Weekend Edition: The week’s best reads

Weekend Edition: The week’s best reads http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-34637670

A riot of scents at Delhi’s oldest perfumery

A riot of scents at Delhi’s oldest perfumery http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34674507

Work begins on UK’s new UK Mid-East base

Work begins on UK’s new UK Mid-East base http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34690895

UN and Red Cross rebuke world leaders

UN and Red Cross rebuke world leaders http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34690546

Sinai plane crash: IS claim rejected

Sinai plane crash: IS claim rejected http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34690936

Bangladeshi publisher hacked to death

Bangladeshi publisher hacked to death http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34688245

best readings: The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Art of War- Sunzi_Librivox
https://archive.org/details/art_of_war_librivox (click here to access website)

The Art of War

by Sun Tzu

Published November 2, 2006

Usage Public Domain

Topics librivox, audiobook, literature, war, Sun Tzu, Sunzi, Lionel Giles

 

Librivox recording of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, translated by Lionel Giles.

Read by Moira Fogarty.

“The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time. The Art of War is one of the oldest and most famous studies of strategy and has had a huge influence on both military planning and beyond. The Art of War has also been applied, with much success, to business and managerial strategies.” (summary from Wikipedia)

For more information on our readers, please visit the catalog page

For more free audiobooks, or to become a volunteer reader, please visit librivox.org.

Download M4B (17MB)

Access here: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection

The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection

LibriVox – founded in 2005 – is a community of volunteers from all over the world who record public domain texts: poetry, short stories, whole books, even dramatic works, in many different languages. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain in the USA and available as free down

The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection (Click to access the Website!)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
by Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

by Lewis Carroll

Published January 11, 2006

Topics literature, children, audiobook, librivox

 

Librivox recording of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. A children’s classic!

Read by:
Chapter 01 Kristen McQuillin
Chapter 02 Brad Bush
Chapter 03 Roger W. Barnett
Chapter 04 Miette
Chapter 05 Mark Bradford
Chapter 06 Raza Shah
Chapter 07 Kara Shallenberg
Chapter 08 Kristen McQuillin
Chapter 09 MarinaMechanical
Chapter 10 Roger W. Barnett
Chapter 11 R. Francis Smith
Chapter 12 Chris Goringe

For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording.

For more information or to become a volunteer reader, please visit librivox.org/

Download M4B (84MB)

Saint of the Day for Saturday, October 31st, 2015: St. Wolfgang

Saint of the Day for Saturday, October 31st, 2015

St. Wolfgang

Wolfgang (d. 994) + Bishop and reformer. Born in Swabia, Germany, he studied at Reichenau under the Benedictines and at Wurzburg before serving as a teacher in the cathedral school of Trier. He soon … continue reading

More Saints of the Day

St. Wolfgang St. Abaidas St. Antoninus St. Arnulf

St. Bega St. Erth St. Notburga St. Quentin

CARL MARIA VON WEBER. Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 19

Carlos Garcia

Published on Jul 7, 2014

CARL MARIA VON WEBER.-

Symphony No. 1 in C major,  Op. 19

Movements:

I. Allegro con Fuoco
II. Andante
III. Scherzo and Trio
IV. Finale: Presto

Cappella Coloniensis

Director: Bruno Weil

Carl Maria von Weber is best known as a composer of operas, but in fact write two symphonies. The first symphony was written in 1806 to 1807, shortly after the premiere of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, “Eroica ‘. Beethoven symphonic put the world upside down with the heroic, and his fourth symphony followed closely. The two symphonies Weber, although interesting and melodious, were written at once faithful to his style in the classic style. They were overshadowed at the outset by Beethoven and developments were almost forgotten until its revival in the 20th century Weber had just begun a visit to the music lover Duke of Württemberg-ols, whose palace was in a forest and boasted a small orchestra that Duke liked to play the oboe inch Weber wrote his two symphonies for this small orchestra consisting of a flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings, without clarinets. The first movement is in sonata form, and shows the amount of Weber and understood the orchestra. His gift for melody shines throughout the movement. But it is with the second movement Andante showing Weber style for the dramatic, even when writing for solo instruments. It is a short movement (as all movements of the symphony are, the whole symphony takes only about 25 minutes), but it has a dark instrumental color which makes it the most unique in the symphony movement. The third movement is a scherzo with a prominent part of the oboe. The end is a high-spirited movement in sonata form that brings the symphony to a poignant end. Weber first symphony is not the best music he wrote. Weber himself acknowledged in a letter to a friend, when he expressed how he could have solved things better in the symphony. But still a very nice piece of music and has flashes of the talent that was to Weber one of the founders of the Romantic movement in music.

