![Francis Poulenc - Chansons villageoises [With score] @DamonJHK](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KiSiiIeCuxo/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded May 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 minutes ago
-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
-Performers: Pierre Bernac (Baritone), Francis Poulenc (Piano)
-Year of recording: 1950
Chansons villageoises, song cycle for voice and piano, FP 117, written in 1942
00:07 - I. Chanson du clair tamis
01:00 - II. Les gars qui vont à la fête
02:22 - III. C'est le joli printemps
04:50 - IV. Le mendiant
08:00 - V. Chanson de la fille frivole
08:53 - VI. Le retour du sergent
The aim of Maurice Fombeure (1906–1981) was to ‘refresh’ poetry and give it a ‘new virginity’. He wanted to ‘wash it, brush it up, take it for a walk in the grass, in the wind and the woods. Let’s listen to our hearts—the head has played its part and failed—we now need a little freshness on earth, poetry made of drops of water.’ In order to achieve this Fombeure invested his work with the wit and energy of popular music and old folksongs. In his nautically titled Chansons de la grande hune (‘Songs of the maintop’, 1942) Poulenc found poems ideal for his purposes. The poems are divided into two sections: the first, Chansons de la grande mer, is concerned with sailors and life on the ocean wave; the second is Chansons de la petite terre, eleven poems in the style of country folksongs on dry land, six of which Poulenc set to music. In JdmM he writes: ‘The texts by Fombeure evoke the Morvan where I have spent such wonderful summers! It is through nostalgia for the surroundings of Autun that I have composed this collection.’ This music comes across as a defiant celebration of the French way of life impervious to the German occupation.
Poulenc conceived Chansons villageoises as an orchestral cycle with quite a large percussion section, and it was first sung by Roger Bourdin in 1943 rather than by Pierre Bernac. The composer had envisaged a ‘heavy Verdi baritone (Iago)’ but later admitted that this momentary ‘infidelity’ to his favourite singer had been a mistake. Bernac recorded the piano-accompanied version of the cycle with the composer, perhaps because the vocal requirements of the set—subtlety of colour and diction, the ability to negotiate piano singing in the heights of the passaggio—are hardly associated with a heavy operatic voice. These mélodies, clever stylizations of chansons, are among Poulenc’s most diverting pieces of musical conjuring.
[hyperion-records.co.uk]
-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
-Performers: Pierre Bernac (Baritone), Francis Poulenc (Piano)
-Year of recording: 1950
Chansons villageoises, song cycle for voice and piano, FP 117, written in 1942
00:07 - I. Chanson du clair tamis
01:00 - II. Les gars qui vont à la fête
02:22 - III. C'est le joli printemps
04:50 - IV. Le mendiant
08:00 - V. Chanson de la fille frivole
08:53 - VI. Le retour du sergent
The aim of Maurice Fombeure (1906–1981) was to ‘refresh’ poetry and give it a ‘new virginity’. He wanted to ‘wash it, brush it up, take it for a walk in the grass, in the wind and the woods. Let’s listen to our hearts—the head has played its part and failed—we now need a little freshness on earth, poetry made of drops of water.’ In order to achieve this Fombeure invested his work with the wit and energy of popular music and old folksongs. In his nautically titled Chansons de la grande hune (‘Songs of the maintop’, 1942) Poulenc found poems ideal for his purposes. The poems are divided into two sections: the first, Chansons de la grande mer, is concerned with sailors and life on the ocean wave; the second is Chansons de la petite terre, eleven poems in the style of country folksongs on dry land, six of which Poulenc set to music. In JdmM he writes: ‘The texts by Fombeure evoke the Morvan where I have spent such wonderful summers! It is through nostalgia for the surroundings of Autun that I have composed this collection.’ This music comes across as a defiant celebration of the French way of life impervious to the German occupation.
