Tchaikovsky - Suite No. 4, Op. 61 Mozartiana (1887) Bartje Bartmans 2024-10-13 | Tchaikovsky - Suite No. 4, Op. 61 Mozartiana (1887)
Bacarisse/Yepes - Invocation from La fille aux yeux dor (1961) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-20 | Salvador Bacarisse Chinoria (12 September 1898 – 5 August 1963) was a Spanish composer.Narciso Yepes (14 November 1927 – 3 May 1997) was a Spanish guitarist. He is considered one of the finest virtuoso classical guitarists of the twentieth century.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansInvocation from the movie "La fille aux yeux d'or" (1961)Narciso Yepes, guitarLa fille aux yeux d'or (The Girl with Golden Eyes) is a French film directed by Jean-Gabriel Albicocco and released in 1961. The movie is inspired by the short novel The Girl with Golden Eyes by Honoré de Balzac published in 1835, which is, with Ferragus and The Duchess of Langeais, the third part of the l’Histoire des Treize, part of Scenes of Parisian Life , Studies of manners from La Comédie humaine.
Edward MacDowell - 10 Woodland Sketches, Op. 51 arr. for Orchestra (1895) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-19 | Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860 – January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces and New England Idylls. Woodland Sketches includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose". In 1904 he was one of the first seven Americans honored by membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans10 Woodland Sketches, Op. 51 (1895)arranged for orchestraNo. 1, "To a Wild Rose" — A major ("With simple tenderness") (0:00)No. 2, "Will o' the Wisp" — F-sharp minor ("Swift and light; fancifully") (2:12)No. 3, "At an Old Trysting-place" — A-flat major ("Somewhat quaintly, not too sentimentally") (3:29)No. 4, "In Autumn" — F-sharp minor ("Buoyantly, almost exuberantly") (5:45)No. 5, "From an Indian Lodge" — C minor ("Sternly, with great emphasis") (7:33)No. 6, "To a Water-lily" — F-sharp major ("In dreamy, swaying rhythm") (9:41)No. 7, "From Uncle Remus" — F major ("With much humor, joyously") (12:18)No. 8, "A Deserted Farm" — F-sharp minor ("With deep feeling") (13:27)No. 9, "By a Meadow Brook" — A-flat major ("Gracefully, merrily") (15:56)No. 10, "Told at Sunset" — F minor ("With Pathos") (16:59)Camarata and his OrchestraDecca recording 1953Most of the works in Woodland Sketches are in ternary form, consisting of simple melodies with chordal accompaniment. Many of the pieces' subjects are indicative of the nature and wildlife surrounding MacDowell's farm ("To a Wild Rose", "Will o' the Wisp", "To a Water-lily", "By a Meadow Brook") or are inspired by the MacDowells' frequent walks in the woods ("At an Old Trysting-place", "From an Indian Lodge", "A Deserted Farm"). According to the musicologist Douglas E. Bomberger, the pieces "are suggestive of extramusical ideas without telling a specific story". The musicologist Michael Broyles drew a connection between the suite and the short piano pieces of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, a Norse similarity that is also evident in MacDowell's piano sonatas.
Tchaikovsky - Hamlet, Op. 67 (1888) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-18 | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (25 April/7 May 1840 – 25 October/6 November 1893), often anglicized as Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer of the late-Romantic period, some of whose works are among the most popular music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884, by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansHamlet (Overture fantasia), Op. 67 (1888)Dedication: Edvard GriegUSSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Evgeny SvetlanovTchaikovsky wrote the Hamlet overture-fantasia, Op. 67, between June and 19 October 1888, overlapping the scoring of his Fifth Symphony.The idea of a Hamlet overture had first occurred to Tchaikovsky in 1876, as outlined in his plans in a letter to his brother Modest. At that time, he conceived it in three parts:1. Elsinore and Hamlet, up to the appearance of his father's ghost2. Polonius (scherzando) and Ophelia (adagio), and3. Hamlet after the appearance of the ghost. His death and Fortinbras.However, by 1888 he had altered these notions. The actor Lucien Guitry asked him to write some incidental music for a production of Shakespeare's play, to which Tchaikovsky agreed. The planned performance was cancelled, but Tchaikovsky decided to finish what he had started, in the form of a concert overture. There is no musical enactment of the events of the play, or even a presentation of the key characters. The work adopts the same scheme he used in his other Shakespeare pieces, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet (1869, revised 1870 and 1880) and the symphonic fantasy The Tempest (1873), in using certain characteristics or emotional situations within the play. The essence of the work is the brooding atmosphere depicting Elsinore, but there is an obvious love theme, and a plaintive melody on the oboe can be seen to represent Ophelia.What makes "Hamlet" unique from other works of Tchaikovsky fantasy is the lack of a structural development. The standard form of this music has an exposition, a development, and concludes with a recapitulation. Tchaikovsky did not clearly emphasize a development section in "Hamlet."The Hamlet overture-fantasia was dedicated to Edvard Grieg, whom Tchaikovsky had met in Leipzig in early 1888 on the same occasion that he met Johannes Brahms. He described Grieg as "an extraordinarily charming man".
John W. Bratton - Teddy Bears Picnic, Op. 103 (1907) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-16 | John Walter Bratton (January 21, 1867 – February 7, 1947) was an American Tin Pan Alley composer and theatrical producer who became popular during the 1890's.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansTeddy Bears' Picnic, Op. 103 (1907)New London Orchestra, conducted by Robert CorpHyperion CDA67067"The Teddy Bears' Picnic" is a song consisting of a melody written in 1907 by American composer John Walter Bratton, and lyrics added in 1932 by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy. It remains popular in Ireland and the United Kingdom as a children's song, having been recorded by numerous artists over the decades. Kennedy lived at Staplegrove Elm and is buried in Staplegrove Church, in Taunton, Somerset, England. Local folklore has it that the small wooded area between the church and Staplegrove Scout Hut was the inspiration for his lyrics.Bratton composed and personally copyrighted it in 1907, and then assigned the copyright to M. Witmark & Sons, New York City, who published it later that year as "The Teddy Bears Picnic: Characteristic Two Step", according to the first page of the published piano score, as well as the orchestral parts Witmark published in an arrangement by Frank Saddler. However, the illustrated sheet music cover gives the title as THE TEDDY BEARS' PICNIC, with apostrophe on "BEARS" and no genre descriptor. Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy wrote the now familiar lyrics for it in 1932.After Bratton wrote "The Teddy Bears' Picnic", however, many people felt that the composer plagiarized portions of the melody. Music aficionados pointed out in particular that the refrain echoed the theme from Robert Browne Hall's 1895 "Death or Glory March". Nevertheless, charges were not filed and Bratton's song still has the same tune it had in 1907.
Rudolf Friml - Chanson (1920) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-15 | Charles Rudolf Friml (December 7, 1879 – November 12, 1972) was a Czech-born composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer. His best-known works are Rose-Marie and The Vagabond King, each of which enjoyed success on Broadway and in London and were adapted for film.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansChanson In Love (1920)New London Orchestra, conducted by Robert CorpHyperion CDA67067One of the most popular theatrical forms in the early decades of the 20th century in America was the operetta, and its most famous composer was Irish-born Victor Herbert. It was announced in 1912 that operetta diva Emma Trentini would be starring in a new operetta on Broadway by Herbert with lyricist Otto Harbach entitled The Firefly. Shortly before the writing of the operetta, Trentini appeared in a special performance of Herbert's Naughty Marietta conducted by Herbert himself. When Trentini refused to sing "Italian Street Song" for the encore, an enraged Herbert stormed out of the orchestra pit refusing any further work with Trentini.Arthur Hammerstein, the operetta's sponsor, frantically began to search for another composer. Not finding any other theatre composer who could compose as well as Herbert, Hammerstein settled on the almost unknown Friml because of his classical training. After a month of work, Friml produced the score for what would be his first theatrical success. After tryouts in Syracuse, New York, The Firefly opened at the Lyric Theatre on December 2, 1912, to a warm reception by both the audience and the critics. The production moved to the Casino Theatre after Christmas, where it ran until March 15, 1913, for a total of 120 performances. After The Firefly, Friml produced three more operettas that each had longer runs than The Firefly, although they are not as enduringly successful. These were High Jinks (1913), Katinka (1915) and You're in Love (1917). He also contributed songs to a musical in 1915 entitled The Peasant Girl.Friml wrote his most successful operettas in the 1920s. In 1924, he wrote Rose-Marie. This operetta, on which Friml collaborated with lyricists Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach and co-composer Herbert Stothart, was a hit worldwide, and a few of the songs from it also became hits including "The Mounties" and "Indian Love Call". The use of murder as part of the plot was ground-breaking among operettas and musical theatre pieces at the time.After Rose-Marie's success came two other hit operettas, The Vagabond King in 1925, with lyrics by Brian Hooker and William H. Post, and The Three Musketeers in 1928, with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse and Clifford Grey, based on Alexandre Dumas's famous swashbuckling novel. In addition, Friml contributed to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 and 1923.
Leroy Anderson - Promenade/First Day of Spring/Phantom Regiment (1951) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-14 | Leroy Anderson (June 29, 1908 – May 18, 1975) was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John Williams described him as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music."Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. Promenade (1945) (0:00)2. The First Day of Spring (1954) (2:51)3. The Phantom Regiment (1951) (6:01)Leroy Anderson and his OrchestraHis pieces and his recordings during the 1950s conducting a studio orchestra were immense commercial successes. "Blue Tango" was the first instrumental recording ever to sell one million copies. His most famous pieces are probably "Sleigh Ride" and "The Syncopated Clock". In February 1951, WCBS-TV in New York City selected "The Syncopated Clock" as the theme song for The Late Show, the WCBS late-night movie, using Percy Faith's recording. Mitchell Parish added words to "The Syncopated Clock", and later wrote lyrics for other Anderson tunes, including "Sleigh Ride", which was not written as a Christmas piece, but as a work that describes a winter event. Anderson started the work during a heat wave in August 1946. The Boston Pops' recording of it was the first pure orchestral piece to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Music chart. From 1952 to 1961, Anderson's composition "Plink, Plank, Plunk!" was used as the theme for the CBS panel show I've Got a Secret.Anderson's musical style employs creative instrumental effects and occasionally makes use of sound-generating items such as typewriters and sandpaper.
