![Francis Poulenc - Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon [With score] @DamonJHK](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ensR1tipEf0/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 9 minutes ago
-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
-Performers: Felicity Lott (Voice), Pascal Rogé (Piano)
Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon for Voice and Piano, FP 122, written in 1943
00:00 - I. C
03:08 - II. Fêtes galantes
I. [...] The bridges of C, sometimes called Ce, are the four "Caesar Bridges" are near Angiers. In 51 B.C.E., the Gauls were defeated there by the Romans. In 1940, the Germans invaded at the same spot, and the French were again defeated.
Louis Aragon, the poet, speaks of the ancient defeat, and the tales of glory that followed. Then he speaks of the present time and the ill-concealed tears for his beloved, abandoned France.
Every line ends with a rhyme to the word "Ce". The vocal line moves syllabically, and the piano part is equally unextravagant. In total, this is one of those heartrending moments in music that achieves its goals through simple means.
II. [...] While Aragon consciously evoked a period of France's past in the "C," here he ironically applies a title Watteau used in painting and Verlaine in poetry. But whereas these two creative artists of earlier times were celebrating grace and beauty, Aragon points out the ugliness -- and the absurdity of the ugliness -- of the period of Occupation. Every line except the last is a miniature portrait of yet another horror, always presented in the same way: "You see [On voit] fops on bicycles, you see pimps in kilts...you see motor cars run on gasogene...you see guttersnipes you see perverts, you see drowned folk...." This entire litany, eerily comic in its piling-on of horrors, rattles out from a music-hall accompaniment as the baritone declaims the text with extreme rapidity. Poulenc applies the tempo marking Incroyablement vite (Unbelievably Fast), with a tempo marking not less than quarter note = 152. Like Shostakovich did so often, Poulenc here confronts the drab, valueless life under a dictatorship with the commonplace, with banality, with the sound of a low cabaret.
[allmusic.com]
-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
-Performers: Felicity Lott (Voice), Pascal Rogé (Piano)
Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon for Voice and Piano, FP 122, written in 1943
00:00 - I. C
03:08 - II. Fêtes galantes
I. [...] The bridges of C, sometimes called Ce, are the four "Caesar Bridges" are near Angiers. In 51 B.C.E., the Gauls were defeated there by the Romans. In 1940, the Germans invaded at the same spot, and the French were again defeated.
Louis Aragon, the poet, speaks of the ancient defeat, and the tales of glory that followed. Then he speaks of the present time and the ill-concealed tears for his beloved, abandoned France.
Every line ends with a rhyme to the word "Ce". The vocal line moves syllabically, and the piano part is equally unextravagant. In total, this is one of those heartrending moments in music that achieves its goals through simple means.
II. [...] While Aragon consciously evoked a period of France's past in the "C," here he ironically applies a title Watteau used in painting and Verlaine in poetry. But whereas these two creative artists of earlier times were celebrating grace and beauty, Aragon points out the ugliness -- and the absurdity of the ugliness -- of the period of Occupation. Every line except the last is a miniature portrait of yet another horror, always presented in the same way: "You see [On voit] fops on bicycles, you see pimps in kilts...you see motor cars run on gasogene...you see guttersnipes you see perverts, you see drowned folk...." This entire litany, eerily comic in its piling-on of horrors, rattles out from a music-hall accompaniment as the baritone declaims the text with extreme rapidity. Poulenc applies the tempo marking Incroyablement vite (Unbelievably Fast), with a tempo marking not less than quarter note = 152. Like Shostakovich did so often, Poulenc here confronts the drab, valueless life under a dictatorship with the commonplace, with banality, with the sound of a low cabaret.
[allmusic.com]
![Francis Poulenc - Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ensR1tipEf0/mqdefault.jpg "Francis Poulenc - Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon [With score]
-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
-Performers: Felicity Lott (Voice), Pascal Rogé (Piano)
Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon for Voice and Piano, FP 122, written in 1943
00:00 - I. C
03:08 - II. Fêtes galantes
I. [...] The bridges of C, sometimes called Ce, are the four Caesar Bridges are near Angiers. In 51 B.C.E., the Gauls were defeated there by the Romans. In 1940, the Germans invaded at the same spot, and the French were again defeated.