Poulenc conceived Chansons villageoises as an orchestral cycle with quite a large percussion section, and it was first sung by Roger Bourdin in 1943 rather than by Pierre Bernac. The composer had envisaged a ‘heavy Verdi baritone (Iago)’ but later admitted that this momentary ‘infidelity’ to his favourite singer had been a mistake. Bernac recorded the piano-accompanied version of the cycle with the composer, perhaps because the vocal requirements of the set—subtlety of colour and diction, the ability to negotiate piano singing in the heights of the passaggio—are hardly associated with a heavy operatic voice. These mélodies, clever stylizations of chansons, are among Poulenc’s most diverting pieces of musical conjuring.
[hyperion-records.co.uk]
![Francis Poulenc - Chansons villageoises [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KiSiiIeCuxo/mqdefault.jpg "Francis Poulenc - Chansons villageoises [With score]
-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
-Performers: Pierre Bernac (Baritone), Francis Poulenc (Piano)
-Year of recording: 1950
Chansons villageoises, song cycle for voice and piano, FP 117, written in 1942
00:07 - I. Chanson du clair tamis
01:00 - II. Les gars qui vont à la fête
02:22 - III. Cest le joli printemps
04:50 - IV. Le mendiant
08:00 - V. Chanson de la fille frivole
08:53 - VI. Le retour du sergent
The aim of Maurice Fombeure (1906–1981) was to ‘refresh’ poetry and give it a ‘new virginity’. He wanted to ‘wash it, brush it up, take it for a walk in the grass, in the wind and the woods. Let’s listen to our hearts—the head has played its part and failed—we now need a little freshness on earth, poetry made of drops of water.’ In order to achieve this Fombeure invested his work with the wit and energy of popular music and old folksongs. In his nautically titled Chansons de la grande hune (‘Songs of the maintop’, 1942) Poulenc found poems ideal for his purposes. The poems are divided into two sections: the first, Chansons de la grande mer, is concerned with sailors and life on the ocean wave; the second is Chansons de la petite terre, eleven poems in the style of country folksongs on dry land, six of which Poulenc set to music. In JdmM he writes: ‘The texts by Fombeure evoke the Morvan where I have spent such wonderful summers! It is through nostalgia for the surroundings of Autun that I have composed this collection.’ This music comes across as a defiant celebration of the French way of life impervious to the German occupation.
Poulenc conceived Chansons villageoises as an orchestral cycle with quite a large percussion section, and it was first sung by Roger Bourdin in 1943 rather than by Pierre Bernac. The composer had envisaged a ‘heavy Verdi baritone (Iago)’ but later admitted that this momentary ‘infidelity’ to his favourite singer had been a mistake. Bernac recorded the piano-accompanied version of the cycle with the composer, perhaps because the vocal requirements of the set—subtlety of colour and diction, the ability to negotiate piano singing in the heights of the passaggio—are hardly associated with a heavy operatic voice. These mélodies, clever stylizations of chansons, are among Poulenc’s most diverting pieces of musical conjuring.
[hyperion-records.co.uk]")
![Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume V), op. 54 (Piano, Orch.) [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KrqFvqvLSxM/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume V), op. 54 (Piano, Orch.) [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer (Piano): Leif Ove Andsnes
-Orchestra (Pieces 1 - 4): Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
-Conductor (Pieces 1 - 4): Ole Kristian Ruud
-Orchestra (Piece 6): Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
-Conductor (Piece 6): Neeme Järvi
6 Lyric Pieces Book V, op. 54, written in 1889-91, orchestrated in 1904
Piano
00:00 - I. Gjetergutt {Shepherds Boy}
04:17 - II. Gangar {Norwegian March}
07:38 - III. Trolltog {March of the Dwarfs}
10:40 - IV. Notturno
14:58 - V. Scherzo
18:10 - VI. Klokkeklang {Bell Ringing}
Orchestra
22:47 - I. Gjetergutt {Shepherds Boy}
28:25 - II. Gangar {Norwegian March}
32:29 - III. Notturno
37:08 - IV. Trolltog {March of the Dwarfs}
40:39 - Klokkeklang {Bell Ringing}
It is the influence of folkloristic idioms which can be said to pervade many of Griegs works for solo piano, including the piano sonata in E minor, Op. 7, of 1865, the Pictures from Country Life, Op. 19, and of course, the ten books devoted to Lyric Pieces, some 66 miniatures in all, which were published in the years 1867 - 1901. It was, wrote Grieg, the celebrated Norwegian violin virtuoso Ole Borneman Bull who opened my eyes to the beauty and unspoilt nature of Norwegian music, although in these works, it would be hard to overlook the demonstrable impact that was exerted upon Griegs creative processes by the seminal German Romantic miniaturists Mendelssohn and Schumann, while Chopins expressive instincts are also closely mirrored.
