Begin with the low piano chords of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto.
OVERTONEVOL. 001 · FOR YOUR FIRST DEEP LISTEN
Don’t begin with names.
Begin with a sound.
No catalogue numbers or music history required. In three minutes, we take you to the moment that makes a work matter.
Before catalogue numbers, hear someone learning to breathe again.
Next time, you will know how to wait for piano and orchestra to move toward each other.
Work of the dayDAY 018 / 365
A work is not an intimidatingly long title.
It is something a person, at one moment, had no choice but to write.
— OVERTONE EDITORS01 / DISCOVER
What do you want to hear today?
Choose a feeling first; learn the name later. Every work deserves an entrance that needs no prior knowledge.
02Expansive
Sergei Rachmaninoff · 1900–1901
Piano Concerto No. 2
C minor, Op. 18It rises from deep water: bells, breath, then romance you cannot evade.
30Still
Johann Sebastian Bach · 1727–1731
Goldberg Variations
BWV 988One aria, thirty variations. Order becomes an entrance to freedom.
03Nocturnal
Claude Debussy · 1903–1905
La mer
L. 109Not a picture of waves, but light, mist and time constantly changing shape.
05Fierce
Ludwig van Beethoven · 1804–1808
Symphony No. 5
C minor, Op. 67Four notes begin an entire symphony’s journey from shadow into light.
19Still
Maurice Ravel · 1899
Pavane for a Dead Princess
M. 19It mourns no princess, but a slow old dream that never existed.
13Fierce
Igor Stravinsky · 1911–1913
The Rite of Spring
K015Rhythm splits the earth. It caused a riot and rewrote the sound of a century.
02 / CONNECTED
Listen, watch and read—in one place.
Vialma brings formats together. We go further by connecting every format around the work itself.
03 / TIMELINE
Three centuries are not a test.
Follow music through time and every generation starts to sound like an answer to the last.
01
1685
Bach
Baroque
Goldberg Variations02
1756
Mozart
Classical
Clarinet Concerto03
1770
Beethoven
Classical / Romantic
Symphony No. 504
1810
Chopin
Romantic
24 Preludes05
1860
Mahler
Late Romantic
Symphony No. 506
1862
Debussy
Modern
La mer