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Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10 in E Minor

 Shostakovich's 10th Symphony is as spectacular and significant as his 5th. He wrote the 5th to save his life, but the 10th was written in 1953, just a few months after Stalin's death, and hence the symphony is in a tone of cautious relief and enjoyment. (As an aside, this composition timeline is according to Shostakovich, but various sources do indicate the symphony being written in 1951.) It was premiered in Moscow in December 1953 by Mravinsky. This symphony is nothing less than the confrontation between the artist and the hated dictator.  1st Movement - Taking around 28 minutes to be performed, this is almost half as long as the entire symphony! The movement is in sonata form and has parts A,B, and A, where A is the exposition, and B is the development. The exposition has three main themes. The opening of the symphony employs the typical Russian strategy of playing a slow, meditative melody on the cello and strings. This is the 1st theme, and it imitates a choir singing ...
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Alexander Borodin - Three musical masterpieces

 Although he was professionally a chemist, Borodin's extensive output as a composer placed him among Russia's Big Five, which also included Korsakov, Balakirev, Cui, and Mussorgsky. He was a romantic composer who turned to music as a means of relaxation from his scientific work, yet he nonetheless demonstrated his virtuosity through his compositions. I would focus on three wonderful pieces today. In the Steppes of Central Asia - In 1880, Czar Alexander II was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his reign, and had commissioned Borodin to write the background music for a Tableau Vivant. (A tableau vivant is an outdated art form where actors would be arranged on a stage and assume poses depicting a certain scene, with music playing in the background, and they would be lit up artistically! The art form resembled a painting, and one of its approximate modern-day analogues is the concept of living statues.) But due to an assassination attempt on the Czar, the production was cancell...
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Felix Mendelssohn - Fingalshöhle (Die Hebriden)

 In his first visit to England in 1829, Mendelssohn visited Scotland where he started composing his 3rd Symphony, also known as Scottish. While residing there, he went on a tour to the Staffa Island, where he was spellbound by a sea cave known as Fingal's Cave, which had beautiful black basalt pillars. Mendelssohn was so awestruck by the beauty that he composed the first theme right after seeing the Island and sent it to his sister in a letter.  The piece itself, is a concert overture, which essentially means that it is performed as a standalone piece without any correlation with a stage performance (Music historians believe that Mendelssohn himself was the first one to start the concept of a concert overture stemming from his overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream). The composition involves two primary themes. The 1st theme is played by the violin and the cello and is a very lyrical theme which was inspired by the beauty of the cave. The 2nd theme is opened by the bassoon and ...
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A short introduction

    Hello, fellow wanderer! The purpose of this post is to introduce you to the blog and its purpose, so here goes. I have been interested in Western classical music, and after years of listening solely for the appreciation of the music, I slowly came to realise that knowing the context behind the composition enhances your experience tenfold. This might be a very naive realisation, but for me, it was eye-opening. Hence, I started diving into how the composer meant a particular composition to be played, what the musical pieces mean to him, what was the context of the composition, what roles do the various instruments play, and how is a particular musical movement interpreted, which would unveil another layer of listening to classical music and would be a great eye opener. This blog, like its sister blog Melodious Worldlines , stemmed from a series of talks on Western classical music that I attended at the NCPA, and I wished to store the acquired knowledge in a place of permanen...
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