The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Containing His Articles, Observations, Thoughts, Meanderings,
and some would say Wisdom (and some would say not).

For more on Classic Music please refer to my articles
Classical Music Appreciation, Classical Music Chirps, and Classical Music Recommendations.

Some Classical Music have titles, often not titled by the composer, and as much Classical Music is composed by non-English speaking composers, they are in the language of the composer or whoever titled them. Many such titles have been translated and adopted in the English-speaking world. Some, however, have not been adopted whether for esthetic reasons or for other reasons they are still (mostly) referred to by their original language titles. I have, therefore, compiled a shortlist of these compositions and their English translation.

• Alborada del gracioso - The Jester's morning love song
• Also Sprach Zarathustra - Thus Spoke Zarathustra (a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche)
• Appassionata – Passionate
• Après un Rêve - After a Dream
• Clair De Lune - Light Of The Moon
• Danse Macabre - Dance of Death
• Das Lied von der Erde - The Song of the Earth
• Das Rheingold - The Rhinegold
• Der Freischutz - The freeshooter
• Der Rosenkavalier - The Knight of the Rose
• Die Fledermaus - The Bat
• Die Forelle – The Trout
• Die Lorelei – An enchanting, seducing mermaid who lures seamen to their death
• Die Meistersinger – The Master Singer
• Die Walkure - The Valkyries (the warrior maidens of Odin in Norse mythology)
• Ein Heldenleben - A Hero's Life
• Eine Kleine Nachtmusik – A Little Night Music
• El amor brujo - Love, the Magician, literally, Spell-bound Love or The Bewitched Love
• El Salón México – The Dance Halls of Mexico City
• El Sombrero de tres Picos – The Three-Cornered Hat
• En Saga – A medieval Icelandic or Norse saga.
• Etudes d'execution transcendante d'apres Paganini - Transcendental Studies of the Paganini Etudes
• Fur Elise - For Elise
• GaîtéParisienne - Parisian Gaiety
• Götterdämmerung - Twilight of the Gods
• Guillaume Tell - William Tell
• Il barbiere di Siviglia - The Barber of Seville
• Il signor Bruschino - The Accidental Son
• Jeux D'Eau – Water Games
• La Campanella - The little bellLa cenerentola - Cinderella
• La gazza ladra - The Thieving Magpie
• La Mer – The Sea
• La scala di seta - The Silken Ladder
• La Valse – The Waltz
• L'Arlésienne - The Girl from Arles
• Le Coq d'Or - The Golden Cockerel
• Le Sacre Du Printemps – The Right of Spring
• Le Tombeau de Coouperin – The Tomb of Coouperin
• Libestraum – Love’s Dream
• Liebesfreud - Love's Joy
• Liebesleid - Love's Sorrow
• Liebestod - Love Death
• L'italiana in Algeri - The Italian Girl in Algiers
• Locus iste - This place
• L'oiseau de feu - The Firebird
• Ma mère l'Oye - Mother Goose
• Ma Vlast - My homeland
• Moldau - The Vltava River in the Czech Republic
• Pathétique - aesthetically pleasing sense of limitation or suffering in contrast to one's hopes and aspirations
• Pavane pour une infante défunte - A stately court dance for a Dead Princess
• Petrushka - A centuries-old archetypal character in Russian folk puppetry that is the quintessential trickster.
• Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
• Rhapsodie Espagnole – Spanish Rhapsody
• Scheherazade- A major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the One Thousand and One Nights
• Schön Rosmarin - Lovely Rosemary
• Schwanengesang - Swan Song
• Siegfried Idyll - Pastoral or sentimental character for Siegfried
• Standchen – Serenade
• Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche - Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
• Un Sospiro – A Sigh
• Valse Triste – Sad Waltz

Basic List of Classical Musical Terms

A Basic List of Classical Music terms (hopefully understandable to non-musically trained persons such as myself), that may be helpful in understanding Classical Music terminology.

