Carpe Diem #1102 Symphony No. 4 Op. 50 by Johanna Senfter

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

2016 Is running towards its end and we have only ten days to go before this year will be gone and a new year will start. This month was a joy to create. I discovered the beauty of classical music created by composers I never had heard of, but ... wow what a wonderful music I have shared here and heard here ... I can only hope that you all have enjoyed it so far and I hope the last episodes will be a joy too.

Today I have a nice piece of music for you by Johanna Senfter, a female composer who isn't well known, but has created wonderful music. I hope her music will inspire you. Let me first tell you a little bit more about this female composer who was born in the 19th century and died in the 20th century.

Johanna Senfter (1879-1961)

Johanna Senfter:

Johanna Senfter (1879 - 1961) was a German composer. She was born and died in Oppenheim. From 1895 she studied composition under Iwan Knorr, violin under Adolf Rebner, piano under Karl Friedberg and organ at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main. This gave her a considerable amount of musical training when in 1908 she became a student of Max Reger in Leipzig. She composed 9 symphonies, 26 orchestral works and concertos for piano, violin, viola, and cello. Senfter was a masterful composer of fugue. All together she left behind 134 works.

It takes some time to listen to this Symphony, but it is sure worth listening to. I hope this Symphony inspires you to create haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form.

As I listen to this symphony I see an open space somewhere high up in the mountains. A peaceful place to be and to enjoy the beauty of nature and the beauty of the one you love. I think this symphony is a nice inspirational source to create tanka ... so I did try to create a tanka.

high in the mountains overwhelmed by the beauty of the Creation I bow my head and embrace the one I love enjoying being part of each other

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 25th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Symphony in F sharp minor Op. 41 by Dora Pejacevic, later on.

Carpe Diem #1094 Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano Op. 17 Allegro Moderato by Clara Schumann

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai in which I hope to inspire you through the music of female composers from all times and from all over the globe. Today I have a beautiful composition for you composed by Clara Schumann (1819-1896).

Let me tell you a little bit about her:

Clara Schumann (1819 – 1896) was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. She exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital and the tastes of the listening public. Her husband was the composer Robert Schumann. Together they encouraged Johannes Brahms. She was the first to perform publicly any work by Brahms. She later premiered some other pieces by Brahms, notably the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel.

Clara Schumann

In 1830, at the age of eleven, Clara left on a concert tour to Paris via other European cities, accompanied by her father. She gave her first solo concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In Weimar, she performed a bravura piece by Henri Herz for Goethe, who presented her with a medal with his portrait and a written note saying: "For the gifted artist Clara Wieck". During that tour, Niccolò Paganini was in Paris, and he offered to appear with her. However, her Paris recital was poorly attended, as many people had fled the city due to an outbreak of cholera.

“The appearance of this artist can be regarded as epoch-making.... In her creative hands, the most ordinary passage, the most routine motive acquires a significant meaning, a colour, which only those with the most consummate artistry can give.” An anonymous music critic, writing of Clara Wieck's 1837–1838 Vienna recitals.

From December 1837 to April 1838, Clara Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna when she was 18. Franz Grillparzer, Austria's leading dramatic poet, wrote a poem entitled "Clara Wieck and Beethoven" after hearing Wieck perform the Appassionata sonata during one of these recitals. Wieck performed to sell-out crowds and laudatory critical reviews; Benedict Randhartinger, a friend of Franz Schubert (1797–1828), gave Wieck an autographed copy of Schubert's Erlkönig, inscribing it "To the celebrated artist, Clara Wieck." Frédéric Chopin described her playing to Franz Liszt, who came to hear one of Wieck's concerts and subsequently "praised her extravagantly in a letter that was published in the Parisian Revue et Gazette Musicale and later, in translation, in the Leipzig journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik."  On 15 March, Wieck was named a Königliche und Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin ("Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuoso"), Austria's highest musical honor.

Well I hope you did like this episode and the music. 

fragile beauty
young cherry blossoms
in the spring wind

© Chèvrefeuille

Maybe a fragile haiku which not really fits the "strong" music, but I thought to bring the fragile side of this beautiful composition into the haiku. The fragile sound of the violin and cello inspired me to do so.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 17th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Six Japanese Gardens by Kaija Saariaho, later on.

Carpe Diem #1093 Concertino pour harpe et piano by Germaine Tailleferre

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Another nice episode to inspire you. I found a really nice piece of music by a not so wellknown female composer Germaine Tailleferre.

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983)

Germaine Tailleferre (1892 – 1983) was a French composer and the only female member of the group of composers known as Les Six.

She was born Marcelle Taillefesse at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, France, but as a young woman she changed her last name to "Tailleferre" to spite her father, who had refused to support her musical studies. She studied piano with her mother at home, composing short works of her own, after which she began studying at the Paris Conservatory where she met Louis Durey, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, and Arthur Honegger. At the Paris Conservatory her skills were rewarded with prizes in several categories. Most notably Tailleferre wrote 18 short works in the Petit livre de harpe de Madame Tardieu for Caroline Tardieu, the Conservatory’s Assistant Professor of Harp.

With her new friends, she soon was associating with the artistic crowd in the Paris districts of Montmartre and Montparnasse, including the sculptor Emmanuel Centore who later married her sister Jeanne. It was in the Montparnasse atelier of one of her painter friends where the initial idea for Les Six began. The publication of Jean Cocteau's manifesto Le coq et l'Arlequin resulted in Henri Collet's media articles that led to instant fame for the group, of which Tailleferre was the only female member.

