The Justin Bieber Of The Classical World Will Play A Concert At The Royal Albert Hall

YouTube star and virtuoso pianist Valentina Lisitsa signs record deal and will play a concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

Valentina Lisitsa, who has been playing piano since the age of 3, began her rise to Internet stardom five years ago, when she posted a Rachmaninov etude nicknamed "Little Red Riding Hood" on the Internet.

Perhaps in part bolstered by her flashing long fingers and blonde tresses, that video clip has had 1.5 million views, while her Beethoven "Moonlight Sonata" has garnered almost 3 million views and numerous other videos of hers have viewership of a half million and up.

Some classical music clips on the Internet, even by famous performers, have viewership in the low thousands.

Lisitsa, who had been pursuing her career without a professional manager or promoter, attributed her success to "word of mouth" and said she thought the Internet had created a new way to reach the public.

"If people pretend to be something they're not, people can feel that in the digital age," she told Reuters in a telephone interview. "They know when they are being sold something."

Lisitsa, who trained at the Kiev Conservatory, said: “I could not have done this without all my online fans around the world. Their reactions tell me every day that I am doing the right thing and that’s the best reward for my hard work. Now I want to say thank you and give them a great concert live and online.”

Jasper Hope, Chief Operating Officer of the Royal Albert Hall, said: “Valentina is a force of nature and an extraordinary talent. I don’t know anybody else who has done this before.”

Although she will now be playing in one of the world's most renowned venues, it won't be her first London gig. Last October, she played a concert at St Mary's Church, Perivale, near Ealing. The concert, at the small 12th-century church, was attended by around 130 people who paid £10 (wine included) for the special fundraiser. She used the church piano and the creaky old piano stool giving a dazzling display that included an encore featuring Ave Maria.

Lisitsa fans will be able to vote online to decide what she will play in the slightly grander setting of the Royal Albert Hall.

Northern Sinfonia Has Built A Distinctive Reputation As A Fresh Thinking, Versatile Orchestra

Northern Sinfonia is Classic FM’s Orchestra in North-East England and at The Sage Gateshead.

Northern Sinfonia, orchestra of The Sage Gateshead, has built a distinctive reputation as a fresh thinking, versatile orchestra, performing repertoire spanning three centuries and regularly commissioned new work.

“The Sage Gateshead has become one of the world’s most admired centres formusic and Northern Sinfonia has raised its game to match.” Richard Morrison, The Times

The orchestra’s work includes concerts, broadcasts, recordings, national and international touring with its Music Director Thomas Zehetmair, Principal Conductors Simon Halsey, John Wilson and Mario Venzago and guest artists.

It can be hard to separate the art from the life of Carlo Gesualdo, music's most notorious madrigalist and double murderer. The Australian composer Brett Dean believes that Gesualdo's anguished harmonies and homicidal instincts were inextricably linked: his rivetingly unorthodox piece Carlo is a form of musical biography for strings, tape and sampler, in which the souls of the composer and his victims seem to be shouting to get out.

Dean's work enfolds recorded examples of Gesualdo's vocal music within a shady string texture whose quick, dynamic flashes are reminiscent of a blade carving through the darkness of a Caravaggio painting. There are few occasions in music that can be described as genuinely frightening: yet when the electronically treated susurrations of the original madrigal burst from the speakers, it was as if the Northern Sinfonia had been joined on stage by a poltergeist. There's a similarly arresting effect towards the end of Mendelssohn's Reformation symphony No 5, an uneven and underperformed piece, which unexpectedly musters its forces into a massive, contrapuntal exhortation of the Lutheran choraleEin Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott. Thomas Zehetmair ensured that the early movements' curious mix of grave spiritualism and frolicking folk dances just about held together, but the cathartic arrival of the chorale sounded as if the orchestra had suddenly become possessed by the spirit of JS Bach.

Northern Sinfonia musicians are part of The Sage Gateshead’s wide ranging Learning & Participation programme, which offers opportunities for everyone to make music of all kinds, whatever their age or ability. Northern Sinfonia also has an associated award-winning youth orchestra, Young Sinfonia, and is joined for both performance and recording by Northern Sinfonia Chorus.

Projects away from the classical mainstream have included working with the Pet Shop Boys at a shipyard in North East England, a concert with Sting performing brand new orchestrations of his hits, and being invited by harpist and striking singer Joanna Newsom to join her UK tour launching her critically acclaimed album Ys.

Northern Sinfonia is proud to be Classic FM’s Orchestra in the North East.

Johann Pachelbel Composed A Significant Number Of Pieces One Of Them Is The Canon

Johann Pachelbel composed a significant number of pieces, and was very highly regarded within his own lifetime (unlike the great J. S. Bach). While he is perhaps rightly considered inferior to the Baroque giants that were Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel, I am rather curious why we only remember him overwhelmingly for one piece. He was certainly not a one-hit wonder in the 17th century.