• Adagio – Play slowly and gracefully.
• Adagietto - A passage is to be played slightly faster than adagio.
• Air - A song-like vocal or instrumental composition.
• Allegro - Performed quickly in a brisk lively manner.
• Allegretto - Faster than allegro.
• Andante - Performed moderately slow.
• Arabeske - An ornate composition.
• Aria - An elaborate song for solo voice.
• Arioso - In the melodious manner of an aria, or between aria and recitative.
• Arpeggio - A chord whose notes are played in rapid succession rather than simultaneously.
• Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV) - A catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.
• Ballad - A narrative song with a recurrent refrain.
• Band – Musical instrumentalists not including string players.
• Barcarolle - A boating song.
• Beat – A basic unit of time.
• Berceuse - A quiet song.
• Bolero – A lively Spanish dance.
• Bourrée - A French folk dance with many varieties, characteristically danced with quick, skipping steps.
• Cadenza - A brilliant solo passage occurring near the end of a piece of music.
• Cantabile - Smooth and flowing.
• Cantata - A musical composition for voices and orchestra based on a religious text.
• Capriccio or Caprice – A composition that doesn't adhere to rules for any specific musical form and is played with improvisation.
• Chamber Music - Music that is performed by a small number of performers.
• Chords - A combination of three or more notes that blend harmoniously when sounded together.
• Chorus - A group of people assembled to sing together or the part of a song where a soloist is joined by a group of singers.
• Con Brio - With vigor.
• Concertante - A solo for two or more principal instruments, with orchestral accompaniment.
• Concerto - A composition for orchestra and a soloist.
• Concerto Grosso - baroque composition for orchestra and a group of solo instruments.
• Counterpoint - A musical form involving the simultaneous sound of two or more melodies.
• Duo or Duet - A musical composition for two performers.
• Elegy - A mournful composition; a lament for the dead.
• Etude - A short composition for a solo instrument; intended as an exercise or to demonstrate technical virtuosity.
• Fantasia - A musical composition of a free form usually incorporating several familiar themes.
• Fugue - a contrapuntal (rules of counterpoint) composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.
• Gavotte - Music composed for dancing the a medium-paced formal French dance, popular in the 18th century.
• Gigue - Music for dancing a jig, a lively dance with leaping movements.
• Harmony - The combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect.
• Hoboken catalogue - A catalogue of the musical compositions by Joseph Haydn
• Humoresque – A short playful composition.
• Impromptu - A free-form musical composition which has the character of without prior preparation or with improvisation, as if prompted by the spirit of the moment.
• Key - A system of functionally related chords deriving from the major and minor scales, with a central note, called the tonic (or keynote).
• Köchel catalogue – A chronological catalogue of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Landler - A Austrian and southern German folk dance that is moderately slow, antecedent to the waltz.
• Largo – A composition or passage that is to be performed in a slow and dignified manner.
• Larghetto - Less slow and broad than largo.
• Lento - Music play at low speed.
• Major and Minor - The adjectives major and minor may describe an interval, chord, scale, or key. As such, a composition, movement, section, or phrase may be referred to by its key, including whether that key is major or minor.
• March – A piece of music with a strong regular rhythm.
• Mazurka - A Polish national dance, usually at a lively tempo.
• Measure or Bar - Beats that are grouped together into measures or bars.
• Minuet - A slow, stately piece of music composed for dancing by two people; often incorporated into a sonata or suite.
• Moderato - Moderate tempo.
• Molto – Much, very much, a great deal.
• Movement - A major self-contained part of a symphony or sonata.
• Nocturne - A pensive lyrical piece of music (especially for the piano).
• Non Troppo - Not too much.
• Opera - A drama set to music; consists of singing with orchestral accompaniment and an orchestral overture and interludes.
• Opus - A musical work that has been created, and usually numbered in the order of creation by the composer.
• Orchestra - A musical organization consisting of a group of instrumentalists including string players.
• Orchestral - Relating to or composed for an orchestra.
• Overture - Orchestral music that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows.
• Partita - A musical suite, usually for solo instrument or small ensemble.
• Pastorale - A musical composition that evokes rural life.
• Pavane - A stately court dance.
• Philharmonic - Composing or characteristic of an orchestral group.
• Pitch - Sounds are higher or lower in pitch according to the frequency of vibration of the sound waves producing them.
• Poco - A little.
• Polonaise – A stately Polish processional dance, performed by couples who walk around the dance hall.
• Polovetsian – Music based on the dances of the Kipchaks and Cumans people of Russia.
• Presto - At a very fast tempo.
• Prelude - Music that precedes a fugue or introduces an act in an opera.
• Preludium - A prelude.
• Quartet - A musical composition for four performers.
• Quintet - A musical composition for five performers.
• Recitative - A vocal passage of narrative text that a singer delivers with natural rhythms of speech.
• Requiem - A musical setting for a Mass celebrating the dead.
• Rhapsody - An irregular, emotional piece of music.
• Rondo - A musical composition whose principal subject recurs in the same key in alternation with other subjects.
• Rhythm - The basic, repetitive pulse of the music, or a rhythmic pattern that is repeated throughout the music. It can also refer to the pattern in time of a single small group of notes.
• Sarabande - A a slow, stately dance that was popular in Baroque music.
• Scherzando - In a playful or sportive manner.
• Scherzo - A fast movement.
• Serenade - A musical composition in several movements; has no fixed form.
• Siciliano - A Sicilian dance, resembling the pastorale, set to a slow and graceful melody.
• Sinfonia - A long and complex sonata for symphony orchestra.
• Sonata - A composition usually of three or more movements designed chiefly for a solo instrument.
• Sostenuto - Sustained.
• Suite - A musical composition of several movements only loosely connected.
• Symphony - An orchestral composition on a great scale.
• Tempo - The speed at which a composition is to be played.
• Toccata - A baroque musical composition (usually for a keyboard instrument) with full chords and rapid elaborate runs in a rhythmically free style.
• Tone Poem - An orchestral composition based on literature or folk tales.
• Trio - A musical composition for three performers.
• Vocalise - A musical composition consisting of the singing of melody with vowel sounds or nonsense syllables.
• Vivace - Very fast and lively.
• Waltz - A ballroom dance with a strong accent on the first beat, performed primarily in a close position and in a circular motion.

