This is a charming Berceuse - really more of a lullaby by the french composer Henri Sauguet, He was of the generation just behind Le Six and although he lived a long time and was very prolific he has rather disappeared from view.
I remember hearing this on the radio some years ago (I think in a programme introduced by Jeremy Nicholas , though I might be wrong on that) and was utterly enchanted by its simplicity but also but the piquancy of the harmony. I can't find a copy of the text on line, but it is a bed time song to a child from its mother , who is looking out over the sea and watching the birds and the boats fly away. It was written in Madagascar and actually comes from an opera le plumet du colonel
I don't think that I have ever heard another note of Sauguet's music, although there are published recordings and other extracts on YouTube so I really ought to find out more about him.
Showing posts with label one track wonders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label one track wonders. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 September 2014
One track wonders - Love's dream after the ball
I have mentioned in this blog before how I sometime leave the IPOD on random and see what comes up. This popped out a few days ago and I thought that I would share it. But more than that it got me thinking about composers for whom I have precisely one track on my IPOD.
This is a gorgeous piece of nostalgic delight by Alphons Czibulka (there are various spellings) who was an Hungarian bandmaster and composer of operettas. He was obviously very prolific as this is opus 356!
Richard Bonynge knows exactly how to bring off a piece like this. He obviously enjoys the charm and sentimentality but he doesn't milk it for all it is worth. It takes great musicianship and technique to perform light music as elegantly as this,
I doubt that many readers will have heard of Czibulka, but I would be prepared to put quite a lot of money on a wager that everybody reading this will recognise at least one of his melodies. The "hearts and flowers" melody so often used as an accompaniment to love scenes in the silent movies is based on a song by Czibulka! Whether that is how he would like to have achieved immortality in that way is a moot point, but at least he has left a thumb print on musical and cinema history.
This is a gorgeous piece of nostalgic delight by Alphons Czibulka (there are various spellings) who was an Hungarian bandmaster and composer of operettas. He was obviously very prolific as this is opus 356!
Richard Bonynge knows exactly how to bring off a piece like this. He obviously enjoys the charm and sentimentality but he doesn't milk it for all it is worth. It takes great musicianship and technique to perform light music as elegantly as this,
I doubt that many readers will have heard of Czibulka, but I would be prepared to put quite a lot of money on a wager that everybody reading this will recognise at least one of his melodies. The "hearts and flowers" melody so often used as an accompaniment to love scenes in the silent movies is based on a song by Czibulka! Whether that is how he would like to have achieved immortality in that way is a moot point, but at least he has left a thumb print on musical and cinema history.
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