Category: Classical music
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Sunday Musicale for November 30, 2025
It’s early afternoon on this last day of November here in the Orlando area. Try as I might, though, I can’t seem to pick a topic for my daily blog, and I don’t feel like checking to see what the WordPress daily prompt is. So…how about some music videos instead?
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The Quill and the Lyre: Music and ‘Comings and Goings’
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in Alex Diaz-Granados, Amazon, Amazon Music, Amazon Spain (Amazon.es), Amazon UK, Audible, Billy Joel, Bryan Haddock, Comings and Goings (Short Story), Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen, Creative Writing, Garratyverse, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music, Music & Concert Specials, Pathetique Piano Sonata (Adagio cantabile), Reunion DuologyEvery story has its soundtrack. For Comings and Goings, the most overtly relevant piece isn’t tucked away in a concert hall—it’s right there in Billy Joel’s “This Night”, spinning from Kelly’s stereo in Mission Hill. Yet, at the heart of this pop ballad lies Beethoven’s Adagio cantabile, whose timeless melody Joel borrowed and reimagined, creating…
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Music Album Review: ‘Holst: The Planets’
Holst – The Planets: Chicago Symphony Orchestra/James Levine Label: Deutsche Grammophon Released: 1991 Genre: Classical/Symphonic Review: Holst’s The Planets – A Celestial Tapestry in Seven Movements Two years before Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status (not that Pluto minds, I suspect), I wrote an earlier version of this reflection on Gustav Holst’s The Planets,…
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Music Album Review: ‘Great Performances: Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez/Fantasia para un gentilhombre’
🎼 Echoes of Spain: A Journey Through Rodrigo and Albéniz with John Williams There’s something quietly transcendent about hearing the guitar sing in the hands of John Williams. Not the film composer, but the Australian virtuoso whose fingers seem to coax memory itself from the strings. In Great Performances: Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez/Fantasia para un…
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Music Appreciation: My First Encounter with Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie Fantastique’
🎼 A Fever Dream in Five Movements: Remembering My First Encounter with Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique One of the most memorable experiences from my college years—now four decades ago—took place on a rare cool afternoon in South Florida. I was sitting in my Humanities class at Miami-Dade Community College, where Professor Jay Brown, a talented musician…
A Certain Point of View, Too 