![Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue doiseaux (Book 1) [With score] @DamonJHK](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/G6Izpdkjrhk/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded December 2016 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Composer: Olivier Messiaen (10 December 1908 -- 27 April 1992)
Pianist: Yvonne Loriod (Messiaen's wife)
Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue d'oiseaux, written between 1956-1958, Book 1 (Premier livre)
00:15 - I. Le Chocard des Alpes (Alpine chough)
10:38 - II. Le Loriot (Eurasian golden oriole)
19:57 - III. Le Merle bleu (Blue rock thrush)
Catalogue d'oiseaux begins with "Le chocard des alpes" (the Alpine chough), not only depicting the bird, but also its mountainous surrounding, in several lengthy sections of colorfully dissonant chords. The call of the raven is juxtaposed with the chough, and long silences, a favorite tool of Messiaen, abound. "Le loriot" (the golden oriole) follows with a marked contrast to "Le chocard"; indeed, contrast characterizes the succession of movements throughout the work. The oriole's repetitive song takes on virtuosic extremes, homage (along with the title pun) to the work's premiere performer, Messiaen's second wife, Yvonne Loriod. The homage is one of love as Messiaen's harmonies recall harmonies from his earlier Cinq Rechants. The final piece of the book, "Le merle bleu" (the blue rock thrush), is a forceful and jubilant setting.
Original Audio: youtu.be/1qWhpSCHCxg
Composer: Olivier Messiaen (10 December 1908 -- 27 April 1992)
Pianist: Yvonne Loriod (Messiaen's wife)
Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue d'oiseaux, written between 1956-1958, Book 1 (Premier livre)
00:15 - I. Le Chocard des Alpes (Alpine chough)
10:38 - II. Le Loriot (Eurasian golden oriole)
19:57 - III. Le Merle bleu (Blue rock thrush)
Catalogue d'oiseaux begins with "Le chocard des alpes" (the Alpine chough), not only depicting the bird, but also its mountainous surrounding, in several lengthy sections of colorfully dissonant chords. The call of the raven is juxtaposed with the chough, and long silences, a favorite tool of Messiaen, abound. "Le loriot" (the golden oriole) follows with a marked contrast to "Le chocard"; indeed, contrast characterizes the succession of movements throughout the work. The oriole's repetitive song takes on virtuosic extremes, homage (along with the title pun) to the work's premiere performer, Messiaen's second wife, Yvonne Loriod. The homage is one of love as Messiaen's harmonies recall harmonies from his earlier Cinq Rechants. The final piece of the book, "Le merle bleu" (the blue rock thrush), is a forceful and jubilant setting.
Original Audio: youtu.be/1qWhpSCHCxg
![Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue doiseaux (Book 1) [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/G6Izpdkjrhk/mqdefault.jpg "Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue doiseaux (Book 1) [With score]
Composer: Olivier Messiaen (10 December 1908 27 April 1992)
Pianist: Yvonne Loriod (Messiaens wife)
Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue doiseaux, written between 1956-1958, Book 1 (Premier livre)
00:15 - I. Le Chocard des Alpes (Alpine chough)
10:38 - II. Le Loriot (Eurasian golden oriole)
19:57 - III. Le Merle bleu (Blue rock thrush)
Catalogue doiseaux begins with Le chocard des alpes (the Alpine chough), not only depicting the bird, but also its mountainous surrounding, in several lengthy sections of colorfully dissonant chords. The call of the raven is juxtaposed with the chough, and long silences, a favorite tool of Messiaen, abound. Le loriot (the golden oriole) follows with a marked contrast to Le chocard; indeed, contrast characterizes the succession of movements throughout the work. The orioles repetitive song takes on virtuosic extremes, homage (along with the title pun) to the works premiere performer, Messiaens second wife, Yvonne Loriod. The homage is one of love as Messiaens harmonies recall harmonies from his earlier Cinq Rechants. The final piece of the book, Le merle bleu (the blue rock thrush), is a forceful and jubilant setting.