Writing to his publisher, the head of Peters Edition Henri Hinrichsen, in 1901, the composer remarked that his Lyric Pieces were an intimate slice of life, and indeed, it would be very hard to challenge such an assertion. Book 5, published as Griegs Op. 54, comprises of the following numbers: 1) Shepherd Boy, 2) Norwegian March, 3) March of the Trolls, 4) Nocturne, 5) Scherzo, 6) Bell-Ringing.
Of particular interest is the third of the set March of the Trolls. As Joachim Dorfmüller has written, Trolls are quintessentially Norwegian creatures, and it was in their honour that Grieg and his wife Nina named the plot of land on which they built their house on the outskirts of Bergen in 1884 - 1885; Troldhaugen or Troll Hill. Op. 54 No. 5 is a scurrying, mercurial Scherzo reminiscent of Mendelssohns in A Midsummer Nights Dream or the Octet for strings. Op. 54 No. 6, Bell-Ringing, was written during 1891. As Dorfmüller points out, this was a full 16 years before Debussy composed his highly impressionistic tintinabulatory piece Cloches à travers les feuilles, from his second book of Images. Griegs previous example is also highly colored and often distinctly avant-gardist in feel. As Dorfmüller concludes, in his Lyric Pieces, and indeed in much of his remaining piano music, Grieg thrust aside tradition no doubt, in the final analysis, to his own astonishment as much as to that of his contemporaries and in his last great creative period he set out on a virtually impressionistic path.
[...] the idea to orchestrate some of the Lyric Pieces was not Griegs at all. In 1903 it came to Griegs attention that four pieces from the Opus 54 bunch had been orchestrated by the well-known conductor Anton Seidl; though enthusiastic about the idea, Grieg was not altogether satisfied by Seidls rather Wagnerian approach. After securing the legal rights from Seidls widow in 1904, Grieg proceeded to adapt the arrangements of three of them to better suit the translucent textures of the original piano ideas; the orchestration of the first piece in the suite is entirely Griegs own. (It is touching to note that Grieg handed over the 1,000 marks he received from the sale of the Lyric Suite to Seidls widow.)
[allmusic.com]")
![Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 17 The Hunt, K. 458 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LH2_0q5UnLw/mqdefault.jpg "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 17 The Hunt, K. 458 [With score]
-Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)
-Performers: Quatuor Mosaïques
String Quartet No. 17 in B-flat Major [The Hunt], K. 458, written in 1784 [Haydn Quartet IV]
00:06 – I. Allegro vivace assai
13:13 – II. Menuetto. Moderato
17:22 – III. Adagio
25:05 – IV. Allegro assai
Nicknamed the Hunt because of the hunting-call motif that opens the work, the B flat quartet is the fourth of six string quartets composed by Mozart between 1782 and 1785. Over nine years separate the first of this group, K. 387 in G, from its predecessor among the quartets, K. 173 in D minor, composed in 1773. Various factors may account for this long gap. On a practical level, Mozart had been much occupied with long journeys to Italy, Germany, and France. But the string quartet was also, at this time, a relatively new medium still in the process of development. From the genres beginnings in works that were little more than divertimenti, one man above all others was bringing the string quartet toward the point where it would ultimately be recognized as the most challenging of all forms of composition. That man was Joseph Haydn, whose long effort would be fully acknowledged by Mozart. Indeed, a direct impetus for Mozarts return to quartet writing seems to have come from Haydn, who in 1781 published a new set of six as his Op. 33. Mozart almost certainly first met Haydn shortly after settling in Vienna in 1781, and the two men soon established a friendship based on mutual admiration. As is known from a famous anecdote recorded by Irish tenor Michael Kelly, they also played quartets together with two other notable Viennese composers, Johann Vanhal and Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf. The inspiration provided by Haydn is clearly apparent in the quartets Mozart composed in the wake of these encounters. It is therefore hardly surprising that on completing six quartets of his own (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) Mozarts publication would bear a famous dedicatory preface to Haydn that has led to them becoming somewhat confusingly known as Mozarts Haydn quartets. In the course of Mozarts touching tribute to the older master, he refers to the long and laborious endeavor that had gone into them, a unique admission from a man who normally composed with extraordinary facility, and a pointed reminder of the extreme challenge posed by this most pure of musical forms.
