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Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905, is deeply rooted in Russian history. It was premiered in 1957 and commemorates the 1905 Russian Revolution, particularly the tragic events of Bloody Sunday. On January 22, 1905, thousands of peaceful demonstrators marched to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. […]
Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and music critic. He was born in 1810 and died in 1856 after a lengthy battle with illness and depression. His approaches to thematic contrast, emotional narrative expression, and architectural innovation set precedents that later Romantics, like Brahms and Mahler, would expand upon. My first exposure to Schumann’s orchestral work […]
Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto premiered on November 28, 1909, in New York City. The composer himself was the soloist, and Walter Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony Society. That must have been amazing! But even more amazing: just about 6 weeks later, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Rachmaninoff was again the soloist, but it was Gustav […]
What’s your favorite recording of…? What’s the best recording of…? These are difficult questions! I’ve been collecting classical (and other genres) recordings for decades. At the beginning my favorites were the recordings that first made that work special to me. Later on I’d have more than one favorite. Now? There are things to like about many different performances. It […]
I was lucky. I grew up with a baby grand piano inherited from my father’s mother (see picture). I learned to play Bach, Gershwin, Kabalevsky, and others on it when I was a pre-teen. Very few people have either the space or funds for an instrument like that now. Musicians face a similar problem for […]
I was in my mid-teens when I first became aware of the music of Jean Sibelius– Finlandia, the Second Symphony– the usual. I eventually started listening to his other symphonies, and I was hooked. The Fifth Symphony became my favorite. Many years later I came across a used LP featuring Sir Thomas Beecham’s recording of […]
You know the question– If you could only have one (whatever) on a desert island, what would it be. Desert Island Favorites can sometimes produce some interesting results. I was thinking a while back about what my desert island favorite tone poems might be. I came up with two: Rachmaninoff’s Isle Of the Dead, and Richard Strauss’ […]
Chiaroscuro (Italian for light-dark) in art is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modeling three-dimensional objects and figures. Similar […]
Entrancing! Ricardo Gallen is one of the most talented and respected classical guitarists in the world. Those of you who are fans will probably have already grabbed this album. It’s made up of works from the composer whose name is synonymous with Brazilian concert music, Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959); and Colloquial Preludes, by Sergio Assad (1952), commissioned by […]
Gabor Hollerung conducts the Budafok Dohnanyi Orchestra, The Budapest Academic Choral Society, and 4 marvelous soloists in the Carmina Burana cantata, composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff, and based on 24 poems from the medieval collection Carmina Burana. It’s sung in Latin, as well as Middle High German. Even if you are not […]
You may have overlooked this one- I did! But that’s the reason I do these “Discoveries”. It’s an LP length release from an orchestra you might not have heard of, and you probably have more than one recording of Stravinsky’s Petrushka already. So imagine my surprise at finding this performance absolutely delightful! The late 50s […]
Want some fresh Dvorak? Tomas Netopil and the Czech Philharmonic serve up a delightful array of some of Dvorak’s lesser-known works on this release from a few weeks ago. They may not be as well known as his Slavonic Dances and others, but that doesn’t mean they are in any way inferior. The Legends are […]