Original Audio: https://youtu.be/1qWhpSCHCxg")
![Felix Mendelssohn - Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/G7uR9exPYo0/mqdefault.jpg "Felix Mendelssohn - Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1 [With score]
-Composer: Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847)
-Performers: Antonio Meneses (Cello), Gérard Wyss (Piano)
Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 45, written in 1838
00:03 – I. Allegro vivace
11:28 – II. Andante
17:48 – III. Allegro assai
Felix Mendelssohns Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 45 was composed in October, 1838, during the composers tenure in Leipzig. Although its popularity is overshadowed by that of its sibling, the Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2, Op. 58, it readily exemplifies the composers fluid, elegant handling of string instruments, and his ability to wring interesting material from standard forms.
Written in a comfortable tessitura for the cellist and fully utilizing the sonorities of the lower strings, the first movement introduces a relaxed atmosphere in which Mendelssohns natural melodic facility at once comes to the fore. The piano provides more than mere accompaniment, assuming the role of an equal to the cello, while never overshadowing that instruments natural cantabile voice. The movement follows a classical sonata form, never straying from expected harmonic developments; still, the musics effectiveness confirms that, in hands as capable as Mendelssohns, predictability and logical development present their own expressive possibilities.
The second movement, an Andante, opens with the piano. The movements primary theme consists of punctuated phrases that suggest a playful, whimsically enigmatic, spirit. This mood eventually yields, without fundamentally changing the character of the theme, to a feeling of drama, enabling the piano to display a certain measure of virtuosity.
Although the principal theme of the final movement recalls elements from the first movement, the mood here is of breezy lightness. In accompanying the melodic line, the piano engages in a pleasant jocosity while never threatening to overpower the cello.
[Allmusic.com]")
![Alban Berg - Lyrische Suite [Lyric suite] [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GKAVN5ZUdbw/mqdefault.jpg "Alban Berg - Lyrische Suite [Lyric suite] [With score]
Composer: Alban Maria Johannes Berg (9 February 1885 24 December 1935)
Performers: Juilliard String Quartet - Robert Mann (violin), Earl Carlyss (violin), Samuel Rhodes (viola), Claus Adam (cello)
Year of recording: 1970 (live)
Lyrische Suite [Lyric suite], written between 1925-1926
00:00 - I. Allegretto gioviale
03:09 - II. Andante amoroso
09:26 - III. Allegro misterioso – Trio estatico
12:43 - IV. Adagio appassionato
19:05 - V. Presto delirando – Tenebroso
24:00 - VI. Largo desolato
Bergs Lyric Suite abounds in secret messages. In purely musical terms, Berg here for the first time employs Schoenbergs 12-tone system, basing some of the third and fifth movements on rows using all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. (And in one row, Berg proudly told Schoenberg, he used not only all available notes, but all available intervals.) Also, the fourth movement carries a quotation from the Lyric Symphony of Zemlinsky, to whom the suite is dedicated. In more personal terms, the music documents the course of Bergs extramarital affair with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. Not only do the movement titles suggest an all-too-familiar sequence (from jovial through amorous and ecstatic to gloomy and sorrowful), but Berg incorporates his and Fuchs-Robettins initials into the melodies and ties the metronome markings to numerological associations with their names. The sixth movements quotation of Wagners Tristan und Isolde is a clear reference to illicit love.
The first movement, though freely atonal, lives up to its designation of Allegretto gioviale; its a short, perky piece. Things become quieter and more intimate with the sensuous Andante amoroso, although the mood is still sometimes rather capricious, despite an elegiac interlude at its center. Intensity builds with the Allegro misterioso, which opens with nocturnal insect music, liberally employing pizzicato and other effects. This is, effectively, the works scherzo movement, and at its center is a Trio estatico still keeping a fairly quick tempo, but now using mostly conventional bowing for longer-lined phrases. The scherzo music reappears, running in reverse to the movements end.
The fourth movement, Adagio appassionato, forms the quartets emotional center, with something tense and foreboding about much of the musics passion. A thrashing, dissonant climax gives way to a long passage of relative, but not quite settled, repose. The ensuing Presto delirando-Tenebroso alternates frantic music with quiet, dark, tense passages. The concluding Largo desolato maintains these moods at a much slower tempo, the music gradually dying away.
