Rare Waltz by Franz Schubert

I love history’s little secret stories and especially when it comes to the stories behind some of the renowned composers’ works.

The other day I discovered this recording of a very cute and endlessly charming waltz composed by Franz Schubert. It is called “Kupelwieser Waltz”. They say it was written for and performed at the wedding of Schubert’s friend Leopold Kupelwieser in 1826.

The interesting thing is that the score of the waltz, unlike most of works by Schubert, was never written down by composer himself. Composed rather spontaneously as a dedication to an important event in his friend’s life, the waltz was only passed on year after year but never put down on a sheet. Over a century had to pass before it happened in 1943, when Richard Strauss, as a family’s close friend, was asked to transcribe this beautiful work. Of course, as a composer himself, Strauss added something of his own to the music, which cannot be unnoticed by classical music connoisseurs. However, the hand of Schubert can be clearly traced throughout the entire work.
I think this serene and peaceful composition is sure to take a place of my list of favs now. Hope you like it too!

8-Bit Classical Music

As a fan of ‘quality’ music, I rather consider myself a conservative type when it comes to great music masterpieces. What I mean is that if I am to listen to a work by Mozart, Bach, Schubert and other outstanding music minds, I prefer to pick a nice recording by orchestras like New York Philharmonic and such, or, ideally, go to a live performance of my favorite compositions (whenever I get a chance to!).

However, recently I’ve become more open to other creative interpretations of my favourite music pieces and I’m surprised to find myself enjoying some of them to a certain extent. I know it’s not a very new thing (sorry, I wasn’t quite following) but it looks like 8-bit music has become quite popular. I ran into it by chance and I guess I’m glad I did.

If someone gave me a contemporary piece in 8 bit to listen to, I wouldn’t be surprised, but hey – what I find first is nothing else but Antonín Dvořák's 9th Symphony! Wut? I was all skeptical at the beginning but the funny thing is that for some reason I didn’t click ‘stop’ or close the window.  I kept listening. Be it out of curiosity or enjoyment, hard to say. But I can say now that that 8-bit mode did not spoil it for me, on the contrary, I found it interesting that way. As I found out later, a lot of classical compositions exist in 8-bit and they do cause people interest. I still am an ardent lover of all the traditional in classical music but now I can add that there also are music experiments worth holding!