Classical Education

When I drive the Honda, I listen to XM-Radio. If I'm by myself, I listen to the Classic Vinyl station, which plays the songs from the mid-60s and early-70s. Hence the Billy Joel tune in yesterday's post.

When I am at my desk in my home office my musical tastes are much more eclectic. I subscribe to the Pandora One service, which allows users to create "stations" based on narrow categories.

My Pandora stations -- in order of appearance in the player:

• Johann Sebastian Bach Radio
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Radio
• Mozart Piano Quartet Radio
• Frank Sinatra Radio
• Diana Krall Radio
• Jefferson Starship Radio (I used this during the kitchen remodel.)
• The Beatles Radio (The Wife used this during the kitchen remodel.)
• Tosca, Opera: Recondita Armonia Radio (The Wife's alternative kitchen remodel music.)
• The Modern Jazz Quartet Radio
• Andres Segovia Radio
• Antonio Vivaldi Radio
• Gato Barbieri Radio
• Bill Evans Radio
• Miles Davis Radio

My favorite right now for work is the Bach station. For those of you unfamiliar with the way Pandora works, the station doesn't play just a single artist. Instead, it plays the artist and contemporaries.

So today's composers on the Bach station included Johannes Schenck, Alessandro Marcello, Dietrich Buxtehude, George Philipp Telemann, Antonio Soler, Fernando Sor and Tomasso Albioni, to name just a few. Of those names, only Telemann and, to a lesser degree, Albioni are familiar to me. The rest are part of my classical music education courtesy of Pandora.

The joy of the Internet is the ability to simply click a link in the Pandora One player to learn more. For instance, I was amazed to read that Marcello painted, wrote books of couplets and composed chamber cantatas, violin sonatas and concertos. His link to Bach: Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D minor was transcribed by Bach and made into Bach's Keyboard Concerto in D minor.

Imagine a guy who is a member of Venice's nobility. He has palaces around Venice decorated with his own paintings. He serves the city-state high council and holds several academic titles. Just an all-around guy.

But the real discovery today was Gabriela Montero, a 39-year-old pianist most famous for her classical improvisations. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, she started improvising at the piano at age 4, according to James Reel's All Music Guide article. She gave her first public performance at 5 and made her concert debut at 8. The Venezuelan government paid for her music studies in the United States. She later studied at London's Royal Academy of Music.

And, of course, the great danger of the Internet is one-click purchases. I bought her Baroque Improvisations album from Amazon's MP3 store. The player below her photo is her take on Pachelbel's Canon.

For a real treat, visit her website and watch the short video produced for her Baroque album.