In season of 2017/18, Emmy Lindström’s newly composed clarinet concerto At the Hills of Hampstead Heath was commissioned and performed around Sweden by four orchestras. The work became very popular, and was broadcast several times in SR P2. For the work, she was also nominated for the Music Publishers’ Award Large Ensemble in the autumn of 2018. The work was the starting shot for her brilliant career as a composer of high rank in Sweden. Learn more…
A suite in Seven movements.
I. Ouverture
II. Courante
III. Gavotte I & II
IV. Forlane
V. Menuet I & II
VI. Bourrée I & II
VII. Passpied I & II
For more, see the Wikipedia page for the Bach suites.
This piece is one of twelve concerti grossi published in 1714 and is one of Corelli’s most famous
works. Subtitled “Fatto per la notte di Natale” (i.e., for Christmas night), it was probably
composed in 1690 for Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. This work is scored as a “concerto grosso” for
strings and continuo, in which a “solo” group (here, two violins and one ‘cello) play in contrast
with the rest of the strings (the “ripieno”).
This concerto features five contrasting movements. A quick opening Vivace leads to a slow
Grave, replete with suspensions. The following Allegro contrasts the solo instruments with the
ripieno, with suspensions in the two solo violins and florid solo ‘cello passages. The melodic
Adagio movement, featuring the solo instruments, is interrupted by a sudden quick “ripieno”
section before reprising its slow opening. After a spritely Vivace, a fiery Allegro movement
highlights fast passages in the first solo violin. It connects directly with the concluding
Pastorale, written in a slow contemplative manner, with unison drones evoking shepherds in the
fields on Christmas Eve.
As a child, Strauss devoted most of his free time and energy to music, and before leaving school he had already composed over 140 works. His father, Franz, was Principal Horn player of the Munich Court Orchestra, and he introduced him to the leading musicians of the day, including conductor Hans von Bulow, who became a strong supporter.
The Serenade in E-flat major, Op. 7, composed when Strauss was 17, echoes the style of a classical-era chamber piece, using character and instrumentation largely modeled after Mozart’s Serenade No. 11 in E flat; listeners are also reminded of Schubert and Schumann. Though the formal design may be classical, the melodic material showcases the exuberant, wide-ranging themes imbued with passion and soaring lyricism that Strauss would employ throughout his career.
The serenade has several distinct sections, including a gentle exposition; a lively development section, leading to a climax with triumphant horn phrases; an oboe cadenza; a further development section leading to another “orchestral” climax; and a tranquil conclusion.
From her website:
“Composition, I find, is much like cooking: it’s all about proportion, balance, and the interplay of contrast and unity. But at the end of the day, no matter how complex your ideas are, how innovative your dish is, it still has to taste good.…The inspiration for Ravish and Mayhem came to me randomly while driving on a long trip some years ago. Perhaps highway hypnosis forced my brain to create some sort of entertainment, but nevertheless I was taken by the vivacity and virtuosity of what I heard. The image that stuck in my head was that of a bacchanal-esque Arabian street festival, and I sought to encapsulate that energy into the piece through the triumphant fanfares and lively folk-style melodies that are presented throughout. I imagine a person traveling from scene to scene, witnessing wild dancers, street performers, and amorous couples until the elephants arrive to announce the grand finale. This arrangement for full orchestra was created after the piece’s premiere at the 2012 Mizzou New Music Festival by Alarm Will Sound.”
Berg has composed orchestral works, chamber works, and electronic music. She also enjoys a rich instrumental career, performing on clarinet, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, and saxophone.
Rachmaninoff was already a budding composer and pianist when he composed this concerto, one of his most famous and recognizable works, in 1901. The circumstances surrounding Rachmaninoff’s composition of this concerto are quite dramatic. After a disastrous 1887 premiere of his first symphony, Rachmaninoff fell into 3-year depression and stopped composing. At the urging of his family, Rachmaninoff sought help from Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a family friend and musician, to cure him of his depression. Dr. Dahl treated him for three months with hypnotherapy, and it worked. Rachmaninoff was able to resume composing, writing his celebrated Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1900-1901 (dedicating it to Dr. Dahl). This concerto firmly established Rachmaninoff’s reputation as a great composer and has since become one of his most popular works.
The opening Moderato begins with opening solo piano chords, after which the main theme is stated in unison by the upper strings and clarinet. A transition leads to a forceful cadence; a more sedate tempo (highlighting clarinets and violas) presages the second theme, introduced by the piano. A sudden chorale fanfare in the brass introduces the development section, with new five-note motifs introduced by the cellos/basses and flutes. After a thundering climax, the opening theme reappears in a stately march style. The coda accelerates quickly to a rousing finish, punctuated by the solo piano.
The ultra-lyrical Adagio sostenuto is one of the most recognized works in the concerto repertoire. It opens with a striking orchestral modulation from C Major to E Major, after which the piano enters with repeated triplet arpeggios. The singing main theme is introduced by flute and then shared with the clarinet, before being taken up by the piano and violins in turn. A development section features a counter-subject by the bassoon, followed by the violins and violas. After a faster section, with several piano cadenzas, the opening piano triplets recur, together with the main theme in the violins. The final coda features a sublime interplay between the piano, staccato flutes and clarinets, and a soaring melody in the strings, before resolving to the solo piano at the end of the movement.
The final Allegro scherzando movement begins with a spritely orchestral introduction. After a brilliant piano cadenza, the playful main theme is introduced by the piano. A slower piano passage introduces the second theme, played by violas and clarinets – nostalgic, with a touch of melancholy – one of the most famous themes Rachmaninoff ever wrote. A transition section featuring piano triplets leads to the development; a fugal section follows, taken up in turn by the violins, piano, violas, ‘celli and horns. The second theme is restated; after a further transition and development, a short piano cadenza leads right into a majestic restatement of the second theme. A final accelerando leads to a triumphant conclusion, with Rachmaninoff’s “signature” rhythmic flourish in the last measure.