The B flat quartet was entered in Mozarts own thematic catalog on November 9, 1784, although he probably started work on it some 18 months earlier. Like all its companions, it is cast in four movements. The jaunty opening of the Allegro vivace assai with its hunting call prefaces a movement whose ease seems at odds with compositional problems, yet sketches show that it took the composer several attempts to satisfy himself. As in the case of all but two of the six quartets, the Menuetto is placed second, a brief movement not without its moments of gentle humor. The Adagio that follows is dominated by a long, decorated theme in the first violin and a quietly eloquent dialogue between violin and cello. The final Allegro assai returns to the opening movements mood of good-humored ease.
[allmusic.com]")
![Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume IX), op. 68 (Piano, Orch.) [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MBGIL7A_ppU/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume IX), op. 68 (Piano, Orch.) [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Håkon Austbø
-Orchestra: Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
-Conductor: Ole Kristian Ruud
6 Lyric Pieces Book IX, op. 68, written in 1898-99, orchestrated in 1899
Piano
00:00 - I. Matrosernes Opsang {Sailors’ Song}
01:59 - II. Bedstemors menuett {Grandmother’s Minuet}
04:05 - III. For dine Fötter {At Your Feet}
07:11 - IV. Aften på Højfjeldet {Evening in the Mountains}
09:44 - V. Bådnlåt {At the Cradle}
12:05 - VI. Valse mélancolique
Orchestra
15:58 - Aften på Højfjeldet {Evening in the Mountains}
19:59 - Bådnlåt {At the Cradle}
The ninth book of Griegs Lyric Pieces were written in 1898 - 1899, and while the fragile state of the composers health was not great during this time, he was at least in these years stable and productive. In the early part of 1898, Grieg was chief organizer of a music festival in Bergen. Directly against the wishes of the festivals board of directors, and the advice of his closest friends, Grieg went to the trouble of bringing in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw under Willem Mengelberg to Norway. The ninth book of Lyric Pieces was complete by September 1899, as in a letter he records playing them in a rare public recital in Bergen; The little mountain piece sounded just the way I had imagined it. People continued to clap, but I did not do it da capo. Afterward I played one of the other pieces in the same volume: At the Cradle. Despairing of the Lyric Pieces and their unbridled popularity in letters of 1896, Grieg nonetheless seems to have come to terms with the new set by the time of its introduction in 1899.
