Weekend music to chill by.....The Lark Ascending Edition.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

Written by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, inspired by a poem by George Meredith. Premiered in 1921.

Voted in 2007 England's all time favorite composition on the show Desert Island Discs.

Hilary Hahn, violin soloist:

The composer put this portion of the poem on the work's flyleaf:

He rises and begins to round,

He drops the silver chain of sound,

Of many links without a break,

In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.

For singing till his heaven fills,

‘Tis love of earth that he instils,

And ever winging up and up,

Our valley is his golden cup

And he the wine which overflows

to lift us with him as he goes.

Till lost on his aerial rings

In light, and then the fancy sings.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Thanks for posting this, my dear Manifestor_of_Light!

This is one of my all-time favorite pieces...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. You're most welcome, Dear Peggy!

I think everyone needs soothing and positive music, whether it be classical, jazz, rock, choral or whatever to refresh our souls.

The best choral CD I have is called Agnus Dei: Music of Inner Harmony, by the Choir of New College, Oxford. The label is Erato. I recommend it highly.

Also anything by the Tallis Scholars or Anonymous Four.

I bet you didn't know that Vaughan Williams wrote a Tuba Concerto!!!

And we played it in the community orch I was in, since the apprentice conductor was a tuba player.

That was strange. also played Vaughan Williams' Sixth symphony in college for our annual Scholarship Benefit Concert. That was quite difficult.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. The Lark Ascending is such a breathtaking piece - and Hilary Hahn is a master virtuoso

One of the world's greatest interpreters of Bach's incredible pieces for solo violin, which she mastered at a young age. She was a child prodigy.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. She's awesome.

I have the Bach Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas by Joseph Szigeti. I played the violin for about fifteen years. They will really fry your brain. My teacher in high school used to give me two lines of the D minor Chaconne to work on for a week, or part of the E major Partita.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

5. I studied the violin in my youth

but I never had the extreme commitment it takes to be really good. Hilary Hahn's version of Bach's Chaconne is very emotionally expressive and she probably takes liberties with vibrato that were never intended by the composer. But she does great honor to one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. Her version is probably my favorite, so passionate compared to the rather dry interpretation by the great Jascha Heifetz. Johannes Brahms wrote the following about the Chaconne:

"On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

My favorite violinist is Nathan Milstein but I love Hilary Hahn's playing.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. Cool!

My teacher, who also taught me piano, would tape sections of the same piece by different players so I could hear the subtlety in those differences. This was in the days of reel to reel tape.

My teacher liked Nathan Milstein and Erica Morini. She's practically forgotten now.

Sometimes Heifetz sounded good, sometimes he scraped his bow like I would on a bad day. I like Szigeti's interpretation a lot.

[sendero]

7. Always a favorite..

... especially among English works!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. I've always loved this piece.