 

Best classical music: Alexander Scriabin Piano Concerto f-sharp minor opus 20 – II. Andante

Alexander Scriabin Piano Concerto f-sharp minor opus 20 – II. Andante

Lars Nelissen

Uploaded on May 26, 2009

II. Andante
piano: Anatol Ugorski
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
conducted by: Pierre Boulez

Scriabin finished his piano concerto when 24 years old. The concerto is full with elegance and brilliance. We enter the magical world of Scriabin’s psyche! It is said that Scriabin’s earlier works remind of Chopin, yet there’s no question Scriabin’s “style” is a very personal one with his own message, his own flavors and colours; – just like Mozart writing in a style that reminds of Haydn and even Pergolesi, he had his own “style” and every note was “new”!

Historic Musical Bits: Mozart: Piano concerto n. No. 21 in C major, K.467(“Elvira Madigan”) Pollini-Muti

Mozart: Piano concerto n. No. 21 in C major, K.467 (“Elvira Madigan”) Pollini-Muti

Alessandro152

Uploaded on Sep 12, 2011

Mozart:Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467

Orchestra filarmonica della Scala
Maurizio Pollini, piano
Riccardo Muti, conductor
(2004)
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart –

Piano Concerto No. 21,

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467, was completed on March 9, 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, four weeks after the completion of the previous D minor concerto, K. 466.^[1][2]

Structure

	Third movement Performed by: Giorgi Latso, piano
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The concerto has three movements:

1. Allegro maestoso; in common time. The tempo marking is in Mozart’s catalog of his own works, but not in the autograph manuscript.^[3]
2. Andante in F major. In both the autograph score and in his personal catalog, Mozart notated the meter as Alla breve. ^[3]
3. Allegro vivace assai

The opening movement begins quietly with a march figure, but quickly moves to a more lyrical melody interspersed with a fanfare in the winds. The music grows abruptly in volume, with the violins taking up the principal melody over the march theme, which is now played by the brass. This uplifting theme transitions to a brief, quieter interlude distinguished by a sighing motif in the brass. The march returns, eventually transitioning to the entrance of the soloist. The soloist plays a brief Eingang (a type of abbreviated Cadenza) before resolving to a trill on the dominant G while the strings play the march in C major. The piano then introduces new material in C major and begins transitioning to the dominant key of G major. Immediately after an orchestral cadence finally announces the arrival of the dominant, the music abruptly shifts to G minor in a passage that is reminiscent of the main theme of the Symphony No. 40 in that key.^[4] A series of rising and falling chromatic scales then transition the music to the true second theme of the piece, an ebullient G major theme which Mozart had previously used in his Third Horn Concerto. The usual development and recapitulation follow. There is a cadenza at the end of the movement, although Mozart’s original has been lost.

The famous Andante is in three parts. The opening section is for orchestra only and features muted strings. The first violins play with a dreamlike melody over an accompaniment consisting of second violins and violas playing repeated-note triplets and the cellos and bass playing pizzicato arpeggios. All of the major melodic material of the movement is contained in this orchestral introduction, in either F major or F minor. The second section introduces the solo piano and starts off in F major. It is not a literal repeat, though, as after the first few phrases, new material is interjected which ventures off into different keys. When familiar material returns, the music is now in the dominant keys of C minor and C major. More new material in distant keys is added, which transitions to the third section of the movement. The third section begins with the dreamlike melody again, but this time in A-flat major. Over the course of this final section, the music makes it way back to the tonic keys of F minor and then F major and a short coda concludes the movement.

The final rondo movement begins with the full orchestra espousing a joyous “jumping” theme. After a short cadenza, the piano joins in and further elaborates. A “call and response” style is apparent, with the piano and ensemble exchanging parts fluidly. The soloist gets scale and arpeggio figurations that enhance the themes, as well as a short cadenza that leads right back to the main theme. The main theme appears one final time, leading to an upward rush of scales that ends on a triumphant note.

Cultural references

The second movement was featured in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan.^[1][5] This has led to an anachronistic nickname of Elvira Madigan for the concerto.^[6][7][8]

Neil Diamond‘s 1972 song “Song Sung Blue” was based on a theme from the andante movement of the concerto.^[9]

An electronic arrangement of the concerto’s first movement was used as the main theme of the TV series Whiz Kids.
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great compositions/performances: Strauss, R., Duet Concertino, Chamber Orchestra of New York

Strauss, R., Duet Concertino, Chamber Orchestra of New York

Chamber Orchestra of New York

Uploaded on Feb 12, 2012

Duet Concertino, by Richard Strauss. Chamber Orchestra of New York; Salvatore Di Vittorio, Music Director. February 3, 2012 at Caspary Auditorium, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY. Kelly Hall-Tompkins, concertmaster. Soloists: Benjamin Baron, clarinet and Stephanie Corwin, bassoon.

http://www.chambeorchestraofnewyork.org

great compositions/performances: Lenárd conducts Glazunov – The Seasons (complete ballet)

Lenárd conducts Glazunov – The Seasons (complete ballet)

MB7classical

TopClassicalMusic

Published on Apr 26, 2015

Aleksandr Konstantinovitch Glazunov

Published on Mar 15, 2012

Dedicated to my dancer friend Daiva: – http://www.youtube.com/user/daiva196510

Artwork by my friend Artondra: – http://www.flickr.com/photos/projecta…

Tracks from this album: – http://www.amazon.com/Glazunov-The-Se…

Ondrej Lenárd conducts the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra.