Outside of the two pieces mentioned in Griegs letter, there are no real standouts in the ninth book; however, this group is remarkable in its consistency of style as a whole, and the pieces are relatively easy to play. These five pieces are all short, and the whole book takes less than 20 minutes to play, as compared to a half an hour for the sixth book. The opening Matrosernes Opsang (Sailors Song) is a stately march in cut time. Bedstemors Menuet (Grandmothers Minuet) is a skewed vision of an early nineteenth-century musical form, invaded by Griegs stylistic tendency towards repeating figures in octaves. For dine Födder (At Your Feet) is a warm, romantic fireside piece that captures a snapshot suggesting the contentment of a long-married couple. Aften på Höjfeldet (From the Mountains) is a stark impression of Norwegian folk melody that would be worthy of inclusion in Bartóks Mikrokosmos. More than half the piece is played as a solo melody in the right hand, and as Grieg suggests, a da capo repeat of the first section wouldnt really work. Bådenlåt (Cradle Song) is a truly lovely miniature that utilizes parallel harmony in a manner suggestive of French impressionism. The concluding Valse mélancolique likewise is French in style, but more in step with the practice of dIndy in its use of wandering, chromatic underpinnings and a heavy accent on the second beat of the bar.
[...] There are five compositions on Griegs works list having the title Bådnlåt, all essentially lullabies. Three are adaptations of folk songs, all appearing in his set of 19 folk song arrangements for piano, Op. 66 (1896 - 1897), and one is this effort from Book 9 of his Lyric Pieces series. The fifth Bådnlåt is a transcription of this piano piece for strings. Grieg also wrote five other lullabies (some as songs), demonstrating he was not only fond of the genre, but always highly skilled at it. While he lived another decade after writing this Op. 68 effort, he never wrote another lullaby. In a way, Grieg, generally upbeat and light in his works, was the perfect composer for this kind of music. Here he presents a lovely, quite simple melody that is instantly recognizable as his own, mainly owing to the subtle harmonies that impart a slightly exotic Nordic character to the dreaminess and innocence of the melody. The brief middle section is playful, though gently so, and after a return of the lovely main theme, the music quietly ends. Lasting about two-and-a-half minutes, this piece is yet another example of the composers melodic skills and deft ability to charm the ear with seemingly simple materials.")
![Gabriel Fauré - Masques et Bergamasques, Suite for Orchestra [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MTjYifFRv0E/mqdefault.jpg "Gabriel Fauré - Masques et Bergamasques, Suite for Orchestra [With score]
-Composer: Gabriel Urbain Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924)
-Orchestra: English Sinfonia
-Conductor: Sir Charles Groves
Masques et Bergamasques, Suite for Orchestra, op. 112, written in 1919
00:00 - I. Ouverture
03:49 - II. Menuet
06:50 - III. Gavotte
10:19 - IV. Pastorale
Faurés last, inwardly turning manner spare, abrupt, arching toward ever finer gradations of luminosity had been embarked upon for more than a decade when Prince Albert I of Monaco asked him in 1918 (at Saint-Saëns prompting) for a brief divertissement to be performed at the Monte Carlo theater, which would become known as Masques et bergamasques. In collaboration with theater director Raoul Gunsbourg and René Fauchois, librettist of Pénélope, Fauré was to provide music for a fête galant in the spirit of Verlaine, drawing largely upon his earlier works. In the upshot, only the orchestrated version of the mélodie Clair de lune, from 1888, contained verse by the Faun (as Verlaine was known to his café cronies), though the Pavane for chorus and orchestra of 1887 featured lines by Count Robert de Montesquiou deliberately imitative of Verlaines style. Madrigal for chorus and orchestra (1884) and the mélodie Le plus doux chemin (1904) to poems by Armand Silvestre dovetailed well with the spirit of the thing. The slender conceit of the scenario, in which the commedia del arte characters who flit through Verlaines early verse appear in person to observe and mock the eighteenth century lords and ladies accustomed to being entertained by them, owes as much to Watteau who inspired the décor as to the poet.
