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Happy 75th birthday to rock musician, arranger and film score composer James Newton Howard.
From Elton John to Barbra Streisand.
PRETTY WOMAN to THE HUNGER GAMES
His career has been both long and noteworthy.
A versatile, gifted composer and musician.
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#filmsky #moviesky #musicsky #BOTD
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Passionate symphony lover. Other music is good too.
Mr. Symphonist
Today's the birth anniversary of the great Romantic-era composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
His Third Symphony ("Rhenish") was James Horner's [ahem] "inspiration" for the main theme from the film WILLOW (1988)
Opening bars provided here by Paavo Järvi and the Concertgebouw:
#filmsky #moviesky #botd
#TheCompleteBritten #111
Young Apollo, Op.16 (1939)
Britten knocked out this flamboyant 'fanfare for piano, string quartet & string orchestra' for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation while also at work on the Violin Concerto and Les Illuminations. Its ecstatic high spirits are downright sexy!
#TheCompleteBritten #109
Calypso - cabaret song for voice & piano (1939)
The last of Britten's four surviving songs written for Hedli Anderson to texts by Auden. This terrific performance (complete with whistle blow) brings out all the poet's and composer's urgent, breathless excitement.
He'd just arrived in Canada with Peter Pears and, as you can hear from the bravura piano part and unrestrained string writing, he hit the Canadian ground running. He withdrew the piece, possibly at Pears' insistence, and it wasn't heard again until 1979.
Find it on my Youtube & Qobuz playlists 🔽
2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Britten (1913-1976). Peter Grimes, the Serenade and War Requiem are among my all time favourite works. This year I'm going to try to listen to every Britten piece, in the order he wrote them. Why not join me? #TheCompleteBritten
Mr. Symphonist
And that's the 400 up for #TheCompleteBritten.
Latest addition: his 1942 arrangement of the Suffolk Folksong "Oliver Cromwell". All 47 seconds of it.
Mr. Symphonist
Happy 161st birth anniversary to great Danish symphonist Carl Nielsen, born #OnThisDay in 1865. Here's his glorious Symphony No. 3 under the Inextinguishable Herbert Blomstedt (still conducting at age 98). Stick this on as loud as your nieghbours can stand to get your day off to an expansive start!
Happy 161st birth anniversary to great Danish symphonist Carl Nielsen, born #OnThisDay in 1865. Here's his glorious Symphony No. 3 under the Inextinguishable Herbert Blomstedt (still conducting at age 98). Stick this on as loud as your nieghbours can stand to get your day off to an expansive start!
