Choir of the Opera Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi Performed by the National Opera of Paris

Watch this video of the famous choir music composition “Va pensiero sull ‘ali dorate” from the opera Nabucco composed by italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. This recording is from 1979 and features the Choir of the National Theatre from the Opera of Paris conducted by Nello Santi.
Giuseppe Verdi is the best know italian composer of opera music, however, music was not his only talent, he also was a politician and became an elected senator in the italian parliament after the triumph of the revolution against Austria.
The opera Nabucco was performed for the first time in 1842 and made Giuseppe Verdi famous all over Europe for the beauty of its music, while in Italy the opera became famous too because of the political message it contains: the singing of the oppressed people who desire freedom, represented here by the choir of the jews. For this reason the choir you can listen to in this video clip has become the anthem of the oppressed people from all over the world.
In the opera Nabucco one can observe Verdi’s pertinence to the epoche of romanticism. The opera also features beautifull arias and more choir passages that are worth listening to.
This composition has also been used in many movie pictures.

Kongar-ol Ondar Performing Throat Singing together with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

This video clip shows an amazing singer from Mongolia called Kongar-ol Ondar who is performing some incredible vocal music: in some parts of the tune he sings three notes together. And there are no overdubs or playback! He is performing together with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, but on this particular song he is singing a capella (which means vocal music or singing without accompaniment). Kongar-ol Ondar doesn’t need any accompaniment because he acompanies himself with his other voices. lol.
This technique is called throat singing and originally comes from the russian republic of Tuva, the technique is also practised by the people from Mongolia. It seems to be difficult to learn it, teachers say that it takes about 10 minutes to explain it and lots of hours of practice.
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones have been playing for over 14 years now, performing shows in genres like bluegrass, jazz and fusion. Bela Fleck himself plays the electric banjo and the group likes to be creative. They never play the same show twice in a row and like to bring in new elements like they do here with the throat singing of Kongar-ol Ondar.
If you like to listen to more throat singing and vocal music videos, feel free to visit this page with more examples.

Composer Arnold Schönberg in an Interview about Art and Music

In this video clip you can see some images of Arnold Schönberg’s paintings and personal photos while he is being interviewed about different issues.
Arnold Schönberg belonged to the painting school called Blauer Reiter together with Vladimir Kadinsky and other famous painters. However, Schönberg decided to concentrate on music. In this interview he explains how this happened.
Arnold Schönberg is a very important comoser and can be considered as the logical conclusion of western classical concert music that began with the gregorian choir music with it’s monophonic melodies that could be ‘completed’ initially only with octaves and fifths, since these harmonies are sounding very much the same and music was not for embellishment of the church service itself but for the praising of god. Attention should not be distrated from this goal and music should be no reason to attend the services. One by one, the other 11 notes that exist in between the octave – according to western tuning – where ‘admitted’ in the compositions of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and the rest of the classical composers. By the time Arnold Schönberg appeared on the music scene, every single note could be present in a composition and this meant to Schönberg and a few others that classical music had come to an end and that the logical evolution asked for atonal music, music without the conventional tonal centers that resulted from the rules of harmony.
In the background sound of the interview, you can listen to some compositions by Arnold Schönberg (Who also was one of rock musician Frank Zappa‘s favourite composers).

Turkish Folk Music with a Polyphonic Flavor from the Black Sea Region

Watch this video with a turkish choir singing an ancient tune from the Black Sea region. Human voice is one of the nicest sounding music instruments and people sing around the whole world. When arranged for various voices, the tunes become much more interesting than the antique medieval choir music sung during the services of the catholic church.
The different voices can simultaneously sing different notes and so build a chord. Then of course, the melodies must follow certain rules in order to stay within the harmonies without sounding dissonant. One of the most illustrative methods for understanding and writing music for up to four voices is Harmonielehre by Arnold Schoenberg who shows the rules for the independent voices as well as the resulting chords and the rules the voices must follow in relation with the other voices in order to build the typical western counterpoint and in relation with the harmonies established by the simultaneously sounding voices. This type of arrangement is called polyphonic music.