For the Overture and two orchestral numbers, Fauré revised movements of an abandoned symphony dating from 1869 his 24th year to which he added a Pastorale, the only newly composed music for Masques et bergamasques. The latter revives his galant style with a loving, old-masterly touch. While the Overture is not pastiche, the young Fauré was obviously moved by classical models Reynaldo Hahn disarmingly suggested Mozart imitating Fauré. Likewise, the Gavotte and Menuet were inspired by an even more remote era. Following the horrors of the Great War, and taken together, the oddments of this elegant trifle loomed larger than their sum. They still evoke a grand nostalgia, not merely for the belle époque, but for the eternally enchanted paysages that haunt Verlaines early verse. And the freshly felicitous first orchestral essays, indeed, seem predestined for just this use. The Pastorale was Faurés last orchestral work in its brief magic there is something of Prosperos Our revels now are ended. The Monte Carlo production opened April 10, 1919, scoring an immediate success, which led to it being re-staged at the Paris Opéra-Comique on March 4, 1920. As a theater piece, Masques et bergamasques has frequently been revived in France, while the suite of orchestral numbers drawn from it Overture, Gavotte, Menuet, and Pastorale has achieved an enduring popularity the world over.
[allmusic.com]")
![Edvard Grieg - 5 Songs of Norway, op. 58 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mn_Qrn7W1aU/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - 5 Songs of Norway, op. 58 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performers: Monica Groop (Voice), Roger Vignoles (Piano)
Norge (Norway), Song Cycle for Voice and Piano, op. 58, written in 1893-94
00:00 - I. Hjemkomst {Homecoming}
03:26 - II. Til Norge {To Norway}
04:45 - III. Henrik Wergeland
08:27 - IV. Turisten {The Tourist}
10:22 - V. Udvandreren {The emigrant}")
![Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492 {Act III} [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/N6EvE5funko/mqdefault.jpg "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492 {Act III} [With score]
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)
Libretto: Lorenzo da Ponte
Conductor: René Jacobs
Performers: Simon Keenlyside (Il Conte), Véronique Gens (La Contessa) Patrizia Ciofi (Susanna), Lorenzo Regazzo (Figaro), Angelika Kirchschlager (Cherubino), Marie McLaughlin (Marcellina), Kobie van Rensburg (Basilio & Don Curzio), Antonio Abete (Bartolo & Antonio), Nuria Rial (Barbarina), Elisabeth Rapp & Yeree Suh (Due Ragazze)
Choir: Collegium Vocale Gent
Orchestra: Concerto Köln
Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), K. 492, opera buffa in 4 acts, written in 1786 {Act 3}
Act III
02:24 – XVI. Duettino: Crudel! Perché finora
06:01 – XVII. Recitativo ed Aria: “Hai già vinta la causa!”
07:25 – “Vedrò mentr’io sospiro”
12:55 – XVIII. Sestetto: Riconosci in questo amplesso
19:15 – XIII. Recitativo ed Aria: E Susanna non vien!
20:43 – “Dovo sono”
26:11 – XX. Duettino: Che soave zeffiretto
29:13 – XXI. Coro: Ricevete, o padroncina
33:30 – XXII. Finale: Ecco la marcia
35:34 – Amanti costanti
36:47 – Eh già, solita usanza
38:36 – Andate, amici
39:08 – Amanti costanti
Lorenzo da Ponte wrote the libretto for Mozarts Figaro after falling out with Antonio Salieri, who, as imperial court composer, had obtained the position of court poet for da Ponte. At the time of the operas composition and first performances, there was a climate of antagonism among factions of Italian musicians and poets living in Vienna, among whom was counted Salieri. Although the efforts of the anti-Mozart Italian clique did not succeed in having Mozarts Figaro banned from the stage, the opera did receive fewer than ten performances in Vienna immediately after its première at the Burgtheater on May 1, 1786. Figaro would have tremendous success in Prague, however, before spreading to other parts of Europe and becoming a classic of the opera buffa repertory. So began the fortuitous Mozart/da Ponte relationship, from which would come two further masterworks, Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1789-1790).
Mozart admired Pierre Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais politically radical play Le mariage de Figaro (1781), the second play in what would become a trilogy based on the autobiographical character Figaro. Beaumarchais Le barbier de Séville had been performed in 1775 and the third play of the trilogy, La mère coupable, would be premièred in 1793. In his Figaro plays, Beaumarchais, who himself was a participant in the Revolution, working towards anti-aristocratic revolutionary ideas, sharply spoofs pre-Revolution French society.
