Another radio-inspired post. I was listening to an unfamiliar piece by a composer I’d never heard of, until the last movement came: then it was suddenly one I seemed to have known all my life.
Francois Boieldieu was a Frenchman, more or less a contemporary of Beethoven. Known mostly for his operas, and sometimes called “the French Mozart”, he was one of those artists renowned during his lifetime but since forgotten. This harp concerto seems to be his only non-operatic music of note. Wiki describes it as “one of the masterpieces of the harp repertory” As far as I know, it’s the only thing he’s remembered for today. More than most of us, I suppose.
All the music from the this series can be found and enjoyed here.
Totally off topic Mike, but I hope everything is OK post quake?Report
It seems like the worst of it was minor injuries, scattered power outages, and a few damaged buildings, and that all nearer the epicenter in Napa than we are.Report
Glad to hear!Report
Proof you’re a real Californian: an earthquake wakes you up, you pay attention long enough to think “this is a long one”, and then you go back to sleep. By morning, you’ve forgotten about it until someone mentions it on the Web.Report
@mike-schilling
That’s largely what happened to me. Though I thought I was dreaming.Report
It’s what happened to us, and then I read the news this AM. I have a cousin in Napa city, so I checked in with her, and all was good.Report
This piece is heavenly indeed.Report
As a test I went to Youtube and looked up Boieldieu, and at least different pieces come up. The nice thing about public domain music is you see lots of posts of it on youtube. However the Harp and string concerto shows up a number of times on the list.Report