In 1923, Tailleferre began to spend a great deal of time with Maurice Ravel at his home in Monfort-L'Amaury. Ravel encouraged her to enter the Prix de Rome Competition. In 1925, she married Ralph Barton, an American caricaturist, and moved to Manhattan, New York. She remained in the United States until 1927 when she and her husband returned to France. They divorced shortly thereafter.

Tailleferre wrote many of her most important works during the 1920s, including her 1st Piano Concerto, the Harp Concertino, the ballets Le marchand d'oiseaux (the most frequently performed ballet in the repertoire of the Ballets suédois during the 1920s), La nouvelle Cythère, which was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for the ill-fated 1929 season of the famous Ballets Russes, and Sous les ramparts d'Athènes in collaboration with Paul Claudel, as well as several pioneering film scores, including B'anda, in which she used African themes.

The 1930s were even more fruitful, with the Concerto for Two Pianos, Chorus, Saxophones, and Orchestra, the Violin Concerto, the opera cycle Du style galant au style méchant, the operas Zoulaïna and Le marin de Bolivar, and her masterwork, La cantate de Narcisse, in collaboration with Paul Valéry. Her work in film music included Le petit chose by Maurice Cloche and a series of documentaries. (source: wikipedia)

I hope I have inspired you with this composition. I however wasn't inspired enough and couldn't come up with a haiku or tanka. Maybe later and than I will share it with you of course.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 16th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano Op. 17 Allegro Moderato by Clara Schumann, later on.

Carpe Diem #1092 Fantasy in g-moll for Cello by Fanny Mendelssohn

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It is my pleasure to present to you another beautiful piece of music composed by a female composer. Today I have chosen to share with and inspire you with a composition by Fanny Mendelssohn. Let me first tell you a little bit more about her.

Fanny Mendelssohn:

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805 – 1847), later Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel, was a German pianist and composer. She composed over 460 pieces of music. Her compositions include a piano trio and several books of solo piano pieces and songs. A number of her songs were originally published under Felix's name in his opus 8 and 9 collections. Her piano works are often in the manner of songs, and many carry the name Lied ohne Worte (Song without Words). She also wrote, amongst other works for the piano, a cycle of pieces depicting the months of the year, Das Jahr ("The Year"). The music was written on coloured sheets of paper, and illustrated by her husband Wilhelm Hensel. Each piece was also accompanied by a short poem.

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847)

Fanny Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, the oldest of four children, including the composer Felix Mendelssohn. Fanny received her first piano instruction from her mother, who had been trained in the Berliner-Bach tradition by Johann Kirnberger, who was himself a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. Thus as a thirteen year old, Fanny could already play all 24 Preludes from Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier by heart, and she did so in honor of her father's birthday in 1818. She studied briefly with the pianist Marie Bigot in Paris, and finally with Ludwig Berger. In 1820 Fanny, along with her brother Felix, joined the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin which was led by Carl Friedrich Zelter. Zelter at one point favored Fanny over Felix: he wrote to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1816, in a letter introducing Abraham Mendelssohn to the poet, 'He has adorable children and his oldest daughter could give you something of Sebastian Bach. This child is really something special'. Much later, in an 1831 letter to Goethe, Zelter described Fanny's skill as a pianist with the highest praise for a woman at the time: "She plays like a man." Both Fanny and Felix received instruction in composition with Zelter starting in 1819.
Fanny showed prodigious musical ability as a child and began to write music. Visitors to the Mendelssohn household in the early 1820s, including Ignaz Moscheles and Sir George Smart, were equally impressed by both siblings. She may also have been influenced by the role-models of her great-aunts Fanny von Arnstein and Sarah Levy, both lovers of music, the former the patroness of a well-known salon and the latter a skilled keyboard player in her own right. (source: wikipedia)

Well ... did I say to much? A beautiful piece of music composed by Fanny Mendelssohn. I hope this composition will inspire you to create haiku or tanka.

fantasy world unfolds
while the wind tears clouds apart
in sunny colors
clouds moving, changing everlasting
fantasy world unfolds

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 15th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Concertino pour harpe et piano by Germaine Tailleferre, later on.

Carpe Diem #1089 Divertimento in D minor, Op. 3, no. 3 by Anna Bon di Venezia

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of Carpe Diem's month of Inspirational classical music. For the upcoming days I have selected music compositions by female composers from all times and from all over the globe. I wasn't aware that there were so many female composers who have created wonderful music. For today I have a nice piece of music for you created by Anna Bon de Venezia, Divertimento in D minor, Op. 3, no. 3.

Anna Bon di Venezia (1737-1767)

Anna Bon di Venezia:

Anna Bon (1737-1767) was an Italian composer and performer. Her parents were both involved in music and traveled internationally; her father was the Bolognese artist Girolamo Bon, a librettist and scenographer, and her mother was the singer Rosa Ruvinetti Bon. In her short life she composed wonderful music. The piece of music featured here today, Divertimento in D minor, Op. 3, no. 3, was composed in 1759. I think she created a beautiful composition.

I hope this composition will inspire you. (Video source HERE)

heavenly music resonates through the neighborhood early sunrise
birds praising their creator I embrace my love

© Chèvrefeuille

This time I was inspired to create a tanka by this beautiful composition. I hope this music will inspire you too.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 12th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Harpsichord Concerto 1st Movement by Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinothini, later on.