Franz Lehár - Gold und Silber, Op. 79 (1903) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-13 | Franz Lehár (30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe).Gold und Silber Walzer, Op. 79 (1903)Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Vladimir FedosejevLive performance 1998
Ned Rorem - 9 Songs (1946-51) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-12 | Ned Miller Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and a writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was considered the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Frequently described as a neoromantic composer, he showed limited interest in the emerging modernist aesthetic of his lifetime. Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. Early in the Morning (0:00)Poem by Robert HillyerDedicated to Pierre Quèvel2. Alleluia (2:02) 1946Dedicated to Jeannie Tourel3. I Will Always Love You (4:51)Poem by Frank O'Hara4. Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair (7:15)Poem and music by Stephen Foster5. Little Elegy (9:55) 1948Poem by Elinor Wylie6. Love (11:16)Poem by Thomas LodgeDedication: Shirley Xenia Gabis Roads7. O Do Not Love too Long (13:05) 1951Poem by W.B. Yeats8. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (14:31)Poem by Robert FrostDedication: To My Father9. To A Young Girl (16:25) 1951Poem by W.B. YeatsDedication: Sylvia GoldsteinSusan Graham, mezzo-soprano & Malcolm Martineau, pianoNed Rorem is best known for his art songs, of which he wrote more than 500. Many are coupled into some thirty or so song cycles, written from the early 1940s to 2000s. Rorem stressed the importance of a cycle's overall structure, paying close attention to the song order, progression of keys and transition between songs. He also emphasized theatricality, aiming to convey an overarching message via a unified emotional affect or mood. Like in other genres, the musicologist Philip Lieson Miller remarked that "Rorem's chosen field of song is not for the avant garde and he must be classified as [...] conservative", and that "he has never striven for novelty". Rorem's strict definitions of what constitutes a song has molded them to be typically be single-voice and piano settings of lyrical poems of moderate length. He named songs by Monteverdi, Schumann, Poulenc and the Beatles as particular favorites. To obtain certain effects, however, Rorem has occasionally experimented with more modernist sentiments, such as intense chromaticism, successive modulations and alternating time signatures.Many of Rorem's songs are accompanied by piano, though some have mixed instrumental ensemble or orchestral accompaniment. A pianist himself, his accompaniment parts for the instrument are not completely secondary to the voice and more a "full complement to the melody". They include motives to emphasize textual elements—such as rain and clouds—and are wildly diverse in function, sometimes responding to the voice in counterpoint or simply doubling the vocal line. He sometimes uses the Renaissance-derived ground bass technique of a slow and repeated bassline in the left hand. Reflecting on his piano accompaniments, the writer Bret Johnson describes Rorem's musical hallmarks as "chiming piano, rushing triplets, sumptuous harmonies"
Leroy Anderson - Belle of the Ball (1951) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-10 | Leroy Anderson (June 29, 1908 – May 18, 1975) was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John Williams described him as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music."Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansBelle of the Ball Waltz (1951)New London Orchestra, conducted by Robert CorpHyperion CDA67067His pieces and his recordings during the 1950s conducting a studio orchestra were immense commercial successes. "Blue Tango" was the first instrumental recording ever to sell one million copies. His most famous pieces are probably "Sleigh Ride" and "The Syncopated Clock". In February 1951, WCBS-TV in New York City selected "The Syncopated Clock" as the theme song for The Late Show, the WCBS late-night movie, using Percy Faith's recording. Mitchell Parish added words to "The Syncopated Clock", and later wrote lyrics for other Anderson tunes, including "Sleigh Ride", which was not written as a Christmas piece, but as a work that describes a winter event. Anderson started the work during a heat wave in August 1946. The Boston Pops' recording of it was the first pure orchestral piece to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Music chart. From 1952 to 1961, Anderson's composition "Plink, Plank, Plunk!" was used as the theme for the CBS panel show I've Got a Secret.Anderson's musical style employs creative instrumental effects and occasionally makes use of sound-generating items such as typewriters and sandpaper.
H.C. Lumbye - Columbine Polka Mazurka (1862) & Louise Waltz (1868) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-09 | Hans Christian Lumbye (2 May 1810 – 20 March 1874) was a Danish composer of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and galops, among other things. From 1843 to 1872, he served as the music director and in-house composer for Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen. Such was his popularity in the Danish capital that many Danes revered him and considered Johann Strauss II as the "Lumbye of the South".Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. Columbine Polka Mazurka (1862) (0:00)1862-02-27 København (Casino)2. Dronning Louise Vals (1868) (3:38)Dedication: Queen Louise of Denmark (1817-1898)1868-05-17 København (Tivoli)Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter GuthLumbye wrote many of his works for performance at the Tivoli Gardens, also known simply as Tivoli, which is an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg, also in Denmark, and Wurstelprater in Vienna, Austria.Lumbye was Tivoli's musical director from 1843 to 1872. Lumbye was inspired by Viennese waltz composers such as the Strauss family (Johann Strauss I and his sons), and became known as the "Strauss of the North". Many of his compositions are specifically inspired by the gardens, including "Salute to the Ticket Holders of Tivoli", "Carnival Joys" and "A Festive Night at Tivoli". The Tivoli Symphony Orchestra still performs many of his works.
Mozart - Great Mass in C minor, K. 427 (1783) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-08 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was one of the most influential, popular and prolific composers of the classical period. A child prodigy, from an early age he began composing over 600 works, including some of the most famous pieces of symphonic, chamber, operatic, and choral music.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansGroße Messe, K. 427 (1782-83)I. Kyrie 1. Kyrie elesion (0:00)II. Gloria 2. Gloria in excelsis Deo (8:34) 3. Laudamus te (10:54) 4. Gratias agimus tibi (16:03) 5. Domine Deus (17:40) 6. Qui tollis peccata mundi (20:29) 7. Quoniam tu solus (26:17) 8. Jesu Christe (30:54) 9. Cum sancto spiritu (31:46)III. Credo 10. Credo in unum Deum (incomplete) (35:33) Et incarnatus est (incomplete) (39:45)IV. Sanctus 11. Sanctus Dominus (48:35)Hosanna in excelsisV. Benedictus 12. Benedictus qui venit (51:51)Hosanna in excelsisArleen Auger, sopranoFrederica von Stade, mezzo-sopranoFrank Lopardo, tenorCornelius Hauptmann, bassFriedemann Winklhofer, organBavarian Radio Symphoy Orchestra and Choir conducted by Leonard BernsteinRecording: Baroque Basilica of Waldsassen, Bavaria, in 1990Great Mass in C minor (German: Große Messe in c-Moll), K. 427/417a, is the common name of the musical setting of the mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which is considered one of his greatest works. He composed it in Vienna in 1782 and 1783, after his marriage, when he moved to Vienna from Salzburg. The large-scale work, a missa solemnis, is scored for two soprano soloists, a tenor and a bass, double chorus and large orchestra. It remained unfinished, missing large portions of the Credo and the complete Agnus Dei.The work was composed during 1782–83. In a letter to his father Leopold dated 4 January 1783, Mozart mentioned a vow he had made to write a mass when he would bring his then fiancée Constanze as his wife to Salzburg to meet his family for the first time after his father's earlier opposition. Constanze then sang the "Et incarnatus est" at its premiere.The first performance took place in Salzburg on Sunday 26 October 1783 (the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost). Mozart had moved to Vienna in 1781, but was paying a visit to his home town in the company of Constanze, who had not yet met his father or his sister (Nannerl).The performance consisted of just the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus, as surviving parts and a score copy from ca. 1800 show. It took place in the Church of St. Peter's Abbey in the context of a Roman Catholic mass. Mozart's sister's diary mentions that the performers were the entire Hofmusik, that is the musicians employed at the court of Salzburg's ruler, Prince-Archbishop Count Hieronymus von Colloredo and thus Mozart's former colleagues. There was a rehearsal in the nearby Kapellhaus on 23 October 1783.
John Rutter - Gloria (1974) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-06 | John Milford Rutter CBE (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansGloria (1974)Dedication: Mel Olson (1930-2001)1. Allegro vivace – "Gloria in excelsis Deo" (0:00)2. Andante – "Domine Deus" (4:49)Soloists: Mary Seers, Mary Hitch, Caroline Ashton3. Vivace e ritmico – "Quoniam tu solus sanctus" (11:48)The Cambridge Singers & The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble &The City of London Sinfonia conducted by John RutterJohn Scott, organGloria resulted from a commission of Mel Olson, who conducted choirs in Omaha, Nebraska, for his choir The Voices of Mel Olson. It was Rutter's first commission from the US. It is a setting of parts of the Latin Gloria, part of the mass. Rutter composed it in 1974. He structured the text in three movements and scored it for choir, brass, percussion and organ, with an alternative version for choir and orchestra. Although setting a liturgical text, it was conceived as a concert piece. Rutter composed it according to Olson's specifications, noting his influence: "Much of the credit must go to Mel Olson … because, in telling me what he was looking for in a new choral work, he was telling me what thousands of other choral directors were looking for too."Rutter conducted the premiere in Omaha on 5 May 1974, as his first premiere in the United States. It was published in 1976 by Oxford University Press in versions for organ or orchestra.Rutter notes to have been influenced by Francis Poulenc, Igor Stravinsky and William Walton. Poulenc composed a stand-alone Gloria for use in concerts in 1959. The brass treatment in Rutter's work shows similarities to Walton's cantata Belshazzar’s Feast. Rutter also notes the influence of Gregorian chant throughout the work. A reviewer notes as Rutter's hallmarks: "an unfailing knack to get to the root of the text, exquisitely balanced vocal writing, melting harmonies, intensely sweet turns of phrase (sometimes overtly saccharine), short ecstatic climaxes, but also a willingness to be astringent, and rhythmically powerful." Another reviewer attributes the lasting success of Rutter's music to the facts that he "writes music that people want to perform and to hear", and that it is interesting and challenging for performers "without putting insuperable obstacles in their path. Because of its relation to the angelic annunciation, it has been included in Christmas concerts. Riley described the work in 2011 as evergreen.
