Author: Jane Werry

French composer Gabriel Fauré wrote this piece in 1864 when he was just 19 years old. He entered it into a composition competition and won first prize. When you hear how beautiful the music is, you can see why it won!

The words are by a C17th French playwright, Jean Racine, and are a French paraphrase of a medieval Latin hymn.

Words

Verbe égal au Très-Haut, notre unique espérance,
Jour éternel de la terre et des cieux,
De la paisible nuit nous rompons le silence:
Divin Sauveur, jette sur nous les yeux.

Répands sur nous le feu de ta grâce puissante,
Que tout l’enfer fuie au son de ta voix;
Dissipe le sommeil d’une âme languissante
Qui la conduit à l’oubli de tes lois.

Ô Christ, sois favorable à ce peuple fidèle,
Pour te bénir maintenant rassemblé;
Reçois les chants qu’il offre à ta gloire immortelle,
Et de tes dons qu’il retourne comblé.

Words Medieval Latin hymn

Translation

Word equal to the All-High, our only hope of heaven,
Eternal Dayspring of the earth and sky,
We break the silent calm of the untroubled even:
Saviour divine, bend upon us thine eye.

Of thy triumphant grace pour over us the fire
That, when thou dost but speak, all hell confounds;
Dispel the lethargy of souls whose weak desire
Oft makes them of thy laws transgress the bounds.

O Christ, benignly view this faithful congregation,
Met now their edifice of praise to build;
Receive their proffered hymns, accept their true oblation,
And send them home with all thy bounty filled.

Swedish group ABBA released this iconic song in 1976. Like pretty much every song that is still popular a long time after it was created, it has survived because it is a truly excellent piece of music. ABBA’s songwriters, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson, were brilliant songwriters, and their singers, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, were brilliant singers. Their songs were superbly orchestrated and produced.

This song is one of ABBA’s disco-style songs, with a lush, multi-layered approach reminiscent of Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound‘. The song’s success rests on its killer combination of fabulous hooks and bittersweet twists.

To listen to a brilliant podcast which talks through exactly how this song is put together, go to Strong Songs.

This piece follows on from Vivaldi’s take on winter yesterday. This is Winter from Astor Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas, written in 1969. Piazzolla was an Argentinean composer who pioneered the ‘tango nuevo’ style, which put a more modern spin on traditional tango music. Tango is the national style of Argentina.

In this piece, you will see the traditional Argentinean instrument the bandoneón. This is a type of accordion with buttons on both sides. It is extremely difficult to play, as you get different notes depending on whether you are pushing or pulling. This is Astor Piazzolla playing his bandoneón:

We have already had some tango in our daily listening: compare this piece with our post from 27th March.

Antonio Vivaldi was a priest and composer who worked in Venice at in the first decades of the 18th century, putting him into the Baroque period:

The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) is a set of four concertos for violin, with one for each season, written around 1716. A concerto is a piece for a solo instrument (in this case the violin) with orchestral backing. Typically for the Baroque period, the orchestra in this piece consists only of stringed instruments together with a harpsichord:

There are lot of things in the music that bring to mind an icy winter’s day.

In 2012, Max Richter ‘recomposed’ The Four Seasons. He discarded around 75% of Vivaldi’s music, and applied phasing and looping to what he kept, to give it a post-modern, minimalist feel. Here is his version of Winter – compare it with Vivaldi’s original.

Ólafur Arnalds is an Icelandic multi-instrumentalist and music producer. His music mixes acoustic instruments with loops and samples, and has been used in the soundtracks for The Hunger Games and Broadchurch. 

This piece was released by drummer and bandleader Art Blakey in 1959. The style is hard bop, which is a subgenre of jazz. You’ll hear the really distinctive call and response at the start: this is the ‘head’ section of the piece, which returns at 12:34 after the trumpet, tenor sax, piano and bass have all had solo improvisation sections.

If you like this piece, find out more about it in this episode of the fabulous Strong Songs podcast.

This piece was written by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez in 2005. Márquez often draws on traditional Mexican music and dance in his music, although the conga originates in Cuba.

This song was written in 1972 by David Bowie for his album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The album is very loosely a concept album, where Bowie’s alter ego Ziggy Stardust brings messages from extra-terrestrial beings. Starman brings a message of hope to the youth of Planet Earth.

This piece was written in 1904 by Italian composer Vittorio Monti. It is based on the Hungarian folk dance the czárdás, which starts slowly and gradually gets faster. In Monti’s Czárdás, the sections alternate between slow and accelerando, and major and minor keys. From 2:56 you can hear the violinist playing stopped harmonics, where you press down normally on the string, but also (with a different finger) 5 semitones above, creating a note 2 octaves higher with a ‘ghostly’ tone.

Blue Suede Shoes was written by Carl Perkins in 1955, and recorded by Elvis Presley in 1956. It was one of the first rockabilly records, combining elements of blues, country, and the pop music of the time. It was also recorded by Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran.