Caspar David Friedrich Paintings + Johan Sebastian Bach's "Air" from Orchestral Suite No.3 Played by Yehudi Menuhin

Let's look at some German sights and sounds this week.

Johann Sebastian Bach died 25 years before Caspar David Friedrich was born.
Bach was 1685-1750 and Friedrich was 1774-1840.

Friedrich was a German romantic landscape painter. While he was alive there was a growing dissillusionment with materialistic society that gave rise to a new appreciation of spirituality. Friedrich, along with other artists J.M.W Turner & John Constable highlighted divine creation in the natural world through use of light, perspective and the emotion the paintings evoked.

The music we hear is a piece composed by Bach. The Air is one of the most famous pieces of baroque music. It is a lot lighter in sound than what Bach normally composed sacred or fugal fare. So I think it lends itself to the lightness and openness of the landscape paintings.

Yehudi Menuhin is considered the greatest violinists of the 20th century. An American born British violinist whose dad was a Lithuanian Jew living in modern Belarus. Menuhin started learning violin at the age of 4. He is the violist who plays this piece.

Here is a notable quote from him:
"The ultimate aim in life should be to fulfill to the utmost all that within our ability and to share that which is good and beautiful."

If you are watching this with children:

Ask them how would they describe the paintings they just saw?

Ask them if there was a painting that stood out to them.
Find the painting and pause on it to look at the one painting in more detail for longer.

Ask them how the music made them feel?
How would they describe the sound?
What instruments can they recognise in there?

Thanks Little Listeners!

Are there any classical artists or songs you think are particularly beautiful, I would love to have some requests?