Clementi’s Sonatina in C Major
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Clementi’s Sonatina in C Major

This Sonatina in C Major (Op. 36, No. 1) by Clementi is one of those standard pieces of music which almost everyone learning piano comes across at some point and as a child I remember hearing my dad play it and wanting to be able to play it just like him. It’s a long time since I’ve played this so it’s probably a bit slower than it should be, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Clementi wrote 110 piano sonatas, though some of the earlier ones including Op. 36 were later classified as sonatinas and are seen as perfect pieces for intermediate piano students. However, many of his sonatas are more difficult to play than those of his contemporary Mozart, who wrote in a letter to his sister that he would prefer her not to play Clementi’s sonatas due to their “jumped runs, wide stretches and chords” which he thought would ruin the natural lightness of her hand!

If it’s your first time on the site, find out why I’m playing one song a day for the whole of 2015 or see all of my September songs here and my growing list of October songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/sonatina-in-c-major-clementi

My Favourite Things
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My Favourite Things

Yesterday was apparently Julie Andrews’ 80th birthday so on hearing that I decided to make today’s songs one of the classics from The Sound of Music, and one I’ll always associate with Julie Andrews, My Favourite Things. In the original Broadway version this song was sung by Maria before she left the Abbey, but it was reworked for the film version to be sung by Maria and the children during the thunderstorm. I hope you enjoy my own take on My Favourite Things.

If it’s your first time on the site, find out why I’m playing one song a day for the whole of 2015 or see all of my September songs here and my growing list of October songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/my-favourite-things

October
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October

Following on from yesterday’s song about September, here’s U2’s October from the 1981 album of the same name. Bono said of this song:

‘October’…it’s an image. We’ve been through the 60s, a time when things were in full bloom. We had fridges and cars, we sent people to the moon and everyone thought how great mankind was. And now, as we go through the 70s and 80s, it’s a colder time of the year. It’s after the harvest. Trees are stripped bare. You can see things and we finally realize that maybe we aren’t so smart after all, now that there’s millions of unemployed people, now that we used the technology we’ve been blessed with to build bombs for war machines, to build rockets, whatever. So ‘October’ is an ominous word, but it’s also quite lyrical.”

I hope you enjoy my performance – it’s certainly a bit different from the vast majority of songs I’ve played this year!

If it’s your first time on the site, find out why I’m playing one song a day for the whole of 2015 or see all of my September songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/october

Wake Me Up When September Ends
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Wake Me Up When September Ends

It seemed only right to play this song on the last day of September. Released in 2005 as the fifth single from Green Day’s album American Idiot, Wake Me Up When September Ends became a hit single, peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 8 on the UK charts. The song became closely associated with Hurricane Katrina which struck the Gulf Coast on 31 August of that year and a video featuring footage of the aftermath of the disaster accompanied by the song went viral. Green Day subsequently performed the song at a relief concert organised by MTV.

If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my September songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/wake-me-up-when-september-ends

Radio Ga Ga
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Radio Ga Ga

Today’s song is Queen’s Radio Ga Ga, or at least my ‘swing’ version of this song! Radio Ga Ga dates from 1984 and was written as a lament to the demise of radio over TV, and the rising importance of the music video over the song itself. Queen drummer Roger Taylor who wrote the song said “That’s part of what the song’s about, really. The fact that they [music videos] seem to be taking over almost from the aural side, the visual side seems to be almost more important.”

I hope Queen fans aren’t offended by my swingification of this piece!

If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my September songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/radio-ga-ga/s-1VVMw

Theme from The Amazing Race
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Theme from The Amazing Race

There’s only one tune suitable to play today and that’s the theme from the brilliant US TV show, The Amazing Race. Since discovering this show on iTunes about a year ago, we’ve binge-watched around fifteen seasons of it, and the first episode of Season 28 was shown last night in the US, ready for us to catch it on iTunes as prime-time Saturday night viewing. I hope you enjoy my piano version of the great all-action theme tune written by John M. Keane.

If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my September songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/amazing-race

There’s A Small Hotel
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There’s A Small Hotel

Today’s song dates from 1936. There’s A Small Hotel was written by Rodgers and Hart and was included in the musical On Your Toes. It also featured in the 1957 film version of Pal Joey. There’s A Small Hotel has been performed by many artists both as a slow, jazzy number and in a more up tempo version, but it’s Ella Fitzgerald’s version which I know best and which I’ve tried to recreate with my performance.

There are more songs from the 1930s here. If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my September songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/theres-a-small-hotel

Budapest
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Budapest

Today’s song is George Ezra’s 2014 Budapest. Apparently Ezra had never visited the city before writing the song. He was in Malmö at the Eurovision Song Contest and was due to be travelling to Budapest the following day. However, he ended up at a party and by the morning wasn’t quite well enough to travel, so instead he wrote the song about being miles away from Budapest!

If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my September songs here.

https://soundcloud.com/mark-pentleton/budapest

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