This concerto is truly a work of superlatives. It was the last concerto Beethoven composed, and is seen by some as the end of his “heroic” period. The title “Emperor,” although in common use now, is not Beethoven’s; it became attached to the concerto after Beethoven’s...
Falla was a quintessentially Spanish composer who partially developed his style while living in Paris, between 1907 and 1914. There he became well-acquainted with Ravel, Debussy and Dukas. He originally composed the music for The Three-Cornered Hat in 1917 to...
During his long and productive life (1681-1767), Telemann became one of the most celebrated of baroque composers. His output was vast, ranging from operas and cantatas to concertos and intimate chamber works. One of his most charming pieces is the programmatic Don...
This is one of Haydn’s best-known concerti, and one of the most famous works for trumpet. Haydn composed it in 1796, and made full use of the solo ability of the chromatic trumpet, which had just come into its own. The concerto is scored for large orchestra and...
Ives is one of America’s most intriguing composers. He began his musical studies under his father (a bandmaster), became an organist for a Connecticut church, and began composing around the turn of the 20th century. After graduating in 1908 from Yale University, Ives...
Ravel first composed Tombeau as a suite for piano in six movements, and then arranged it as a 4-movement suite for orchestra in 1919. A “tombeau” was, in the French baroque tradition, a composition meant as a memorial, and each movement of Ravel’s Tombeau is dedicated...
Ludwig van Beethoven was aware that he was following in the footsteps of giants as he began composing his first symphony. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, already dead eight years in 1799, had blazed across the musical firmament like a meteor, leaving lesser composers...
Both Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Ralph Vaughan-Williams were intensely interested in the folk music of their native soil. Each composer attempted to create a distinctive national style by incorporating local folk tunes, rhythms, and harmonies into their art. The two...
Both Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Ralph Vaughan-Williams were intensely interested in the folk music of their native soil. Each composer attempted to create a distinctive national style by incorporating local folk tunes, rhythms, and harmonies into their art. The two...
The years from 1720 to 1750 were, from the perspective of the present, dominated by Johann Sebastian Bach; but for a musically aware person of the period Georg Philipp Telemann was the foremost musician of his day. His music, while firmly rooted in the contrapuntal...
Nulla porttitor pretium blandit. Suspendisse id nulla et erat feugiat vehicula. Nam ac sapien maximus sem auctor sollicitudin sit amet a enim. Nulla facilisi. Donec et commodo tellus.
