orchestration is so brilliant. Here is the flute part that plays at the beginning of the Suite:

You can see that there are a lot of very quick notes and it looks like it should sound very loud and disruptive, but if you listen to the track, it is very subtly acting as a mystical accompaniment which creates an incredible atmosphere. When the piece gains some bass harmony, the piccolo line I believe in the lower register plays these wonderful wispy flicks (acciaccaturas or however you spell them, its late so I wont try). The flute part above is also played by the violins which add a beautiful timbre as if the music is flying, and is a bit more like flying water whereas the flutes create a sense of air flying. Strange analogy but thats how I picture it!

The harmony is this piece is absolutely mindblowing. When you get to around 5 mins you will feel your heart completely soar as the climax opens out into huge burst of harmony and timbre wonders. I guess the reason why I would take this track to a desert island is because of its ability to transport me to Wonderland, my heavenly place in my head. I can't stress the beauty of the harmony and the impressionist tonality. Around 6 mins, there is a very quiet part with two oboes playing the melody and a harmonised version, and the strange intervals between the two parts make an absolutely gorgeous phrase: it reminds me of a scene in which it is raining in the back garden of a chateau in France, it is light and there is a mass of flowers everywhere that are tickled by willow branches, and its such a pleasant image. That's why this piece is one to go on the desert island disc.

Daphnis et Chloe - Ravel
I really hope you all enjoy listening to it. It is absolutely stunning. Even if you are not enchanted by it straight away, just wait until around 5 mins 10 secs and be completely stunned.

I hope you have enjoyed this edition of Desert Island Discs and me going on a very passionate, visual journey of this piece. But until next friday!

Have a lovely weekend everyone. And I have another post about a record player we found the other day, but maybe tomorrow! I'm so tired! Night night!

Lots of love
Alice xxx

Desert Island Disc no. 1

Hello everyone! :)
Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but it's been a MAD week and I'm so glad it's over!

Anyway, welcome to my first Desert Island Disc. Usually, I'll pick one piece that I would take to a desert island every week, but for today, I'm going to choose 2 because I feel I can't write about one without talking about the other.

The first piece I'm going to talk about is 'Serenade to Music' by Ralph Vaughan Williams, my favourite composer. The text in the piece is an adaption about music in Act V Scene 1 in 'The Merchant of Venice' by Shakespeare. Vaughan Williams wrote the piece as a tribute to conductor Sir Henry Wood and it was first performed in the Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Sir Wood in Septmeber 1938.

This piece is particularly special to me because, when I first listened to this piece, it was the first time I knew I wanted to study and have a career in music. The harmonies, even from the word 'go', are so sweet and you feel like you're melting. Plus the timbre created by the strings, harp and the oboes in the opening phrase is so mellow and smooth, it's wonderful! What I love about Vaughan Williams is his harmonies and very weird harmonic progressions, i.e. the different keys he changes, but the piece still sounds so beautiful! When the singers come in, the third chord on 'moonlight' is something that really elevates my mood. Another wonderful thing about Vaughan Williams is that, as a nationalist composer, he was influenced by traditional English folk music which really be heard in the melody, which is so smooth and very lyrical. I implore you to listen to this piece of music, because it cahnged my life and I hope you like it as much as I do.

Serenade to Music - the premiere recording in 1938

This was the piece I was originally going to talk about but I would not have discovered it if I hadn't found Serenade to Music first. This is 'The Lark Ascending' by Vaughan Williams. This work was inspired by George Meredith's 122 line poem about a sky lark, which was origianlly written for a solo violin and piano in 1914, but another version of solo violin and orchestra was written in 1920. The orchestral version is the one most heard now. Vaughan Williams sketched the work out while watching troop ships cross the English Channel at the beginning of the First World War. What's quite amusing is that a small boy saw him making the sketches and thought he was jotting down a secret code, informed a police officer who arrested Vaughan Williams. LOL. #musicnerd