Calming Soulful Classical Music

I am an ardent lover of slow, soulful music. I find that the soulfulness and calming effects of such music to be uplifting. Here within are some of my favorite soulful music.

My favorite Classical Music soulful pieces are:

• Albinoni: Adagio
• Bach: Air On The G String
• Barber: Adagio for Strings
• Beethoven: Adagio Cantabile
• Borodin: Quartet No. 2 in D major for Strings, III. Notturno: Andante
• Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Op.77 - II. Adagio
• Chopin: Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor
• Debussy: Claire de lune
• Dvorak: Songs my mother taught me
• Faure: Pavane
• Grieg: Lyric Suite op.54, 03 Nocturne
• Khachaturian: Gayne's adagio
• Kreisler: Liebesleid
• Liszt: Un Sospiro Concert Étude No. 3
• Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor: Adagietto
• Mascagni: Intermezzo
• Massenet: "Thais" Meditation
• Mendelssohn: Sweet Remembrance
• Mozart: Adagio for Violin and Orchestra in E, K.261
• Pachelbel: Canon
• Rachmaninoff: Vocalise
• Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
• Rubinstein: Melody
• Saint-Saëns : Le Cygne (Carnaval des animaux)
• Satie: Gymnopédie No. 1
• Schubert: Ständchen (transcribed by Liszt)
• Schumann: Träumerei, from Kinderszenen No. 7
• Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela
• Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No.1 in D - Mvt 2 (Andante cantabile)
• Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

Other, Miscellaneous Lists

American Patriotic Music:

• American Patrol - Frank White Meacham
• American Salute - Morton Gould
• America the Beautiful - Samuel Ward
• Battle Cry of Freedom - George Frederick Root
• Battle Hymn of the Republic - Lyrics by Julia Ward Howe; Music by William Steffe
• God Bless America - Irving Berlin
• My Country, 'Tis of Thee - Colonel Jim Keene
• Oh Shenandoah - Unknown
• Over There - George M. Cohen
• Semper Fidelis - John Philip Sousa
• The Stars and Stripes Forever - John Philip Sousa
• The Washington Post March - John Philip Sousa
• When Johnny Comes Marching Home - Patrick Gilmore
• Yankee Doodle Dandy - Unknown
• You're A Grand Old Flag - George M. Cohan
• The Star Spangled Banner - The National Anthem
• The Star-Spangled Banner - The Soldiers' Chorus
• Air Force song - Robert Crawford
• Anchors Aweigh - Lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles, Music by Charles A. Zimmermann
• The Army Goes Rolling Along - SGM (ret.) Paul Murtha
• The Marines' Hymn - Unknown

Educational Videos:

• Introduction to the instruments of the orchestra
• Instrument Families
• How to read music - Tim Hansen
• Gerard Schwarz gives a Conducting Lesson
• Benjamin Britten: (Illustrated) The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra Op.34 - with Peter Pears

• Great Composers: Episode 1 Johann Sebastian Bach
• Great Composers: Episode 2 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Great Composers: Episode 3 Ludwig van Beethoven
• Short Composers Biographies

• From the Clavichord to the Modern Piano - Part 1 of 2, Part 2 of 2
  
• A Brief History of the Violin
• Demonstration of Stradivari, Amati and Vuillaume violins
• The making of a Steinway Piano
• The making of the Stentor Violin

Saint-Saens: Carnival of Animals-The Swan (Various Interpretations):

These interpretations are provided for your understanding how a individual piece of music can be played by many different instruments and styles.

Cello and Harp

Cello and Piano

Cellos

Double Bass

English Horn

Flute and Piano

French Horn

Glass Harp & Piano

Harp

Lyre

Orchestral

Piano Duet   

Piano

String Orchestra

String Quartet

Tenor Horn and Piano

Viola and Piano

Violin and Harp

Violin and Piano

A Touch of Humor:

• 13 Types of Pianists
• 10 Songs You've Heard and Don't Know the Name
• Evolution of Music ( 1680 AD - 2017)
• Swan Lake Spoof
• How to Become a Singer
• Pachelbel Rant
• Silent Monks Singing Halleluia
• Timpanogos High Choir Sings Rossini's William Tell Overture
• Classical Music In The Key Of Comedy
• World's Funniest Classical Music Performances
• Top 10 Giant Piano Performances Compilation