Uploaded November 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
- Composer: Willem (Frederik Willem Johannes) Pijper (8 September 1894 -- 18 March 1947)
- Performer: Hans Henkemans
- Year of recording: 1969 (?)
Sonatina No. 3, for piano, written in 1925.
00:00 - Molto adagio
00:26 - Un poco più mosso
01:36 - Doppio movimento
01:57 - Molto adagio
02:10 - Allegro non troppo
02:59 - Molto adagio
Pijper's sonatina no. 2 and no. 3 are the best examples of sonatinas written by a Dutch composer, the sonatina was a style of composition that became very popular among Dutch composers after Pijper wrote his famous 3 sonatinas. They feature Pijper's polymeters, polytonality and germ-cell techniques, compositional tools which he really could develop in these sonatinas. His sonatina no. 2 and no.3 are full of creative and inspired writing, he manages to say so much in their short length, and it is the reason that these pieces are still being played in Dutch conservatories these days.
- Composer: Willem (Frederik Willem Johannes) Pijper (8 September 1894 -- 18 March 1947)
- Performer: Hans Henkemans
- Year of recording: 1969 (?)
Sonatina No. 3, for piano, written in 1925.
00:00 - Molto adagio
00:26 - Un poco più mosso
01:36 - Doppio movimento
01:57 - Molto adagio
02:10 - Allegro non troppo
02:59 - Molto adagio
Pijper's sonatina no. 2 and no. 3 are the best examples of sonatinas written by a Dutch composer, the sonatina was a style of composition that became very popular among Dutch composers after Pijper wrote his famous 3 sonatinas. They feature Pijper's polymeters, polytonality and germ-cell techniques, compositional tools which he really could develop in these sonatinas. His sonatina no. 2 and no.3 are full of creative and inspired writing, he manages to say so much in their short length, and it is the reason that these pieces are still being played in Dutch conservatories these days.









![Eugène Ysaÿe - Poème Élégiaque, Op. 12
- Composer: Eugène Ysaÿe (16 July 1858 12 May 1931)
- Performers: Catherine Manoukian (violin), Akira Eguchi (piano)
- Year of recording: 1998
Poème Élégiaque for Violin and Orchestra (or Piano) in D minor, Op. 12, written in 1892-1893.
With the Poème Élégiaque, Op. 12, Ysaÿe moved away from the pieces he wrote merely for virtuosic purposes in his youth. The only legacy from the virtuoso practice of the past is the scordatura: the G string is here tuned to an F, giving a dark colour, the violin sounding sometimes like a viola. First written for violin and piano, Ysaÿe later orchestrated the piece.
The work is dedicated to Gabriel Fauré, from whom he had already commissioned a piano quintet (Op. 89, which the composer was to take a further ten years to finish). However, it was upon Ernest Chausson that the Poème Élégiaque was to have a great influence, serving as the example for the famous Poème which he would write three years later [uploaded on this channel]. Ysaÿe the interpreter participated here fully in the creative process. The similarities between the two works are striking: the general atmosphere, the Wagnerism, the shape, the sublime trills at the end … Ysaÿe helped in writing the violin part, in particular the cadenza of the work which Chausson eventually called ‘mon– ton poème’ (‘my–your poème’). Eugène Ysaÿe - Poème Élégiaque, Op. 12](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oumwaReTm9c/mqdefault.jpg)
![Ralph Vaughan Williams - Dona Nobis Pacem
- Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams (12 October 1872 26 August 1958)
- Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
- Conductor: Richard Hickox
- Soloists: Bryn Terfel (baritone), Yvonne Kenny (soprano), Philip Langridge (tenor)
- Year of recording: 1993
Dona Nobis Pacem (English: Grant us peace), a cantata written in 1936.
00:00 - I. Agnus Dei (Lento)
03:59 - II. Beat! beat! drums! (Allegro moderato)
07:55 - III. Reconciliation (Allegro moderato)
15:05 - IV. Dirge for Two Veterans (Moderato alla marcia)
26:42 - V. The Angel of Death has been abroad (Listesso tempo)
30:10 - VI. O man greatly beloved
Dona Nobis Pacem fills a very large canvas, its theme is anguished and impassioned on a cosmic scale. It is, if you like, propaganda, an occasional piece—if pleas for peace and tolerance and understanding can ever suitably be described as occasional. No question here but that the motivation was war, or the deepening sense of trouble which by the mid-1930s seemed set to explode into war. Vaughan Williams compiled a text chiefly from the Bible and Whitman (though the works motto, and the words of its first movement, belong to the Mass) and Dona Nobis Pacem was first performed in Huddersfield on 2 October 1936, with the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Albert Coates.
In the event, Vaughan Williamss warnings and entreaties went unheeded. But the humanitarian warmth and splendour of his vision remains; and, after all, if the day ever dawns when composers fail to speak out through the medium of their art against mankinds seemingly illimitable folly and wickedness, we shall be in a poor way, to put it mildly.
(I) The soprano solo leads the forces of apprehensive humanity (the chorus) in their quest for peace. At the end the drums of war are heard in the far distance.
(II) War erupts: nothing and nobody is inviolate. The Whitman setting is dominated by beating drums and blowing bugles, inbuilt in the music even when the text isnt directly referring to them. In an inspired transition (Vaughan Williams no less than Britten was a master of the seamless scene-change) the drums of war turn into the lapping, laving rhythms of ...
(III) Reconciliation. The enemy is dead—a man as divine as myself, as in Wilfred Owens Strange Meeting—and music of transcendent beauty and simplicity warms and cleanses the world.
(IV) Dirge for Two Veterans. A second drum-study. This time the drums are not of war but of its aftermath—death, and burial. Vaughan Williams based this movement on an earlier setting of the same words made before his mature style had crystallized. This works to his advantage since the music has a kind of rude solidity and strength which a more sophisticated musical language might have mellowed. It would be easy to sentimentalize Whitman here, and this Vaughan Williams resolutely avoids.
(V) The ostinato bass which plays out the veterans now plays in the Angel of Death. The snorting of Dans horses momentarily recalls the apocalyptic equine visions of Sancta Civitas[uploaded on this channel], but these are soon dispelled by one of the works most magical moments, the solo baritones reassuring:
(VI) O man, greatly beloved, fear not, peace be unto thee. Chorus basses intone the great text from Micah, almost every word a poem: Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. The word spreads among all instruments and tongues in prospect of a New Jerusalem: bells ring out in a riotous succession of keys and peals, and what better than C major for the Christmas climax:
On earth peace, goodwill toward men? As the sounds of the heavenly host move out of earshot the soprano solo rises from them with a final reiteration of her entreaty: hers alone is the voice that lingers at the end like a solitary ray of hope, a light in the night. Ralph Vaughan Williams - Dona Nobis Pacem](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ovBDDfB1s0w/mqdefault.jpg)