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Feeling tired? Need to unwind? Then how about some gentle, soothing piano music? Welcome to the Episode 3 of Series 1 in Relaxing Piano Playlist! In this episode, I perform for you music by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg and Faure.
EPISODE 3
Hello and welcome to Episode 3 of the Relaxing Piano Playlist with your host James Quinn here at the piano, thank you very much for joining me. In this episode you will hear a number of pieces ranging from a wide variety of composers, covering the Baroque, the Classical and the Romantic periods.
The first piece you will hear is from the Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach and the piece is a piano arrangement of the chorus from his cantata No.147, otherwise known as Jesu, Joy of man’s desiring. This arrangement was made possible by the celebrated war-time British concert pianist Dame Myra Hess.
The next piece comes from the classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven. This piece is a well known classic, and deserves to come into the Relaxing Piano Playlist series and I’m sure you will recognise it straight away. It is of course the very first movement, Adagio sostenuto, from his famous Moonlight Sonata. When he wrote the sonata, it was originally entitled the Sonata quasi una fantasia, which he dedicated to a woman who was in fact one of his piano pupils, Countess Giuletta Guicciardi, which he published as from Opus 27 No.2. This has led to some speculation, whether she might have been Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”
We then go into the Romantic period for our next set of pieces. The first of these comes from the Polish composer, Frederic Chopin, and the piece that you’re going to hear is his Nocturne in G minor, which he published in a set of two Nocturnes as Opus 37 No.1.
We then add another new composer to the series in the form of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg for our next piece, and in this instance you will hear his Nocturne which comes from his collection of Lyric Pieces, specifically from his fifth volume, which he published as Opus 54.
And finally to finish off this episode, we come to one more addition with the French composer Gabriel Faure, and in this case you’re going to hear Nocturne number 3 in A Flat, which he published as Opus 33.
So to recap here is the order just once more: Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring by Johann Sebastian Bach, the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, Chopin’s Nocturne in G minor from Opus 37, the Nocturne from the Lyric Pieces Book 5 Opus 54 by Edvard Grieg, and finally Gabriel Faure’s Nocturne No.3 in A Flat Op.33.
So sit back, relax, and I hope you all enjoy the music. Thank you.