Louis Aragon, the poet, speaks of the ancient defeat, and the tales of glory that followed. Then he speaks of the present time and the ill-concealed tears for his beloved, abandoned France.
Every line ends with a rhyme to the word Ce. The vocal line moves syllabically, and the piano part is equally unextravagant. In total, this is one of those heartrending moments in music that achieves its goals through simple means.
II. [...] While Aragon consciously evoked a period of Frances past in the C, here he ironically applies a title Watteau used in painting and Verlaine in poetry. But whereas these two creative artists of earlier times were celebrating grace and beauty, Aragon points out the ugliness and the absurdity of the ugliness of the period of Occupation. Every line except the last is a miniature portrait of yet another horror, always presented in the same way: You see [On voit] fops on bicycles, you see pimps in kilts...you see motor cars run on gasogene...you see guttersnipes you see perverts, you see drowned folk.... This entire litany, eerily comic in its piling-on of horrors, rattles out from a music-hall accompaniment as the baritone declaims the text with extreme rapidity. Poulenc applies the tempo marking Incroyablement vite (Unbelievably Fast), with a tempo marking not less than quarter note = 152. Like Shostakovich did so often, Poulenc here confronts the drab, valueless life under a dictatorship with the commonplace, with banality, with the sound of a low cabaret.
[allmusic.com]")
![Felix Mendelssohn - Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fGaBqZRQmW4/mqdefault.jpg "Felix Mendelssohn - Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 [With score]
-Composer: Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847)
-Performers: Mischa Maisky (Cello), Sergio Tiempo (Piano)
Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 in D major, Op. 58, written in 1843
00:07 - I. Allegro assai vivace
07:33 - II. Allegretto scherzando
13:10 - III. Adagio
18:31 - IV. Molto allegro e vivace
Mendelssohn was briefly between jobs when he wrote the second of his two cello sonatas; he was making the transition from handling musical matters for the King of Prussia to assuming the directorship of the new Leipzig Conservatory. The attendant stress of this period is hardly reflected in this sonata, which the composer wrote for his brother Paul, a cellist. The first movement, Allegro assai vivace, begins with a surging, confident melody for the cello, underpinned by a pressing piano accompaniment. The keyboard then presents its own statement of the theme, the cello now relegated to the background. The piano remains dominant during the introduction of the more lyrical but still impulsive second subject, but the cello eventually gets its turn at an extension of the tune. Unwary listeners might gather that Mendelssohn is here launching a third subject, but the cello is clearly playing the flowing outline of the melody the piano has just broached. Indeed, the instruments will be treated as equals throughout most of this sonata, and often each is allowed a virtuoso flourish. Mendelssohn develops his themes sequentially and neatly, with an almost circumspect ardor that never subordinates one instrument to the other.
The second movement, Allegretto scherzando, opens with a whimsical tune in the piano that is quickly taken up pizzicato by the cello. The melody becomes a bit more lyrical when played arco, but Mendelssohn reserves real songfulness for the second theme, which the cello sings out over a palpitating piano accompaniment. The movement continues with a repeat of the first section that turns uncharacteristically gruff before a brief reprise of the second theme, again in the cello. The instruments quietly slip away, playing fragments of both melodies.
The Adagio begins with graceful piano arpeggios that follow the chord structure of the aria Es ist vollbracht from Bachs St. John Passion, reflecting Mendelssohns lifelong devotion to the music of the German Baroque master. The piano recedes into the background as the cello offers an aria of its own, which grows more ardent and recitative-like as it progresses. Before long, the cello is playing its aria over the pianos chorale-like arpeggios; at the very end, the piano offers its own treatment of the cellos theme. Cellist Coenraad Bloemendal has proposed reading this movement as a programmatic representation of the competing religious forces that coexisted in Mendelssohns mind the Lutheran piano part overlapping and ultimately embracing what Bloemendal describes as the cellos cantorial chant.
