The videos created at Moonlight Chill are intended to bring you the most beautiful instrumental music, along with stunning pictures, all to help you relax and chill out. Actually, the very first video was created for me to enjoy and was uploaded so that I could enjoy it whenever I wanted, wherever I happened to be. I created it because I loved the music, and so that very first video contains some of the music that I most enjoy personally. It turned out that others enjoyed the video too though, and so here I am still creating and posting!
It is fitting then that the very first musical piece on that first video is such a beautiful composition. I had no idea where I was going when I began that first video, so the natural place to start was with the piece I enjoyed listening to most at that time - Brian Crain's 'Song For Sienna.'
As with so much of Brian Crain's work, 'Song For Sienna' is a wonderful combination of piano and cello that flows so beautifully, and so naturally, that you cannot help but find your mind at ease within a few moments of the music starting. 'Song For Sienna' is one of those rare works that manages to fit your mood, no matter what your mood.
'Song For Sienna' is taken from Brian Crain's album 'Sienna,' and is available on Amazon, ITunes, Spotify, and Beats Music.
Spotify link to the album 'Sienna': https://play.spotify.com/album/7lUJnifoFIWyp338XNdg9a.
Please support the Artist by purchasing his album if you enjoy his music.
The pictures that accompany 'Song For Sienna' on the video are all pictures taken of, or near, the village of Mow Cop on the Staffordshire/Cheshire border, a place with many happy memories for me. As with so many other things in life, it was a place that I never fully appreciated the beauty of until it was slipping from the present into the past.
You can listen to 'Song For Sienna' on Sleep Peacefully Vol. 1.
Friday, 30 May 2014
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Adagio for Strings - Samuel Barber: Relaxing Grass In the Wind
Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber, arguably his most well known, arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11.
Barber finished the arrangement in 1936, the same year that he wrote the quartet. It was performed for the first time in 1938, in a radio broadcast from a New York studio attended by an invited audience, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who also took the piece on tour to Europe and South America. Its reception was generally positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that Adagio for Strings is "full of pathos and cathartic passion" and that it "rarely leaves a dry eye." The music is the setting for Barber's 1967 choral arrangement of Agnus Dei. Adagio for Strings can be heard in many TV shows and movies.
Nature has a wonderful ability to relax the mind, and so I found the simple images of grass blowing in the wind to set this music to. The gentle swirl of the grasses, swaying back and forward seems to turn into a dance as music begins to take over.
Originally uploaded to Youtube on 21st May 2014
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Air on a G String - Johann Sebastian Bach (arranged by August Wilhelmj) - Set To The Northern Lights
Air on the G String is August Wilhelmj's arrangement of the second movement in Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068.
The original orchestral suite was written by Bach for his patron Prince Leopold of Anhalt some time between the years 1717 and 1723. The title comes from violinist August Wilhelmj's late 19th century arrangement of the piece for violin and piano. By transposing the key of the piece from its original D major to C major and transposing the melody down an octave, Wilhelm was able to play the piece on only one string of his violin, the G string.
The photography is from 'Celestial Lights' by Ole C. Salomonsen
I have always been fascinated by the beauty of the Northern Lights and felt that this haunting piece of music perfectly captured their mystery and elegance.
Originally uploaded to YouTube on 10 Jan 2014
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