Tag Archives: Tone Poem Tuesday

Tuesday Tones

Nkeiru Okoye was born in New York City in 1972 to a Nigerian father and an African-American mother. She graduated from Oberlin in 1993, which is the same year I graduated Wartburg College. Okoye is almost entirely contemporary with me. … Continue reading

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Tuesday Tones

Yup, that’s what we’re calling this series now: Tuesday Tones, because it’s still going to be a music focus series, but it won’t just be tone poems. Not that it was before, really, because if there’s one thing I like to … Continue reading

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Tone Poem Tuesday

I’m thinking about renaming this weekly feature, in order to make it into a more broad focus on classical music, but more on that later when I’ve thought of a name that I like. Meanwhile, today I have a piece … Continue reading

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Tone Poem Tuesday

I could also title this post “I listened to it, so now I’m gonna make you listen to it too!” Because it’s a piece whose existence I learned about after I watched a video on YouTube called “Reacting to One of … Continue reading

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Tone Poem Tuesday

Another new composer to me: Canadian-American composer Colin McPhee, who lived 1900 to 1964. I’m not sure what he is “best known” for, because his influence seems to be more behind-the-scenes than anything else, but McPhee did undertake some of … Continue reading

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Tone Poem Tuesday

A new composer to me! And thus, hopefully, to you. One of my favorite eras of “national” classical music is the English music of the 20th century, starting with Holst and Vaughan Williams and continuing on to Britten, William Walton, … Continue reading

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Tone Poem Tuesday

I featured this piece years ago, reflecting on the fact that I performed it in the concert band at a music camp that I attended as a teenager. But in that post I didn’t write much about the piece itself. … Continue reading

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Tone Poem Tuesday

I could write something about Vocalise by Rachmaninoff…or I could just get out of the way and let you listen to Vocalise by Rachmaninoff. So, here’s Vocalise by Rachmaninoff.

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Tone Poem Tuesday

This week’s selection is stretching the definition of “tone poem” probably past the breaking point, as this piece is not orchestral at all; it was originally written for harpsichord but we’re going to hear it on piano. It’s by Jean-Philippe … Continue reading

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Tone Poem Tuesday

I suppose it’s something of a cliche: the composer who aspires to serious work and yet finds their greatest success in crafting music for the popular world. Such was the fate of Robert Russell Bennett, whose name will be well … Continue reading

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