About the composer: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexande…

About the ballet: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seas…)

WINTER
Introduction
Four Variations – begins 2:14
Frost – 3:38
Ice – 4:39
Hail – 5:55
Snow – 6:48
Coda – 7:39

SPRING – begins 10:04

SUMMER
Scene – begins 15:21
Waltz of the Cornflowers and the Poppies – 17:55
Barcarolle – 19:54
Variations – 22:03
Coda – 23:07

AUTUMN
Bacchanale and Appearance of the Seasons – begins 27:17
Adagio – 31:03
Scene and Apotheosis – 34:48

( Note that Spring and the first section of Summer form one continuous movement, although separated into different tracks. )

Best Autumn Music: Autumn Music – Beautiful Autumn – Beautiful Music okanokumo

Published on Sep 11, 2014

Thank you for the comment which remains in my heart.
00:00 Blue pond
02:13 Soft sunlight of autumn
05:03 Moving sunset
07:40 Rural autumn
10:04 Valley in autumn
12:17 Fresh snow Mountain range
14:09 Autumnal tree
16:11 Rural landscape
18:37 That autumn remains in my heart
28:44 That autumn reaches in my heart
39:31 Misty morning
42:41 Warm evening of autumn
46:52 Fine autumn day
48:58 Woods which became yellow
51:21 Various autumnal leaves
53:54 Winter comes soon.
57:11 Autumn of my heart

 

Today’s holiday: Guavaween

Guavaween

Guavaween is a parade and block party with a Latin flavor in Ybor City, a two-square-mile area in Tampa, Florida. The “guava” stands for the tropical American fruit, while the “ween” alludes to the festival’s resemblance to Halloween, also observed around this time of year. The parade, with 20 to 50 bands, is led by a woman portraying the mythical “Mama Guava” doing the “Mama Guava Stumble.” Many paraders wear costumes lampooning national figures. After the early evening parade, there is partying until the wee hours. More… Discuss

Great compositions/performances: Mendelssohn – Violin Sonata in F minor, Op. 4 Classical Music Best Piano and Violin

Mendelssohn – Violin Sonata in F minor, Op. 4 – Classical Music Best Piano and Violin

Live your Dreams 2

Published on May 11, 2014

Violin Sonata in F minor, Op. 4 by Felix Mendelssohn.

I. Adagio – Allegro moderato (0:00)
II. Poco adagio (7:15)
III. Allegro agitato (15:08)

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The Violin Sonata in F minor, Op. 4, for violin and piano was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1825 and is the only one to carry an opus number. Mendelssohn composed two other violin sonatas, both in F major, that are without opus numbers.

Unlike his famous violin work, the Violin Concerto in E minor, the sonata lacks dramatic expositions, however still containing composer’s calm chamber music and early-onset brilliancy.

QUOTATION: It is not that the Englishman can’t feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. E. M. Forster (1879-1970)

It is not that the Englishman can’t feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks—his pipe might fall out if he did.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Discuss

this day in the yesteryear: Enron CFO Andrew Fastow Indicted for Fraud (2002)

Enron CFO Andrew Fastow Indicted for Fraud (2002)

In 2000, natural gas and electricity trading giant Enron was the seventh largest corporation in the US. In 2001, it became the largest bankruptcy and stock collapse in US history at the time, devastating the pensions of some 20,000 employees. Fastow, Enron’s chief financial officer, was one of more than 20 people who were ultimately convicted of or pleaded guilty to fraud, conspiracy, and other crimes related to deceptive accounting practices. How long is Fastow’s prison sentence? More… Discuss

today’s birthday: John Keats (1795)

John Keats (1795)

Considered one of the greatest English poets, Keats worked as a surgeon’s apprentice before devoting himself entirely to poetry at age 21. During a few intense months in 1819, he produced many of his greatest works, including “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “To Autumn.” His Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems is perhaps the greatest single volume of poetry published in England in the 19th century. Tragically, Keats died at just 25 from what disease? More… Discuss

Earth First!

In 1980, a group of radical environmental activists formed the group Earth First!, pledging “No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!” In 1985, the group held its first “tree sit,” in which members sat in and around trees to prevent logging. From about 1987 on, the group turned to direct action tactics and attracted many new members. Though the organization has its roots in the US, chapters have developed in countries spanning the globe. What was the Merseyside Dock Action? More… Discuss

word: phytophagous

phytophagous

Definition:	(adjective) Feeding on plants, including shrubs and trees.
Synonyms:	plant-eating, phytophilous
Usage:	The dot moth is phytophagous, feeding on a wide variety of plants. Discuss.

‘No survivors’ in Sinai airline crash

‘No survivors’ in Sinai airline crash

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34687139

From NPR News

Tainted Treats: Racism And The Rise Of Big Candy http://n.pr/1HhfW4q

Russian plane ‘crashes in Sinai’

Russian plane ‘crashes in Sinai’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34687139