ART APPRECIATION
The Annunciation (Renaissance) by Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico and some other friars moved into a newly built friary (a group of buildings dedicated only to religious activities) called the Friary of San Marco in Florence, Italy. Because this put Fra Angelico in the center of artistic activity, it wasn’t long before a wealthy and powerful member of the city, Cosimo de Medici, encouraged and probably funded paintings in the new building. Fra Angelico painted the private cell (room) de Medici reserved for himself when he wanted to retreat from the world as well as the famous altarpiece. The Annunciation was painted at the top of the stairs to the cells.
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Fra Angelico (c. 1395-1455) was an Italian painter in the Middle Ages. He was not known as Fra Angelico until after his death as a way of honoring his religious life and work. Most of his work was done in the monastery of San Domenico, where he lived. His pieces have religious themes where saints and angels always stand out from the rest of the picture.
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MUSIC APPRECIATION
| Violin Concerto in D Major, op.35:I. “Allegro moderato” |
Tchaikovsky was inspired to write this concerto when he was staying at a lake house in Switzerland with a friend, an excellent violinist. It is one of the most difficult works for violin, and also one of the most beautiful. It was one of the composer’s goals from the start to write a piece that would be beautiful rather than follow traditional musical rules. This piece was written for beauty’s sake.
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was the most popular Russian composer of all time. His music has always had great appeal for the general public in virtue of its tuneful, open-hearted melodies, impressive harmonies, and colourful, picturesque orchestration, all of which evoke a profound emotional response. His oeuvre includes 7 symphonies, 11 operas, 3 ballets, 5 suites, 3 piano concertos, a violin concerto, 11 overtures (strictly speaking, 3 overtures and 8 single movement programmatic orchestral works), 4 cantatas, 20 choral works, 3 string quartets, a string sextet, and more than 100 songs and piano pieces. 4
- Lange, Krista, and Leigh Lowe. Second Grade Enrichment: Classical Core Curriculum. Teacher Guide. Memoria Press, 2017. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Music Appreciation I. I, Memoria Press.
↩︎ - Alexander Poznansky, Librarian, Slavic and Eastern European Collection. “Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 17 Oct. 2025, http://www.britannica.com/biography/Pyotr-Ilyich-Tchaikovsky.
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Providence School of Tifton 