HALIDONMUSIC @[email protected]
None subscribers - no pronouns set
Download our compilations from the Official Halidon Music St
Hello hello! Don't you just love the weekend? We certainly do🍹☀️
For today's poll, imagine you've found yourself in a difficult/serious situation and don't know what to do so you decide to talk to someone to see if they can help. Which classical composer would you turn to in search for advice? As always, you get four options from us but you can add the names we'll inevitably miss in the comments!
Happy Sunday, folks! ☀️🌷 Today we're sharing this beautiful clip taken from Brahms's Intermezzo Op. 118 N. 2 to let you know you that Italian pianist Luca Sacher has a brand new album out, "Brahms at Sundown", that's available for streaming on all platforms so go check it out! 🎧
Hello everyone! June's already coming to an end, can you believe it? The audacity, honestly.
If you keep with our playlists, you'll have seen that our most recent one is "Dramatic Classical Music" (check it out here if you haven't! 👉 https://youtu.be/dw0d9tZ0fjw ), so today's question for you is: what's the most dramatic piece of classical (or instrumental) music you know? An intense one that gives you goose bumps, makes you want to scream at the sky or makes you feel like you're the heroic main character of a book/film that's being tormented by fate but is capable of rising above to defeat all odds? (Okay, we're getting slightly carried away here). As per usual you get four options but you're more than welcome to add your picks in the comments! 💪
Did you know❓
Russian composer, pianist and conductor Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) developed an interest in music from an early age by listening to his mother practice the piano in the evenings. She would play especially Chopin and Beethoven, and young Sergei was inspired to write his first piano composition when he was only five. Besides being a child prodigy, he was also a chess master: having learned to play by age seven, chess remained a lifelong passion of his and many years later, in 1914, he even defeated the future world chess champion José Raúl Capablanca.
At the age of 13, Prokofiev enrolled at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, but he often complained about the education he received there, which he found boring. His classmates also saw him as eccentric and arrogant, and the fact that he used to keep statistics on their errors didn't help. A lover of experimentation, he made a reputation as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, and the scandalous dissonance of his virtuosic works left audiences shocked. During the 1913 premiere of his second piano concerto, they reportedly left the hall exclaiming indignantly that "the cats on the roof make better music!".
Prokofiev is often remembered first for his ballet scores, but the genre he enjoyed the most and his greatest interest was opera. Out of the 14 he composed over the course of his life (the first of which he wrote when he was only nine), the satirical opera 'The Love of Three Oranges' was his one true success, but he also famously turned Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel, War and Peace, into an opera that was almost 4 hours long.
Hello folks! It's officially summer in the Western hemisphere and we're very excited (even though summer in Italy often means dreadfully hot temperatures), so obviously we had to celebrate the event with one of our silly polls 😎
We'll go straight to the point: which famous classical composer would you want as your neighbour on the beach?🏖️ And what would you do if you turned around and saw them lying on a beach towel a few feet away from you or building a sand castle? Let's make up some fun stories in the comments—we look forward to reading them and having a laugh!
Did you know❓
Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) was the son of a merchant and the British Vice-Consul in Bergen and a music teacher. His family had Scottish origins: their last name was originally spelled Greig and it is associated with the Scottish Clann Ghriogair (Clan Gregor).
He received his first piano lessons from his mother when he was six and as a teenager he was sent to Germany to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. He debuted as a concert pianist in 1861 and over the following years he met several Scandinavian composers, among which was fellow Norwegian Rikard Nordraak, known for being the author of the Norwegian national anthem. He also met Hungarian composer Franz Liszt in 1870 in Rome after the latter, whom he didn't know personally yet, had written a testimonial to the Norwegian Ministry of Education so that Grieg could travel abroad. Together, the two discussed Grieg's compositions and Liszt sightread Grieg's Piano Concerto (even though, according to Grieg, he performed the first movement a bit too quickly).
Grieg is particularly famous for the incidental music he wrote for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt and for his Holberg Suite, originally written for the piano and later arranged for string orchestra.
He is considered one of the leading composers of the Romantic era and the way he incorporated Norwegian folk music into his works brought his nation to fame and helped it develop a national identity. His home city, Bergen, has honoured him with numerous statues and cultural entities that bear his name.
June's calendar page is filled with excellent birthdays! On this day precisely 181 years ago Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg was born 🎂🎈
What better way to celebrate him than listening to one of his most popular works, the Holberg Suite performed by the ever impeccable Metamorphose String Orchestra? Buckle up: it's time to travel all the way up to the wild and green landscapes of northern Europe 🏔️
Did you know❓
Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) was born to a wealthy family and received his first piano lessons from his mother, who was an excellent pianist, from the age of 6. He soon showed a noteworthy talent for the instrument, and it only took him a few years before he could perform some of Franz Liszt's simpler works.
Mussorgsky's parents expected him and his brother to follow the family tradition of military service and they moved to St. Petersburg so that Modest could enroll in the Cadet School of the Guards, which he did when he was 13. At the same time, aware of his son's musical inclination, Mussorgsky's father allowed him to study music and even paid for the publication of the boy's first piano composition, titled "Porte-enseigne Polka". Unfortunately, the cadet school environment at the time was brutal and set young Modest on the path to alcoholism, which he would struggle with for his entire life. At 17, Mussorgsky met Alexander Borodin, a few years his senior, and the two became friends. In 1856 he was also introduced into the home of another Russian composer, Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky, who was impressed by his skill on the piano. Thanks to the musical soirées he was invited to take part in, Modest also met composer Mily Balakirev, who became his teacher. The original orchestral version of "Night on Bald Mountain", one of Mussorgsky's most famous pieces, was completed in 1867 but Balakirev disliked it and refused to conduct it, and the work was never performed during Mussorgsky's lifetime.
Weekend after weekend, the party never stops! Today we're wishing a very happy 214th birthday to Robert Schumann 🥳🥂 The celebrations are open so you're cordially invited to join us in commemorating the great German composer by listening to some of his very best works!
Happy birthday Sir Edward Elgar! 🎉
Born on 2 June 1857, the English composer was the first to take full advantage of the new technology of the gramophone, which became the new medium for reproducing orchestral and choral music around 1925. He had already started collaborating with His Master's Voice (HMV), British music and entertainment retailer, and made premiere recordings of his works from 1914 onwards. These sessions made it possible to capture on disc Elgar's major orchestral works, including the Enigma Variations, Falstaff, the first and second symphonies, and the cello and violin concertos. The composer was also an enthusiastic amateur chemist, and set up a lab he called The Ark in his home in Hereford. There he would lock himself for hours working on little experiments that brought him great joy, and he even invented the 'Elgar Sulphuretted Hydrogen Apparatus', a device for synthesising hydrogen sulphide that briefly went into production.
Download our compilations from the Official Halidon Music Store: www.halidonmusic.com
For licensing inquiries, please visit: licensing.halidonmusic.com
Follow us on social media: linktr.ee/halidonmusic
HalidonMusic is the official YouTube channel of Italian record label Halidon.
Our music catalogue ranges from classical and instrumental to jazz, pop and world music.
We're always looking for new music to release and new artists to work with.
If you would like us to review your music, please get in touch on [email protected].
For commercial inquiries, licenses and synchronizations please contact [email protected].
We look forward to hearing from you!