Peter Warlock by Herbert Lambert
Peter Warlock was a British composer and music critic who was well-known for his interest in and reinvention of early music, particularly Elizabethan and Renaissance styles, and was also recognized for his original compositions, mostly songs. He was also known for his colorful and bohemian lifestyle. Peter Warlock, born Philip Heseltine, adopted several pseudonyms, with “Peter Warlock” being the most famous. He chose this name to reflect his fascination with the occult, as “Warlock” implies a practitioner of witchcraft. For his music reviews, Heseltine also used other playful pseudonyms, including “Rab Noolas” (“Saloon Bar” spelled backwards).
His Capriol Suite, composed in 1926, evokes the spirit of Renaissance dance. The piece is based on tunes from Thoinot Arbeau’s 1589 Orchésographie, a manual of French Renaissance dances. Warlock reimagined these historic tunes, infusing them with his own flair and creating a work that feels both nostalgic and modern. Each of the suite’s six short movements is inspired by a different dance form.
The opening Basse-Danse sets the tone with its stately rhythms, evoking the grandeur of a Renaissance court and is followed by the haunting Pavane. The energetic Tordion (from the French “tordre”, meaning “to twist”) lightens the mood with its brisk tempo while the Bransles (from the French “branler”, meaning “to sway”) provides a rustic charm. The gentle Pieds-en-l’air (meaning feet in the air) offers a serene interlude with its dreamy melody, leading into the bold, high energy final movement, Mattachins (Sword Dance).
Originally composed as a piano duet, the Capriol Suite is most often performed by string orchestras. It’s a perfect piece for both musicians and audiences, blending ancient melodies with modern flair.
from Wikipedia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKKk_enIN4Y
New Orleans-born Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American composer and virtuoso pianist. Born to a Creole mother and Jewish father, he was a child prodigy on the piano, leaving Louisiana as a teenager to study music in Paris. He spent much of his career touring South America and the Caribbean and was dubbed the “Chopin of the Creoles.”
As a composer, he was renowned for his eclectic blend of classical, Creole, Caribbean, and Latin American influences. His Symphony No. 1, titled “A Night in the Tropics” (“Nuit des Tropiques”), premiered in Havana in 1860. It is one of the earliest examples of an orchestral work by an American composer that integrates elements of Afro-Caribbean music and rhythm.
The piece may have been played at one of Gottschalk’s famous “monster concerts” that employed hundreds of musicians (sometimes as many as 600!) performing newly composed works. One version of the Night in the Tropics was scored for 150 musicians, including an orchestra, a band and extra percussionists. There is also a two piano rendition another version for a smaller orchestra.
The symphony is in two movements, of which we are performing the second movement, titled “Festa Criolla.” Based on the samba, it features syncopated and lively Afro-Cuban rhythms.
The idea for Tzigane (from the generic European term for “gypsy”) may have come in 1922 after an evening when Ravel heard violinist Jelly d’Aranyi play his new Sonata for Violin and Cello. One account suggests that Ravel was so impressed by d’Aranyi’s playing that after the recital he stayed and asked her to play “gypsy” tunes from her native Hungary all night. These tunes may have served as inspiration for Tzigane, completed in 1924, but Ravel also drew ideas from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies and Paganini’s Caprices.
Ravel described Tzigane as “a virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian Rhapsody.” The first iteration of the composition was written for violin and piano with an attached device called a luthéal, which allowed the piano to mimic the Hungarian hammered dulcimer sound. Later that year Ravel composed an orchestral accompaniment.
The virtuosic piece starts slowly with a lengthy cadenza-like section for solo violin that is nearly half the length of the entire composition. The technical demands for the violinist are significant and include arpeggios, multiple stops, octaves, and left-hand pizzicatos. In fact, Ravel wrote in a letter to d’Arányi. “You have inspired me to write a short piece of diabolical difficulty.”
As the orchestra enters, it heralds the main dancelike portion of the composition. The gradually picks up speed as it accelerates towards the final “Presto”. Over the 100 years since this crowd-pleasing work was composed, Tzigane has been described as “fiery”, “dazzling”, “full of fireworks”, and “scorching.”
Dmitri Shostakovich
In 1924, a gifted 19-year-old student at Petrograd Conservatory began his senior composition project. Soon after completion, with enthusiastic faculty recommendations, including that of the director and composer Alexander Glazunov, the First Symphony was performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic under Bruno Walter, and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopoldo Stokowski. Dmitri Shostakovich had become an immediate international sensation.
But the path to success was fraught with upheaval. At ten years old, his middle-class life was upended by the communist revolution, which ended 400 years of the Romanov dynasty.
Shostakovich and his family endured famine and fuel shortages. After his father died, he helped bring in extra money by improvising on piano at silent movie theaters. (Despite his ambivalence about the medium, he became a fan of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.) This job developed Shostakovich’s fluency in translating drama and story into musical language, so it is unsurprising that the piano, typically not found in the orchestra, is one of the most prominent instruments. The piano provides expressive melodic sweeps and aggressive punctuation — sometimes commenting on the action (like a film) and at other times being the main focus.
Shostakovich’s distinct and original musical voice is already present in Symphony No. 1. While less known than many of his later works, it’s a thrilling piece full of sardonic edginess, pained introspection and dramatic outbursts, and closing with a blaring finale. Shostakovich’s works should always be a little rough around the edges — especially the musical outpourings of an unstable teenager whose world was uncontrollably changing. We hope you are captivated by his power, seduced by his wit, and enchanted by his many musical surprises.