Happy Labor Day Weekend! Labor Day celebrates American workers and their many achievements. From our Mobile Music Lessons family to yours, we wish you all a fantastic and safe holiday.
Classical music explores several labor themes. Composers like Ginastera, Shostakovich and Copland were influenced by 20th-century labor movements, for example. Enjoy this playlist of pieces that explore workers and work; some are uplifting, others deeply moving and thought-provoking:
Aaron Copland wrote Fanfare for the Common Man in response to a solicitation to honor those who fought in WWII.
In response to Copland's piece above, composer Joan Tower wrote Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman. These pieces are scored identically to Copland's and quote his piece. They reflect "women who take risks and are adventurous," according to the composer.
Here is context for I Be So Glad When the Sun Goes Down, which was sung by enslaved Black Americans during a dark period of America's history.
A favorite amongst piano pedagogues, here's Iowa's own Alan Huckleberry performing Schumann's The Happy Farmer from his Album for the Young, which he wrote to teach his own children about piano.
Satie's Sonatine Bureaucratique quotes Clementi's Sonatina Op. 36 No. 1 in an ironic and humorous way to depict how it had become the "epitome of bourgeois home music-making through its omnipresence in piano teaching."
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