Mozart/von Seyfried - Grande Fantasie No. 1 {arr. of Piano Sonata No. 14, K.457/475} (1785) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-06 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era. Ignaz Xaver Ritter von Seyfried (15 August 1776 – 27 August 1841) was an Austrian musician, conductor and composer. He was born and died in Vienna. According to a statement in his handwritten memoirs he was a pupil of both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansI. No. 14a Fantasia in C minor, K.475 (Vienna, 1785) (0:00)II. No. 14b Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K.457 (Vienna, 1784)Dedicated to Therese von Trattner (1758–1793)1. Molto allegro (10:28)2. Adagio (19:45)3. Allegro assai (26:27)Mozarteumorchester Salzburg conducted by Reinhard GoebelDescription by Brian Robins [-]Composed in Vienna in the fall of 1784, the C minor sonata was entered in the thematic catalog Mozart started earlier that year on October 14. For Mozart, 1784 was a year of intense compositional activity for the piano, the eight preceding entries in the catalog all indicating piano works. Six months later, Mozart composed a Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475, that has become irrevocably associated with the sonata and invariably precedes it in performance, forming an expansive prelude. It was the composer himself who originally linked the two works, which were published together by the Viennese publisher Artaria under the title "Fantasie et Sonate Pour le Forte-Piano" late in 1785. Although unusual, such a coupling of a work in free, improvisatory style with the stricter form of a sonata was not unparalleled, particularly in the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach -- with whose music Mozart was well acquainted. The title page of the first publication bears a dedication to Therese von Trattner, who was a pupil of Mozart's and the wife of Johann von Trattner, a printer and publisher who was also Mozart's landlord at the time the works were composed. As usual with Mozart's relatively few minor-mode works, the C minor sonata is a highly personal work. But here the mood is not one of storminess or tragedy, as in his G minor works, but of high drama in the operatic sense. The mood of noble suffering in the central E flat Adagio has, for example, been viewed by at least one commentator as music that appears to be a direct precursor of that Mozart was to write for the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, while the final Allegro assai is a movement in intense dramatic agitation that looks forward to the Romantics, most immediately to the "Pathétique" sonata of Beethoven.Ignaz von Seyfried's pupils included Franz von Suppé, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, Antonio Casimir Cartellieri, Joseph Fischhof and Eduard Marxsen who would later teach Brahms.In his youth Seyfried served as the assistant conductor for Emanuel Schikaneder's opera troupe at the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, becoming musical director in 1797 and serving (in its new building, the Theater an der Wien) until 1826. His memoirs offer accounts of the first production, under Schikaneder's auspices, of Mozart's The Magic Flute, as well as a curious anecdote concerning the composer's death a few weeks later; see Death of Mozart.In 1805, Seyfried conducted the première of the original version of Beethoven's Fidelio. Seyfried's memoirs also include some striking tales about Beethoven, and the information he provides on Beethoven in the appendix to Studien im Generalbasse are "of great biographical value", containing "everything [that] is known about the circumstances of the adored master and (are) authentic fact".
Tom Myron - Mystic Whaler (2023) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-04 | Tom Myron (b. 1959) is an American composer and arranger from Boston, active in the fields of live and recorded symphonic music. His work is heard regularly in major venues in the United States, Canada, the U.K. and the E.U.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansMystic Whaler (2023) Dedication: For my friend Jeff Kamen in his 79th year.Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Miran Vaupotić
Mozart/Grieg - Fantasy in C minor, K.475 (1785/c.1877) arr. for 2 pianos Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-03 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era. Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansFantasia in C minor, K.475 (1785)Dedication: Therese von Trattnerarranged for 2 Pianos by Edvard Grieg, E.G. 113, No. 2 (1876-77)to John Paulson (1851-1924)Sviatoslav Richter & Elisabeth Leonskaja, pianoFantasia No. 4 in C minor, K. 475 is a composition for solo piano composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna on 20 May 1785. It was published as Opus 11, in December 1785, together with the Sonata in C minor, K. 457, the only one of Mozart's piano sonatas to be published together with a work of a different genre.Starting in the key of C minor, the piece is marked Adagio but then, after a section in D major, moves into an allegro section which goes from A minor to G minor, F major, and then F minor. It then moves into a fourth section in B♭ major marked Andantino and then moves to a più allegro section starting in G minor and modulating through many keys before the opening theme returns in the original key of C minor. Most of the music is written with no sharps or flats in the key signature and uses accidentals—only the fourth section, in B♭ major, is given a key signature.When Grieg added an accompaniment for a second piano to Mozart’s keyboard sonatas, he did it primarily with teaching in mind. It was apparently common practice in the 1880s for teachers to accompany their pupils on a second piano (my own teacher was still perpetuating the custom 80 years on). But the resulting compositions soon found their way into the concert-hall where, according to Grieg, “the whole thing sounded surprisingly good”.And so it does today. In trying to “impart to several of Mozart’s sonatas a tonal effect appealing to our modern ears” Grieg left a telling little document or two on just what those late nineteenth-century Norwegian ears expected.
Leroy Anderson - The Waltzing Cat (1950) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-03 | Leroy Anderson (June 29, 1908 – May 18, 1975) was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John Williams described him as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music."The Waltzing Cat (1950)l'Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Barbara Hanniganview here the live performance:youtu.be/iNFibL9c1eE?si=DBJYTXGOZL3-nHWGHis pieces and his recordings during the 1950s conducting a studio orchestra were immense commercial successes. "Blue Tango" was the first instrumental recording ever to sell one million copies. His most famous pieces are probably "Sleigh Ride" and "The Syncopated Clock". In February 1951, WCBS-TV in New York City selected "The Syncopated Clock" as the theme song for The Late Show, the WCBS late-night movie, using Percy Faith's recording. Mitchell Parish added words to "The Syncopated Clock", and later wrote lyrics for other Anderson tunes, including "Sleigh Ride", which was not written as a Christmas piece, but as a work that describes a winter event. Anderson started the work during a heat wave in August 1946. The Boston Pops' recording of it was the first pure orchestral piece to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Music chart. From 1952 to 1961, Anderson's composition "Plink, Plank, Plunk!" was used as the theme for the CBS panel show I've Got a Secret.Anderson's musical style employs creative instrumental effects and occasionally makes use of sound-generating items such as typewriters and sandpaper.
Mozart/Grieg - Piano Sonata No. 15, K.533/494 (1788/c. 1877) arr. for 2 pianos Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-01 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era. Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 15 in F major, K.533/494 (Vienna, January 8, 1788)arranged for 2 Pianos by Edvard Grieg, E.G. 113, No. 4 (1876-77)to John Paulson (1851-1924)1. Allegro (0:00)2. Andante (8:53)3. Rondo. Allegretto (16:16)Heide Goertz & Tina Margareta Nilssen, pianoMozart entered the Piano Sonata in F major, K. 533, into his "List of All my Works" on January 8, 1788. It was published in Vienna in 1788 with a revision of the Rondo, K. 494, as a finale. Mozart had completed the Rondo on June 10, 1786, and had it published in London and Speyer in 1788, separately from the Sonata. To the Rondo Mozart added a cadenza to make the movement more substantial and, therefore, a better fit with the Allegro and Andante. At this time Mozart composed relatively little music as he was preoccupied with the arrangement of a Vienna performance of Don Giovanni, for which he wrote a few new numbers.When Grieg added an accompaniment for a second piano to Mozart’s keyboard sonatas, he did it primarily with teaching in mind. It was apparently common practice in the 1880s for teachers to accompany their pupils on a second piano (my own teacher was still perpetuating the custom 80 years on). But the resulting compositions soon found their way into the concert-hall where, according to Grieg, “the whole thing sounded surprisingly good”.And so it does today. In trying to “impart to several of Mozart’s sonatas a tonal effect appealing to our modern ears” Grieg left a telling little document or two on just what those late nineteenth-century Norwegian ears expected.
John Rutter - Mass of the Children (2003) Bartje Bartmans 2024-05-01 | John Milford Rutter CBE (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansMass of the Children (2003)1. Kyrie (0:00)2. Gloria (6:40)3. Sanctus and Benedictus (13:57)4. Agnus Dei (20:44)5. Finale (Dona nobis pacem) (26:43)Angharad Gruffydd-Jones, soprano & Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone.The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge & Farnham Youth Choir &Clare Chamber Ensemble conducted by Timothy BrownJames McVinnie, organMass of the Children is a major work of English composer John Rutter and a non-liturgical Missa brevis, with the traditional Latin and Greek Mass text interwoven with several English poems. It was written after the sudden death of his son Christopher while a student at Clare College, Cambridge, where Rutter himself had studied.The Finale uses additional text from the Agnus Dei which was not used in the preceding movement, as well as two prayer adaptations by Rutter and a poem by Bishop Thomas Ken (An Evening Hymn). Another of Ken's poems was incorporated into the Kyrie (A Morning Hymn), and a poem by William Blake (The Lamb, from Songs of Innocence and of Experience) is interwoven with the Agnus Dei.The Mass for the Children was first performed on February 13, 2003, at New York's Carnegie Hall.
