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Mily Balakirev
The Mighty Handful The lives and music of Balakirev, Cui, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov examining how they came together and how their careers overlapped. In 1867 the critic Stasov wrote a review of the Pan-Slav concert organised by Mily Balakirev: “God grant that our Slavonic guests may never forget today’s concert; God grant that they…
George Frederic Handel
Handel and Royalty An examination of how closely his music and career was bound up with the British royal family from Queen Anne to George II (course originally run at Crayford Manor to coincide with a workshop on George II). George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) was one of the first composers to make a successful career independent…
Caprice
Caprice for Violin and Piano in G This was written in 1984 when I was a teacher at a small Prep School in Kent for the violin teacher, Alison Reynolds. The obvious influence is Handel with a few modern twists. Although it is in one continuous movement it is in three sections marked Adagio, Vivace…
Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas
Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas – The First English Opera This study was part of a longer course studying the history and culture of the seventeenth century. After studying how Purcell came to write his only true opera and how it fitted in with his other stage works such as King Arthur, and The Fairy Queen…
Robert Schumann
Schumann and Schumann This course examined the music and careers of Robert and Clara Schumann, how they were entwined and the influence on each other. The course was run thematically with the first week being an overall chronology and then each week concentrating on one type of music such as Piano Muisc, Songs, Choral, Orchestral…
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Vaughan Williams and Holst Two great friends who pioneered a new English style with varying success. Not just the composers of Greensleeves and the Planets, Vaughan Williams and Holst followed Elgar’s lead as two of the standard bearers of the English Musical Renaissance. Both were from Gloucestershire but they met as students at the Royal…