Musicon / Musical education / Trombone
Mendelssohn is quoted as saying that the trombones “are too sacred to use often.” They have, indeed, a majesty and nobility all their own, and the lowest use to which they can be put is to furnish a flaring and noisy harmony in an orchestral tutti. They are marvellously expressive ::More
Musicon / Beethoven / Musical education / Some notes on the forms of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations
After being introduced with a clipped four-note turn (a standard embellishment) in the right hand, the first phrase of the theme, such as it is, leaps down to the left hand, which plays a hardy tonic-dominant bass pattern before ending with another turn and landing on a low tonic note. Meanwhile, ::More
Musicon / Mozart / Kierkegaard on the Overture of Mozart’s Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni’s overture is concise, defined, strongly structured, and above all, impregnated with the essence of the whole opera. It is powerful like a god’s idea, turbulent like a world’s life, harrowing in its earnestness, palpitating in its desire, crushing in its terrible wrath, ::More
Musicon / Mozart / Denis de Rougemont: Don Giovanni is a mind in revolt
When he strides on stage, glittering in silk and gold, he heroic seducer at his proudest, we are tempted to see in him only the natural fire of desire, a kind of vehement and somehow innocent animality. But Nature has never produced anything like this. We sense there is something demonic about ::More
Musicon / Mozart / Mozart, Don Giovanni: Summary of the plot
ACT ONE. Don Giovanni’s attempted seduction of Donna Anna results in a duel in which he kills the Commendatore, who happens to be Donna Anna’s father. Don Giovanni escapes the scene of the crime undetected with his servant Leporello, as Donna Anna and her fiancé, Don Ottavio, vow vengeance ::More