Mozarts music for Figaro consists of conventional dry and accompanied recitative, aria, and ensemble pieces. The overture, despite having no development section, is essentially in sonata form. Mozart musically conveys the range of Figaros perturbation in his Act One cavatina, Se vuol ballare, by whimsically changing the character of his music to correspond with Figaros machinations. Mozart also imbues Figaros rondo-form aria, Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso, with colorful musical depictions of Cherubinos forthcoming military service through dotted rhythms and trumpet arpeggio fanfares. The Countess cavatina, Porgi amor, conveys the characters elevated social status through its graceful melodic language. The duet (Aprite, presto, aprite) between Susanna and Cherubino in Act Two bristles expectantly with its moto perpetuo string writing and nervous, patter vocal declamation. In the Counts and Susannas Act Three duet (Crudel! Perchè finora), the minor mode conveys the Counts initial grief and a shift to major mode, after Susanna agrees to come to the garden, confirms a sense of momentary resolution. Later, in the Counts accompanied recitative (Hai già vinta la causa!), the orchestra adds an extra emphasis to his verbal expression of anger and agitation through impetuous dotted rhythms and string tremolos. Through furiously rapid-scale passages and trills, the orchestra maintains this angry intensity in the Counts vengeance aria (Vedrò mentrio sospiro). Barbainas Act Four cavatina, Lho perduta...me meschina! introduces a minor mode melody of classic Mozartean pathos. The finale of Act Four brings the principal characters to beg the Counts forgiveness and the music swells from a pious hymn-like ensemble to a triumphant fanfare-laden exultation.
[allmusic.com]")
![Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 23, K. 590 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NN0ZKZ274t4/mqdefault.jpg "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 23, K. 590 [With score]
-Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)
-Performers: Alban Berg Quartet
String Quartet No. 23 in F-Major, K. 590, written in 1790 [Prussian Quartet III]
00:00 - I. Allegro moderato
08:46 - II. Andante
14:17 - III. Menuetto. Allegretto
18:05 - IV. Allegro
Mozarts final string quartet was to have been the third of six the composer intended to dedicate to King Frederick William II of Prussia, the cello-playing monarch whom Boccherini served as exclusive chamber musician from 1787 until the death of the king ten years later. Shortly after entering the F major Quartet in his thematic catalog in June, 1790, Mozart told Puchberg in a further letter that he had been obliged to give away the quartets for a mere song in order to have cash in hand to meet my present difficulties. Along with its two companions, K. 590 has been generally regarded by commentators as being less successful than the great set of six Haydn quartets composed between 1782 and 1785. Artarias advertisement for the Prussian quartets describes them as concertante quartets, thus paying due recognition to the prominence of their cello parts, which were obviously designed to give Frederick William significance. Yet if the structure is frequently looser than in the more tightly organized Haydn quartets, there is much compensation in the skillful manner in which Mozart allows the royal cello discourse with its colleagues, a refinement the composer confessed to finding troublesome in execution. The customary four movements are an opening Allegro moderato, an affecting, valedictory Andante, Menuetto, and Allegro finale. From the first movement this piece is filled with aural miracles. Dialogues scurry about and return slightly altered, like double entendres uttered in one of Mozarts operas. At the movements end, the coda restates the development, gracefully winds down, and ends on a witty high note. Mozart never specified whether the second movement is an Allegretto or an Andante. Alfred Einstein said of it: It seems to mingle the bliss and sorrow of a farewell to life. How beautiful life has been! How sad! How brief! The Menuetto is charged with ornamental appoggiaturas and contrary phrases. The finale is packed with wondrous devices, such as unexpected silences and intricate counterpoint. Listen closely in the last bars and youll even hear a bagpipe-like drone.
