If you want human emotion laid bare, opera is your art form - despair, longing, joy, love, it’s all there. And within an opera the purest expression of this is the aria, where a singer will reflect upon or drive forward the drama in a solo song.
In the hands of a great composer an aria is a perfect marriage of text and music, often producing music of the profoundest beauty. Great arias tend to be the most celebrated part of any opera, so much so that musicians often choose to perform them as stand-alone concert pieces.
Here is our choice of the most beautiful of these magnificent works. Follow the links to find sheet music for your instrument and to practise with our exclusive backing tracks.
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Beloved by brides and grooms everywhere, Mendelssohn’s Wedding March is probably the most well-known, well-loved and frequently played wedding march in the repertoire, and that’s in the face of some pretty stiff competition from the likes of Wagner, Purcell, Jeremiah Clarke and others.
But there’s much more to this piece than meets, the eye. Far from being a one-off work intended for nuptial events, it actually is taken from a much larger piece, a set of incidental music for Shakespeare’s play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
The story of how this came to be written is a fascinating one, starting when the composer was starry-eyed 17-year old and ending just a few years before his death…
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These days, thankfully, composing is much less of a ‘boys only’ occupation than it used to be. Some of the greatest recent and living composers have been and are women, including figures such as Kaaija Saariaho, Judith Weir, Helen Grime, Errollyn Wallen, Olga Neuwirth, Unsuk Chin and Rebecca Saunders. There are many, many others….
It was not always this way. Though women were never officially banned from composing, the traditional view of women as mothers and home-makers meant that there was not much encouragement either. These attitudes often meant that those who did compose were limited to writing in more ‘lady-like’ forms such as art songs and characteristic piano pieces. Longer forms and especially works for orchestra were not considered appropriate for women.
Despite all this, and often with considerable courage and determination, some women were able to forge a path as composers. Here are some, but by no means all, of the greatest.
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Any attempt to pick a definitive list of the best ever symphonies is, let’s face it, doomed to failure. Debate is inevitably dominated by taste, with some people simply preferring the sound of Mozart to Mahler; Beethoven to Brahms; Schubert to Shostakovich.
So though making this list might be controversial, it is fun and not totally without merit—we might not have got it totally right, but all the works included are certainly brilliant.
We have also highlighted the best melodies from them, with links to our exclusive arrangements of these tunes, so you can experience and play these pieces yourself.
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The modern concert band, with its colourful range of woodwind and brass instruments, not to mention well-stocked percussion section, is a relatively recent invention—many of the instruments that now are commonly found in it had barely been invented, let alone incorporated into it, before the twentieth century.
But that is not to say that there was no wind band music before this time—the tradition for writing for winds is an old and venerable one. Here is a brief history of that tradition, told through its greatest pieces.
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Chopin’s funeral march (‘Marche funèbre’) forms the second part of his Piano Sonata No.2 in B♭minor, published in 1840. Though it is one of the most important works in the piano literature, it is also one of the most controversial— Robert Schumann describing it as ‘four of [the] maddest children under the same roof.’ Here is the story of what some consider to be Chopin’s most uneven masterpiece. Continue reading...
Few pieces of classical music are as instantly recognisable as Johann Strauss II’s dazzling Blue Danube Waltz. Its mysterious shimmering opening and elegant main melody take us effortlessly into the carefree world of Viennese balls, where dazzlingly clad and carefree couples move gracefully over the dance floor.
The story behind this graceful waltz is not, however, as straightforward as its sparkling surface might suggest—the piece was actually written as a response to the horror of war and military defeat and, despite the familiarity of the orchestral version of this piece, it was originally conceived as a choral work.
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Colonel Bogey is a name that conjures up images of a stern and moustachioed military figure, strong of bearing, leading his troops crisply on parade. But did such a figure provide the inspiration for Kenneth J. Alford's famous march? The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’—like all good legends the truth is more complicated, and a lot more interesting… Continue reading...
The guitar has got to be one of the most adaptable of instruments. Hooked to an amplifier it is capable of knocking out power chords and filling a stadium with sound. In its classical acoustic form, on the other hand, it is one of the most intimate and soothingly sweet of instruments. Here are some of the most essential classical works for guitar, offering a glimpse into its more personal and lyrical side. Continue reading...
The air-clearing, mood-setting purpose of overtures, not to mention the fact that they are often choc-full of the best tunes of the works they introduce, makes them among the most musically arresting works in the repertoire. So it’s no surprise that they are hugely popular as standalone concert works and amongst discerning 8notes members.
Here is our definitive list of the absolute best of them, together with links to sheet music, so you can try them out for yourself. If you can’t find a version for your instrument, remember that members can request new versions at any time.
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