The Canon in D major is the only of his compositions known to the general public today or perhaps even to some classical dilettantes. As a great fan of the composer, I wonder why history has forgotten his other great works -- it's almost as if the Canon is played everywhere ad nauseam to compensate for this fact! As charming as the Canon in D minor is (un-romanticised and in moderation), I rather feel that his Chaconne in F minor or Magnificat in C major are of greater artistic merit and better represent the man's finest work.

Now, before I post the celebrated Youtube video of a version of the work which I rather like, note the following:

Originally written in 1700 (elsewhere given as early as 1680) as a short, fast piece for three violins and basso continuo, the Baumgartner recording set the pace for outlandish arrangements of the work by slowing it down to about a third its original tempo.

Canon in D

"arguably the most widely used, recorded and recognizable instrumental work of all time."

I shan't argue with that, but I am curious as to how it got that way. MyCYCLOPEDIA (sic) of MUSIC and MUSICIANS, edited by Oscar Thompson , third edition, revised and enlarged, of 1944, gives ten lines on the composer but doesn't mention the Canon in D. or more properly, Canon and gigue, for 3 violins & continuo in D major, T. 337. A canon is of course a type of contrapuntal composition once popular, in which the theme is imitated by a second voice at an interval, and more voices after that if you like, though as with most things in the world it is a little more complicated than its one-line explanation. And a gigue is a jig.Here's a list of over 500 other works by the composer.

And that's the respectful version we're talking about. There are hideous disco and techno beat renditions out there.


Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)Johann Pachelbel was an acclaimed composer of the middle-Baroque period, and is regarded as one of the most important composers of the period, for his contributions to the development of the choral prelude and fugue. He was a prominent German organist and teacher, and of the many works he composed, “Canon in D major” is by far his most famous. It is technically sophisticated, merging several different musical forms; however, it is the only Canon Pachelbel wrote, and perhaps unrepresentative of his work.


What would Mr. Pachelbel think about it? I wonder if you stop caring when you're dead, or if there really is an afterlife and God lets you in on the Cosmic Joke and you just spend the rest of Eternity laughing. Who knows? I suspect Pachelbel would be too horrified by US to even get around to considering what we'd done with this canon out of all the canons he wrote. Nevertheless, this is Taiwanese Guitar virtuoso Jerry C. playing it (in one of the most popular videos on Youtube over the last couple of years). Of course it is no longer technically speaking a 'canon,' and whether the dramatic key shift at 3.53, creating the modern 'bridge' that facilitates its conversion into a rock anthem, originates here or in the work of a slick arranger in some other version, I do not pretend to know and haven't the time to find out. But this kid sure can play.

The Classical Violin Music Has The Unique Ability To Convey Emotion

The history of the violin is a story of an astonishing and exciting instrument.The violin is the backbone of the symphonic orchestra. It is the most important component of any ensemble. The famous orchestrator Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov said that composers should learn to write for the violin before anything else.The first modern violins started appearing in the 16th century, in Italy. They were stronger than any string instruments that had come before, which gave the new instrument a beautiful singing tone.

The violins were still different from ones played today though. The entire violin was shorter and stouter, and had gut strings.The violin was originally considered a crude instrument, unworthy of being played. But during the 17th and 18th centuries musical giants such as Vivaldi, Mozart, and Monteverdi popularized it enormously in their operas and concerti. This was a turning point in the history of the violin.

By the middle of the 18th century the violin was a hugely important part of chamber music ensembles, often carrying the melody.In the 19th century, the violin's importance and prestige grew with the new Romantic era of music. Dazzling virtuosos like Nicolo Paganini took violin technique to new heights.

As symphonies orchestras got bigger and bigger, more and more violinists were needed to fill out the sound. Modern symphony orchestras usually have two groups of 16 violinists each!Richard Wagner created such dense and complicated violin sounds that many listeners were confused and baffled by his effects.

Classical music dates back to the Baroque era (1600 to 1750) that followed the Renaissance and was subsequently followed by what is known as the classical era. Baroque composers included Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Monteverdi, and many others you've no doubt heard of. It was during this period that music and instrumental performance expanded in both scope and complexity and opera was established as a new musical genre. The violin has the unique ability to convey emotion and is said to produce notes closest to the human voice in tonality.

Classical violin is typically associated with the orchestra and orchestral groups such as the string quartet in which all the members of the instruments family play a part. This instrument family includes the stringed instruments the viola, cello, and double bass and they all play a role in the orchestra. The violin is the real star of the show however and represents the largest number of musicians typically in two sections. The sections are known as first and second and classical composers generally specify the first violins to play the melody and the second are assigned the harmony or other deviations such as playing the melody an octave lower than the first.

Some well known classical violin pieces include:

Tchaikovsky's concerto for violin in D major

Zigeunerweisen by Pablo Sarasate

Three Violin Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach

Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor by Max Christian Friedrich Bruch

Violin Concerto in D major by Ludwig Van Beethoven

Concerto for violin in D major by Johannes Brahms

Although the violin was not initially well accepted as a valued musical instrument, it soon proved to be the showpiece of the orchestra. Into the 1800's many virtuosos proved the instrument worthy of its stature in the orchestra and in the hands of such masters as Paganini and Sarasate, The violin truly had a voice.