[allmusic.com]")
![Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte K. 620 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NfLk5VKs5sQ/mqdefault.jpg "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte K. 620 [With score]
Original audio: https://youtu.be/xssOb9JCdA0
Timestamp soon")
![Fartein Valen - Intermezzo, op. 36 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NnOuuyTu0Ss/mqdefault.jpg "Fartein Valen - Intermezzo, op. 36 [With score]
Composer: Fartein Valen (25 August 1887 – 14 December 1952)
Performer: Øyvind Aase
Intermezzo op.36 for Piano solo, written in 1939-40")
![Edvard Grieg - 2 Improvisations on Norwegian Folk songs, op. 29 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/O3KL9gnBf5o/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - 2 Improvisations on Norwegian Folk songs, op. 29 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
2 Improvisations on Norwegian Folk songs for piano, op. 29, written in 1878
00:00 - I. Allegretto con moto {on Guten a gjenta}
03:08 - II. Andante {There was once a King}")
![Dmitri Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No. 1 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/O9w-zZGI2ao/mqdefault.jpg "Dmitri Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No. 1 [With score]
Composer: Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (25 September 1906 - 9 August 1975)
Orchestra: New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Dimitri Mitropoulos
Violin: David Oistrakh
Violin Concerto No. 1 in a minor, op. 77, written in 1947-1948
00:00 - I. Nocturne. Moderato
12:07 - II. Scherzo. Allegro
18:22 - III. Passacaglia. Andante
[27:14 - Cadenza]
31:42 - IV. Burlesque. Allegro con brio
As many know, Shostakovich wrote two violin concertos. But his work list suggests two separate versions of the First, the Op. 77 and the Op. 99. The Violin Concerto No. 1 was originally completed in 1948, but withheld for seven years by the composer, owing to the oppressive climate for artists in the Soviet Union at the time. Any new work might have drawn the wrath of Stalin and his cronies in the arts. Shostakovich returned to the score in 1955 and then assigned the higher opus number to it. Actually, the only documented change he made came not as a result of second thoughts, but as a matter of consideration for the soloist. During rehearsals in 1955, the virtuoso violinist David Oistrakh requested of Shostakovich that the opening statement of the fourth movements main theme be given to the orchestra, so that the soloist could take a rest following the long cadenza which leads right into the finale, and Shostakovich agreed to make the change.
The First Violin Concerto begins as a dark work, full of that gloom and dread that pervade so many of Shostakovichs serious works. The first movement Nocturne starts off with an ominous theme that is both inwardly reflective and filled with foreboding. Midway through, a thinly veiled Dies Irae appears as the music becomes more tense. Yet, a climactic release never quite arrives and the suggested conflicts remain unresolved. The second movement is a rather diabolical Scherzo that contains some interesting allusions, first to the third movement of the Tenth Symphony (1953) and later to the first movement of the Second Piano Concerto (1957). The violin and woodwinds scurry about to deliver the playful yet menacing material, but gradually the character of the movement becomes more sarcastic, eventually breaking into a hallucinatory folk dance. The latter part of the Scherzo sounds less acidic, the diabolic and sarcastic elements surrender to the driving, insistent energy. The third movement is a Passacaglia that has a chorale-like quality at the outset, as the woodwinds deliver a mournful theme. The violin enters playing the main theme, one of the composers loveliest and warmest creations. Shostakovichs 1943 Eighth Symphonys fourth movement also featured a passacaglia, though of a decidedly grimmer character. Here, there is tension, but also much beauty. The latter third of the movement is taken up by a brilliant cadenza, which leads directly into the brief finale, a Burlesque of a mostly festive nature. The mood is similar to that of the faster music in the Tenth Symphonys finale, though there are no clear thematic references. While the work ends triumphantly, its manic qualities suggest a discomfort by the composer, as though the happy resolution might have been disingenuous.
Shostakovich eliminated trumpets and trombones from the orchestration of this Concerto, and his writing is otherwise sensitive to the limited tone of a solo violin playing amid a large ensemble. A typical performance of this work lasts about 35 minutes.
[allmusic.com]")
