When we aren’t listening to music, brainstorming blog posts or doing any of those functions necessary to staying alive, we’re spending a lot of time on the Internet. For the classical lovers among us, there are no shortages of silly, inspiring and inventive clips ripe for re-shares and virality. Here are 20 of our favorites.
Mary’s Little Lamb, Served up 10 Ways
Pianist Nahre Sol decided to try her hand at taking a single melody and interpreting it in the style of several different composers. In this case, it was “Mary Had a Little Lamb” as if it had been tackled by greats including Debussy, Rameau and Shostakovich.
How Do You Explain Harmony to a Five-Year-Old? Or Herbie Hancock?
One of WIRED’s most fun segments is the series in which an expert in their field explains one concept to different sorts of people, ranging from children to their peers. The platform got musical when Jacob Collier described harmony to a five-year-old kid, jazz legend Herbie Hancock and everyone in between.
A Balletic (And Ballistic) “Waltz of the Flowers”
YouTuber DoodleChaos usually scores a hit with his software-drawn videos set to classical hits— but the artist can go analogue, too. Just watch how he synced Tchaikovsky with the movement of marbles and dominos and woodblocks.
Ray Chen’s Sarabande Serenade
Throughout the year, violinist Ray Chen made a point to use his social media presence to give fans an intimate look into his professional and personal life. Naturally, between posts about the challenges musicians face, he slipped in some music — like this Sarabande from Bach’s Second Violin Partita.
Bach on Tap
One of the year’s gems from Carnegie and NPR’s From The Top programming was this video that teamed-up 12-year-old pianist Harmony Zhu and tap dancing pro Leo Manzari for a performance of Bach’s Partita No. 2.
Debussy’s Life in Color
2018 marked a century since the death of Claude Debussy. Naturally, pianist Seong-Jin Cho, a frequent interpreter of his music, contributed a recording of “Clair de lune” to a tranquil, colorfully vivid biographical video about the French composer.
Chopin Meets The Beatles
Another standout from NPR’s From the Top, this collaboration between young musicians and Time for Three featured an arrangement of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” that starts off with an allusion to Chopin’s Ballade No. 2.
All-Cello “Erlkönig”
Los-Angeles based ensemble Sakura managed to make a Schubertian smash-hit even creepier with a hair-raising, all-cello arrangement of “Der Erlkönig.”
Simon Rattle Probably Memorizes Things Better Than You Can
When Simon Rattle joined the London Symphony Orchestra for a livestream from the Barbican Centre, audiences got to see him conduct one of his favorite pieces — Mahler’s Tenth Symphony — entirely from memory.
Sheku’s Royal Audience
Sure, viewing audiences might have been fascinated by fascinators and moved by spicy sermons, but it was cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason who walked away with a nickname worthy of an Internet meme: “Cello Bae.” After Prince Harry saw him play at a charity event, the young cellist was invited to be a part of the ceremony as a soloist playing Fauré and Schubert.
Beautiful Vespers
It was easy to hear why Philippe Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale Gent’s Vespers for the Blessed Virgin was named as one of WQXR’s favorite albums last spring. But it turns out we’re lucky enough to see why, too — the ensemble released video of some of the recording sessions, which were held in the beautiful Monastero di Sant'Anna in Camprena.
John Williams Throws Out the First Pitch
John Williams, one of the most accomplished composers in American history and a lifelong baseball fan, threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to tonight’s game, as we celebrated his illustrious five-decade career in the performing arts. #Birdlandpic.twitter.com/9NSkkAtnvm
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) June 12, 2018
What do you do when you’re traveling for work and find out your favorite team is set to play their division rivals? If you’re John Williams, you’d want to throw out the first pitch — which is exactly what he did when he attended a Red Sox – Orioles game while he was in town conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
The Dog Concerto Proves the Internet Still Has Some Good Left in It
We had quite a laugh when someone took with a ghoulish wail, figured out the key (A-flat) and wrote an accompaniment for it. It kind of works.
Baby’s First Opera Singer
The human voice is an incredible instrument, and a few lucky kids got to learn that first-hand when they met with soprano Angel Blue — their first experience with an opera singer. The reactions are priceless, and it was good to see Blue indulging one child’s request that she at least try to break a glass with her voice.
Maria Callas: Back on Tour?
We got Tupac and Ol’ Dirty Bastard resurrected for Coachella, but one tech company is looking even further back — creating a Maria Callas hologram to tour with a full symphony across North America and Europe.
Met Opera Stars Hop in a Time Machine (Sorta)
If there are two things kids these days can’t get enough of, they’re analogue records and lo-fi recording aesthetics. Perhaps that’s what the Met had on its mind when it teamed tenor Piotr Beczala and lyric soprano Susanna Phillips with engineer Jerry Fabris of Thomas Edison National Park to record their voices with equipment from about 1909.
Bone-hemian Rhapsody
There’s not much more we can say about this particular piece — it was by far the most viewed and shared of our posts in 2018. And if you haven’t seen it yet, just do it. You’ll be glad you did.
These Puppers are a Match for ARC’s Voice
Anthony Roth Costanzo! Dogs! Frolicking! Tilda Swinton’s wild directorial visions! We may not think of all of these things together, but Swinton and Costanzo definitely did when they filmed a music video for the latter’s recording of the aria “Rompo i Lacci” (from Handel’s Flavio).
Yo-Yo Ma’s Somber Performance Marking 100 Years Since the World War I Armistice
To mark a century since the end of World War I, Yo-Yo Ma traveled to the country of his birth, France, which saw some of the conflict’s most devastating fighting. During the remembrance ceremony, he sat beneath the Arc de Triomphe to perform music by a German composer, the Sarabande from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5.