The extensive finale, Molto allegro e vivace, begins with hectic yet low-key material that recalls the composers famous Spinning Song. All of this sonata-form movements thematic elements are spun from the material of the first several measures. Mendelssohn does not vary or develop this material so much as use it to put the two instruments through accelerating, arduous runs, culminating in a final section that creates a dazzling effect without descending to vulgarity.
[allmusic.com]")
![Dmitri Shostakovich - Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 [Jazz suite No. 1] [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fKXUby45s5k/mqdefault.jpg "Dmitri Shostakovich - Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 [Jazz suite No. 1] [With score]
Composer: Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (25 September 1906 9 August 1975)
Orchestra: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
Suite for Jazz orchestra No. 1 [Jazz suite No. 1], composed in 1934
00:04 - I. Waltz
02:42 - II. Polka
04:26 - III. Foxtrot
In the 1930s, jazz was highly popular in the Soviet Union. Shostakovich was particularly interested in this kind of music, especially as it was practised within the USSR by his colleagues and friends. So he was delighted when he was asked to write a piece for a small Leningrad dance-band. The result was this charming and tuneful Suite in a style combining echoes of Kurt Weill, klezmer and cabaret with more American influences, especially in the darkly hilarious final movement. There are three movements in all: a soupy and engaging Waltz, a lively Polka with a tricky xylophone solo, and a paradoxically entitled Foxtrot (Blues), which features a notable episode for that pioneering electric instrument, the Hawaiian guitar.
[Boosey&Hawkes]
Original Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79uN3YRxJFU")
![Robert Schumann - Romanzen und Balladen III, op. 53 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fYB5yde9-j0/mqdefault.jpg "Robert Schumann - Romanzen und Balladen III, op. 53 [With score]
-Composer: Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856)
-Performers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Bariton), Christoph Eschenbach (Piano)
Romanzen und Balladen III, 3 Songs for Voice and Piano, op. 53, written in 1840
00:00 - I. Blondels Lied {Blondels Song}
05:37 - II. Loreley
06:36 - III. Der arme Peter {Poor Peter} - I. Der Hans und die Grete tanzen herum {Hans and Grete dance about}
08:02 - III - II. In meiner Brust, da sitzt ein Weh {Within my breast lies a woe}
09:19 - III - III. Der arme Peter wankt vorbei {Poor Peter staggers by}
Schumanns third set of Romanzen und Balladen, Op. 53, was the last group of songs from his legendary year of song (1840) to be published. In the company of so many outstanding lieder, especially the song cycles Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben, the three (actually five) songs of Op. 53 have often been lost in the shuffle and are not especially familiar to listeners. But stylistically, poetically, and more importantly in their animating spirit, they are every bit as representative of Schumann the song composer. The best-known and most interesting song is the third, Der arme Peter (Poor Peter), which is actually three songs in one, and therefore a self-contained song cycle in miniature somewhat like Beethovens An die ferne Geliebte. It is often excerpted and performed on its own.
Although composed separately and to poems of three different authors, the Op. 53 songs are unified by the theme of devotion. The first song, Blondels Lied, is by the poet Johann Gabriel Seidl, and is the tale of a medieval minstrel keeping a vigil in song for his king. At times reminiscent of Auf einer Berg from the Op. 39 Liederkreis, and even Talismane from Myrthen, it is constructed around a repeated refrain of the text Suche treu, so findest du! (Seek in faith and you shall find!). Loreley is among Schumanns shortest songs and usually takes less than one minute to perform. But in that brief span it manages to capture the very spirit of Romantic poetry and song writing in its evocation of a ghostly moment the disembodied refrain, Remember me, mingling with the sounds of the sea. Finally, Heinrich Heines Der arme Peter is the unfortunate tale of a young man driven to suicide by the loss of his love. He first sees her dancing with her new groom; then avoids her for fear of saddening her with his grief; and finally determines that the grave is where he most belongs. As is typical of both Schumann and Heine, Peters sad tale is infused with enough irony to be both sad and humorous, but never sentimental.
[allmusic.com]")
![Igor Stravinsky - Le roi des étoiles [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fbP89tlo_FI/mqdefault.jpg "Igor Stravinsky - Le roi des étoiles [With score]
Composer: Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June 1882 6 April 1971)
Orchestra: [Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin] Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Choir: Berlin Radio Choir [Rundfunkchor Berlin]
Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
[Cantata] Le roi des étoiles [The king of the stars] for Orchestra and male chorus, written in 1911-12
The Russian title of Stravinskys cantata King of the Stars (1911-1912) is Zvezdoliki, literally Starface. The work is scored for male chorus and full orchestra (including celesta and two harps). The text, by symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont, is in Russian; Stravinsky, as was often the case, was more interested in the text on a purely sonic level than for its content or semantic sense. Its words are good, Stravinsky noted, and words were what I needed, not meanings.
King of the Stars was composed at roughly the same time that Stravinsky worked on the score of his ballet masterpiece The Rite of Spring (1911-1913). The choral writing, predominantly in four parts, is characterized by close spacing and triad-based harmonies with the addition of sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. At times, Stravinsky sets phrases in unison to accentuate certain parts of the text.
As with many of Stravinskys early Russian works, King of the Stars has a fundamentally bitonal harmonic structure, often employing the choral and instrumental bodies as distinct harmonic entities superimposed upon one another; the final sonority, for example, consists of two distinct chords, a C major dominant ninth chord in the orchestra and a G major seventh chord in the chorus. Debussy, to whom the work is dedicated, was among the many who deemed the work essentially unperformable, targeting its bitonality as a likely cause of serious intonation problems in performance. The work was first performed in 1939, more than a quarter century after its composition.
[allmusic.com]
Original Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v3b2KiBw7k")
![Edvard Grieg - Romancer og Ballader {Romances and Ballads}, op. 9 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gnDIdKq5dSc/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Romancer og Ballader {Romances and Ballads}, op. 9 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performers (Song 1): Monica Groop (voice), Ilmo Ranta (Piano)
-Performers (Songs 2, 3, 4): Knut Skram (voice), Rudolf Jansen (Piano)
Romancer og Ballader {Romances and Ballads} for Voice and Piano, op. 9, written in 1863-66
00:03 - I. Harpen {The harp}
03:25 - II. Vuggesang {Cradle song}
07:37 - III. Solnedgang {Sunset}
10:46 - IV. Udfarten {Departure}")
![Edvard Grieg - Scenes of country life, op. 19 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hMo2W-lzOtU/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Scenes of country life, op. 19 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
Folkelivsbilleder {Scenes of country life} for Piano, op. 19, written in 1869-71
00:00 - I. Fjeldslåt (In the mountains)
05:32 - II. Brudefølget drar forbi (The bridal procession passes by)
09:19 - III. Fra Karnevalet (From the Carnival)
His very famous Piano Concerto in A minor aside, Edvard Grieg was known during his lifetime and is today remembered more or less exclusively for his proficiency at the musical miniature. Even the celebrated and very worthy Peer Gynt incidental music is, when you get right down to it, a collection of miniatures/ Grieg certainly composed longer, more substantial works, but it was his piano bonbons that really engraved his name in the public consciousness. The ten volumes of Lyric Pieces for piano and the four Album Leaves of Op. 28 in these works are pieces that every young pianist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whether of serious ambition or of the variety that played the instrument only because it was expected of a young lad or lady of manners and class, had in their fingers. Reigning as the most popular of all Grieg piano miniatures is the second of the three Pictures from Life in the Country, Op. 19, of 1870 and 1871. The collections title is variously translated as Pictures from Peasant Life, Pictures from Everyday Life, and so on; Griegs original title is Folkelivsbilleder, and he described them as humoresques.
The first of the Op. 19 Pictures is called In the Mountains or Mountain Tune; No. 2 is the Bridal Procession (reused by Grieg in the Peer Gynt music); and the third piece is From the Carnival or Carnival Scene. In the Mountains opens with a quietly rumbling A minor melody in octaves that gradually grows in strength as a full harmonic accompaniment builds around it; a second melody, flitting gracefully atop a twitch-like neighbor-note idea in an inner voice, takes over in A major. The opening rumble starts again to round out a basic three-part form. The Bridal Procession music is merry rather than solemn, with a twinkling, ornamented melody that bounces along from start to finish. While they still must be considered musical individuals, the three pieces of Op. 19 are actually somewhat connected to one another, topically and musically; for as the third reaches its culmination, Grieg quotes snippets from the first and second as if the happy carnival-goers are recalling or perhaps witnessing the mountain and wedding scenes.
[allmusic.com]")
![Albert Roussel - Trio for Flute, Viola and Cello, op. 40 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hNaWj-xSh6k/mqdefault.jpg "Albert Roussel - Trio for Flute, Viola and Cello, op. 40 [With score]
-Composer: Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel (5 April 1869 – 23 August 1937)
-Performers: Paul Verhey (flute), Henk Guittart (viola), Herre-Jan Stegenga (cello)
Trio pour flûte, alto et violoncelle, op. 40, written in 1929
00:00 - I. Allegro grazioso
04:46 - II. Andante
10:04 - III. Allegro non troppo
Commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge that intrepid patroness whose generosity called forth works from the most distinctive composers of her era (e.g., Stravinsky, Bartók, Dallapiccola, Pizzetti, Prokofiev, et al.) Roussels Trio for Flute, Violin, and Cello was composed in a mere 15 days in September 1929. Given the prominence of the flute, it bears a similar relation to the Sérénade for Flute, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Harp (1925) that his Third Symphony (1929-1930) bears to the Fourth (1934); in both pairs Roussels final manner enables him to return to a mood or vision whose exuberance has been pared, chastened, and, perhaps, wizened. For so fastidious a composer it would not do to repeat himself, and there is a palpable gain in refinement and concentration in both the Fourth Symphony and the Flute Trio, rippled by an airy grace and leaping vitality that look back to the earlier works, but with an autumnal cast and, in the Flute Trio, a mellowed sweetness eschewing their coruscations and sophisticated primitivism. Classical is the term applied by most commentators to this shrinkage, and it is, indeed, a classic case, so to speak, in which for the connoisseur, at least less is more, though one may prefer the striking audacities of the earlier works. Still, there is no denying the Trios concise elegance. Of the first movement, Allegro grazioso, Norman Demuth noted, The writing is a model of terseness in its contrapuntal moments and is an excellent model. The resources of each instrument are fully exploited and the flute is taken as a perfectly serious entity in the ensemble. The flute is, indeed, primus inter pares, though in the second movement Andante, after a long-breathed melody neither grave nor gay but prolix and eldritch it allows the viola and cello to come into their own in a slowly coiling utterance that can seem mere note-spinning in a slack performance, but given with requisite tautness looks with chaste eyes into a demesne purged of passion. In the chirpy third movement Allegro non troppo, the flute regains its prominence in a motoric, cheerfully mocking, spritely utterance whose scintillance seems almost too polite, or, as Demuth said, There is not the thought in this movement which is characteristic of the other two.... Dedicated to Mrs. Coolidge, the Trios premiere was given by Georges Barrère, flute; Lionel Tertis, viola; and Hans Kindler, cello, on October 30, 1929, in Paris at a Concert Coolidge chez Institute international de cooperation intellectual.
description: [allmusic.com]")
![Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 22, K. 589 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hW6YZ_AZX80/mqdefault.jpg "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 22, K. 589 [With score]
-Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)
-Performers: Alban Berg Quartet
String Quartet No. 22 in B-flat major, K. 589, written in 1790 [Prussian Quartet II]
00:00 – I. Allegro
06:20 – II. Larghetto
12:29 – III. Menuetto. Moderato
18:46 – IV. Allegro assai
Mozarts greatest contribution to the string quartet repertoire dates from 1782 and 1785, the period during which he composed the six quartets dedicated to his friend Joseph Haydn. Only four quartets follow them, the lone K. 499 in D major, composed in 1786 and known as the Hoffmeister quartet, and the three quartets known as the Prussian quartets. They owe their name and genesis to what has generally assumed to have been a commission for six quartets from King Frederick William II of Prussia. The king, a keen amateur cellist, had received Mozart at Potsdam during the visit of the latter in the spring of 1789. After Mozart returned to Vienna he quickly completed the first of the quartets, K. 575 in D, but thereafter made no further attempt to add to Frederick Williams quartets for another year. Mozarts dilatory attitude to proceeding with the set may be in part accounted for by the commission he and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte received for Così fan tutte, which probably arrived late in the summer of 1789. However, it also casts doubts on the so-called commission from the Prussian king, particularly since he referred in a letter to dedicating the quartets to the king, a very different matter to a commission, for which he would have received an agreed sum. There is in fact no evidence that Frederick William ever set eyes on the three quartets which were completed, and they were eventually published posthumously by Artaria in January 1792, just weeks after the composers death.
The B flat Quartet, the second to be completed, was entered in Mozarts own thematic catalog in May 1790. Mozart had obviously returned to the quartets after the first performances of Così in January 1790, since the third, K. 590 in B flat followed a month later. With the notable exception of the great String Quintet in D, K. 593, the two quartets represent the only major works composed by Mozart during the whole of 1790, a year in which increasing financial worries resulted in the bleakest compositional year of his adult life. In the three completed quartets, Mozart concentrated on giving the cello-playing king a dominant role, often pushing the second violin and viola into the background to enable the cello to present thematic material or engage in dialogue with the first violin. The second quartet is in the customary four movements, an opening Allegro, followed by a relatively brief Larghetto, a Minuet of almost symphonic proportions and a finale marked Allegro assai. While the quartet (like its companions) fails to attain the elevated status of the six Haydn quartets, it is nevertheless a work of enigmatic beauty typical of Mozarts late works.
[allmusic.com]")
![György Ligeti - Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hl6zjQT_P_Y/mqdefault.jpg "György Ligeti - Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano [With score]
-Composer: György Sándor Ligeti (28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006)
-Performers: Marie-Luise Neunecker (horn), Saschko Gawriloff (violin), Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano (Hommage à Brahms), written in 1982
0:00 - I. Andante con tenerezza
6:17 - II. Vivacissimo molto ritmico
11:46 - III. Alla marcia
15:02 - IV. Lamento. Adagio
Ligetis Trio for violin, horn, and piano was completed in 1982 and premiered on August 7 of that year. Apart from some smaller works, including Hungarian Rock (chaconne) and Passacaglia ungherese for harpsichord, Ligeti had composed very little since completing Le Grand Macabre in 1977. The extreme eclecticism and physical scope of the opera seem to have cast the composer into a compositional crisis: what does one write when one has just finished writing everything? As many composers before him had done, Ligeti turned to music history and other musical cultures for an answer. Though Ligeti had never been averse to history, his more explicit turn in that direction is reflected in the chaconne and passacaglia forms in the 1978 harpsichord pieces and in the final scene of Le Grand Macabre, which itself is a passacaglia. In the late 1970s and early 80s, Ligeti gained inspiration from many sources, but most particularly from study of sub-Saharan African drumming and from research into fractal procedures in mathematics. In 1980 Ligeti also discovered the music of American expatriate composer Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997), whose multi-layered, complex studies for player piano closely paralleled Ligetis rhythmic interests at the time.
Ligeti also became interested in the music of Chopin and Schumann, particularly in their use of rubato and hemiola (a subverting of the predominant rhythmic pattern with a different division of the beat). The idea of a melodic line carrying its own distinct rhythmic burden became one of the main concerns of the Trio for violin, horn, and piano. Ligeti had another, even more specific influence in the horn trio of Brahms Op. 40 (1865). Ligetis musical language, having emerged from the vex of a writers block, is paradoxically purified and direct in its presentation of ambiguous rhythmic cross-relations and skewed harmonic clichés, such as several versions of the common horn fifths motif. In the first movement the violin and horn engage in a duet of two tempos, but the relationship between the two is relatively exact. The horn is the main melodic instrument, soaring in high, fast runs. In spite of the apparent complexity of the melodic language, the harmonic profile of the movement, and of the piece as a whole, is surprisingly diatonic. After the circumspect first movement, the motoric but dancing rhythms of the second and third movements show the results of Ligetis knowledge of the musics of Africa and the Caribbean, and of Nancarrow. The second movement is in an eighth note pulse that is further subdivided into groups of three plus two plus three. Ligeti manipulates the groupings of this pattern to produce seemingly different tempos among the three instruments, a technique he took even further in the Six Piano Études of the following year. The third movement begins with a stuttering rhythmic unison that gradually goes out of phase. A lyrical, legato section succeeds this material with differing phrase lengths among the instruments. The final movement is a lament based loosely on the sorrowful, descending funeral chants of several Eastern European cultures. Again, the varying phrase lengths are an important expressive aspect of the music.
The Trio for violin, horn, and piano led directly to the Études for piano, Book I of 1985 and to the Piano Concerto of 1985-1988. Portions of all three works share virtually the same concerns, and reuse very specific gestures and modes of expression, just as Ligeti reused those ticking clocks and harmonic clouds throughout his earlier music.
[allmusic.com]")
![Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No. 1 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/i6rU9AYzCws/mqdefault.jpg "Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No. 1 [With score]
Composer: Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (25 September 1906 9 August 1975)
Orchestra: Philadelphia Orchestra
Conductor: Eugene Ormandy
Cello: Mstislav Rostropovich [Also the dedicatee]
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 107, written in 1959
00:04 - I. Allegretto
06:36 - II. Moderato
17:14 - III. Cadenza
22:47 - IV. Allegro con moto
Shostakovich composed this music in July 1959 and Mstislav Rostropovich introduced it at Leningrad on October 4, with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting. It is lightly scored for double winds, piccolo, contrabassoon, a single horn (no other brass), timpani, celesta, and strings.
Although a prolific composer in other forms, Shostakovich wrote only six concertos. If those for keyboard seem prevailingly saucy and sun dappled, the four string concertos are somberly serious. Where theres any laughter at all, it sounds forced and hollow. To lighten it (or try) only reinforces the holy fool (yurodivy) analogy that haunts Solomon Volkovs Testimony, the posthumously alleged Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich.
When the First Cello Concerto was written with almost Mozartean speed, Stalin had been dead six years but not forgotten. In 1958 Boris Pasternak was forced to decline a Nobel Prize for his anti-Stalinist novel, Doctor Zhivago, and then was expelled from the Writers Union. Ian MacDonald, in The New Shostakovich, concluded that Pasternaks humiliation and subsequent persecution significantly influenced the First Cello Concerto. Volkov, on the other hand, gave no hint, nor did Elizabeth Wilson in A Life Remembered. Most of what she included, anent the concerto, was Rostropovichs celebration of himself, with this notable exception: In the First Cello Concerto [M.R. speaking], Shostakovich alludes to Stalins favorite song, Suliko. These allusions are undoubtedly not accidental, but...are camouflaged so craftily that even I didnt notice them to begin with. The first time Dmitry Dmitriyevich hummed this passage through to me [from the concluding rondo movement], he laughed and said, Slava, have you noticed?
Cello Concerto No. 1 is a major-key work in minor keys more often than not, recalling the mature Schuberts subtle modulations. It was his first large-scale undertaking after the Eleventh Symphony a year earlier and one of the works he quoted in his autobiographical Eighth String Quartet of 1960.
The published score has a preface, adapted as follows by the late Leonard Burkat:
This four-movement concerto is divided into two large parts: the opening movement, and then three more movements played without pause. Together, they form an integral whole with unified themes and images.
The main theme of the Allegretto first movement is a [four-note] motto that lends itself to dynamic development and reappears many times. The second theme is a rich musical image of Russian character, full of stoic grief and strength of will.
The second movement, Moderato, has a restrained introduction, after which the cello sings a song-like theme against violas in the background. The melodious second theme is highly expressive, leading to a dramatic climax.
The third Andantino Allegro movement is monolog for unaccompanied cello [i.e., a long cadenza] that recalls the first-movement motto and second movement themes while preparing for The Allegro con moto finale in rondo form [that] sums up the whole work, with a coda [based on] the principal subject of the first movement.... The end is both harsh and abrupt.
[allmusic.com]")
![Igor Stravinsky - Mass for chorus and double wind quintet [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iRi_MDy_ks0/mqdefault.jpg "Igor Stravinsky - Mass for chorus and double wind quintet [With score]
-Composer: Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971)
-Performers: Ensemble Musikfabrik
-Choir: RIAS Kammerchor
-Conductor: Daniel Reuss
Mass for chorus and double wind quintet, written in 1948
00:00 - I. Kyrie
02:34 - II. Gloria
06:17 - III. Credo
10:45 - IV. Sanctus
14:25 - V. Agnus Dei
After the composition of Oedipus rex (1926-1927) it was unusual for Stravinsky to write a non-commissioned work. Also, since 1926 Stravinsky had been a communicant of the Russian Orthodox Church. Thus, it seems peculiar that the composer would write a concerted Latin mass. The motivation stems from what seems to have been a negative reaction to some masses of Mozart, which Stravinsky found in a second-hand music store in Los Angeles in 1942. The choice of the traditional Latin text of the Catholic Mass was a practical one: the Russian Orthodox Church proscribed the use of instruments in services, and Stravinsky did not want to write an unaccompanied vocal work.
The ensemble consists of a chorus of children, altos, tenors, and basses, and a double wind quintet. The opening of the Kyrie contrasts the timbres of the wind instruments, and the voices enter by imitating the instrumental introduction. Mirroring the text, the chorus intones three complete statements of Kyrie eleison before the central, Christe eleison section. After the first statement of Christe eleison, the music takes on a clearly articulated pulse, and the children take center stage. The animated atmosphere continues through the return of the Kyrie text. Throughout the Gloria movement the vocal texture alternates between full chorus, duet, and solo. Near the middle, at Domine Deus, a pair of voices evokes a style reminiscent of thirteenth century parallel organum, one instance in the mass that illuminates Stravinskys familiarity with Medieval and Renaissance sacred music (although in Expositions and Developments Stravinsky claimed that he did not hear Machauts mass until after he had completed his own). For the Credo, Stravinsky gave a large nod to tradition by directing that the first phrase, Credo in unum deum, be sung by the celebrant alone. In fact, the composer specified the use of the plainchant melody listed as the authentic Credo intonation in the Liber Usualis. The harmonic organization of the movement bears a close relationship to the pitches of the plainchant intonation, and the opening and closing tonal areas (E and G) match the chants first two pitches. The central part of the movement features a more strident sonority dominated by a major seventh chord. Like most composers of masses before him, Stravinsky set the lengthy Credo text syllabically. The composer described the movement rather succinctly: The Credo is the longest movement. There is much to believe. The celebrant opens the Sanctus alone, and each of his florid statements of Sanctus is echoed by the chorus. In another nod to tradition, Stravinsky sets the Benedictus off from the rest of the movement, both by setting the text to contrasting music and by framing it with the same music for both appearances of the Hosanna in excelsis. The Agnus Dei is built around an instrumental ritornello, which opens the movement and separates the three lines of text.
[allmusic.com]")
