The Big Foto

G. Rossini – William Tell Overture

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:22:02 +0000

Karajan version

Classic guitar version

Electric guitar version

Amazing Drum version

4 hands Piano version

Rossini- Largo al factotum- Barber Of Seville – Figaro!

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:13:04 +0000

Great BeautifulNaz version :)

Woody Woodpecker version

Rossini’s cats duet

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:13:08 +0000

Rossini composed this piece of opera buffa to ridicule bad sopranos. It is usually featured by a duet of girls but in this case it is interpreted by a chorus that cannot avoid smiles. :)

Barber of Seville by Rossini, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (1950)

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:08:13 +0000

Probably somewhat it was inspired by Chaplin at The Great Dictator (1940). What do you think?

Spanish version but they do not speak much, specially the last 4:05 min.

Ochrestra version

Glass harp. La Gazza Ladra overture – Rossini

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:19:28 +0000

This is still TheBigFoto but this week is going to be dedicated to classical music [ Gioachino Rossini ] I haven’t had much time for photos, but this music and videos are great.

Today you can enjoy La Gazza Ladra (The thieving magpie, La urraca ladrona)

Orchestra version * if you have not much time start at min. 2:10 of the video

Smetana – Vltava (Die moldau)

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:03:11 +0000

Bedřich Smetana (2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country’s aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride, and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast (“My Fatherland”) which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer’s native land.

Smetana was naturally gifted as a pianist, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After his conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy.

In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged Smetana to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride, were premiered at Prague’s new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same year, Smetana became the theatre’s principal conductor, but the years of his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city’s musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative work, and may have hastened the health breakdown which precipitated his resignation from the theatre in 1874.

By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured, but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum, and his subsequent death. Smetana’s reputation as the founding father of Czech music has endured in his native country. [wikipedia]

“Today’s” masterpiece is dedicated to a river, not the popular Blue Danube, but the Vltava the river that runs through the beautiful Prague (I was there last summer both over the Danube and the Vltava – El Moldava [ES]- Die Moldau [DE])

F. Schubert. Serenade

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:05:09 +0000

Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828) was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous “Unfinished Symphony”), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music.
Schubert was born into a musical family, and received formal musical training through much of his childhood. While Schubert had a close circle of friends and associates who admired his work (amongst them the prominent singer Johann Michael Vogl), wide appreciation of his music during his lifetime was limited at best. He was never able to secure adequate permanent employment, and for most of his career he relied on the support of friends and family. He made some money from published works, and occasionally gave private musical instruction.
He died at the age of thirty-one after a brief unconfirmed illness. Interest in Schubert’s work increased dramatically in the decades following his death. Composers like Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn discovered, collected, and championed his works in the 19th century, as did musicologist Sir George Grove. Franz Schubert is now widely considered to be one of the greatest of all composers. [wikipedia]

Schubert’s immortal “Serenade” was written in 1826. It is simply a lovely melody from first note to last, written upon the inspiration of the moment, and yet characterized by absolute perfection of finish and a grace and beauty of which one never tires.

Paganini, Jascha Heifetz plays Caprice No. 24

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:05:27 +0000

Niccolo PAGANINI (born: Genoa, Italy – October 27, 1782, died: Nice, France – May 27, 1840) was one of the most famous virtuosi of his day and is considered to be one of the greatest violinists ever. He was taught to play the violin from a very young age and and was immediately recognized as a virtuoso after he gave his first public concert at the age of 11. In his early teens he studied under Rollo and Ghiretti, but he could not cope well with his success: at the age of 19 he was gambling and drinking. His career was saved by an unknown lady, who took him to her estate, where he recovered and studied the violin for three years.

Paganini reappeared when he was 23, and he soon became a legend for his unparalleled mastery of the violin.

One of the best known of Paganini’s compositions is his set of 24 Caprices, written around 1817 for solo violin. They are among the most technically difficult music ever written for instrument, calling for a very wide range of bowing techniques, extremely wide left hand stretches, double stopped trills and harmonics and left hand pizzicati. The last of these pieces, in A minor, is a set of twelve variations, and many other composers have taken its theme as the basis for a set of variations of their own (Franz Liszt,Johannes Brahms,Sergei Rachmaninov among them).

Jascha Heifetz plays Paganini Caprice No. 24 Amazing 3:49 – 4:10

Sheep, mixing Churras and Merinos

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:36:46 +0000

Sheep were one of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleece, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk.

The domestic sheep is a multi-purpose animal, and the more than 200 breeds now in existence were created to serve these diverse purposes.

Churras and Merinos are 2 of those breeds, one for excellent milk production, the other excellent for wool production but if you mix them you got neither good wool neither good milk production. So, as it is said in Spain, do not mix churras with merinos trying to get maximum benefit because sometimes it doesn’t work that way.

Antonio Salieri: Europa riconosciuta

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:15:50 +0000

Antonio Salieri (18 August 1750 – 7 May 1825) was an Italian composer and conductor from the Republic of Venice. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was one of the most important and famous musicians of his time. His music is rarely heard today outside of formal study.

Salieri and Mozart

There is very little evidence of a contentious relationship between the two composers. For example, when Salieri was appointed Kapellmeister in 1788 he revived Figaro instead of bringing out a new opera of his own; and when he went to the coronation festivities for Leopold II in 1790 he had no fewer than three Mozart masses in his luggage. Salieri and Mozart even composed a cantata for voice and piano together, called Per la ricuperata salute di Ophelia which was celebrating the return to stage of the singer Nancy Storace. This work has been lost, although it had been printed by Artaria in 1785. Mozart’s Davide penitente (1785), his Piano Concerto in E flat major (1785), the Clarinet Quintet (1789) and the great Symphony in G minor had been premiered on the suggestion of Salieri, who supposedly conducted a performance of it in 1791. In his last surviving letter from 14 October 1791, Mozart tells his wife that he collected Salieri and Caterina Cavalieri in his carriage and drove them both to the opera, and about Salieri’s attendance at his opera The Magic Flute, speaking enthusiastically: “He heard and saw with all his attention, and from the overture to the last choir there was no piece that didn’t elicit a “Bravo!” or “Bello!” out of him [...].”

Salieri died in Vienna and was buried in the Matzleinsdorfer Friedhof (his remains were later transferred to the Zentralfriedhof). At his funeral service, his own Requiem in C minor – composed in 1804 – was performed for the first time. [wikipedia]

Europa riconosciuta is an opera in two acts by Antonio Salieri, designated as a dramma per musica, set to an Italian libretto by Mattia Verazi.

The opera takes place in Tyre and tells a story of love, violence and political discord in ancient times. The central character, Europa, was once the lover of Zeus and helps resolve all disagreements after she discloses her identity – thus the title “Europa Revealed.” Though a traditional opera seria, the work differentiates itself from several of the typical characteristics of the genre. For example: a murder is seen onstage and an extended finale is used in both acts, a practice more typical of opera buffa. Musically, the opera is quite challenging, requiring four principal singers capable of spanning wide tessituras, sustaining long phrases, and making dextrous leaps. For example, the roles of Europa and Semele go up to a high F sharp above high C numerous times and at one point Europa even sings a high G. [wikipedia]

La Scala (Italian: Teatro alla Scala), is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal Theatre at La Scala (Italian: Nuovo Regio Ducal Teatro alla Scala). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta. The opera was not performed again until December 7, 2004 for the re-opening of La Scala, after the theater had been closed for almost three years for major renovations.