Listening Club - great music explained
“Thanks for opening our eyes into another world …
I knew the music a bit, but there was so much more to learn/listen to/think about. Thank you!”
The Listening Club’s latest project is a six-part course of recorded lectures exploring the wonderful Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach.
As a court employee in Cöthen in his mid thirties, Bach sent a beautiful handwritten score of these concertos to the aristocratic Margrave of Brandenburg as a thinly-disguised job application, but never received a reply.
The Margrave’s loss is our gain; the Brandenburg Concertos are amongst Bach’s best-loved compositions – tuneful, imaginative, brilliant and fun.
Watch a five-minute preview of the fifth film in the Brandenburg Concertos series...
The Listening Club Brandenburg Concertos course consists of three hours of recorded material, made up of an introduction; six films, one for each of the Brandenburgs, lasting between 25 and 35 minutes each; and a recorded Q&A. Sandy explores the context behind the concertos, helps us to follow the score along with the music, and offers three important points to focus on in each session. The Academy of Ancient Music has kindly made its 2009 recording available for us.
By the end of the course you will have learned about some of the most important techniques Bach used in his instrumental music, become accustomed to following the scores while listening to the music, and will have gained a fresh understanding of this masterpiece of eighteenth-century music.
To purchase the course, head to the “add to cart” button above, or click here.
This is part of an ongoing series; future plans for 2024 include projects on Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets and Handel’s Messiah.
My friends at Academy Travel in Sydney, Australia invited me to give my Christmas Oratorio talk as their Christmas lecture on Zoom. It was a fundraiser for 'Our Big Kitchen', a non-profit community kitchen located in Bondi New South Wales that prepares and distributes more than 250,000 meals each year to people in need. I was very happy to donate my fee to this excellent charity, and if having watched the lecture you would like to donate too, then that would be wonderful; Academy Travel will match any donations that you make dollar for dollar.
Here's the link to donate (in your local currency).
And here's the link to watch the lecture. Past Listening Club series have covered the following composers and works:
William Byrd and Elizabethan England
Russian Romantics
Beethoven Late String Quartets
The Symphonies of Sibelius
Wagner Tristan and Isolde
Wagner Die Meistersinger
Handel Messiah
Bach St John Passion
Bach St Matthew Passion
What people say:
As someone totally unfamiliar with the Monteverdi Vespers I found your broadcast today thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable …
Thanks for opening eyes this morning into another world …
I knew I would enjoy this morning’s session! I knew the music a bit, but there was so much more to learn/listen to/think about. thank you!