Ned Rorem - 3 Songs on Poems by Theodore Roethke (1959) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-30 | Ned Miller Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and a writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was considered the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Frequently described as a neoromantic composer, he showed limited interest in the emerging modernist aesthetic of his lifetime. Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans3 Songs on Poems by Theodore Roethke (1959)1. I Strolled Across an Open Field (0:00)2. The Serpent (1:09)3. Orchids (3:17)Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano & Malcolm Martineau, pianoNed Rorem is best known for his art songs, of which he wrote more than 500. Many are coupled into some thirty or so song cycles, written from the early 1940s to 2000s. Rorem stressed the importance of a cycle's overall structure, paying close attention to the song order, progression of keys and transition between songs. He also emphasized theatricality, aiming to convey an overarching message via a unified emotional affect or mood. Like in other genres, the musicologist Philip Lieson Miller remarked that "Rorem's chosen field of song is not for the avant garde and he must be classified as [...] conservative", and that "he has never striven for novelty". Rorem's strict definitions of what constitutes a song has molded them to be typically be single-voice and piano settings of lyrical poems of moderate length. He named songs by Monteverdi, Schumann, Poulenc and the Beatles as particular favorites. To obtain certain effects, however, Rorem has occasionally experimented with more modernist sentiments, such as intense chromaticism, successive modulations and alternating time signatures.Many of Rorem's songs are accompanied by piano, though some have mixed instrumental ensemble or orchestral accompaniment. A pianist himself, his accompaniment parts for the instrument are not completely secondary to the voice and more a "full complement to the melody". They include motives to emphasize textual elements—such as rain and clouds—and are wildly diverse in function, sometimes responding to the voice in counterpoint or simply doubling the vocal line. He sometimes uses the Renaissance-derived ground bass technique of a slow and repeated bassline in the left hand. Reflecting on his piano accompaniments, the writer Bret Johnson describes Rorem's musical hallmarks as "chiming piano, rushing triplets, sumptuous harmonies"
H.C. Lumbye - Lilie Polka & Drømmebilleder (1846-47) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-29 | Hans Christian Lumbye (2 May 1810 – 20 March 1874) was a Danish composer of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and galops, among other things. From 1843 to 1872, he served as the music director and in-house composer for Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen. Such was his popularity in the Danish capital that many Danes revered him and considered Johann Strauss II as the "Lumbye of the South".Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. Lilie Polka (1847) (0:00)Dedication: Ladies in Odense2. Drømmebilleder (Dream Images) (1846) (2:05)Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter GuthLumbye wrote many of his works for performance at the Tivoli Gardens, also known simply as Tivoli, which is an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg, also in Denmark, and Wurstelprater in Vienna, Austria.Drømmebilleder's first performance was here on June 27, 1846.Hans Christian Lumbye was Tivoli's musical director from 1843 to 1872. Lumbye was inspired by Viennese waltz composers such as the Strauss family (Johann Strauss I and his sons), and became known as the "Strauss of the North". Many of his compositions are specifically inspired by the gardens, including "Salute to the Ticket Holders of Tivoli", "Carnival Joys" and "A Festive Night at Tivoli". The Tivoli Symphony Orchestra still performs many of his works.
Mozart/Grieg - Piano Sonata No. 14, K.457 (1784/c. 1877) arr. for 2 pianos Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-27 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era. Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K.457 (Vienna, 1784)Dedication: Therese von Trattnerarranged for 2 Pianos by Edvard Grieg, E.G. 113, No. 2 (1876-77)to John Paulson (1851-1924)I. Allegro (0:00)II. Adagio (8:27)III. Molto allegro (16:35)Heide Goertz & Tina Margareta Nilssen, pianoThe title page of the first publication of the C minor Sonata bears a dedication to Therese von Trattner, who was a pupil of Mozart's and the wife of Johann von Trattner, a printer and publisher who was also Mozart's landlord at the time the works were composed. As usual with Mozart's relatively few minor-mode works, the C minor sonata is a highly personal work. But here the mood is not one of storminess or tragedy, as in his G minor works, but of high drama in the operatic sense. The mood of noble suffering in the central E flat Adagio has, for example, been viewed by at least one commentator as music that appears to be a direct precursor of that Mozart was to write for the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, while the final Allegro assai is a movement in intense dramatic agitation that looks forward to the Romantics, most immediately to the "Pathétique" sonata of Beethoven.When Grieg added an accompaniment for a second piano to Mozart’s keyboard sonatas, he did it primarily with teaching in mind. It was apparently common practice in the 1880s for teachers to accompany their pupils on a second piano (my own teacher was still perpetuating the custom 80 years on). But the resulting compositions soon found their way into the concert-hall where, according to Grieg, “the whole thing sounded surprisingly good”.And so it does today. In trying to “impart to several of Mozart’s sonatas a tonal effect appealing to our modern ears” Grieg left a telling little document or two on just what those late nineteenth-century Norwegian ears expected.
Tom Myron - Monhegan Sunrise (2023) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-26 | Tom Myron (b. 1959) is an American composer and arranger from Boston, active in the fields of live and recorded symphonic music. His work is heard regularly in major venues in the United States, Canada, the U.K. and the E.U.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansMonhegan Sunrise from Symphony No. 3 "Monhegan" (2023)Dedicated to Liane & Don CrawfordRoyal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Miran Vaupotić
Evgeny Svetlanov - Prelude and Scherzo (1977) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-25 | Yevgeny Fyodorovich Svetlanov (Russian: Евгéний Фёдорович Светлáнов; 6 September 1928 – 3 May 2002) was a Russian conductor, composer and a pianist.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPrelude and Scherzo for Clarinet and Piano (1977)Dedication: Vladimir Sokolov1. Prelude (0:00)2. Scherzo (2:11)Andrea Fallico, clarinet and Cristie Julien, pianoSvetlanov was born in Moscow and studied conducting with Aleksandr Gauk at the Moscow Conservatory. From 1955 he conducted at the Bolshoi Theatre, being appointed principal conductor there in 1962. From 1965 he was principal conductor of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra (now the Russian State Symphony Orchestra). In 1979 he was appointed principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Svetlanov was also music director of the Residentie Orchestra (The Hague) from 1992 to 2000 and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 1999.In 2000 Svetlanov was fired from his post with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra by the minister of culture of Russia, Mikhail Shvydkoi. The reason given was that Svetlanov was spending too much time conducting abroad and not enough time in Moscow.Svetlanov was particularly noted for his interpretations of Russian works – he covered the whole range of Russian music, from Mikhail Glinka to the present day. He was also one of the few Russian conductors to conduct the entire symphonic output of Gustav Mahler.His own compositions included a String Quartet (1948), Daugava, Symphonic Poem (1952), Siberian Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 9 (1953), Images d'Espagne, Rhapsody for orchestra (1954), Symphony (1956), Festive Poem (1966), Russian Variations for harp and orchestra (1975), Piano Concerto in c minor (1976) and Poem for Violin and Orchestra "To the Memory of David Oistrakh" (1975). He composed Siberian Fantasy in 1953/54, in collaboration with Igor Yakushenko [1932-1999].Svetlanov was also an extremely competent pianist, three notable recordings being Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor and Cello Sonata op. 19, and a disc of Nikolai Medtner's piano music.
Felix Arndt - Nola (1915) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-24 | Felix Arndt (May 20, 1889 – October 16, 1918) was an American pianist and composer of popular music. His mother was the Countess Fevrier, who was related to Napoleon III. His father, Hugo Arndt, was Swiss-born.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansNola, a Silhouette for Piano (1915)Dedication: "To my wife" [Nola Locke]New London Orchestra, conducted by Robert CorpHyperion CDA67067Arndt is best remembered for his 1915 composition "Nola," written as an engagement gift to his fiancée (and later wife), Nola Locke. It is sometimes considered to be the first example of the novelty piano or "novelty ragtime" genre, published by Sam Fox Publishing Company. It was the signature theme of the Vincent Lopez orchestra, and a top ten hit for Les Paul in 1950. A vocal recording by Billy Williams, featuring lyrics by Sunny Skylar, became a minor hit in 1959.
Mozart/Grieg - Piano Sonata No. 5, K.283 (1775/c. 1877) arr. for 2 pianos Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-23 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era. Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 5 in G major, K.283 (189h)arranged for 2 Pianos by Edvard Grieg, E.G. 113, No. 1 (1876-77)to John Paulson (1851-1924)1. Allegro (0:00)2. Andante (5:53)3. Presto (11:50)Heide Goertz & Tina Margareta NilssenSonata K.283 was composed when Mozart was in Munich for premiere of "La finta giardiniera", probably as travelling repertoire that might be readily copied for would-be patrons. The six Sonatas K.279-284 were all written in rapid succession, either December 1774 or early 1775. Precise dates are unclear. When Grieg added an accompaniment for a second piano to Mozart’s keyboard sonatas, he did it primarily with teaching in mind. It was apparently common practice in the 1880s for teachers to accompany their pupils on a second piano (my own teacher was still perpetuating the custom 80 years on). But the resulting compositions soon found their way into the concert-hall where, according to Grieg, “the whole thing sounded surprisingly good”.And so it does today. In trying to “impart to several of Mozart’s sonatas a tonal effect appealing to our modern ears” Grieg left a telling little document or two on just what those late nineteenth-century Norwegian ears expected.
von Weber/Berlioz - Aufforderung zum Tanze, Op. 64 (1819/1841) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-21 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansAufforderung zum Tanze, Rondeau brillante, Op. 65 for piano (1819) Orchestrated in 1841 by Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)Dedication: Caroline Brandt, composer's wifeBerliner Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert von KarajanWeber dedicated Invitation to the Dance to his wife Caroline (they had been married only a few months). He labelled the work "rondeau brillante", and he wrote it while also writing his opera Der Freischütz. It is also well known in the 1841 orchestration by Hector Berlioz. It is sometimes called Invitation to the Waltz, but this is a mistranslation of the original.It was the first concert waltz to be written: that is, the first work in waltz form meant for listening rather than for dancing. John Warrack calls it "the first and still perhaps the most brilliant and poetic example of the Romantic concert waltz, creating within its little programmatic framework a tone poem that is also an apotheosis of the waltz in a manner that was to remain fruitful at least until Ravel's choreographic poem, La valse…".It was also the first piece that, rather than being a tune for the dancers to dance to or a piece of abstract music, was a programmatic description of the dancers themselves.Invitation to the Dance was part of the repertoire of Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, and many other pianists. It has been recorded by great artists of the past such as Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman and Yvonne Lefébure, through to those of the present day such as Stephen Hough, Jean-François Heisser, Michael Endres, Hamish Milne, and Balázs Szokolay. The Carl Tausig transcription has been recorded by Benno Moiseiwitsch and Philip Fowke.
Carl Maria von Weber - Aufforderung zum Tanze, Op. 65 (1819) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-20 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1, Aufforderung zum Tanze, Rondeau brillante, Op. 65 (1819) (0:00)Dedication: Caroline Brandt, composer's wife2. Max Waltzer, J.Anh., 81 (1825) (8:30)Michael Endres, pianoAccording to Friedrich Wilhelm Jähns, the Max Waltz was lost. Gottfried Wolters found the manuscript (around1939) at the Schlossbibliothek Berlin (M 5609).Weber dedicated Invitation to the Dance to his wife Caroline (they had been married only a few months). He labelled the work "rondeau brillante", and he wrote it while also writing his opera Der Freischütz. It is also well known in the 1841 orchestration by Hector Berlioz. It is sometimes called Invitation to the Waltz, but this is a mistranslation of the original.It was the first concert waltz to be written: that is, the first work in waltz form meant for listening rather than for dancing. John Warrack calls it "the first and still perhaps the most brilliant and poetic example of the Romantic concert waltz, creating within its little programmatic framework a tone poem that is also an apotheosis of the waltz in a manner that was to remain fruitful at least until Ravel's choreographic poem, La valse…".It was also the first piece that, rather than being a tune for the dancers to dance to or a piece of abstract music, was a programmatic description of the dancers themselves.Invitation to the Dance was part of the repertoire of Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, and many other pianists. It has been recorded by great artists of the past such as Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman and Yvonne Lefébure, through to those of the present day such as Stephen Hough, Jean-François Heisser, Michael Endres, Hamish Milne, and Balázs Szokolay. The Carl Tausig transcription has been recorded by Benno Moiseiwitsch and Philip Fowke.
Abe Holzmann - Blaze Away! (1901) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-18 | Abraham Holzmann (19 August 1874 – 16 January 1939) was an American composer/arranger for Tin Pan Alley publishers, including Leo Feist. He later was advertising manager for the American Federation of Musicians publication, International Musician. His music was especially revered by ragtime enthusiasts, although he composed marches, waltzes, and other light music.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansBlaze Away! March (1901)New London Orchestra, conducted by Robert CorpHyperion CDA67067Holzmann was inspired by the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War, when a command to American sailors to open fire on the Spanish fleet was reputedly met with the response "Well boys, let's blaze away" by the gunners. Building on the war fever in the United States, the cover of the sheet music featured an image resembling Theodore Roosevelt charging at San Juan Hill. Very popular as a two-step, its success outlasted the war and it became a repertoire piece amongst military bands around the world.
Ned Rorem - 4 Songs on Poems by Walt Whitman (1957) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-17 | Ned Miller Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and a writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was considered the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Frequently described as a neoromantic composer, he showed limited interest in the emerging modernist aesthetic of his lifetime. Four Songs from Five Poems of Walt Whitman (1957)1. Look Down, Fair Moon (0:00)Dedication: Donald Gramm2. O You Whom I Often and Silently Come (1:23)3. Sometimes With One I Love (1:54)Dedication: Beverly Wolff4. That Shadow, My Likeness (3:29)Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano & Malcolm Martineau, pianoNed Rorem is best known for his art songs, of which he wrote more than 500. Many are coupled into some thirty or so song cycles, written from the early 1940s to 2000s. Rorem stressed the importance of a cycle's overall structure, paying close attention to the song order, progression of keys and transition between songs. He also emphasized theatricality, aiming to convey an overarching message via a unified emotional affect or mood. Like in other genres, the musicologist Philip Lieson Miller remarked that "Rorem's chosen field of song is not for the avant garde and he must be classified as [...] conservative", and that "he has never striven for novelty". Rorem's strict definitions of what constitutes a song has molded them to be typically be single-voice and piano settings of lyrical poems of moderate length. He named songs by Monteverdi, Schumann, Poulenc and the Beatles as particular favorites. To obtain certain effects, however, Rorem has occasionally experimented with more modernist sentiments, such as intense chromaticism, successive modulations and alternating time signatures.Many of Rorem's songs are accompanied by piano, though some have mixed instrumental ensemble or orchestral accompaniment. A pianist himself, his accompaniment parts for the instrument are not completely secondary to the voice and more a "full complement to the melody". They include motives to emphasize textual elements—such as rain and clouds—and are wildly diverse in function, sometimes responding to the voice in counterpoint or simply doubling the vocal line. He sometimes uses the Renaissance-derived ground bass technique of a slow and repeated bassline in the left hand. Reflecting on his piano accompaniments, the writer Bret Johnson describes Rorem's musical hallmarks as "chiming piano, rushing triplets, sumptuous harmonies"
H.C. Lumbye - Champagne Galop & Helga Polka-Mazurka (1845/1864) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-16 | Hans Christian Lumbye (2 May 1810 – 20 March 1874) was a Danish composer of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and galops, among other things. From 1843 to 1872, he served as the music director and in-house composer for Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen. Such was his popularity in the Danish capital that many Danes revered him and considered Johann Strauss II as the "Lumbye of the South".Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. Champagne Galop, Op. 14 (c. 1845) (0:00)2. Helga Polka-Mazurka (1864) (2:20)Dedication: Helga RasmussenOdense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter GuthThe Champagne Galop (Danish: Champagnegaloppen) was written to celebrate the second anniversary of Copenhagen's Tivoli in 1845. Together with his Telegraph Galop and Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop, it was included in the 2006 Danish Culture Canon as a masterpiece of Danish classical music.The Champagne Galop was composed for the second anniversary of Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens on 15 August 1845. As a result of torrential rain, Lumbye — who was also Tivoli's resident conductor — was only able to present it the following week on 22 August.Lumbye's grandson, the conductor Tippe Lumbye (1879–1959), had a story to tell about the piece's origin: "One evening, Lumbye was invited to a formal celebration at the British Embassy in Copenhagen but, passing his regular haunt on the way, he decided to spend the evening there in more familiar company. As he arrived back at the family home late in the evening, he was forced to explain how the embassy, which he had in fact never visited, had been wallowing in champagne and festivity. To illustrate it all for his curious family, he sat down at the piano and improvised a piece that would later be known as the world-famous Champagne Galop."In his memoirs Mit Theaterliv, Lumbye's friend, the ballet-master August Bournonville comments on the piece. "While I by no means would ascribe the whole of Lumbye's success to the Champagne Galop, let me dwell for a moment on the impatient ferment brewing up in the first part, the cork popping off and the glasses being filled in the second part, a toast to good health, the frothy nectar downed in the third part and then a light-headed joy through the entire fourth part until a welcome "Da Capo" brings a new bottle to the table and all is swept up in a tumultuous bacchanale."The piece is a good example of the entertaining music Lumbye liked to compose. Known as the Strauss of the North, he was a master at integrating popular dance rhythms into the compositions he wrote for those who came to his Tivoli concerts with. With its fast beat and melodious inventions, the Champagne Galop is known throughout Denmark but it is still surprising that Lumbye was so quick to include the xylophone in his symphony orchestra. It took quite a few years before the instrument became a part of orchestras elsewhere.PopularityIn recent years, the piece has gained increasing popularity on the international scene and was, for example, included in the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert in 2010 and 2015. With an average duration of 2 minutes, 23 seconds, it has been included in over 20 albums since 1993. The piece has also gained a lot of attention from the young people of Denmark, recently because of the radio show Monte Carlo, where the piece is used as a fanfare for quiz winners.
Carl Maria von Weber - 6 Favorit-Walzer der Kaiserin von Frankreich Marie Louise (1812) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-15 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans6 Favorit-Walzer der Kaiserin von Frankreich Marie Louise (Oct. 20, 1812)#1. Vivace assai (0:00)#2. (1:11)#3. (2:42)#4. (3:56)#5. (6:00)#6. (7:18)Michael Endres, pianoAlternative title: Sechs Favorit-Walzer der Kaiserin von Frankreich, Marie-Louise. Bei ihrer Ankunft in Straßburg aufgeführt von der Kaiserl. Garde. Für das Pianoforte. III. Lieferung.
Evgeny Svetlanov - Rhapsody No. 1 (1955) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-14 | Yevgeny Fyodorovich Svetlanov (Russian: Евгéний Фёдорович Светлáнов; 6 September 1928 – 3 May 2002) was a Russian conductor, composer and a pianist.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansRhapsody No. 1, "Pictures of Spain" (1955)I. Corrida - Serenada (0:00)II. Jota (12:40) USSR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Evgeny SvetlanovLink to his 2nd Rhapsodyyoutu.be/_r3bbULh8R0?si=78gKcEh8n1A1oP4-Svetlanov was born in Moscow and studied conducting with Aleksandr Gauk at the Moscow Conservatory. From 1955 he conducted at the Bolshoi Theatre, being appointed principal conductor there in 1962. From 1965 he was principal conductor of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra (now the Russian State Symphony Orchestra). In 1979 he was appointed principal guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Svetlanov was also music director of the Residentie Orchestra (The Hague) from 1992 to 2000 and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 1999.In 2000 Svetlanov was fired from his post with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra by the minister of culture of Russia, Mikhail Shvydkoi. The reason given was that Svetlanov was spending too much time conducting abroad and not enough time in Moscow.Svetlanov was particularly noted for his interpretations of Russian works – he covered the whole range of Russian music, from Mikhail Glinka to the present day. He was also one of the few Russian conductors to conduct the entire symphonic output of Gustav Mahler.His own compositions included a String Quartet (1948), Daugava, Symphonic Poem (1952), Siberian Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 9 (1953), Images d'Espagne, Rhapsody for orchestra (1954), Symphony (1956), Festive Poem (1966), Russian Variations for harp and orchestra (1975), Piano Concerto in c minor (1976) and Poem for Violin and Orchestra "To the Memory of David Oistrakh" (1975). He composed Siberian Fantasy in 1953/54, in collaboration with Igor Yakushenko [1932-1999].Svetlanov was also an extremely competent pianist, three notable recordings being Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor and Cello Sonata op. 19, and a disc of Nikolai Medtner's piano music.
Carl Maria von Weber - Grande Polonaise, Op. 21 (1808) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-13 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansGrande Polonaise in E-flat major, Op. 21 (1808)Michael Endres, piano
H.C. Lumbye - Salut to August Bournonville (1869) & Amelie Waltz (1846) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-12 | Hans Christian Lumbye (2 May 1810 – 20 March 1874) was a Danish composer of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and galops, among other things. From 1843 to 1872, he served as the music director and in-house composer for Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen. Such was his popularity in the Danish capital that many Danes revered him and considered Johann Strauss II as the "Lumbye of the South".Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. Salut to August Bournonville. Galop (1869) (0:00)2. Amelie Waltz (1846-5-10 in Ridehuset, Christiansborg Castle) (1:59)Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter GuthAugust Bournonville (21 August 1805 – 30 November 1879) was a Danish ballet master and choreographer. He was the son of Antoine Bournonville, a dancer and choreographer trained under the French choreographer, Jean Georges Noverre, and the nephew of Julie Alix de la Fay, née Bournonville, of the Royal Swedish Ballet.Following studies in Paris as a young man, Bournonville became solo dancer at the Royal Ballet in Copenhagen. From 1830 to 1848 he was choreographer for the Royal Danish Ballet, for which he created more than 50 ballets admired for their exuberance, lightness and beauty. He created a style which, although influenced from the Paris ballet, is entirely his own. As a choreographer, he created a number of ballets with varied settings that range from Denmark to Italy, Russia to South America. A limited number of these works have survived.
Arthur Pryor - Blue Bells of Scotland for Trombone and Band (1897) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-11 | Arthur Willard Pryor (September 22, 1869 – June 18, 1942) was a trombone virtuoso, bandleader, and soloist with the Sousa Band. He was a prolific composer of band music, his best-known composition being "The Whistler and His Dog".Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansBlue Bells of Scotland for Trombone and Band (c. 1897)Joseph Alessi, trombone and the University of New Mexico Wind Symphony conducted by Eric Rombach-KendallThe Bluebells of Scotland is the usual modern name for a Scottish folksong (Roud # 13849). It was written by Dora Jordan (1761-1816), an English actress and writer. First published in 1801.Pryor probably composed the piece around 1897 and released it around 1899, as the first iteration of the song arranged for an instrument is a Berliner record recorded by him in 1897, played as a simple tune with few variations. The first band arrangement (and the first virtuosistic one) is also by him, accompanied by Sousa's band (of which he was a member), recorded in 1900.This version is technically challenging and allows the soloist to show off a flowing legato while, in different places, requiring some difficult jumps. The sheer speed and volume of notes also pose a significant challenge. It is in theme and variation form and opens with a cadenza-like introduction. After the theme, it moves to the allegro section, in which the variations begin. Variation one involves triplets, while variation two involves syncopated sixteenth-eighth note rhythms. The cadenza that follows demonstrates the performer's range; jumping about three and a half octaves from high C (an octave above middle C) to pedal A flat and G, for example. The vivace finale brings all these techniques into one, requiring the trombonist to exhibit advanced range, legato, double tonguing, and flexibility. Thus, the piece is limited to the best trombonists, although there have been numerous recordings by such famed players as Joseph Alessi, Christian Lindberg and Ian Bousfield. It is often considered to be the trombone (and euphonium) equivalent (in terms of required mastery of the instrument) to the Carnival of Venice for trumpet or cornet, by Jean-Baptiste Arban.Joseph Haydn wrote a piano trio accompaniment for this song (Hob. XXXIa: 176). George Eugene Griffin incorporated the tune into his Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1797, which became a popular success in England. It was published in 1805.O where and O where does your highland laddie dwell;O where and O where does your highland laddie dwell;He dwells in merry Scotland where the bluebells sweetly smell,And all in my heart I love my laddie well'A broadside ballad version (words only) from slightly later in the 19th century makes references to George III and the Napoleonic wars:Oh, where, and oh, where is my highland laddie gone,Oh, where, and oh, where is my highland laddie gone,He's gone to fight the French, for King George upon the throne,And it's oh in my heart I wish him safe at home.The bluebell is a flower; see Common bluebell and Campanula rotundifolia.
Carl Maria von Weber - 7 Variations sur un thème original, Op. 9 (1808) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-10 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans7 Variations sur un thème original, Op. 9 (1808)Michael Endres, pianoOpus 9 was written when von Weber served from 1807 to 1810 in Stuttgart as private secretary to Duke Ludwig, brother of King Frederick I of Württemberg. Weber's time in Württemberg was plagued with troubles. He fell deeply into debt and became entangled in the financial manipulations of his employer, e.g. the sale of confirmations of ducal service which exempted the purchaser from military service. Weber was arrested and charged with embezzlement and bribery. As he could disprove the allegations, the case was brought under civil law to avoid compromising the de facto manipulator, the brother of the king. Weber agreed to pay the costs (the last payment was made in 1816) and was banished from Württemberg together with his father.As a sobering side effect, Weber started to keep a diary to list his expenses and correspondence, and make occasional comments on special events.Weber remained prolific as a composer during this period, writing a quantity of religious music, mainly for the Catholic mass. This, however, earned him the hostility of conservatives working for the re-establishment of traditional chant in liturgy. In his biography of Weber, Warrack notes that Weber was an accomplished guitarist. It was in this year that his first song with guitar accompaniment, "Liebeszauber", was printed. Some of his most original and innovative songs were written during the following years, including "Er an Sie" (1808) and "Was zieht zu deinem Zauberkreise" (1809).
Evgeny Svetlanov - Aria for Viola and Piano (1975) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-09 | Yevgeny Fyodorovich Svetlanov (Russian: Евгéний Фёдорович Светлáнов; 6 September 1928 – 3 May 2002) was a Russian conductor, composer and a pianist.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansAria for Viola and PianoDedication: M. TolpygoMikhail Tolpygo, viola and Evgeny Svetlanov, pianoLP digitized and cleaned up by Theodore Servin
Beethoven - Symphony No. 5, Op. 67 (1808) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-08 | Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the classical and romantic eras in classical music, he remains one of the most recognized and influential musicians of this period, and is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansSymphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1804-1808)Dedication: Prince F. J. von Lobkowitz and Graf A. von Rasumovsky1. Allegro con brio (0:00)2. Andante con moto (7:35)3. Scherzo. Allegro - Trio (17:12)4. Allegro (22:29)Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux conducted by Igor MarkevitchPhilips 1959The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, also known as the Fate Symphony (German: Schicksalssinfonie), is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1804 and 1808. It is one of the best-known compositions in classical music and one of the most frequently played symphonies, and it is widely considered one of the cornerstones of western music. First performed in Vienna's Theater an der Wien in 1808, the work achieved its prodigious reputation soon afterward. E. T. A. Hoffmann described the symphony as "one of the most important works of the time". As is typical of symphonies during the Classical period, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony has four movements.The Fifth Symphony premiered on 22 December 1808 at a mammoth concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna consisting entirely of Beethoven premieres, and directed by Beethoven himself on the conductor's podium.[4] The concert lasted for more than four hours. The two symphonies appeared on the programme in reverse order: the Sixth was played first, and the Fifth appeared in the second half.[5] The programme was as follows:The Sixth SymphonyAria: Ah! perfido, Op. 65The Gloria movement of the Mass in C majorThe Fourth Piano Concerto (played by Beethoven himself)(Intermission)The Fifth SymphonyThe Sanctus and Benedictus movements of the C major MassA solo piano improvisation played by BeethovenThe Choral FantasyE.T.A. Hoffmann praised the "indescribably profound, magnificent symphony in C minor":How this wonderful composition, in a climax that climbs on and on, leads the listener imperiously forward into the spirit world of the infinite!... No doubt the whole rushes like an ingenious rhapsody past many a man, but the soul of each thoughtful listener is assuredly stirred, deeply and intimately, by a feeling that is none other than that unutterable portentous longing, and until the final chord—indeed, even in the moments that follow it—he will be powerless to step out of that wondrous spirit realm where grief and joy embrace him in the form of sound....
Arthur Pryor & Kerry Mills - The Whistler and his Dog (1905) & Whistling Rufus (1899) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-06 | Arthur Willard Pryor (September 22, 1869 – June 18, 1942) was a trombone virtuoso, bandleader, and soloist with the Sousa Band. He was a prolific composer of band music, his best-known composition being "The Whistler and His Dog".Kerry Mills (né Frederick Allen Mills; 1 February 1869 in Philadelphia – 5 December 1948 in Hawthorne, California), publishing also as F.A. Mills, was an American ragtime composer and music publishing executive of popular music during the Tin Pan Alley era. His stylistically diverse music ranged from ragtime through cakewalk to marches. He was most prolific between 1895 and 1918.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. The Whistler and his Dog (1905) (0:00)2. Whistling Rufus (1899) (2:54)Characteristic Two Step March, Polka & CakewalkArranged for Orchestra by Sidney CrookeNew London Orchestra, conducted by Robert CorpHyperion CDA67067
Giyah Kancheli - Symphony No. 7 Epilogue (1986) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-05 | Giya Kancheli (Georgian: გია ყანჩელი; 10 August 1935 – 2 October 2019) was a Georgian composer. He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia but resided in Belgium. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kancheli lived first in Berlin, and from 1995 in Antwerp, where he became composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic. He died in his home city of Tbilisi, aged 84.Please support my channels:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansSymphony No. 7 "Epilogue" (1986)Dedicated to the Czech Philharmonic OrchestraRundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Michail JurowskiDescription by Chris MorrisonIntended to be the last in his series of symphonies, Kancheli's Symphony No. 7 was written in 1986 on a commission from the Czech Philharmonic, which gave the work its first performance under Vaclav Neumann's direction on December 11 of that year in Prague. After some revisions, the work's final version was presented for the first time in Berlin on March 24, 1992, by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Olaf Henzold.The score of the Symphony No. 7 has an epigraph by the Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze: "This was long ago..." This epigraph, along with the work's subtitle ("Epilogue"), gives the symphony an air of the retrospective. Many of the elements familiar from Kancheli's earlier symphonies, particularly the abrupt juxtaposition of quiet, static music with aggressive, militaristic passages, remain in evidence here. The work begins assertively with dramatic brass fanfares and cymbal crashes. Quiet woodwinds try to break through, and eventually do, leading to more mournful music. After another militaristic passage, an almost sentimental tune in waltz rhythm emerges. The music remains peaceful for a time, but turns tumultuous again with a violent march. The march winds down, and the symphony ends plaintively.Kancheli wrote seven symphonies, and what he termed a liturgy for viola and orchestra, called Mourned by the Wind. His Fourth Symphony received its American premiere, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yuri Temirkanov, in January 1978, not long before the cultural freeze in the United States against Soviet culture. Glasnost allowed Kancheli to regain exposure, and he began to receive frequent commissions, as well as performances within Europe and North America.Championed internationally by Lera Auerbach, Dennis Russell Davies, Jansug Kakhidze, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the Kronos Quartet, Kancheli saw world premieres of his works in Seattle, as well as with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur. He continued to receive regular commissions. Recordings of his recent works are regularly released, notably on the ECM label.His work Styx is written for solo viola, chorus and orchestra. It is a farewell to his friends Avet Terterian and Alfred Schnittke, whose names are sung by the choir at certain points.Composer note:I never commit myself to accepting or rejecting a previously established technical or stylistic system as my goal/objective. Of course, every person who starts writing music encounters the whole set of traditions, whether they be centuries old or contemporary. I am as close to the music of the pre-Bach composers as I am to those of the twentieth century. While I am attracted to that mysterious spirit of Georgian folk polyphony, I am still unable to comprehend it. True artistic perfection is always a mystery; there is no point I taking it apart in the hopes of creating something similar.When composing, I never think of using specific means of expression. I establish basic themes, a dramaturgical scheme of the whole, and then gradually, note by note, create a musical progression. This progression should soar in the listener’s imagination. It should convey the sensations of beauty and eternity streaming in the height of light. Above all, it should inspire the widely understood feeling of religiousness which is manifest in all the music dearest to my heart.Certainly, I want my music to live on. However, I do not work for the future, nor do I concern myself with my contemporaries’ evaluations of my work. Instead, I fill in the space left by the artists of past centuries who left behind unfulfilled goals. From piece to piece, my language becomes simpler, and I can’t do anything about it. At times, other pieces have shocked me so much that I have lost my desire to write for long periods of time. To compose music, one must have the ability to rejoice in the success of others, the capacity to maintain a critical attitude toward one’s work, and the determination to find at least one step leading up instead of down.Giyah Kancheli
Alexander Krein - Fragment lyrique, Op. 1a for 4 Cellos (1903) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-04 | Alexander Abramovich Krein (Aleksandr Abramovich Kreyn; 20 October 1883 in Nizhny Novgorod – 25 April 1951 in Staraya Ruza, Moscow Oblast) was a Russian/ Soviet composer.Fragment lyrique, Op. 1a (1903)Dedication: Vladimir LimarevCello QuartetAron Zelkowicz, David Premo, Michael Lipman, Mikhail IstominIn 1896, at the early age of 14, Alexander Krein entered the Moscow Conservatory where his studies included cello classes with Alexander von Glehn and composition lessons with Sergei Taneyev and Boleslav Yavorsky. His first works were published by P. Jurgenson in 1901. During the years immediately prior to the 1917 Revolution, he was on the faculty of the People's Conservatory in Moscow. In 1917, he was appointed as director of the artistic wing of the Muzo-Narkompros, the music section of a newly formed ministry of arts and education. Throughout the 1920s, Krein was widely regarded as the leader of a Jewish national school in Russia (which included his brother Grigori and his nephew Julian). Among those he influenced were minor composers such as Sinovii Feldman. After the formation of the Soviet Union, he held a variety of official and semi-official music administration posts. He died April 1951 in Staraya Ruza. His son, Alexander Kron, was a Soviet playwright.
