The Good Musician

All woodwinds, that is. The so-called woodwind quintet is a flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and french horn. The latter, however, is frequently included in small chamber consorts, especially in the Baroque, as they play those lovely hunting calls and stirring royal fanfares.
The Baroque sonata form often contained a 3/4 or 6/8 meter movement, and horns would feature prominently. The horn can also sustain a pedal tone or sound the root of a chord to support the other four instruments.
There was lots ‘o repertoire written for woodwind quintet in the 20th century. There is a woodwind quintet nestled in …read more

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Please bear with The Good Musician for jumping out of chronological order–came across this tidbit when organizing trip brochures (yes, I collect all that stuff–the arts administrator Web/print schizoid database mind).
Notenspur Music Trail opens fall 2008. It’s a 4.7 km signposted walking trail through musical wonderland. Sort of a pilgrimage to experience the homes and churches of an exceptional musical city. Leipzig was home to so many greats, poets as well as musicians and artists. But the city excels in nurturing music.
This relatively small area–the centrum being only a few dozen blocks or so, is lush with …read more

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The Good Musician travelog talked about Hungarian and Czech composers. Here are some of the astounding churches and cathedrals where those composers wrote and made music, and where Chorus Austin will perform this summer. I’ve been browsing the concert schedules, and it looks like there will be lots of fantastic music while we’re there.
Budapest is smaller than Prague, and sadly received more damage during World War II. This is a lovely church in Budapest.
Image details: A Church In Budapest served by picapp.com
Here’s a view of Budapest and the Danube–waltz, anyone?
Image details: Budapest and danube river served by picapp.com
This is …read more

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Next stop, Prague–capitol of the Czech Republic. Rich in ancient church music tradition, documented from the Sixth Century, this is a hotspot of Central European music. Bohuslav Martinu, Antonin Dvorak (sorry, don’t know diacritical marks yet), Leos Janacek, and Bedrich Smetana are composers you’ve likely run across, Romantic and 20th Century exemplars.
You can download Czech music mp3s here.
More about Czech music here.
From Radio Prague, an exceptionally well written piece on the history of music in general, and Czech music in particular.
Visit the Czech Music Information Centre to learn more about contemporary Czech music.
A really cool music festival site with tiny …read more

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