Q: What’s the difference between a musician and a pizza?
A: A pizza can feed a family of four!

Felix Mendelssohn was a wunderkind and successful musician all around – performing, conducting, composing. Unlike many musicians, he never really had to “sing for his supper.” He did, however, take an interesting commission to write a piece for a friend – he composed this mini-concerto for clarinet and basset-horn in exchange for a generous portion of dumplings and cheese Danish.

Q: What’s the quickest way to get a musician off your porch?
A: Pay for the pizza.

Russia’s music scene blossomed at the end of the 19th century. A group known as “The Mighty Handful” or “The Five” were defining what Russian music was, mainly in opposition with Germany, which was dominating the romantic music scene. You can read about the anti-German-music sentiment in another post.

But there was this other Russian dude, who wasn’t considered one of The Five. Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, like many musicians, made his living doing a variety of music-related jobs – conducting, composing, teaching, performing. By far, his most famous pieces are his two suites of Caucasian Sketches. This piece, from Suite No. 1, paints a grand scene of the Georgian mountains.

Another movement from the same suite can be found here.

Ah, the sounds of the sea …

Many people are familiar with the visual art of the Impressionist movement – the Monets and Manets. Impressionist Music retains a strong place in the history of Art Music – so much so, that it is now considered a linking era between the romantic and modern eras. As I spend a week’s vacation near the seaside, I continue my oceanic thoughts with one of the most famous Impressionist pieces of all time – Claue Debussy‘s La Mer. The third movement is titled “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea.”