Arkiv's Top 5 Recordings of the Week
Every week we ask our staff to tell us about some of their favorite recordings. This month is we are looking at music from the “classical era”, meaning from around the time of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Here are some of our favorites, we hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Classical Era – Music for Piano: Mozart and Beethoven were both excellent pianists, though they are by no means the only ones. Here are some of our favorite piano pieces, some with orchestra or other instruments, and some pieces for solo piano.
Mozart was apparently and outstanding pianist and wrote exquisite music for the instrument. The second movement of this piece was used in the 1967 Swedish film “Elvira Madigan”, and that name stuck – Mozart had nothing to do with the name, only the music.
Probably the best known of Beethoven's sonatas are the Pathetique, Moonlight and Appassionata. Only the Moonlight was was named by the composer, inspired by some poetry he was reading. If you haven’t spent much time with Beethoven’s piano sonatas, this album is a good place to start.
This was the last piano sonata that Haydn wrote, and one of his very best. The sheer amount of music that Joseph Haydn composed is astonishing, and so, so much of it is really wonderful.
Irish-born composer and pianist John Field was the first person to use the musical term “Nocturne” to describe a composition with a particular sound – a singing melody over broken chords in the bass line. It was a type of composition that Field was very good at writing. This 2-CD set with Irish pianist Miceal O’Rourke has all of the Nocturnes Field wrote.
Hummel studied with both Mozart and Haydn, was a friend of both Beethoven and Schubert. He also helped create one of the first pension plans for musicians, and gave concerts to help raise money for this cause, as well as being an important person in the development of intellectual property and copyright law. He was one busy guy!
Check out the full collection here
Do you have a piece of classical music that you particular like? Tell us what it is, and we will add it to our “reader's favorites” section
Email Contact: customerservice@arkivmusic.com