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Classical Bangers 🎹🎻

the journey goes on with the fifth fragment. 
from the album "2 Days & a Year"
Hope you enjoy...

fragments of a journey #5

Jules Massenet - Meditation from Thais for Violin and Piano.m4a

27th of January - Holocaust Remembrance Day
IMPORTANT: Please watch the video for the "Dance of the Forgotten" here: http://youtu.be/bFbuBmyxMZ4
=====================================
Among the millions of victims of the Nazi Regime and the Holocaust, one group is still forgotten today: the nearly 400.000 victims were people with disabilites in the so called "Euthanasie" programs. In fact, they were the first victims of the Nazi regime, and they were the first human beings killed in gas chambers. The "technology" of gas chambers and "death plants" ("Todesfabriken") was first developed for and tested on the German people with disabilities. 

They were regarded as "unwertes Leben" ("unworthy life") and "Ballastexistenzen" ("ballast people"), "wertlose Menschenhülsen" ("worthless human bodies") and "nutzlose Esser" ("useless eaters"). At the end of the programme nearly everybody was in danger, who could not work, even elderly people and wounded soldiers were "euthanized".

Their names are still kept secret. Many of their families still feel "ashamed" today. They feared being viewed as having been "infected" by their disabled relatives ("erbkrank").

The victims of "Euthanasie" were legally not accepted as persecuted by the Nazis and thus did never receive any reparation. It took until the year 2007 (sic!) that the German Bundestag declared the "Erbgesundheitsgesetz" for illegal.

Most of the involved doctors continued their normal lives after the war. The victims were forgotten.

This piece goes therefore out to these forgotten victims of "Euthanasie", because "if we forget the victims, we murder them a second time."

Picture: Anna Lehnkering (2.8.1915 - 7.3.1940)
Anna was as a young girl sterilized and later on killed in the gas chamber of Grafeneck.
http://www.sigrid-falkenstein.de/euthanasie/anna.htm

This piece is part of the "Holocaust Remembrance Suite" for solo piano, which is an unique remembrance project, which has grown out of a collaboration between Stephan Beneking, composer based in Berlin, and pianist Hal Freedman (https://soundcloud.com/classical-soul-pianist) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. 

The innocence and beauty of pure piano classical music 
poses a stark contrast to the horrors of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.

All recordings of the "Holocaust Remembrance Suite" uploaded to SoundCloud you find here: https://soundcloud.com/stephan-beneking/sets/holocaust-remembrance-suite-1

The booklet with descriptions about the historical background and scores / sheet music can be downloaded for free here:
http://www.beneking.com/hrs

Each piece in the Holocaust Remembrance Suite contains a vital message about the war crimes and atrocities of the past. Unfortunately, the message is applicable to conditons that persist in our world today. It is our sincere hope to raise social awareness of these problems through this important project.

The Suite is accompanied by dramatic videos showing images, which further tell the story behind each individual piece:
http://www.youtube.com/user/steveberlin0815
http://www.youtube.com/user/hmfreedman

The 'Holocaust Remembrance Suite' can be downloaded from BandCamp and is available (for regular price) on iTunes and many other platforms. 
http://beneking.bandcamp.com/album/holocaust-remembrance-suite-charity-album
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/holocaust-remembrance-suite/id675961753
http://www.amazon.de/Holocaust-Remembrance-Suite-Charity-Album/dp/B00E0QQ52C/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374427542&sr=301-1

All proceeds will be donated to charities.


YouTube Video

The Dance of the Forgotten - Holocaust Remembrance Suite - played by Hal Freedman

The Gymnopédies, published in Paris starting in 1888, are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie.

The melodies of the pieces use deliberate, but mild, dissonances against the harmony, producing a piquant, melancholy effect that matches the performance instructions, which are to play each piece "painfully", "sadly" or "gravely".

Audius Classical Music
https://audius.co/classicalmusic

Best of Satie
https://music.apple.com/gb/album/gymnopedie-no-1-single/847714522

Satie on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/0vzKMInu4PzU2Qyi6NgmRK

Satie Album on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Erik-Satie-Essential-Collection/dp/B00J0LBFIG/

Erik Satie - The Essential Collection

Classical Music - The Essential Collection

ᯤ Spotify

Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.1

99 Women - Bruno Nicolai

Morning Mood from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt was Composed in 1875 for Henrik Ibsen's play of the same name

Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46: I. Morning Mood - Edvard Grieg

Footsteps On The Moon (instrumental)

Reverie 5:29

Unsettled Minds is a sweeping collection of orchestral adaptations that transform Beethoven’s Appassionata themes and beyond into symphonic meditations for restless souls. Each movement embraces turbulence and tenderness: brooding strings hover on the edge of silence, woodwinds whisper with searching fragility, and brass resound with fateful grandeur. Expanding Beethoven’s architecture into Rachmaninoff-like romantic musings of lush textures and cinematic dramas that capture the beauty and unease of an unsettled mind — where moments of stillness are broken by storms of emotion, and melodies carry both torment and transcendence. 

Performed in the imagined voice of Europe’s greatest orchestras, this album is an invitation into a dream state where longing, unrest, and fragile nobility collide.

3. Callings

Vivaldi Four Seasons

Four Seasons Winter I Allegro Non Molto feat. Vlastimil Kobrie

David Loebel conducts the New England Conservatory Symphony in a performance of Rachmaninov's Symphony no 2 in E minor. Recorded live April 14, 2011 at NEC's Jordan Hall.
For more information: http://necmusic.edu/concerts

Rachmaninov: Symphony no 2 in E minor, Op. 27- Largo   Allegro moderato

free download of the live album:
https://dirkmaassen.com/music

To The Sky (Live In Cologne) - free album download: https://dirkmaassen.com/music

Written in 1890, Debussy's Reverie was one of his first solo piano works to make an impact. Even at this early stage in his career, when he was still working out what kind of composer he wanted to be (he was apparently a fervent debater when it came to Wagnerism), it's clear to see traits of that signature Debussy sound.

However, the young Debussy had not quite developed the style and tricks that would earmark him as one of his generation's most notable talents. There are no fireworks here, no sudden explosions in texture that would come to characterise his later works - this is more of a meditation, the perfect precursor to exploring those later works.

The gently repetitive theme that opens the work feels like a descent into sleepy dream-world (as the title suggests), and as the textures become ever richer the dreams only become more lush and addictive. A fantastic early sign that this Debussy fellow was one to watch…

Source:

ClassicFM
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/debussy/music/debussy-reverie/

Retailers:

Debussy Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Claude-Debussy-Essential-Collection/dp/B00I6CEZQO/

Debussy Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/0Mmayh49XRWTXp53uf3jtF

Best of Debussy iTunes
https://music.apple.com/gb/album/claude-debussy-the-essential-collection/819582576

Debussy Compilation
https://listen.tidal.com/album/26275698

Claude Debussy
https://www.deezer.com/us/album/7429526

Best of Debussy Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXtAfPp-70I&t=76s

Napster
https://us.napster.com/artist/claude-debussy/album/claude-debussy-the-essential-collection

Tidal
https://listen.tidal.com/album/26275698

Also check out the very best in R&B & Pop Music 2020 from IndyPop Records!
www.youtube.com/c/indypoprecords

Jules Massenet - Meditation from Thais for Violin and Piano.m4a

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