[www.allmusic.com]
Original Audio: https://youtu.be/uYIMRXkyJ10")
![Johannes Brahms - Double Concerto [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GMurNzAAcLA/mqdefault.jpg "Johannes Brahms - Double Concerto [With score]
-Composer: Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897)
-Soloists: Itzhak Perlman (violin), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello)
-Orchestra: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
-Conductor: Bernard Haitink
-Recorded in 1979
Double Concerto [Doppelkonzert] for violin, cello and orchestra, in a minor, op. 102, written in 1887
00:04 - I. Allegro
16:54 - II. Andante
24:41 - III. Vivace non troppo
Brahms wrote this work during the summer of 1887, and conducted the premiere himself on October 18 in Cologne, with Joseph Joachim and Robert Hausmann as, respectively, the violin and cello soloists. Brahms had just turned 20 when he met Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), already a celebrated violinist at 22 and destined to be acclaimed also as a composer, conductor, and educator. It was Joachim who commended his new friend to Robert and Clara Schumann, thereby assuring his celebrity. For 30 years the two were fast friends despite the distance usually separating their power bases: Joachims in Berlin, Brahms in Vienna finally. Jussuf, however, had a weakness obsessive jealousy of his wife Amalie, whom he accused of adultery in 1881 with his (and Brahms and Dvoráks) publisher, Fritz Simrock. Brahms disbelieved, and said so in a consolatory letter to Frau Joachim. During divorce hearings she produced this letter in court, and the judge agreed publicly with its contents.
As a result, Joachim cut off communications with Brahms for six years, although he continued to play the composers music. Finally, seeking to repair the damage, Brahms composed the Double Concerto as a peace offering; the effort was successful, although their camaraderie of former years was never fully restored. In addition to composing the Thun sonatas of 1886 for violin and cello, Brahms had been studying Baroque concerti grossi, so the sound of string instruments was in his ear. This concerto would be his last orchestral work.
From the Swiss vacation resort of Hofstetter on Lake Thun, he wrote to several persons about his strange flight of fancy...for fiddle and cello. But first he sent a postcard to Joachim, received on July 19, 1887, by which time Brahms had completed the work and was copying solo parts. When Joachim responded enthusiastically by return mail, Brahms asked him to arrange a play-through with Robert Hausmann, who had introduced the Op. 99 Cello Sonata a few months prior; Brahms himself would accompany on the piano. This took place at Clara Schumanns home in Baden-Baden in September (her diary notes that Brahms and Joachim have spoken to one another again after years of silence). Although neither the Cologne premiere nor the first Vienna performance was a success, the concerto finally entered the repertory, even if it never enjoyed the success of his violin concerto or the two for piano.
-The opening Allegro (A minor; 4/4) begins with the kernel of the main theme, then a cello recitative, and finally the kernel of a more lyrical second theme. Next, the violin has a turn, though the cello intrudes after five bars, following which the orchestra finally gets to play a 44-bar exposition of themes already previewed. Soloists perform the traditional second exposition, but there is not, in the development or recapitulation, a lot of unison playing. Throughout, the soloists are not stars with a supporting cast, but merely leading characters in a primarily orchestral drama. Unison passages appear in the A and A sections of the sweetly autumnal, folk-flavored, song-form Andante in D major (3/4 time). The solo instruments dovetail or briefly overlap in an F major middle section, until a magical enharmonic transition leads back to unison playing.
The lighthearted but not too lively rondo (vivace non troppo) has repeating A sections with a staccato-marcato rhythm that wrong-headed playing can accelerate and by so doing adulterate. The B section is broader, with chords on the cello that the violin echoes. The C section, in F major, is similarly broad but longer, before the A material returns one more time, with a jaunty tilt of the cap and a kind of jig all the more entertaining in light of Brahms short stature, bushy beard and, by then, Santa-like corpulence.
[allmusic.com]")
![Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume VI), op. 57 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GOsQiTlhn4c/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume VI), op. 57 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
6 Lyric Pieces Book VI, op. 57, written in 1890-93
00:00 - I. Svunne dager {Vanished Days}
07:25 - II. Gade
11:51 - III. Illsjon {Illusion}
16:21 - IV. Hemmelighet {Secret}
22:30 - V. Hun daser {She Dances}
25:22 - VI. Hjemve {Homesickness}
In the spring of 1893, Edvard Grieg was forced to cancel a scheduled tour of England due to ill health. Griegs publisher Max Abraham came to the rescue, booking Grieg in a small number of concerts held in the climate-friendly south of Europe. Grieg, his wife Nina, and Abraham finally settled in Menton, located in southern France along the opulent Côte dAzur, so that the composer could recover. A photograph of the party taken at this time shows Grieg with a baggy, oversize suit hanging off his perilously thin frame. Grieg was also soon to turn 50 and beginning to focus on thoughts of death, though this was not to come for another 14 years. The sixth book of Lyric Pieces, Op. 57, was written while Grieg was in Menton.
The first piece, Svunne dager (Vanished Days) is one of the longest and most fully developed of all Griegs Lyric Pieces. To the ear, Vanished Days seems to contain several sections developed along the lines of a sonata movement, but is actually cast in simple ternary form and is based around a motive of a rising and falling third. The second section consists of an exuberant dance melody. Gade, a tribute to Griegs friend and fellow composer Niels Gade, follows. In it a Norwegian folk melody is woven into a fabric of proper music-school counterpoint that would pass muster as a Conservatoire exercise. Illusjon (Illusion) is another somber minor key piece that works around a motive, this time stated in sixths. Grieg introduces a falling off figure that he attenuates by adding a bar of 9/8 into the 6/8 texture. He further extends the falling off idea in the following piece, Secret. This piece is structurally interesting in that it consists of three brief phrases that are repeated three times, yet the entry of each part is cleverly disguised from the others, so that you get the impression of hearing something through-composed. An analogous scenario would be Nina tells Grieg a secret; Grieg mulls it over in his mind; gets agitated about it; Nina tells Grieg another secret, etc.
Hun danser (She Dances) hearkens back to Anitras Dance from Peer Gynt, except that this is much livelier and rife with between-the-beat sixteenths. The closing movement, Hjemve (Homesickness) is, in certain ways, the most effective piece of the set. As in the first, third, and fourth pieces, Grieg starts out with a slow, somber tune, but here it is harmonized in a spare, four-part texture. In the second section, Grieg sets a folk melody with both hands in the treble registers of the piano, colored in a Lydian modality. This effect is similar to devices favored by so-called New Age pianists; in the context of Grieg, the passage is both highly attractive and surprisingly modern sounding.
[allmusic.com]")
![Edvard Grieg - 6 Poems, op. 25 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GXqhv4ZvWz8/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - 6 Poems, op. 25 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performers: Monica Groop (Voice), Love Derwinger (Piano)
6 Poems for Voice and Piano, op. 25, written in 1876
00:00 - I. Spillemænd {Minstrel}
02:14 - II. En Svane {The swan}
04:20 - III. Stambogsrim {Album verse}
05:56 - IV. Med en Vandlilje {With a waterlilly}
07:52 - V. Borte! {Departed!}
09:24 - VI. En Fuglevise {A birdsong}
In these settings of Henrik Ibsens only collection of poetry, Grieg demonstrates a fine intuitive grasp of the great playwrights themes and preoccupations. Primarily a lyricist, Grieg responded intuitively to Ibsens melancholy, somewhat hermetic, poems about love, death, nature, and the mysteries of destiny. Straightforward and expressive, Griegs melodies spring forth, supported by spontaneous, fresh harmonies, which often introduce surprising shadings of color. Ibsens short poems, particularly, the enigmatic Swan, find a convincing musical counterpart in Griegs imaginative rendition of the text. According to a story, Ibsens poem is inspired by a legend of the swan, who, following a lifetime of silence, finds his voice as death approaches, and finally reveals his hidden love. As the music moves from a dramatic climax, representing the swans declaration of love to a repetition of the opening statement, Grieg uses a new, distant tonality in an effort to describe the mysterious realm of death.
[allmusic.com]")
![Paul Hindemith - String Quartet No. 3, Op. 16 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/H0A_YQ342dk/mqdefault.jpg "Paul Hindemith - String Quartet No. 3, Op. 16 [With score]
-Composer: Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963)
-Performers: Danish String Quartet
String Quartet No.3 in C Major, op. 16, written in 1920
00:00 - I. Lebhaft und sehr energish
11:08 - II. Sehr langsam. Äußerst ruhige Viertel
24:09 - III. Finale. Äußerst lebhaft
*I couldnt find any informations about this quartet so if anyone knows well or finds something about this quartet, please let me know!")
![Edvard Grieg - Song Transcriptions (Volume II), op. 52 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HaNzQMKLtO8/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Song Transcriptions (Volume II), op. 52 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
Piano Transcriptions of Songs (Volume II), op. 52, written in 1890
00:00 - I. Modersorg {A Mothers Grief} (from Op. 15/4)
03:21 - II. Det første møre {The first meeting} (from Op. 21/1)
07:08 - III. Du fatter ej bølgernes evige gang {The Poets Heart} (from Op. 5/2)
09:12 - IV. Solveigs sang {Solveigs Song} (from incidental music: Peer Gynt)
13:31 - V. Kjærlighed {Love} (from Op. 15/2)
16:22 - VI. Gamle mor {The Old Mother} (from Op. 33/7)")
![Edvard Grieg - 25 Norwegian Folk Songs and Dances, op. 17 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HrmZMPhKj78/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - 25 Norwegian Folk Songs and Dances, op. 17 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
25 norske folkeviser og danser {25 Norwegian Folk Songs and Dances} for Piano, op. 17, written in 1869
00:00 - I. Springdans
00:53 - II. Ungersvennen {The swain}
01:47 - III. Springdans
02:31 - IV. Niels Tallefjoren
04:13 - V. Jølstring {Dance from Jolster}
05:45 - VI. Brurelåt {Wedding Tune}
07:34 - VII. Halling {Norwegian dance}
08:19 - VIII. Grisen {The pig}
09:08 - IX. Når mitt øye {Religious Song}
11:13 - X. Friervise {The Wooers Soong}
12:34 - XI. Kjempevise {Heroic Ballad}
13:39 - XII. Solfager og Ormekongen {Solfager and the Snake-King}
15:13 - XIII. Reiselaat {Wedding March}
16:11 - XIV. Jeg synger med sorgfullt hjerte {I sing with a sorrowful heart}
17:39 - XV. Den siste lørdagskvelden {The last Saturday evening}
19:23 - XVI. Eg veit ei lita jente {I know a little maiden}
21:12 - XVII. Kleggen og fluga {The Gadfly and the Fly}
22:39 - XVIII. Stabbelåten {Peasant Dance}
24:29 - XIX. Hølje Dale
25:23 - XX. Halling
26:01 - XXI. Saebygga {The woman from Setesdal}
27:06 - XXII. Kulokk {Cow-Call}
28:15 - XXIII. Såg du nokke til kjerringa mi {Peasant Song}
30:00 - XXIV. Brurelåt (Wedding Tune)
30:42 - XXV. Rabnabryllaup (The ravens wedding)
These delightful piano miniatures are based on L.M. Lindemans Aeldre og nyere norske fjeldmelodier (Old and New Norwegian Country Melodies). This selection displays the wonderful variety:
1. Spring Dance is a spirited, lilting melody in 3/4 with a skip on the last beat played over changing accompaniments: (1) a rhythmic drone, (2) contrasting accents (beats 1 and 3 in the first measure, 2 in the second), (3) chromatic descents, and (4) strong, thrilling bass chords for the last verse.
2. The Young Man Asked His Maiden states a question in a rhythmic minor which receives a sweet major-key reply interspersed with two more short, hesitant questions.
3. This Spring Dance has quite a different feeling from number 1. The spinning, cycling melody proceeds from quiet, sometimes sharp harmonies toward a wilder and abandoned double-speed coda.
5. The Dance from Jølster contains many coloristic effects, such as crystalline staccatos, offbeat accents, high treble woodwind-like parts, fast triplets over enthusiastic string-like open fifths, as well as extended endings, surprising sudden halts in the rhythm, and switches from duple to triple meter.
6. The Wedding Tune is a sweet, lyrical Allegretto pastorale which begins in C major and ends in A minor mixing happy and romantic (or, perhaps slight uncertainty about the future) emotions.
8. Oh, the Pig Had a Snout is a brief tune, in a combined comical and cantabile mood in G minor in triple meter.
9. When My Eyes is a touching spiritual song harmonized with beautiful modal harmonies.
10. Ole Once in Anger is a courting song with a jerky, drinking song rhythm to its wide-ranging minor-key melody that concludes in a deep, perhaps apologetic, baritone register.
12. Solfager and the Snake King, played in a moody Andante tempo, has a haunting minor-key melody with snaky chromatics that tells a tale even without words.
14. I Sing With a Sorrowful Heart is introduced by a distant minor third echoed three times in the high treble. The warm, middle register melody then begins with that same interval harmonized in rich but almost funeral chords played at a piano dynamic. The coda suddenly sings forth in a compelling cry that quickly calms into a resigned minor cadence.
17. In The Gadfly Said to the Fly, the first timid, thin-voiced (even insectile) statement is met with a full-voiced loud answer harmonized chromatically. The first voice inquires again twice, and the answers are more measured and simple.
21. The melody of The Woman from Setesdal is built on a simple two-measure rolling gesture that is treated as a very interesting imitative canon, the imitating voice sounding like a flute or birdsong in the higher registers.
23. Did You See Anything of My Wife? is a curious two-part song with a dotted, questioning, backbeat rhythm at the start, followed by quiet reply in longer tones and then a loud, aggressive version of that reply.
[allmusic.com]")
![Jean Sibelius - Pelléas et Mélisande Suite [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/I06-fQMxxeo/mqdefault.jpg "Jean Sibelius - Pelléas et Mélisande Suite [With score]
-Composer: Jean Sibelius, born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957)
-Orchestra: Danish National Symphony Orchestra
-Conductor: Leif Segerstam
Pelléas et Mélisande, suite for orchestra, Op. 46, written in 1905
00:00 - I. At the Castle Gate
03:59 - II. Melisande
08:51 - III. At the Seashore
11:47 - IV. Spring in the Park
13:59 - V. The three blind Sisters
16:32 - VI. Pastorale
18:40 - VII. Mélisande at the Spinning-Wheel
20:46 - VIII. Entracte
23:43 - IX. The Death of Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande, which had its premiere in 1893, was neither the first play by Belgian-born Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) nor the most admired during his lifetime. Neither was it the only one reworked as an opera. But it produced musical interpretations by four celebrated composers within 12 years. After seeing the only Paris performance at the time, Claude Debussy fashioned his own libretto and within two years had completed his only opera in short score. Yet he held off scoring it until 1902, the year of its debut in the Opéra-Comique at Paris. In 1898, his senior colleague Gabriel Fauré was commissioned to write incidental music for a production of the play by Mrs. Patrick Campbell in English for London audiences. He hastily created 17 cues and asked his pupil Charles Koechlin to orchestrate them. Later on, however, Fauré scored three of them himself as a concert suite and added the Sicilienne ten years later. Next in line, Richard Strauss gave Arnold Schoenberg a copy of the play in 1902, which gave rise to a tone poem of Wagnerian length, chromatic diction, and orchestral density. The Vienna premiere in 1905 caused a near riot, but a 1911 revival validated Schoenbergs labyrinthine take on the text. The fourth famous composer to take on Pelléas et Mélisande was Sibelius, this time for a 1905 Helsinki production in Swedish that ran 15 performances, most of which he conducted. Sibelius had written his first theater score in 1898 and continued doing so until the end of his composing career in 1926 with music for 11 stage productions, including Hugo von Hofmannsthals Salzburg version of Everyman and Shakespeares The Tempest. Pelléas, though, was the first from which he extracted an orchestral suite. The nine movements do not follow Maeterlincks sequence (plot is a moot word for so vaguely impressionistic a stage piece), but capture its timeless character next only to Debussy in his masterpiece.
1. Sibelius begins At the Castle Gate (where the sun rises over the sea), an extraordinarily sonorous tone picture considering that the small orchestra has only two French horns and no other brass.
2. A sad-eyed portrait follows of Mélisande, the dramas amnesiac heroine found wandering in the forest by Pelléas dour brother Golaud, who brings her to their father Arkels castle. Like the Swan of Tuonela a decade earlier, she is characterized by an English horn.
3. At the Seashore is only 22 bars long, yet wells up scarily near the close (this was usually omitted by conductors ranging from Sir Thomas Beecham to Herbert von Karajan until the end of the twentieth century, when a young generation of Finns redressed the imbalance).
4. By a Spring in the Park is a sunlit waltz for the protagonists before they fall fatefully in love.
5. In the theater, Sibelius wrote The Three Blind Sisters as a strophic song (Thus they go up in the tower, where one of them hears a candle guttering), but assigned the melody to an English horn in the suite.
6. In Pastoral, two clarinets playing in thirds echo Golauds words, What a marvelous day! What admirable weather!
7. Mélisande at her Spinning-Wheel, next up, is a far cry from Faurés pretty music -ominous, metrically irregular music for oboe, clarinets, and agitated strings.
8. A brief Entracte (it introduced the plays fourth act) is a dappled miniature despite the descent into A minor midway.
This serves to heighten the poignance of No. 9, Melisandes Death, a six-minute elegy that fades to nothingness at the end.
[allmusic.com]")
![Etude mécanique No. 3 [My composition]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IPO38DbJO64/mqdefault.jpg "Etude mécanique No. 3 [My composition]
Written in December 2017 - September 2019
+++Sorry for the bad sound quality
*** Please notice that I dont study composition, I compose only for fun.")
![Edvard Grieg - Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 8 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JQgafTyXNsg/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 8 [With score]
Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 4 September 1907)
Performers: Ivan Ženatý (violin), Antonín Kubálek (piano)
Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, op. 8, written in 1865
00:00 - I. Allegro con brio
09:57 - II. Allegretto quasi andantino
14:31 - III. Allegro molto vivace
It was almost certainly his friendship with Norwegian violin superstar Ole Bull that prompted Edvard Grieg to compose the first of his three violin sonatas, the Sonata for violin and piano No. 1 in F major, Op. 8 (1865). Grieg had met Bull many years earlier as a teenager with no formal musical training and the experience left a real mark on young Grieg. Indeed, it was because of Bulls encouragement that Griegs parents sent him off to conservatory. But perhaps more vital to the instigation of composing a violin sonata was a summer (1864) that Grieg spent at Ole Bulls home, playing through chamber music with the eccentric virtuoso.
For the casual music-lover, who in all likelihood knows Grieg only through the Peer Gynt music and the Piano Concerto, this early sonata will perhaps not sound completely foreign, but neither will it seem, at first hearing anyway, much like it was penned by the composer of those famous concert-hall works. For Grieg, chamber music was not a very comfortable area of toil, and throughout the Op. 8 sonata the voice of his model, Schumann, sings loud and true, nearly as loudly as does Griegs own. Still, Griegs gift for concocting lovely and compelling melodies, and for supporting them with flavorful and striking harmonies, make it a very worthwhile effort for all involved. Franz Liszt certainly admired the piece a great deal, having written to the composer in 1868, to tell him so. The sonata is in three movements: Allegro con brio, Allegretto quasi andantino più vivo Tempo I, and Allegro molto vivace.
[allmusic.com]
Original Audio: https://youtu.be/uBM574RFf9U")