Arnold Bax - Piano Sonata No. 2 (1920) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-03 | Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax KCVO (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of symphonic poems, he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 2 in G major, GP 217/225 (1919, rev. 1920)Dedication: To Miss Harriet CohenMichael Endres, pianoDescription by Tim MahonConceived in a single movement like its predecessor, the second sonata is more complex than the first, despite sharing the same epic hero inspiration. Bax's notation "in G", without specifying major or minor mode, indicates a sense of ambivalence as to mood, a quality that pervades the whole piece. The 'arch' form which will be a characteristic of the symphonies is readily visible in this sonata, centered on the expressive Lento which quickly moves to an ethereal Epilogue, echoing themes from the Symphonic Variations.There is a Russian quality about some of the writing, which also shows the transition from Lisztian harmonies towards the more modern sounds which will come to their full expression in the cycle of symphonies.Bax said about this work that it is a battle between Good and Evil.
Carl Maria von Weber - Piano Sonata No. 4, Op. 70 (1822) Bartje Bartmans 2024-04-02 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 4 in E minor, Op. 70 (1819-22)Dedication: Herrn Hofrath Johann Friedrich Rochlitz (1769-1842)I. Moderato (0:00) II. Menuetto. Presto vivace ed energico (10:08)III. Andante (quasi Allegretto) consolante (14:05)IV. Finale. Prestissimo (20:47)Michael Endres, pianoThe Sonata is dedicated to Johann Friedrich Rochlitz (12 February 1769 – 16 December 1842) who was a German playwright, musicologist and art and music critic. His most notable work is his autobiographical account Tage der Gefahr (Days of Danger) about the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 — in Kunst und Altertum, Goethe called it "one of the most wondrous productions ever to have been written". A Friedrich-Rochlitz-Preis for art criticism is named after him — it is awarded by the Leipzig Gesellschaft für Kunst und Kritik and was presented for the fourth time in 2009.Rochlitz was a friend of several cultural figures of his era, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, E. T. A. Hoffmann and the composers Louis Spohr and Carl Maria von Weber — Weber dedicated his Piano Sonata No 4 in E minor (J287, Op 70) to Rochlitz. During a stay in Vienna, Rochlitz also got to know Beethoven and Franz Schubert, with the latter setting three poems by Rochlitz to music in 1827. Rochlitz died in Leipzig, aged 73.Description by James ZychowiczOf Weber's four Piano Sonatas, the last is probably his most significant contribution to the genre. It is a masterful work that Weber completed in 1822 after working on the piece sporadically for three years. With this Sonata, Weber returns to the four-movement format of his first two Piano Sonatas. Further, this piece shows that Weber is clearly out of Beethoven's shadow and that he is forging his own way in the genre. The four movements are more varied than those found in his earlier three sonatas, and they extend for Weber the content possible in this form.The first movement (Moderato) is a sonata with expansive themes. Any evidence of using classical models is absent in this highly romantic movement which contains some of Weber's finest writing for piano. It is also Weber's longest sustained movement for piano in which he explores the themes and tonal areas with utmost finesse and expression. The technical brilliance essential to the earlier sonatas is part of the movement, but does not obscure the sheerly musical values in it. Here Weber is clearly creating a style that composers of the next generation, such as Chopin, would exploit in their own works for solo piano.The second movement, Menuetto (Presto vivace ed energico), diverts from Weber's usual order, that has the slow movement follow the first. This juxtaposition anticipates the situation that later Romantic composers exhibit with the order of inner movements in setting up the Finale. As a more driven, demonic movement, the Menuetto is a compelling piece that makes sense in coming after the first movement, rather than after the more rhapsodic slow movement Weber composed for this Sonata. The Menuetto is an agitated, driven piece, in the minor mode, and no longer the lighter movement which had served as a kind of aesthetic respite before the Finale.Instead, the lyrical third movement (Andante - quasi Allegretto - consolante) exists in contrast to the preceding two. In it Weber also departs from his previous practice with a more episodic treatment of form. While less ambitious than the previous movements in the Sonata, the slow movement provides balance to this highly charged work. The Finale (Prestissimo) which follows is a rondo that provides a fitting conclusion to the Sonata as a whole. It is a motivically driven movement in which Weber uses his own brilliant technique to excellent effect and it is subtlety, rather than bravura which distinguishes this movement from those he had used to conclude his other sonatas for piano.
Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda - 6 Nocturners for Viola and Piano, Op. 186 (c. 1850) Bartje Bartmans 2024-03-31 | Jan Křtitel Václav Kalivoda (Johann Baptist Wenzel Kalliwoda in German) (February 21, 1801 – December 3, 1866) was a composer, conductor and violinist of Bohemian birth.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans6 Nocturnes for Viola and Piano, Op.186 (c. 1850)1. Notturno I. Larghetto (0:00)2. Notturno II. Allegretto, ma un poco vivo (4:44)3. Notturno III. Poco Adagio (7:59)4. Notturno IV. Allegretto, ma un poco vivo (11:48)5. Notturno V. Adagio con molto espressione (15:24)6. Notturno VI. Allegro moderato (20:26)Ashan Pillai, viola & Michael Endres, pianoKalivoda was born in Prague in 1801 and as early as 1811 started studying violin and composition at the Prague Conservatory. He made his debut as a violinist at the age of 14. Upon completion of his studies he became a member of the Prague Opera Orchestra. His diploma from the Conservatory read "Excellent player solo or in an orchestra...shows great talent in composition." More prosperous tours as a violinist, for instance to Linz and Munich, followed.Kalivoda lived what appears to have been a stable, hardworking musical life. For more than 40 years, from 1822 to 1865, he held the post of conductor at the court of Prince Karl Egon II of Fürstenberg and his successor in Donaueschingen (where the Danube begins in the Black Forest). His duties there included not only the writing of and care for the music of the court and church, but also the management and conducting of a choir, and annual musical journeys for education. These manifold responsibilities may have foreshortened his life. In any case, he went into retirement in 1865, and a year later he died, of a heart attack in Karlsruhe.Kalivoda was a highly prolific composer, and was held in high regard during his lifetime by such eminent contemporaries as Robert Schumann. In all, his works number in the hundreds, of which there are about 250 works or sets of works with opus numbers.His compositions included operas, symphonies, concert overtures—one of them, commissioned for the occasion, was used to close the first concert, in 1842, of the New York Philharmonic —as well as music for piano, piano concertos, concertinos for violin and for oboe, music for the church, lieder, choral music and various other vocal and instrumental works.
Arnold Bax - Piano Sonata No. 1 (1921) Bartje Bartmans 2024-03-30 | Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax KCVO (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of symphonic poems, he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp minor, GP 127 (1910-21)Michael Endres, pianoFrom Parlett's site: "It apparently underwent several transformations of form and title before the definitive revision of 1917-1921, namely as:1. Romantic Tone-Poem, performed April 1911; possibly also2. Sonata in D minor, first movement, June 1911;3. Symphonic Fantasy, October 1919;4. Sonata, June 1920; and5. Sonata No. 1 in F# minor, April 1921."Arnold Bax wrote his Piano Sonata No. 1 in 1910 during a stay in Ukraine and Russia (St. Petersburg). He was in pursuit of Natalia Skarginska, a young Ukrainian whom he had met in London – one of several women with whom he fell in love over the years.Bax had previously attempted a piano sonata, his best attempt being his Sonata opus 1 for piano. However, Bax got stuck in the first bars of the second part. The sonata from 1910 also did not really go well. Bax sometimes changed titles (Romantic tone poem, Sonata and Symphonic phantasy are alternative titles) and Bax continued to tinker with it until 1921, with the final part in particular being completely overhauled in 1920. Harriet Cohen later said that he composed the final movement ten years later than the other movements.Myra Hess played the first version in the Bechstein Hall/Wigmore Hall on April 25, 1911. She also gave the first performance of the intermediate version on October 9, 1919 under the title Symphonic Phantasy. She was followed relatively quickly by Harriet Cohen with the sonata on June 15, 1920 and then finally the sonata in its final form on April 12, 1921 under the title First sonata. Bax indicated that the church bells of Saint Petersburg can be heard in the end of the work.The impetuous work in the style of Franz Liszt is written in the key of F sharp minor and consists of a movement: Not too fast and very decisive in rhythm, Non troppo lento, Allegro passionato, Tempo primo (allegro deciso), Stretto, Tempo primo (allegro deciso), Piu lento, Tempo primo (allegro deciso), Languido e lontano, Poco piu largamente, allegro moderato and the Castle Braod and triumphant.Parts of the work are in the unusual 9/4 time signature.
Carl Maria von Weber - 7 Variations sur l’air Vien quà, Dorina bella, Op. 7 (1807) Bartje Bartmans 2024-03-29 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans7 Variations sur l’air "Vien quà, Dorina bella", Op. 7 (1807)Michael Endres, pianoOpus 7 was written when von Weber served from 1807 to 1810 in Stuttgart as private secretary to Duke Ludwig, brother of King Frederick I of Württemberg. Weber's time in Württemberg was plagued with troubles. He fell deeply into debt and became entangled in the financial manipulations of his employer, e.g. the sale of confirmations of ducal service which exempted the purchaser from military service. Weber was arrested and charged with embezzlement and bribery. As he could disprove the allegations, the case was brought under civil law to avoid compromising the de facto manipulator, the brother of the king. Weber agreed to pay the costs (the last payment was made in 1816) and was banished from Württemberg together with his father.As a sobering side effect, Weber started to keep a diary to list his expenses and correspondence, and make occasional comments on special events.Weber remained prolific as a composer during this period, writing a quantity of religious music, mainly for the Catholic mass. This, however, earned him the hostility of conservatives working for the re-establishment of traditional chant in liturgy. In his biography of Weber, Warrack notes that Weber was an accomplished guitarist. It was in this year that his first song with guitar accompaniment, "Liebeszauber", was printed. Some of his most original and innovative songs were written during the following years, including "Er an Sie" (1808) and "Was zieht zu deinem Zauberkreise" (1809).
Carl Maria von Weber - Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 49 (1816) Bartje Bartmans 2024-03-28 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 49 (1816)I. Allegro feroce (0:00)II. Andante con moto (10:58)III. Rondo. Presto (con molto vivacita) (18:43)Michael Endres, pianoDescription by James ZychowiczWeber composed the Third Piano Sonata shortly after the second, and the two works are often discussed in tandem. The Third Piano Sonata is a work of smaller dimensions, containing three rather than four movements. In a sense, it returns to the classical model, and commentators have noted that the "shadow of Beethoven" pervades the work.The first movement (Allegro feroce) opens dramatically with a motivic theme that contrasts the more lyrical and extended melody of the second theme. The antinomy between these ideas pervades the movement. It is a highly cogent piece that is remarkable for its time. If one considers Beethoven, who had just composed his Piano Sonata, op. 101, Weber's accomplishment in his Third Piano Sonata stands out for its structural grounding in classical form and its more romantic content -- the very qualities one ascribes to Beethoven's work at this same time. Moreover, Weber's approach to piano writing anticipates some of the conventions that would become typical of the next generation of composers, such as those found in the works of Schumann.The second movement (Andante con moto) resembles the quasi-variation slow movement of the Second Sonata. It is a less ambitious movement than the first, but is nonetheless important in the structure of the Sonata as a whole. The Sonata ends with a Rondo (Presto) which is among his most technically demanding music. In this movement Weber combines three themes into a virtuosic Rondo. While a superficially lighter movement than the other two, Weber resolves the tonal plan of the sonata by modulating to the major mode. In terms of content, the episodes contain more varied music than some of his earlier Rondo movements, and the movement provides a satisfying conclusion to the Sonata. It is worth noting that the final movement of the Third Piano Sonata is sometimes performed by itself as "Allegro di bravura."
Victor Herbert & Ethelbert Nevin - March of the Toys (1903) & Narcissus (1891) Bartje Bartmans 2024-03-26 | 1. Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859 – May 26, 1924) was an American composer, cellist and conductor of Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I. He was also prominent among the Tin Pan Alley composers and was later a founder of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).2. Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin (November 25, 1862 – February 17, 1901) was an American pianist and composer. His best-remembered compositions are the piano piece "Narcissus" from Water Scenes and the songs "The Rosary" and "Mighty Lak' a Rose" (lyrics of the latter by Frank Lebby Stanton).Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans1. March of the Toys, Toy Land from the Opera Babes in Toyland (1903) (0:00)Arranged by Otto Langey (1851-1922)2. Narcissus from Water Scenes, Op. 13, No. 4 (1891) (3:53)Arranged by W. H. Myddleton (c. 1858-1917)New London Orchestra, conducted by Robert CorpHyperion CDA67067Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough, which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a musical extravaganza. Following the extraordinary success of their stage musical The Wizard of Oz, which was produced in New York beginning in January 1903, producer Fred R. Hamlin and director Julian Mitchell hoped to create more family musicals. MacDonough had helped Mitchell with revisions to the Oz libretto by L. Frank Baum. Mitchell and MacDonough persuaded Victor Herbert to join the production.[citation needed] Babes in Toyland features some of Herbert's most famous songs – among them "Toyland", "March of the Toys", "Go to Sleep, Slumber Deep", and "I Can't Do the Sum". The theme song "Toyland", and the most famous instrumental piece from the operetta, "March of the Toys", occasionally show up on Christmas compilations.More Victor Herbert music on my channel:youtu.be/pWDFhTqDwi4Narcissus is a piece of music composed for the piano in 1891 by Ethelbert Nevin. It is fourth of the five pieces in the suite Water Scenes. The composer recalled the Greek myth of Narcissus and, upon rereading the story, the music came quickly. The first draft was written immediately and was revised after a break for dinner. It was then sent for publication as the composer was so confident in the work that he did not play it until receiving the proofs. When published, it was a great success, selling over 125,000 copies of sheet music and has been a musical standard ever since.It has a simple, sweet structure which flows easily and so is a standard piece used in piano teaching.
Carl Maria von Weber - Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 39 (1816) Bartje Bartmans 2024-03-25 | Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansPiano Sonata No. 2 in A-flat major, Op. 39 (1814-16)Dedication: Franz Lauska (1764-1825)1. Allegro moderato, con spirito ed assai legato (0:00)2. Andante (9:44)3. Menuetto capriccioso. Presto assai (16:19)4. Rondo. Moderato e molto grazioso (20:29)Michael Endres, pianoDescription by James LeonardCarl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) composed his Piano Sonata No. 2 in A flat major in 1816, four years after his Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major and just before his Piano Sonata No. 3 in D minor. Like Weber's other piano works, his Sonata in A flat major is a virtuoso work with singing melodies and dramatic structures. The opening Allegro moderato, Con spirito ed assai legato is a large-scale sonata with lyrical themes and stormy developments. The following Andante is a weird graceful theme with a set of spooky variations. The following Menuetto capriccioso/Presto assai is a fast and witty virtuoso scherzo and a grandly lyrical trio. The closing Rondo (Moderato e molto grazioso) is warmly lyrical and expansively dramatic. And like Weber's other piano works, his Piano Sonata in A flat major is pretty much ignored by most pianists.
Wilhelm Fitzenhagen - Resignation, Op. 8 for Cello (1872) Bartje Bartmans 2024-03-23 | Wilhelm Karl Friedrich Fitzenhagen (15 September 1848 – 14 February 1890) was a German cellist, composer and teacher, best known today as the dedicatee of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme.Please support my channel:ko-fi.com/bartjebartmansResignation in E-flat major, Op. 8 (1872)Dedication: Eduard Klein1. Arranged for Cello and Chamber Orchestra (arranger unknown) (0:00)2. Original for Cello and Harmonium1. Jens Peter Maintz, cello and Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra Vilniusconducted by David Geringas2. Cellist Ingrid Bellman plays her Antonio Gagliano cello, made in Naples Italy in 1823, with a Eugene Sartory bow, made in Paris c. 1920 & Michael Hendron on his Mason & Hamlin chapel organ, made in Boston (1915). Recorded in concert 10 March 2024, in the Mission Dolores Basilica, San Francisco, California.Watch live performance here: youtu.be/omVHdXGCHzo?si=whwkuBNvsIWYA1yBFitzenhagen was born in Seesen in the Duchy of Brunswick, where his father served as music director. Beginning at age five, he received lessons on the piano, the cello and the violin. Many times, he had to substitute for wind players absent due to various emergencies. At age 14, Fitzenhagen began advanced studies of the cello with Theodore Müller. Three years later, Fitzenhagen played for the Duke of Brunswick, who released him from all military service. In 1867, some noble patrons enabled him to study for a year with Friedrich Grützmacher in Dresden, A year later he was appointed to the Dresden Hofkapelle, where he started his career as soloist.Fitzenhagen's playing at the 1870 Beethoven Festival in Weimar attracted the attention of Franz Liszt, who had formerly served as music director there. Liszt attempted to talk Fitzenhagen into joining the court orchestra. Fitzenhagen, however, had already accepted a professorship at the Moscow Conservatory. Fitzenhagen became regarded as the premier cello instructor in Russia and equally well known as a soloist and chamber music performer. He was appointed solo cellist to the Russian Musical Society and director of the Moscow Music and Orchestral Union. It was through this union that he made many concert appearances as a soloist. He formed a friendship with Tchaikovsky, giving the first performances of all three of that composer's string quartets as well as the Piano Trio as a member of the Russian Music Society's quartet.Fitzenhagen trained a number of excellent cellists, including Joseph Adamowski, who went to America in 1889 to join the newly formed Boston Symphony Orchestra and helped found the orchestra's pension program. Adamowski also formed a string quartet named after him and taught at the New England Conservatory in Boston.
