Relaxing Piano Playlist Series 1 Episode 5

Feeling stressed? Need to unwind? Then how about some gentle relaxing music for you to ease into. Come and join me as your host, James Quinn as I take you through some wonderful music as I play for you on my own piano ranging from Bach, Mozart, Chopin and more. In this episode I play music by Bach, Field, Chopin, Brahms, Schumann and Debussy

Transcript

EPISODE 5

00:30 James
Hello and welcome to our next episode of the current series of 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 six pieces ranging from a wide variety of composers stretching from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and the 20th century periods.

The first piece you will hear is from the Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and the piece you’ll hear is the second movement from his Italian Concerto, BWV 971 which he originally composed for a two-manual harpsichord to contrast the quite and louder passages throughout the work. This movement is set in a florid arioso-style form, in the relative key of D minor. 

We then have a new composer added to the series in the form of the Irish composer, John Field, and the piece you will hear is his Nocturne No.5 in B Flat. He in fact was the inventor of the Nocturne originally, before Frederic Chopin came along and made it more popular in today’s piano recital format. 

The next piece after this is quite appropriately a piece from Chopin himself, and I’m going to play for you his Nocturne in C Sharp minor which he published as Opus Posthumous as a single work. This was in fact one of his very last nocturnes he ever composed, and is often viewed as one of his most cherished works. 

We’re going to go further into the romantic period with the German composer Johannes Brahms and the piece you’ll hear will be his Intermezzo in E Flat Major, which is the first of his 3 Intermezzos that he published as Opus number 117. 

We’re going to finish with our final two pieces. The first of these is from the composer Robert Schumann, and the piece is called Traumerei which translates as “Dreaming” from his larger piano work Kinderszenen, otherwise known as Scenes of Childhood, which he published as Opus number 15. 

And finally, we’re going to finish with another piece by the French composer Claude Debussy, in this case you’ll hear Prelude number 8 from his very first set of 12 Preludes. Translated from it’s French title, La fille aux cheveux de lin as The girl with the flaxen hair.

So to recap, here is the order just once more: the second movement from the Italian Concerto by J.S Bach, Nocturne No.5 in B Flat by John Field, the Nocturne in C Sharp minor by Frederic Chopin, the Intermezzo No.1 in E Flat Major by Brahms from Op.117, Traumerei by Schumann’s  from Scenes of Childhood, and finally La fille aux cheveux de lin by Debussy.

So sit back, relax, and I hope you all enjoy the music. Thank you.