This piece has pretty much always been in the top 100 classical songs and for a very good reason. I don't think I have heard such genius in the construction of a melody than the violin part of this piece. This has a much more folky feel with the use of pentatonic scales (a pentatonic scale is made up of 5 notes, in which the melody is solely based - these are used in folk music) but the piece is not as warming and sweet as Serenade to Music, but that definately doesn't detriment it's beauty. The timbre created by the horns at the beginning of the piece is stunning - its a very mellow sound which warms you into the piece.
I could probably go on forever about the solo violin part. You would need to listen to it to fully appreciate its beauty. It really creates a sense of a lark flying with there is very clever composing of the melody to imitate a bird's song. Moreover, the piece, as a whole, makes you feel as if you are sitting in the middle of the English countryside, surrounded by the most glorious nature: the blossoming flowers, the green hills, the drip-tip leaves and in amongst it all is the most beautiful sounds of nature; a lark's song. The harmony of this piece is stunning, because it sounds quite ambiguous, probably an influence of the Impressionist French composers of this time, in which Vaughan Williams was taught by Maurice Ravel. Ravel's construction of melody probably influenced VW which can be seen in another piece, which I am yet to post as another Desert Island Disc ;)
OUt of the two pieces, The Lark Ascending is my favourite. I know I've been writing quite a bit about the piece, but the way it makes you feel is almost speechless: the harmonies, melody and use of timbres binds together to produce a timeless piece that really touches my heart. I really hope you can listen to this piece and appreciate it as much as I do, because I don't know what I would without this piece of music in my life.

The Lark Ascending - David Nolan as solo violin

I do apologise if the recordings are terrible, because I hate for the pieces to be ruined or for you to base an opinion on bad recordings. I would listen to see if they are good, but for some reason, the sound on my internet isn't working! But please listen! They are incredible pieces and very accessible as well.

I hope you enjoyed the first Desert Island Disc and I'll see you next week with another piece to take to a desert island. Or maybe before if I blog about something else.

Hope you are all okay!

Love Alice :)
xxx

Silent Noon

Hey!
Okay, so this is the post about the musical part of my life :) In fact my URL 'Silent Noon' is named after one of my favourite songs written by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who is also my favourite composer :) For anyone who sings, perhaps more classically, I would definately recommend Silent Noon, it is beautiful!

I thought I would jam these three into one picture because they're just so long! Introducing my Clarinet, Flute and Oboe (from back to front for those who arn't sure). I play the Clarinet purel for pleasure and is a family instrument. My Flute is the one I play at an advanced level in which I am Grade 8 standard. His name is Ronson because he reminded me of when Mark Ronson had silver hair so the name stuck :) I got the beauiful Oboe as an 18th birthday present and is one of my most pirzed possessions along with Ronson. It doesn't have a name yet but the name hasn't come to me yet - I haven't had the definitive feeling! But I have been getting feelings of an English Rose, so I thinking she's a girl. I'm not sure. If I come up with a name, I'll let you know!

This is my stepdad's student Viola and it is beautiful (a Viola for those who don't know is slightly larger than a violin and plays at a lower pitch). I need to get it re-stringed because they are quite loose but the sound produced by a Viola, if it is played properly, is so subtlely pure - it doesn't scream 'HEY I'M A SOLO' and that's what I like about it :) noble and beautiful! Haha, sorry I'm getting emotional!

Another instrument I play quite proficiently is the piano which is downstairs. I would take post a picture but its quite late! I love the piano. It's the one instrument that when I play, I can't stop. When I practise my Flute, I regularly get annoyed and stop. It's not his fault, I just can't play! That never really happens playing the piano. Anyone who plays the piano, the La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin from Prelude no 8 Book 1 by Debussy is a fairly easy piece, but when it's played well, the harmonies and melodies just fill you up and send you away from the horrible world!

I might start a Desert Island Disc blog every week! Yeah!! Omg, I'm gonna do it. Every week I'll post about a CD or track and write about it. I just really want to express my love for for music, particuarly orchestral music because I really want people to share it with me, and not dismiss it like usual people (my brother) do.

Anyway, thankyou for looking at the musical side of me! There'll be more to post about me I'm sure soon enough. I have a few items of clothing I should post to show who I am. :)

Night night everyone! :)
Love Alice xxx