Pranav Ranjit | Erkki Melartin - String Quartet No. 1 (Score Video) @towardthesea_ | Uploaded August 2024 | Updated October 2024, 6 hours ago.
Performed by the Meta4 Quartet - Minna Pensola & Antti Tikkanen, violins; Eriikka Nylund, viola; Tomas Djupsjöbacka, cello
Erkki Melartin (1875-1937) was a Finnish composer and conductor, a contemporary of Jean Sibelius. For more on Melartin, see my score video of his fourth string quartet: youtube.com/watch?v=dhVEiey4sjI
Melartin's first string quartet was written in 1896 when he was just 21. As a result, it carries stronger influence from late Romanticism than, for example, his more varied and inventive fourth quartet; nevertheless, it is a colorful and vivacious work typical of the composer which is well worth hearing, containing multiple elements foreshadowing his mature works in the genre.
Performed by the Meta4 Quartet - Minna Pensola & Antti Tikkanen, violins; Eriikka Nylund, viola; Tomas Djupsjöbacka, cello
Erkki Melartin (1875-1937) was a Finnish composer and conductor, a contemporary of Jean Sibelius. For more on Melartin, see my score video of his fourth string quartet: youtube.com/watch?v=dhVEiey4sjI
Melartin's first string quartet was written in 1896 when he was just 21. As a result, it carries stronger influence from late Romanticism than, for example, his more varied and inventive fourth quartet; nevertheless, it is a colorful and vivacious work typical of the composer which is well worth hearing, containing multiple elements foreshadowing his mature works in the genre.
![Vasily Kalinnikov - The Cedar and the Palm, symphonic picture (Score Video) [N. Järvi]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qdxe9NZg7EU/hqdefault.jpg "Vasily Kalinnikov - The Cedar and the Palm, symphonic picture (Score Video) [N. Järvi]
Performed by the Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi
Based on a poem by Heinrich Heine (English translation by Hal Draper)
Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
Im Norden auf kahler Höh.
Ihn schläfert; mit weißer Decke
Umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee.
Er träumt von einer Palme,
Die, fern im Morgenland,
Einsam und schweigend trauert
Auf brennender Felsenwand.
A pine is standing lonely
In the North on a bare plateau.
He sleeps; a bright white blanket
Enshrouds him in ice and snow.
He’s dreaming of a palm tree
Far away in the Eastern land
Lonely and silently mourning
On a sunburnt rocky strand.
Vasily Kalinnikov (1866-1901) was a Russian composer who, if not for his death from tuberculosis at the age of 35, would undoubtedly have become a leading light of Russian music. Kalinnikov - who counted both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff among his friends and advocates - is best known for his two vibrant symphonies, which are masterfully orchestrated and draw from rich Russian folk melodies; both works are achieving increasing recognition outside of the USSR, particularly among youth orchestras and community orchestras. The Cedar and the Palm, which Kalinnikov completed in 1898 - the year after his second symphony - is in a similar vein, although perhaps more rhapsodic in quality than some of his other orchestral works.
Read more about Kalinnikov on my blog here: https://unknowncomposers.org/2019/03/25/special-feature-vasily-kalinnikov-the-forgotten-russian-romantic/
A full score can be found at the New York Philharmonic archives: https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/c3e6418e-44e4-4ab8-8eb8-cf833f3d84cc-0.1/fullview#page/1/mode/1up. An IMSLP score is also available but is missing page 7 (page 9 in the NY Phil edition.)")
