Thank you for coming in out of the sunshine to hear some great singing in our last class of the season. Here are the videos we saw, beginning with Franz Schubert, who wrote roughly 615 songs in his short life. This is the beautiful memory song, "Der Lindenbaum," or "The Lime Tree" from his song cycle "Winterreise."

At my class on Sunday, May 21, we will hear the great German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and pianist Gerald Moore perform Schubert's "Der Lindenbaum." It's a memory song, recalling the gentle rustle of a lime tree in summer as the narrator trudges through winter. We'll also hear songs by Schumann, Wolf and Bolcom, plus a bunch of arias, because we can't leave out opera. This is a class devoted to the human voice and we will hear some wonderful singing. Hope to see you there.

We heard some wonderful music for the piano at my last class, April 30. Here are links to YouTube videos showing how composers have seized on the piano's chameleon-like qualities to create impressions of a shimmering fountain, exploding fireworks, a flamenco guitar, a rippling harp, a singer breathing long lines of melody, a three-part conversation and, finally, imitating the heft of a symphony orchestra.  

In 1984, the Soviet Union boycotted the LA Olympics. As a cultural symbol of musical muscle, precision and American jazz, 84 pianists played George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" at the opening ceremony.

A clavichord from 1763:

A harpsichord, popular in the Baroque era:

One of three surviving pianos built by the piano's inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori:

No one plays a singing line as well as Artur Rubinstein in the Chopin Nocturne in D-Flat Major:

A fountain, in Liszt's Jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este:

As a flamenco guitar:

A three-part conversation in Myra Hess' famous arrangement:

Exploding fireworks:

A harp:

Joyous birdsong:

A massive symphony orchestra: