Tragic Overture Opus 81 by Johannes Brahms

The Tragic Overture (German: Tragische Ouvertüre), Op. 81, is a concert overture for orchestra written by Johannes Brahms during the summer of 1880. It premiered on December 26, 1880 in Vienna. Most performances last between twelve and fifteen minutes.

Brahms chose the title “Tragic” to emphasize the turbulent, tormented character of the piece, in essence a free-standing symphonic movement, in contrast to the mirthful ebullience of a companion piece he wrote the same year, the Academic Festival Overture. Despite its name, the Tragic Overture does not follow any specific dramatic program. Brahms was not very interested in musical storytelling and was more concerned with conveying and eliciting emotional impressions. He summed up the effective difference between the two overtures when he declared “one laughs while the other cries.” Brahms quotes some material from the last movement of the Second Symphony in this overture.

The Tragic Overture comprises three main sections, all in the key of D minor.

• Allegro ma non troppo
• Molto più moderato
• Tempo primo ma tranquillo.

Theorists have disagreed in analyzing the form of the piece: Jackson finds Webster’s multifarious description rather obscurist and prefers to label the work’s form as a “reversed sonata design” in which the second group is recapitulated before the first, with Beethoven‘s Coriolan Overture as a possible formal model.(Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_Overture)

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• At the Ravinia Festival, a Liszt of Subtle Works (online.wsj.com)

Fabulous Renditions: Beethoven “Für Elise” Valentina Lisitsa Seoul Philharmonic

Beethoven “Für Elise” Valentina Lisitsa Seoul Philharmonic

ValentinaLisitsa

Uploaded on Dec 7, 2008

Live in Seoul. Encore #4 Please come to London on June 19th of 2012 if you want to hear this piece live ! I am making my debut at Royal Albert Hall 🙂
Валентина Лисица

Valentina Lisitsa Live at the Royal Albert Hall
US iTunes – http://bit.ly/iTunesUSVal
US Amazon – http://bit.ly/ValRAH
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Für Elise

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

“Für Elise”, opening

 

First edition, 1867

Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor (WoO 59 and Bia 515) for solo piano, commonly known as “Für Elise” or “Fuer Elise” (German: [fyːʁ eːˈliːzə] ( listen), English: “For Elise”, sometimes written without the German umlaut mark as “Fur Elise”), is one of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s most popular compositions.^[1][2][3] It is usually classified as a bagatelle, but it is also sometimes referred to as an Albumblatt.

History

The score was not published until 1867, 40 years after the composer’s death in 1827. The discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, affirmed that the original autographed manuscript, now lost, was dated 27 April 1810.^[4]

The version of “Für Elise” heard today is an earlier version that was transcribed by Ludwig Nohl. There is a later version, with drastic changes to the accompaniment which was transcribed from a later manuscript by Barry Cooper. The most notable difference is in the first theme, the left-hand arpeggios are delayed by a 16th note beat. There are a few extra bars in the transitional section into the B section; and finally, the rising A minor arpeggio figure is moved later into the piece. The tempo marking Poco moto is believed to have been on the manuscript that Ludwig Nohl transcribed (now lost). The later version includes the marking Molto grazioso. It is believed that Beethoven intended to add the piece to a cycle of bagatelles.^{[citation needed]}

Therese Malfatti, widely believed to be the dedicatee of “Für Elise”

The pianist and musicologist Luca Chiantore (es) argued in his thesis and his 2010 book Beethoven al piano that Beethoven might not have been the person who gave the piece the form that we know today. Chiantore suggested that the original signed manuscript, upon which Ludwig Nohl claimed to base his transcription, may never have existed.^[5] On the other hand, the musicologist Barry Cooper stated, in a 1984 essay in The Musical Times, that one of two surviving sketches closely resembles the published version.^[6]

Identity of “Elise”

It is not certain who “Elise” was. Max Unger suggested that Ludwig Nohl may have transcribed the title incorrectly and the original work may have been named “Für Therese”,^[7] a reference to Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza (1792–1851). She was a friend and student of Beethoven’s to whom he supposedly proposed in 1810, though she turned him down to marry the Austrian nobleman and state official Wilhelm von Droßdik in 1816.^[8] Note that the piano sonata no.24, dedicated to Countess Thérèse von Brunswick, is also referred to sometimes as “für Therese”.

According to a 2010 study by Klaus Martin Kopitz (de), there is evidence that the piece was written for the German soprano singer Elisabeth Röckel (1793–1883), later the wife of Johann Nepomuk Hummel. “Elise”, as she was called by a parish priest (she called herself “Betty” too), had been a friend of Beethoven’s since 1808.^[9] In the meantime, the Austrian musicologist Michael Lorenz^[10] has shown that Rudolf Schachner, who in 1851 inherited Therese von Droßdik’s musical scores, was the son of Babette Bredl, born out of wedlock. Babette in 1865 let Nohl copy the autograph in her possession. Thus the autograph must have come to Babette Bredl from Therese von Droßdik’s estate and Kopitz’s hypothesis is refuted.

In 2012, the Canadian musicologist Rita Steblin suggested that Juliane Katharine Elisabet Barensfeld (de), who used “Elise” as a variant first name, might be the dedicatee. Born in Regensburg and treated for a while as child prodigy, she first travelled on concert tours with Beethoven’s friend Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, also from Regensburg, and then lived with him for some time in Vienna, where she received singing lessons from Antonio Salieri. Steblin argues that Beethoven dedicated this work to the 13-year-old Elise Barensfeld as a favour to Therese Malfatti who lived opposite Mälzel’s and Barensfeld’s residence and who might have given her piano lessons.^[11] Steblin admits that question marks remain for her hypothesis.^[12]

Music

	Bagatelle in A minor (“Für Elise”)   Menu       0:00
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The piece is in A minor and is set in 3/8 time. It begins with an A minor theme marked Poco moto (little movement), with the left hand playing arpeggios alternating between A minor and E major. It then moves into a brief section based around C major and G major, before returning to the original theme. It then enters a lighter section in the subdominant key of the relative major of A minor (C major), F major. It consists of a similar texture to the A section, where the right hand plays a melody over left hand arpeggios. It then enters a 32nd note C major figure before returning to the A section. The piece then moves to an agitated theme in D minor^{[citation needed]} with an A pedal point, as the right hand plays diminished chords. This section then concludes with an ascending A minor arpeggio before beginning a chromatic descent over two octaves, and then returning to the A section. The piece ends in its starting key of A minor with an authentic cadence. Despite being called a bagatelle, the piece is in rondo form. The structure is A–B–A–C–A. The first theme is not technically difficult and is often taught alone as it provides a good basic exercise for piano pedalling technique. However, much greater technique is required for the B section as well as the rapid rising A minor figure in the C section.

Kopitz presents the finding by the German organ scholar Johannes Quack that the letters that spell Elise can be decoded as the first three notes of the piece. Because an E♭ is called an Es in German and is pronounced as “S”, that makes E–(L)–(I)–S–E: E–(L)–(I)–E♭–E, which by enharmonic equivalents sounds the same as the written notes E–(L)–(I)–D♯–E.^[10][13]

FABULOUS MUSICAL RENDITIONS: Exploding Beethoven: Tempest Sonata Live from Paris Valentina Lisitsa

Exploding Beethoven: Tempest Sonata Live from Paris Valentina Lisitsa

ValentinaLisitsa

Published on Jun 1, 2014

Watch at your own risk – I warned you  🙂
Live from Paris, Salle Gaveau , May 21, 2014.
Sonata No. 17, Op 31 No.2 D Minor
********************************************************

The Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2, was composed in 1801/02 by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is usually referred to as “The Tempest” (or Der Sturm in his native German), but the sonata was not given this title by Beethoven, or indeed referred to as such during his lifetime. The name comes from a claim by his associate Anton Schindler that the sonata was inspired by the Shakespeare play. However, much of Schindler’s information is distrusted by classical music scholars. The British music scholar Donald Francis Tovey says in A Companion to Beethoven’s Pianoforte Sonatas:

With all the tragic power of its first movement the D minor Sonata is, like Prospero, almost as far beyond tragedy as it is beyond mere foul weather. It will do you no harm to think of Miranda at bars 31–38 of the slow movement… but people who want to identify Ariel and Caliban and the castaways, good and villainous, may as well confine their attention to the exploits of Scarlet Pimpernel when the Eroica or the C minor Symphony is being played (pg. 121).

Structure

The piece consists of three movements and takes approximately twenty-five minutes to perform:

1. Largo – Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Allegretto

Each of the movements is in sonata form, though the second lacks a substantial development section.

First movement

The first movement alternates brief moments of seeming peacefulness with extensive passages of turmoil, after some time expanding into a haunting “storm” in which the peacefulness is lost. This musical form is unusual among Beethoven sonatas to that date. Concerning the time period and style, it was thought of as an odd thing to write; a pianist’s skills were demonstrated in many ways, and showing changes in tone, technique and speed efficiently many times in one movement was one of them. The development begins with rolled, long chords, quickly ending to the tremolo theme of the exposition. There is a long recitative section at the beginning of this movement’s recapitulation, again ending with fast and suspenseful passages.

Second movement

The second movement in B-flat major is slower and more dignified. The rising melodic ideas in the opening six measures are reminiscent of the first movement’s recitative. Other ideas in this movement mirror the first, for instance, a figure in the eighth measure and parallel passages of the second movement are similar to a figure in the sixth measure of the first.

Third movement

The third movement is a sonata-rondo hybrid in the key of D minor. It is at first flowing with emotion and then reaching a climax, before moving into an extended development section which mainly focuses on the opening figure of the movement, reaching a climax at measures 169–173. The recapitulation, which is preceded by an extensive cadenza-like passage of sixteenth notes for the right hand, is followed by another transition and then another statement of the primary theme. The refrain undergoes phrase expansion to build tension for the climax of the movement at measure 381, a fortissimo falling chromatic scale.

 

historic musical bits: Claudio Arrau Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 30

Claudio Arrau Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 30

Farookhq17

Uploaded on Jan 17, 2012

Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109

I. Vivace ma non troppo – Adagio espressivo
II. Prestissimo
III. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung.
Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Claudio Arrau (1903-1991)

Historic musical bits: Mendelssohn: Symphony no. 3 “Scottish” – Klemperer & Philharmonia Orchestra

Mendelssohn: Symphony no. 3 “Scottish” – Klemperer & Philharmonia Orchestra

Kanal von shostakk

Published on Aug 7, 2012

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)

Symphony no. 3 in A minor op. 56 “Scottish”

I. Andante con moto – Allegro un poco agitato (0:00)
II. Scherzo (Vivace non troppo) (15:16)
III.Adagio (20:29)
IV. Allegro vivacissimo – Allegro maestoso assai (30:04)

*** Philharmonia Orchestra
*** Otto Klemperer

************************************************************

Felix Mendelssohn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

This article is about the German musician. For other people with the same surname, see Mendelssohn (surname) and Bartholdy.

 

Portrait of Mendelssohn by the English miniaturist James Warren Childe (1778–1862), 1839

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (German: [ˈjaːkɔp ˈluːtvɪç ˈfeːlɪks ˈmɛndl̩szoːn baʁˈtɔldi]; 3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn,^{[n 1]} was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.

A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family. Although initially he was brought up without religion, he was later baptised as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.

Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, where he also revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in his travels throughout Europe. He was particularly well received in Britain as a composer, conductor and soloist, and his ten visits there – during which many of his major works were premiered – form an important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes, however, set him apart from many of his more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatoire (now the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig), which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook.

Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet. His Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and anti-Semitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has now been recognized and re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era.

Life

Childhood

Mendelssohn aged 12 (1821) by Carl Joseph Begas

Felix Mendelssohn was born on 3 February 1809, in Hamburg, at the time an independent city-state,^{[n 2]} in the same house where, a year later, the dedicatee and first performer of his Violin Concerto, Ferdinand David, was to be born. Mendelssohn’s father was the banker Abraham Mendelssohn, the son of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. His mother was Lea Salomon, a member of the Itzig family and a sister of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy.^[1] Mendelssohn was the second of four children; his older sister Fanny also displayed exceptional and precocious musical talent.^[2]

The family moved to Berlin in 1811, leaving Hamburg in disguise fearing French revenge for the Mendelssohn bank‘s role in breaking Napoleon‘s Continental System blockade.^[3] Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn sought to give their children – Fanny, Felix, Paul and Rebecka – the best education possible. Fanny became a well-known pianist and amateur composer; originally Abraham had thought that she, rather than Felix, would be the more musical. However, at that time, it was not considered proper, by either Abraham or Felix, for a woman to have a career in music, so Fanny remained an active but non-professional musician. Abraham was also disinclined to allow Felix to follow a musical career until it became clear that he seriously intended to dedicate himself to it.^[4]

Mendelssohn grew up in an intellectual environment. Frequent visitors to the salon organised by his parents at the family’s home in Berlin included artists, musicians and scientists, amongst them Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, and the mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (whom Mendelssohn’s sister Rebecka would later marry).^[5] Sarah Rothenburg wrote of the household that “Europe came to their living room”.^[6]

Surname

Abraham Mendelssohn renounced the Jewish religion; he and his wife deliberately decided not to have Felix circumcised, in contravention of the Jewish tradition.^[7] Felix and his siblings were first brought up without religious education, and were baptised by a Reformed Church minister in 1816,^[8] at which time Felix was given the additional names Jakob Ludwig. Abraham and his wife Lea were themselves baptised in 1822, formally adopting the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy (which they had used since 1812) for themselves and their children.^[9] The name Bartholdy was added at the suggestion of Lea’s brother, Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, who had inherited a property of this name in Luisenstadt and adopted it as his own surname.^[10] In an 1829 letter to Felix, Abraham explained that adopting the Bartholdy name was meant to demonstrate a decisive break with the traditions of his father Moses: “There can no more be a Christian Mendelssohn than there can be a Jewish Confucius”.^[11] On embarking on his musical career, Felix did not entirely drop the name Mendelssohn as Abraham requested, but in deference to his father signed his letters and had his visiting cards printed using the form ‘Mendelssohn Bartholdy’.^[12] In 1829, his sister Fanny wrote to him of “Bartholdy […] this name that we all dislike”.^[13]

Career

Musical education

Like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart before him, Mendelssohn was regarded as a child prodigy. He began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was six, and at seven was tutored by Marie Bigot in Paris.^[14] After the family moved to Berlin, all four Mendelssohn children studied piano with Ludwig Berger, who was himself a former student of Muzio Clementi.^[15] From at least May 1819 Felix (and his sister Fanny) studied counterpoint and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin.^[16] This was an important influence on his future career. Zelter had almost certainly been recommended as a teacher by his aunt Sarah Levy, who had been a pupil of W. F. Bach and a patron of C. P. E. Bach. Sarah Levy was a talented keyboard player in her own right, often playing with Zelter’s orchestra at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, of which she and the Mendelssohn family were leading patrons. Sarah had formed an important collection of Bach family manuscripts which she bequeathed to the Singakademie; Zelter, whose tastes in music were conservative, was also an admirer of the Bach tradition.^[17] This undoubtedly played a significant part in forming Felix Mendelssohn’s musical tastes. His works show his study of Baroque and early classical music. His fugues and chorales especially reflect a tonal clarity and use of counterpoint reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach, by whose music he was deeply influenced.^[18]

Early maturity

First page of the manuscript of Mendelssohn’s Octet (1825) (now in the US Library of Congress)

Mendelssohn probably made his first public concert appearance at age 9, when he participated in a chamber music concert accompanying a horn duo.^[19] He was also a prolific composer from an early age. As an adolescent, his works were often performed at home with a private orchestra for the associates of his wealthy parents amongst the intellectual elite of Berlin.^[20] Between the ages of 12 and 14, Mendelssohn wrote 12 string symphonies for such concerts. These works were ignored for over a century, but are now recorded and occasionally played in concerts. He wrote his first published work, a piano quartet, by the time he was 13. It was probably Abraham Mendelssohn who procured the publication of Mendelssohn’s early piano quartet by the house of Schlesinger.^[21] In 1824, the 15-year-old wrote his first symphony for full orchestra (in C minor, Op. 11).

At age 16 Mendelssohn wrote his String Octet in E-flat major, the first work which showed the full power of his genius.^[22] This Octet and his Overture to Shakespeare‘s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he wrote a year later in 1826, are the best-known of his early works. (He later also wrote incidental music for the play, including the famous Wedding March, in 1842). The Overture is perhaps the earliest example of a concert overture – that is, a piece not written deliberately to accompany a staged performance, but to evoke a literary theme in performance on a concert platform; this was a genre which became a popular form in musical Romanticism.^[23]

In 1824 Mendelssohn studied under the composer and piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles, who however confessed in his diaries^[24] that he had little to teach him. Moscheles became a close colleague and lifelong friend. The year 1827 saw the premiere – and sole performance in his lifetime – of Mendelssohn’s opera, Die Hochzeit des Camacho. The failure of this production left him disinclined to venture into the genre again.^[25]

Besides music, Mendelssohn’s education included art, literature, languages, and philosophy. He had a particular interest in classical literature^[26] and translated Terence‘s Andria for his tutor Heyse in 1825; Heyse was impressed and had it published in 1826 as a work of “his pupil, F****” [i.e. “Felix” (asterisks as provided in original text)].^[27] This translation also qualified Mendelssohn to study at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where from 1826 to 1829 he attended lectures on aesthetics by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, on history by Eduard Gans and on geography by Carl Ritter.^[28]

Meeting Goethe and conducting Bach

In 1821 Zelter introduced Mendelssohn to his friend and correspondent, the elderly Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was greatly impressed by the child, leading to perhaps the earliest confirmed comparison with Mozart in the following conversation between Goethe and Zelter:

“Musical prodigies … are probably no longer so rare; but what this little man can do in extemporizing and playing at sight borders the miraculous, and I could not have believed it possible at so early an age.” “And yet you heard Mozart in his seventh year at Frankfurt?” said Zelter. “Yes”, answered Goethe, “… but what your pupil already accomplishes, bears the same relation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child.”^[29]

Mendelssohn was invited to meet Goethe on several later occasions, and set a number of Goethe’s poems to music. His other compositions inspired by Goethe include the overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, (Op. 27, 1828) and the cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night, Op. 60, 1832).

In 1829, with the backing of Zelter and the assistance of actor Eduard Devrient, Mendelssohn arranged and conducted a performance in Berlin of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Four years previously his grandmother, Bella Salomon, had given him a copy of the manuscript of this (by then all-but-forgotten) masterpiece.^[30] The orchestra and choir for the performance were provided by the Berlin Singakademie. The success of this performance – the first since Bach’s death in 1750 – was an important element in the revival of J. S. Bach’s music in Germany and, eventually, throughout Europe.^[31] It earned Mendelssohn widespread acclaim at the age of 20. It also led to one of the few references which Mendelssohn made to his origins: “To think that it took an actor and a Jew’s son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!”^[32][33]

Over the next few years Mendelssohn traveled widely, including making his first visit to England in 1829, and also visiting amongst other places Vienna, Florence, Milan, Rome and Naples, in all of which he met with local and visiting musicians and artists. These years proved the germination for some of his most famous works, including the Hebrides Overture and the Scottish and Italian symphonies.^[34]

Düsseldorf

On Zelter’s death in 1832, Mendelssohn had hopes of succeeding him as conductor of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. However, at a vote in January 1833 he was defeated for the post by the less distinguished Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen. This may have been because of Mendelssohn’s youth, and fear of possible innovations; it was also suspected by some to be attributable to his Jewish ancestry.^[35] Following this rebuff, Mendelssohn divided most of his professional time over the next few years between Britain and Düsseldorf, where he was appointed musical director (his first paid post as a musician) in 1833.

In the spring of that year Mendelssohn directed the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Düsseldorf, beginning with a performance of Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt prepared from the original score which he had found in London. This precipitated a Handel revival in Germany, similar to the reawakened interest in J. S. Bach following his performance of the St Matthew Passion.^[36] Mendelssohn worked with dramatist Karl Immermann to improve local theatre standards, and made his first appearance as an opera conductor in Immermann’s production of Mozart‘s Don Giovanni at the end of 1833, where he took umbrage at the audience’s protests about the cost of tickets.^[37] His frustration at his everyday duties in Düsseldorf, and the city’s provincialism, led him to resign his position at the end of 1834. He had offers from both Munich and Leipzig for important musical posts, and decided in 1835 to accept the latter.^[38]

Leipzig and Berlin

 Felix Mendelssohn’s study in Leipzig

In 1835 Mendelssohn was named conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.^[39] He chose this position although he had also been offered direction of the opera house in Munich and the editorship of the prestigious music journal, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung.^[40] Mendelssohn concentrated on developing the musical life of Leipzig, working with the orchestra, the opera house, the Choir of St. Thomas Church, and the city’s other choral and musical institutions. Mendelssohn’s concerts included, in addition to many of his own works, three series of “historical concerts” and a number of works by his contemporaries. He was deluged by offers of music from rising composers and would-be composers; amongst these was Richard Wagner, who submitted his early Symphony, which to Wagner’s disgust Mendelssohn lost or mislaid.^[41] Mendelssohn also revived interest in Franz Schubert. Robert Schumann discovered the manuscript of Schubert’s 9th Symphony and sent it to Mendelssohn, who promptly premiered it in Leipzig on 21 March 1839, more than a decade after Schubert’s death.^[42]

A landmark event during Mendelssohn’s Leipzig years was the premiere of his oratorio St. Paul, given at the Lower Rhenish Festival in Düsseldorf in 1836, shortly after the death of the composer’s father, which much affected him; Felix wrote that he would “never cease to endeavour to gain his approval […] although I can no longer enjoy it”.^[43] St. Paul seemed to many of Mendelssohn’s contemporaries to be his finest work, and sealed his European reputation.^[44]

When Friedrich Wilhelm IV came to the Prussian throne in 1840 with ambitions to develop Berlin as a cultural centre (including the establishment of a music school, and reform of music for the church), the obvious choice to head these reforms was Mendelssohn. He was however reluctant to undertake the task, especially in the light of his existing strong position in Leipzig.^[45] Mendelssohn did however spend some time in Berlin, writing some church music, and, at the King’s request, music for productions of Sophocles‘s Antigone (1841) and Oedipus at Colonus (1845), Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1843) and Racine‘s Athalie (1845). But the funds for the school never materialised, and various of the court’s promises to Mendelssohn regarding finances, title, and concert programming were broken. He was therefore not displeased to have the excuse to return to Leipzig.

In 1843 Mendelssohn founded a major music school – the Leipzig Conservatory, now the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” or (in its own English self-designation) the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre – where he persuaded Ignaz Moscheles and Robert Schumann to join him. Other prominent musicians, including string players Ferdinand David and Joseph Joachim and music theorist Moritz Hauptmann, also became staff members.^[46] After Mendelssohn’s death in 1847, his conservative tradition was carried on when Moscheles succeeded him as head of the Conservatory.

Mendelssohn in Britain

In 1829 Mendelssohn paid his first visit to Britain, where his former teacher Ignaz Moscheles, already settled in London, introduced him to influential musical circles. In the summer he visited Edinburgh, where he met among others the composer John Thomson, whom he later recommended to be Professor of Music at Edinburgh University.^[47] On his eighth visit in the summer of 1844, he conducted five of the Philharmonic concerts in London, and wrote:

[N]ever before was anything like this season – we never went to bed before half-past one, every hour of every day was filled with engagements three weeks beforehand, and I got through more music in two months than in all the rest of the year.^[48]

On subsequent visits he met Queen Victoria and her musical husband Prince Albert, who both greatly admired his music.^[49][50]

 

Felix Mendelssohn’s grave

In the course of ten visits to Britain during his life, totalling about 20 months, Mendelssohn won a strong following, sufficient for him to make a deep impression on British musical life.^[51] He composed and performed, and he edited for British publishers the first critical editions of oratorios of Handel and of the organ music of J.S. Bach. Scotland inspired two of his most famous works: the overture The Hebrides (also known as Fingal’s Cave); and the Scottish Symphony (Symphony No. 3).^[52]

Mendelssohn also worked closely with his protégé, the British composer and pianist William Sterndale Bennett (whom he had first heard in London in 1833 when Bennett was 17), both in London and Leipzig, where Bennett appeared throughout the 1836/1837 season.^[41] Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah was commissioned by and premiered at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival on 26 August 1846, composed to a German text translated into English by William Bartholomew, who authored and translated many of Mendelssohn’s works during his time in England.^[53] On his last visit to Britain in 1847, Mendelssohn was the soloist in Beethoven‘s Piano Concerto No. 4 and conducted his own Scottish Symphony with the Philharmonic Orchestra before the Queen and Prince Albert.^[54]

Death

Mendelssohn suffered from poor health in the final years of his life, probably aggravated by nervous problems and overwork. A final tour of England left him exhausted and ill from a hectic schedule. The death of his sister Fanny on 14 May 1847 caused him great distress. Less than six months later, on 4 November, Mendelssohn himself died in Leipzig after a series of strokes. He was 38. His grandfather Moses, his sister Fanny and both his parents had died from similar apoplexies.^[55] Felix’s funeral was held at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, and he was buried at the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The pallbearers included Moscheles, Schumann and Niels Gade.^[56] Mendelssohn had once described death, in a letter to a stranger, as a place “where it is to be hoped there is still music, but no more sorrow or partings”.^[57]

Personal life

Personality

 

View of Lucerne – watercolour by Mendelssohn, 1847

Although the image was cultivated, especially after his death in the detailed family memoirs by his nephew Sebastian Hensel,^[58] of a man always equable, happy and placid in temperament, this was misleading. The nickname “discontented Polish count” was given to Mendelssohn because of his aloofness, and he referred to the epithet in his letters.^[59] Mendelssohn was frequently given to alarming fits of temper which occasionally led to collapse. On one occasion in the 1830s, when his wishes had been crossed, “his excitement was increased so fearfully … that when the family was assembled … he began to talk incoherently, and in English, to the great terror of them all. The stern voice of his father at last checked the wild torrent of words; they took him to bed, and a profound sleep of twelve hours restored him to his normal state”.^[60] Such fits may be related to his early death.^[61]

Mendelssohn was a fine and enthusiastic artist in pencil and watercolour, a skill which he used throughout his life for his own amusement and that of his friends.^[62][63] His enormous correspondence shows that he could also be a witty writer in German and English – sometimes accompanied by humorous sketches and cartoons in the text.

Religion

On 21 March 1816, at the age of seven years, his parents prompted the baptism of Mendelssohn and his brother and sisters in a home ceremony by Johann Jakob Stegemann, minister of the Evangelical congregation of Berlin’s Jerusalem Church and New Church. Although Mendelssohn was a conforming (if not over-zealous) Christian as a member of the Reformed Church,^{[n 3]} he was both conscious and proud of his Jewish ancestry and notably of his connection with his grandfather Moses Mendelssohn. He was the prime mover in proposing to the publisher Heinrich Brockhaus a complete edition of Moses’s works, which continued with the support of his uncle Joseph Mendelssohn.^[64] Mendelssohn was notably reluctant, either in his letters or conversation, to comment on his innermost beliefs; his friend Devrient wrote that “[his] deep convictions were never uttered in intercourse with the world; only in rare and intimate moments did they ever appear, and then only in the slightest and most humorous allusions”.^[65] Thus for example in a letter to his sister Rebecka, Mendelssohn rebukes her complaint about an unpleasant relative: “What do you mean by saying you are not hostile to Jews? I hope this was a joke […] It is really sweet of you that you do not despise your family, isn’t it?”.^[66] Some modern scholars have devoted considerable energy to demonstrate either that Mendelssohn was deeply sympathetic to his ancestors’ Jewish beliefs, or that he was hostile to this and sincere in his Christian beliefs.^{[n 4]}

Mendelssohn and his contemporaries

Throughout his life Mendelssohn was wary of the more radical musical developments undertaken by some of his contemporaries. He was generally on friendly, if sometimes somewhat cool, terms with the likes of Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but in his letters expresses his frank disapproval of their works, for example writing of Liszt that his compositions were “inferior to his playing, and [..] only calculated for virtuosos”;^[67] of Berlioz’s overture Les francs-juges “the orchestration is such a frightful muddle […] that one ought to wash one’s hands after handling one of his scores”;^[68] and of Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le diable “I consider it ignoble”, calling its villain Bertram “a poor devil”.^[69] When his friend the composer Ferdinand Hiller suggested in conversation to Mendelssohn that he looked rather like Meyerbeer – they were actually distant cousins, both descendants of Rabbi Moses Isserlis – Mendelssohn was so upset that he immediately went to get a haircut to differentiate himself.^[70]

In particular, Mendelssohn seems to have regarded Paris and its music with the greatest of suspicion and an almost puritanical distaste. Attempts made during his visit there to interest him in Saint-Simonianism ended in embarrassing scenes.^[71]

It is significant that the only musician with whom he remained a close personal friend, Ignaz Moscheles, was of an older generation and equally conservative in outlook. Moscheles preserved this outlook at the Leipzig Conservatory until his own death in 1870.

Marriage and children

Mendelssohn’s wife Cécile (1846) by Eduard Magnus

Mendelssohn married Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud (10 October 1817 – 25 September 1853), the daughter of a French Reformed Church clergyman, on 28 March 1837.^[72] The couple had five children: Carl, Marie, Paul, Lilli and Felix. The second youngest child, Felix August, contracted measles in 1844 and was left with his health impaired; he died in 1851.^[73] The eldest, Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy (7 February 1838 – 23 February 1897), became a distinguished historian, and professor of history at Heidelberg and Freiburg universities, dying in 1897 in a psychiatric institution in Freiburg.^[74] Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1841–1880) was a noted chemist and pioneered the manufacture of aniline dye. Marie married Victor Benecke and lived in London. Lili married Adolph Wach, later Professor of Law at Leipzig University.^[75] The family papers inherited by Marie and Lili’s children form the basis of the extensive collection of Mendelssohn manuscripts, including the so-called ‘Green Books’ of his correspondence, now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.^[76]

Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy died less than six years after her husband, on 25 September 1853.^[77]

Jenny Lind

 Jenny Lind

In general Mendelssohn’s personal life seems to have been fairly conventional compared to those of his contemporaries Wagner, Berlioz, and Schumann – except for his relationship with Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, whom he met in October 1844, and with whom, it was rumoured, he became emotionally involved. Papers confirming this were alleged to exist, although their contents had not been made public.^{[78][n 5]} In 2013 George Biddlecombe confirmed in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association that “The Committee of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation possesses material indicating that Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Jenny Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her, and that these letters were destroyed on being discovered after her death.”^[80]

Mendelssohn met and worked with Lind many times, and started an opera, Lorelei, for her, based on the legend of the Lorelei Rhine maidens; the opera was unfinished at his death. He is said to have tailored the aria “Hear Ye Israel” in his oratorio Elijah to Lind’s voice,^[81] although she did not sing this part until after his death, at a concert in December 1848.^[82] In 1847 Mendelssohn attended a London performance of Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable – an opera which musically he despised – in order to hear Lind’s British debut, in the role of Alice. The music critic Henry Chorley, who was with him, wrote “I see as I write the smile with which Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind’s talent was unlimited, turned round and looked at me, as if a load of anxiety had been taken off his mind. His attachment to Mlle. Lind’s genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success”.^[83]

Upon Mendelssohn’s death Lind wrote, “[He was] the only person who brought fulfillment to my spirit, and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again”. In 1849 she established the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation, which makes an award to a British resident young composer every two years in Mendelssohn’s memory.^[78] The first winner of the scholarship was Arthur Sullivan, then aged 14, in 1856. In 1869 Lind erected a plaque in Mendelssohn’s memory at his birthplace in Hamburg.

Mendelssohn as musician

See also: List of compositions by Felix Mendelssohn and Category:Compositions by Felix Mendelssohn

Composer

Richard Taruskin points out that, although Mendelssohn produced works of extraordinary mastery at a very early age,

he never outgrew his precocious youthful style. […] He remained stylistically conservative […] feeling no need to attract attention with a display of ‘revolutionary’ novelty. Throughout his short career he remained comfortably faithful to the musical status quo – that is, the “classical” forms, as they were already thought of by his time. His version of romanticism, already evident in his earliest works, consisted in musical “pictorialism” of a fairly conventional, objective nature (though exquisitely wrought).^[84]

In this way he differed substantially from contemporaries such as Wagner and Berlioz, and even from Schumann and Chopin. The absence of real stylistic ‘development’ during Mendelssohn’s career makes it appropriate to consider his works by genre, rather than in order of composition.

Early works

The young Mendelssohn was greatly influenced in his childhood by the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, traces of whom can be seen in the 12 early string symphonies, which were mainly written for performance in the Mendelssohn household and not published or publicly performed until long after his death. He wrote these from 1821 to 1823, when he was between the ages of 12 and 14.

Mendelssohn’s first published works were his three piano quartets, (1822–1825; Op. 1 in C minor, Op. 2 in F minor and Op. 3 in B minor); but his capacities are especially revealed in a group of works of his early maturity:

• the String Octet (1825)
• the Overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826), which in its finished form also owes much to the influence of Adolf Bernhard Marx, at the time a close friend of Mendelssohn.
• the two early quartets: Op. 12 (1829) and Op. 13 (1827), which both show a remarkable grasp of the techniques and ideas of Beethoven’s last quartets that Mendelssohn had been closely studying^[85]

These four works show an intuitive grasp of form, harmony, counterpoint, colour, and compositional technique, which justify claims frequently made that Mendelssohn’s precocity exceeded even that of Mozart in its intellectual grasp.^[86]

Symphonies

Mendelssohn’s mature symphonies are numbered approximately in the order that they were published, rather than the order in which they were composed. The order of actual composition is: 1, 5, 4, 2, 3. The placement of No. 3 in this sequence is problematic because he worked on it for over a decade, starting sketches for it soon after beginning work on No. 5, but completing it after both Nos. 5 and 4.

The Symphony No. 1 in C minor for full-scale orchestra was written in 1824, when Mendelssohn was aged 15. This work is experimental, showing the influences of Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber.^[87] Mendelssohn conducted this symphony on his first visit to London in 1829, with the orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society. For the third movement he substituted an orchestration of the Scherzo from his Octet. In this form the piece was a success, and laid the foundations of his British reputation.^[88]

During 1829 and 1830 Mendelssohn wrote his Symphony No. 5, known as the Reformation. It celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Lutheran Church. Mendelssohn remained dissatisfied with the work and did not allow publication of the score.^[89]

The Scottish Symphony (Symphony No. 3 in A minor) was written and revised intermittently between 1829 (when Mendelssohn noted down the opening theme during a visit to Holyrood Palace)^[90] and 1842, when it was given its premiere in Leipzig, the last of his symphonies to be performed in public. This piece evokes Scotland’s atmosphere in the ethos of Romanticism, but does not employ any identified Scottish folk melodies.^[91]

Mendelssohn’s travels in Italy inspired him to write the Symphony No. 4 in A major, known as the Italian Symphony. Mendelssohn conducted the premiere in 1833, but did not allow the score to be published during his lifetime, as he continually sought to rewrite it.^[92]

Mendelssohn wrote the symphony-cantata Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise) in B-flat major, posthumously named Symphony No. 2, to mark the celebrations in Leipzig of the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press; the first performance took place on 25 June 1840.^[93]

Other orchestral music

Trumpet part, including main theme, of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s Op. 61

Mendelssohn wrote the concert Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave) in 1830, inspired by visits to Scotland around the end of the 1820s. He visited Fingal’s Cave, on the Hebridean isle of Staffa, as part of his Grand Tour of Europe, and was so impressed that he scribbled the opening theme of the overture on the spot, including it in a letter he wrote home the same evening.

Throughout his career he wrote a number of other concert overtures. Those most frequently played today include an overture to Ruy Blas, commissioned for a charity performance of Victor Hugo‘s drama, which Mendelssohn hated; Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt), inspired by a pair of poems by Goethe; and The Fair Melusine.

The incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Op. 61), including the well-known Wedding March, was written in 1843, seventeen years after the overture.

Opera

Mendelssohn wrote some Singspiels for family performance in his youth. His opera Die beiden Neffen (The Two Nephews) was rehearsed for him on his 15th birthday.^[94] 1829 saw Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde (Son and Stranger or Return of the Roamer), a comedy of mistaken identity written in honor of his parents’ silver anniversary and unpublished during his lifetime. In 1825 he wrote a more sophisticated work, Die Hochzeit des Camacho (Camacho’s Wedding), based on an episode in Don Quixote, for public consumption. It was produced in Berlin in 1827, but coolly received. Mendelssohn left the theatre before the conclusion of the first performance, and subsequent performances were cancelled.^[95]

Although he never abandoned the idea of composing a full opera, and considered many subjects – including that of the Nibelung saga later adapted by Wagner – he never wrote more than a few pages of sketches for any project. In Mendelssohn’s last years the opera manager Benjamin Lumley tried to contract him to write an opera from Shakespeare’s The Tempest on a libretto by Eugène Scribe, and even announced it as forthcoming in 1847, the year of Mendelssohn’s death.^[96] The libretto was eventually set by Fromental Halévy. At his death Mendelssohn left some sketches for an opera on the story of the Lorelei.

Concertos

Violin Concerto op.64, main theme of second movement

The Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844), written for Ferdinand David, has become one of the most popular of all of Mendelssohn’s compositions. David, who had worked closely with Mendelssohn during the piece’s preparation, gave the premiere of the concerto on his Guarneri violin.^[97]

Mendelssohn also wrote a lesser-known, early concerto for violin and strings in D minor (1822); four piano concertos (“no. 0” in A minor, 1822; 1 in G minor, Op. 25, 1831; 2 in D minor, Op. 40, 1837; and 3 in E minor, Op. posth., a fragment from 1844); two concertos for two pianos and orchestra, E major (MWV O5), which he wrote at 15, and A-flat major (MWV O6), at 17; and another double concerto, for violin and piano (1823). In addition, there are several single-movement works for soloist and orchestra. Those for piano are the Rondo Brillante, Op. 29, of 1834; the Capriccio Brillante, Op. 22, of 1832; and the Serenade and Allegro Giocoso Op. 43, of 1838. He also wrote two concertinos (Konzertstücke), Opp. 113 and 114, originally for clarinet, basset horn and piano; Op. 113 was orchestrated by the composer.^[98]

Chamber music

Mendelssohn’s mature output contains numerous chamber works, many of which display an emotional intensity lacking in some of his larger works. In particular, his String Quartet No. 6, the last of his string quartets and his last major work – written following the death of his sister Fanny – is both powerful and eloquent. Other mature works include two other string quintets; sonatas for the clarinet, cello, viola and violin; and two piano trios. For the Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Mendelssohn uncharacteristically took the advice of his fellow composer, Ferdinand Hiller, and rewrote the piano part in a more romantic, “Schumannesque” style, considerably heightening its effect.^[99]

Choral works

 Part of the overture to ‘Elijah’ arranged by Mendelssohn for piano duet (manuscript in the Library of Congress)

Mendelssohn’s two large biblical oratorios, St Paul in 1836 and Elijah in 1846, are greatly influenced by Bach. His unfinished oratorio, Christus, consists of a recitative, a chorus “There Shall a Star Come out of Jacob,” and a male trio; the chorus is sometimes performed.

Strikingly different is the more overtly romantic Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night), a setting for chorus and orchestra of a ballad by Goethe describing pagan rituals of the Druids in the Harz mountains in the early days of Christianity. This remarkable score has been seen by the scholar Heinz-Klaus Metzger as a “Jewish protest against the domination of Christianity”.^[100]

Mendelssohn also wrote many smaller-scale sacred works for unaccompanied choir and for choir with organ. Most are written in or translated into English, and remain highly popular. Amongst the most famous is Hear My Prayer, whose second half contains “O for the Wings of a Dove,” which became extremely popular as a separate item. The piece is written for full choir, organ, and a treble or soprano soloist who has many challenging and extended solo passages. As such, it is a particular favourite for choirboys in churches and cathedrals and has frequently been recorded as a treble solo. Mendelssohn’s biographer Todd comments “The very popularity of the anthem in England […] later exposed it to charges of superficiality from those contemptuous of Victorian mores“.^[101]

The hymn tune Mendelssohn – an adaptation by William Hayman Cummings of a melody from Mendelssohn’s cantata Festgesang (Festive Hymn) – is the standard tune for Charles Wesley‘s popular hymn Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. This extract from an originally secular 1840s composition, which Mendelssohn felt unsuited to sacred music,^[93] is ubiquitous at Christmas.

Songs

Mendelssohn wrote many songs, both for solo voice and for duet, with piano. Many of these are simple, or slightly modified, strophic settings. Some, including Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (On Wings of Song), became popular. Nine of Mendelssohn’s songs, including Auf Flügeln des Gesanges and Neue Liebe (New Love, set to a poem by Heinrich Heine) were transcribed for piano solo, in a virtuoso style, by Franz Liszt.

A number of songs written by Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny originally appeared under her brother’s name; this may have been partly due to the prejudice of the family, and partly to her own retiring nature.^[102]

Piano music

Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words (Lieder ohne Worte), eight cycles each containing six lyric pieces (two published posthumously), remain his most famous solo piano compositions. They became standard parlour recital items even during the composer’s lifetime,^[103] and their overwhelming popularity has itself caused many critics to underrate their musical value.^[104] Other composers who were inspired to produce similar pieces of their own, included Charles-Valentin Alkan (his five sets of Chants, each ending with a barcarole), Anton Rubinstein, Ignaz Moscheles, and Edvard Grieg.

Other notable piano pieces by Mendelssohn include his Variations sérieuses, Op. 54 (1841), the Rondo Capriccioso, the set of six Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35 (written between 1832 and 1837), and the Seven Characteristic Pieces, Op. 7 (1827).

Organ music

 Advertisement for the Organ Sonatas in the Musical World, 24 July 1845

Mendelssohn played the organ and composed for it from the age of 11 to his death. His primary organ works are the Three Preludes and Fugues, Op. 37 (1837), and the Six Sonatas, Op. 65 (1845), of which Eric Werner wrote “next to Bach’s works, Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonatas belong to the required repertory of all organists”.^[105]

Performer

Mendelssohn was renowned during his lifetime as a keyboard performer, both on the piano and on the organ. One of his obituarists noted:

First and chiefest we esteem his pianoforte-playing, with its amazing elasticity of touch, rapidity, and power; next his scientific and vigorous organ playing […] his triumphs on these instruments are fresh in public recollection.^[106]

In his concerts and recitals Mendelssohn performed both his own works and those of his predecessor German composers, notably works of Weber, Beethoven and (on the organ) J.S. Bach.^[107]

Both in private and public performances, Mendelssohn was also renowned for his improvisations. On one occasion in London, when asked by the soprano Maria Malibran after a recital to extemporise, he created a piece which included the melodies of all the songs she had sung. The music publisher Victor Novello who was present remarked ‘He has done some things that seem to me impossible, even after I have heard them done.’^[108] At another recital in 1837, where Mendelssohn played the piano for a singer, Robert Schumann ignored the soprano and wrote ‘Mendelssohn accompanied like a God’.^[109]

Conductor

Mendelssohn was a noted conductor, both of his own works and of other composers. At his London debut in 1829, he was noted for his innovatory use of a baton (then a great novelty).^[110] But his novelty also extended to taking great care over tempo, dynamics and the orchestral players themselves – both rebuking them when they were recalcitrant and praising them when they satisfied him.^[111] It was his success at conducting at the Lower Rhine music festival of 1836 that led to him taking his first paid professional position as director at Düsseldorf. Amongst those who appreciated Mendelssohn’s conducting was Hector Berlioz, who in 1843, invited to Leipzig, exchanged batons with Mendelssohn, writing “When the Great Spirit sends us to hunt in the land of souls, may our warriors hang our tomahawks side by side at the door of the council chamber”.^[112] At Leipzig, Mendelssohn led the Gewandhaus orchestra to great heights; although concentrating on the great composers of the past (already becoming canonised as the ‘classics’) he also included new music by Schumann, Berlioz, Gade and many others (including of course his own music).^[113] One critic who was not impressed however was Richard Wagner; he accused Mendelssohn of using tempos in his performances of Beethoven symphonies that were far too fast.^[114]

Editor

Mendelssohn’s interest in baroque music was not limited to the Bach St Matthew Passion which he had revived in 1829. He was concerned in preparing and editing such music, whether for performance or for publication, to be as close as possible to the original intentions of the composers, including wherever possible a close study of early editions and manuscripts. This could lead him into conflict with publishers; for instance, his edition of Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt for the London Handel Society (1845) evoked an often contentious correspondence, with Mendelssohn refusing for example to add dynamics where not given by Handel, or to add parts for trombones. Mendelssohn also edited a number of Bach’s works for organ, and apparently discussed with Robert Schumann the possibility of producing a complete Bach edition.^[115]

Teacher

Although Mendelssohn attributed great importance to musical education, and made a substantial commitment to the Conservatoire he founded in Leipzig, he did not greatly enjoy teaching and undertook only a very few private pupils; these he took only if he believed they had notable qualities or potential.^[116] Amongst such students were composer William Sterndale Bennett, the pianist Camille-Marie Stamaty, the violinist and composer Julius Eichberg, and Walther von Goethe (grandson of the poet).^[117] At the Leipzig Conservatoire Mendelssohn taught classes in composition and ensemble playing.^[118]

Reputation and legacy

The first century

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Mendelssohn monument in 1900 (removed in 1936)

In the immediate wake of Mendelssohn’s death, he was mourned both in Germany and England. However, the conservative strain in Mendelssohn, which set him apart from some of his more flamboyant contemporaries, bred a corollary condescension amongst some of them toward his music. Mendelssohn’s relations with Berlioz, Liszt and others had been uneasy and equivocal. Listeners who had raised questions about Mendelssohn’s talent included Heinrich Heine, who wrote in 1836 after hearing the oratorio St. Paul that his work was “characterized by a great, strict, very serious seriousness, a determined, almost importunate tendency to follow classical models, the finest, cleverest calculation, sharp intelligence and, finally, complete lack of naïveté. But is there in art any originality of genius without naïveté?”^[119][120]

Such criticism of Mendelssohn for his very ability – which could be characterised negatively as facility – was taken to further lengths by Richard Wagner. Mendelssohn’s success, his popularity and his Jewish origins irked Wagner sufficiently to damn Mendelssohn with faint praise, three years after his death, in an anti-Jewish pamphlet Das Judenthum in der Musik:

[Mendelssohn] has shown us that a Jew may have the amplest store of specific talents, may own the finest and most varied culture, the highest and tenderest sense of honour – yet without all these pre-eminences helping him, were it but one single time, to call forth in us that deep, that heart-searching effect which we await from art […] The washiness and the whimsicality of our present musical style has been […] pushed to its utmost pitch by Mendelssohn’s endeavour to speak out a vague, an almost nugatory Content as interestingly and spiritedly as possible.^[121]

This was the start of a movement to downgrade Mendelssohn’s status as a composer which lasted almost a century, the echoes of which still survive today in critiques of Mendelssohn’s supposed mediocrity.^{[n 6]}

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed consistent admiration for Mendelssohn’s music, in contrast to his general scorn for “Teutonic” Romanticism:

At any rate, the whole music of romanticism [e.g. Schumann and Wagner] … was second-rate music from the very start, and real musicians took little notice of it. Things were different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon master who, thanks to his easier, purer, happier soul, was quickly honored and just as quickly forgotten, as a lovely incident in German music.^[122]

Some readers, however, have interpreted Nietzsche’s characterization of Mendelssohn as a ‘lovely incident’ as condescending.^[123]

In the 20th century the Nazi regime and its Reichsmusikkammer cited Mendelssohn’s Jewish origin in banning performance and publication of his works, even asking Nazi-approved composers to rewrite incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Carl Orff obliged.)^[124] Under the Nazis, “Mendelssohn was presented as a dangerous ‘accident’ of music history, who played a decisive role in rendering German music in the 19th century ‘degenerate’.”^[125] The German Mendelssohn Scholarship for students at the Leipzig Conservatoire was discontinued in 1934 (and not revived until 1963). The monument dedicated to Mendelssohn erected in Leipzig in 1892 was removed by the Nazis in 1936. A replacement was erected in 2008.^[126] His grave however remained unmolested during the National Socialist years.^[127]

 The reconstructed Mendelssohn monument near Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church, dedicated in 2008^[128]

Mendelssohn’s reputation in England remained high throughout the 19th century. Prince Albert inscribed (in German), a libretto for the oratorio Elijah in 1847:

To the noble artist who, surrounded by the Baal-worship of false art, has been able, like a second Elijah, through genius and study, to remain true to the service of true art.^[129]

In 1851 an adulatory novel by the teenaged Sarah Sheppard was published, entitled Charles Auchester.^[130] The book features Mendelssohn as the “Chevalier Seraphael”, and remained in print for nearly 80 years. In 1854 Queen Victoria requested that the Crystal Palace include a statue of Mendelssohn when it was rebuilt.^{[n 7]} Mendelssohn’s Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream was played at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria, The Princess Royal, to Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia in 1858, and it remains popular at marriage ceremonies.^[131] Mendelssohn’s sacred choral music, particularly the smaller-scale works, remains popular in the choral tradition of the Church of England. However many critics, including Bernard Shaw, began to condemn Mendelssohn’s music for its association with Victorian cultural insularity; Shaw in particular complained of the composer’s “kid-glove gentility, his conventional sentimentality, and his despicable oratorio-mongering”.^[132] In the 1950s the scholar Wilfrid Mellers complained of Mendelssohn’s “spurious religiosity which reflected the element of unconscious humbug in our morality”.^[133]

A contrasting opinion came from the pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni, who considered Mendelssohn “a master of undisputed greatness” and “an heir of Mozart”.^[134] Busoni and other pianists such as Anton Rubinstein^[135] and Alkan^[136] all regularly included Mendelssohn’s piano works in their recitals.

Modern opinions

 German postage stamp issued on the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth

Charles Rosen in a chapter on Mendelssohn in his 1995 book The Romantic Generation both praises and criticizes the composer, calling him a “genius” with a “profound” comprehension of Beethoven and “the greatest child prodigy the history of Western music has ever known”. Although Rosen feels that in his later years, without losing his craft or genius, the composer “renounced … his daring”, he calls Mendelssohn’s relatively late Violin Concerto in E minor “the most successful synthesis of the Classical concerto tradition and the Romantic virtuoso form”. Rosen calls the Fugue in E minor (later included in Mendelssohn’s Op. 35 for piano) a “masterpiece”; but in the same paragraph calls Mendelssohn “the inventor of religious kitsch in music”.^[137]

Such opinions are evidence of how a more nuanced appreciation of Mendelssohn’s work has developed over the last 50 years, together with the publication of a number of modern biographies placing his achievements in context.^[138] Mercer-Taylor comments on the irony that “this broad-based reevaluation of Mendelssohn’s music is made possible, in part, by a general disintegration of the idea of a musical canon”, an idea which Mendelssohn “as a conductor, pianist and scholar” had done so much to establish.^[139]

A large portion of Mendelssohn’s 750 works still remained unpublished in the 1960s, but most of them have now been made available.^[140] A scholarly edition of Mendelssohn’s complete works and correspondence is in preparation but is expected to take many years to complete, and will be in excess of 150 volumes. This includes a modern and fully researched catalogue of his works, the Mendelssohn-Werkverzeichnis (MWV).^[141] All of Mendelssohn’s oeuvre – including the most popular works such as the E minor Violin Concerto and the Italian Symphony – has been explored more deeply, and prior concepts about the Victorian conventionality of the oratorio Elijah have been shed.^{[n 8]} The frequently intense and dramatic world of Mendelssohn’s chamber works has been more fully recognized. Virtually all of Mendelssohn’s published works are now available on CD, and his works are frequently heard in the concert hall and on broadcasts.^[142] An English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Mendelssohn was placed at 4 Hobart Place in Belgravia, London, in 2013.^[143] As the critic H. L. Mencken concluded, if Mendelssohn indeed missed true greatness, he missed it “by a hair”.^[144]

historic musical bits: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 / Bernstein · New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 / Bernstein · New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Canal de Josep489

Published on Oct 16, 2012 / 957,745 views

Gran presentación del director norteamericano Leonard Bernstein, conduciendo a la Orquesta Filarmónica de New York interpretando la Sinfonía No. 5 de Dmitri Shostakovich en la localidad japonesa de Bunka Kainan, Tokio en el año 1979.

Great presentation of american conductor Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic, playing the Symphony No. 5 of Dmitri Shostakovich at a 1979 live perfomance on Bunka Kainan, Tokyo, Japan.

http://www.kultur.com/Bernstein-In-Ja…

great compositions/performances: Antonín Dvořák – Piano Quintet No.2 – P. Leschenko, J. Jansen, B. Brovtsyn, J. Rachlin, M. Maisky

Antonín Dvořák – Piano Quintet No.2 – P. Leschenko, J. Jansen, B. Brovtsyn, J. Rachlin, M. Maisky

Mikhail Dubov

Published on Jan 1, 2015

Antonín Dvořák – Piano Quintet No.2 in A major, op.81

I. Allegro, ma non tanto (0:00)
II. Dumka: Andante con moto (14:17)
III. Scherzo (Furiant): molto vivace (29:16)
IV. Finale: Allegro (33:22)

Polina Leschenko (piano), Janine Jansen (violin), Boris Brovtsyn (violin), Julian Rachlin (viola), Mischa Maisky (violoncello)

Janine Jansen Chamber Music Festival, Utrecht
2007-12-28

historic musical bits: Pollini Chopin Mazurka op.56 No.3 Vienna 1986

Pollini Chopin Mazurka op.56 No.3 Live

StockhausenIsMyCat .

Uploaded on Jul 23, 2011

Chopin Mazurka in C minor op. 56 No.3;
Pollini live,
Vienna 1986

great compositions/performances: Julia Fischer – Tchaikovsky – Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op 42

Julia Fischer – Tchaikovsky – Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op 42

Cantus 5

Published on Feb 17, 2015

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op 42

Julia Fischer, violin
Yakov Kreizberg, piano

Hilversum, April 2006

Best compositions/performances: Dvořák Symphony No 9 “New World” Sergiu Celibidache (Bio.) , Münchner Philharmoniker, 1991

Dvořák Symphony No 9 “New World” Sergiu Celibidache, Münchner Philharmoniker, 1991

1Furtwangler

Published on Apr 12, 2013

Dvořák – Symohony No. 9 in E minor op. 95 “From The New World”
Münchner Philharmoniker conducted by Sergiu Celibidache
Recorded 1991
1. Adagio – Allegro molto
2. Largo
3. Scherzo. Molto vivace
4. Allegro con fuoco
****************************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 Sergiu Celibidache giving a conducting lesson at the Curtis Institute in 1984 to student David Bernard

Sergiu Celibidache (Romanian: [ˈserd͡ʒju t͡ʃelibiˈdake]; 11 July [O.S. 28 June] 1912 – 14 August 1996) was a Romanian conductor, composer, and teacher. Educated in his native Romania, and later in Paris and Berlin, Celibidache’s career in music spanned over five decades, including tenures as principal conductor for the Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and several European orchestras. Later in life, he taught at Mainz University in Germany and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Celibidache frequently refused to release his performances on commercial recordings during his lifetime claiming that a listener could not obtain a “transcendental experience” outside of the concert hall. Many of the recordings of his performances were released posthumously. Nonetheless, he earned international acclaim for celebrated interpretations of classical music repertoire and was known for a spirited performance style informed by his study and experiences in Zen Buddhism. His later career was marred by controversy and accusations of sexism and discrimination that came to light during a 12-year legal battle that dominated his tenure at the Munich Philharmonic.^[1]

Biography

Early life and education

Sergiu Celibidache was born on 28 June 1912^{[note 1]} in Roman, a small town in North East Romania, where his father was a government official.^[2][3] Early in his youth, he began studying piano and after traditional schooling in Romania, he was sent by his father to Bucharest and then to Paris where he studied music, philosophy and mathematics.^[2] His father had expected him to pursue a political career in Romania.^[2] However, Celibidache chose to enroll in the Hochschule für Musik (Academy of Music) in Berlin, Germany in 1936 where he studied composition under Heinz Thiessen and later conducting under Kurt Thomas, Walter Gmeindl and Fritz Stein.^[2][3] He continued with doctoral studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University (Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität) in Berlin where he studied philosophy with Nicolai Hartmann and Eduard Spranger and musicology with Arnold Schering and Georg Schünemann.^[2] He submitted a dissertation on Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez (c. 1450–1521) and his work during the Renaissance. He received his degree in 1944.^[2][3] During his studies in Berlin, Celibidache was introduced to Zen Buddhism through the influence of his teacher, Martin Steinke, and the tenets of Buddhism informed Celibidache’s worldview and work for the rest of his life.^[3]

Career

Sergiu Celibidache studied in Berlin and, from 1945 to 1952, he was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He later worked with radio orchestras in Stockholm, Stuttgart and Paris. He also worked in Britain in the late 1940s and 1950s, due partly to the promotional efforts of the pianist Eileen Joyce and her partner, an artists’ agent. Joyce said that Celibidache was the greatest conductor she had ever worked with – “he was the only one who got inside my soul”.^[4] In 1970 he was awarded Denmark‘s Sonning Award. From 1979 until his death he was music director of the Munich Philharmonic. He regularly taught at Mainz University in Germany and in 1984 taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Teaching was a major focus throughout his life and his courses were frequently open to all without fee. Among his notable students are Françoys Bernier, Jordi Mora, Peter Perret, Markand Thakar, Konrad von Abel,^[5] Nils-Göran Areskoug and Tom Zelle as well as The Danish Windquintet.^{[citation needed]}

He appeared in the film Botschafter der Musik where he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a complete performance of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s Egmont overture.

One controversial incident during his tenure with the Munich Philharmonic was a protracted legal battle to oust principal trombonist Abbie Conant that lasted 12 years, with Conant ultimately prevailing. Judge Angela Mack ruled that the City of Munich through the orchestra had broken the law concerning the equal treatment of employees.^[6] A detailed description of the case and the sexism Ms. Conant had to endure can be found in an internet article published by her husband, William Osbourne. Her audition and controversy is discussed in Malcolm Gladwell‘s book Blink.

Death

Celibidache died at the age of 84 on 14 August 1996 at La Neuville-sur-Essonne, in the Arrondissement Pithiviers, near Paris. He was buried in the Cimetière de Neuville sur Essone.

Personal life

In 1965, Celibidache married Ioana Procopie Dimitrescu. They had one son, Sergiu Ioan Celibidache (“Serge”), born 19 June 1968.^{[note 2]}

Legacy

Performance style and criticism

Celibidache’s approach to music-making is often described more by what he did not do instead of what he did. For example, much has been made of Celibidache’s “refusal” to make recordings even though almost all of his concert activity actually was recorded with many released posthumously by major labels such as EMI and Deutsche Grammophon with the consent of his family.^[7] Nevertheless, Celibidache paid little attention to making these recordings, which he viewed merely as by-products of his orchestral concerts.

Celibidache’s focus was instead on creating, during each concert, the optimal conditions for what he called a “transcendent experience”. Aspects of Zen Buddhism, such as ichi-go ichi-e, were strongly influential on him. He believed that transcendental experiences were extremely unlikely to ensue when listening to recorded music, so he eschewed them. As a result, some of his concerts did provide audiences with exceptional and sometimes life-altering experiences, including, for example, a 1984 concert in Carnegie Hall by the Orchestra of the Curtis Institute that New York Times critic John Rockwell touted as the best of his twenty-five years of concert-going.^[8]

Celibidache was well known for his demands for extensive rehearsal time with orchestras.^[9] An oft-mentioned feature of many of his concerts, captured in the live recordings of them, is a slower tempo than what is considered the norm, while, in fast passages, his tempos often exceeded expectations.^[10] In Celibidache’s own view, however, criticism of a recording’s tempo is irrelevant, as it is not (and cannot be) a critique of the performance but rather of a transcription of it, without the ambience of the moment – for him, a key factor in any musical performance. As Celibidache explained, the acoustic space in which one hears a concert directly affects the likelihood of the emergence of his sought-after transcendent experience. The acoustic space within which one hears a recording of one of his performances, on the other hand, has no impact on the performance, as it is impossible for the acoustic features of that space to stimulate musicians to play slower or faster.

That his recorded performances differ so widely from the majority of other recordings has led them to be seen by some as collectors’ items rather than mainstream releases, ‘one-offs’ rather than reference recordings.^[11]

Discography

Notable releases have been his Munich performances of Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Robert Schumann, Johann Sebastian Bach, Gabriel Fauré and a series of live performances with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

• 1969: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5 in E Minor, Op.64 (Decca Eclipse)
• 1985: Beethoven: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (Electrecord)
• 1988: Mendelssohn: Sinfonia N. 4 Italiana; Dvořák: Sinfonia N. 9 Dal Nuovo Mondo (Frequenz)
• n.d.: Beethoven: Concerto No.5 for Piano and Orchestra “Emperor” (Electrecord)
• 1990: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5; Nutcracker Suite (London)
• 1991: Mozart: Requiem; Vivaldi: Stabat Mater (Arkadia)
• 1991: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”; Roméo et Juliette (Arkadia)
• 1994: Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 (Andromeda)
• 1994: Brahms: Symphony Nos. 3 & 4 (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• 1994: Brahms: Symphony No. 2 & Haydn Variations, Op. 56a (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• 1994: Mozart: Grand Mass, K. 427 (Cetra)
• 1995: Beethoven: Symphony Nos. 2&4 (Nas)
• 1997: Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Beethoven: Symphony Nos. 4&5 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Debussy: La Mer; Iberia (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Haydn: Symphony Nos 103 & 104 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Mozart: Symphony No. 40; Haydn: “Oxford Symphony” (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye; Bolero, Le tombeau de Couperin; Alborada del Gracioso (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• 1997: S. Celibidache Conducts Beethoven & Brahms (Tahra)
• 1997: Schubert: Symphony No. 9 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Schumann: Symphonies 3 &4 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy; Overture/Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1997: The Young Celibidache, Vol. II (Tahra)
• 1997: Wagner: Orchestral Music (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1998: Bruckner 3 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1998: Bruckner 4 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1998: Bruckner 6 (EMI Classics)
• 1998: Bruckner 7; Te Deum (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1998: Bruckner 8 (EMI Classics)
• 1998: Bruckner 9 in Concert and Rehearsal (EMI Classics)
• 1998: Bruckner: Mass in F minor (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1998: Bruckner: Symphonies No. 3-9; Mass in F minor, Te Deum (EMI Classics)
• 1998: Shostakovich: S No. 7 (Magic Talent)
• 1999: Sergei Celebidache (Box) (No Noise)
• 1999: Beethoven: Symphonies No. 2 & 4 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1999: Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1999: Beethoven: Symphony No. 6; Leonore (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1999: Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, 4 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1999: Brahms: Symphony No. 1; Ein deutsches Requiem (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1999: Celibidache Conducts Beethoven 7 & 8 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1999: Tchaikovsky: Sinfonia No. 2 Op. 17 “Piccola Russia”; Dvořák: Concerto Op. 104 (Urania)
• 1999: Brahms: Deutsches Requiem (Audiophile Classics)
• 1999: Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Stravinsky: The Fairy’s Kiss Suite (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 1999: Prokofiev: Scythian Suite; Symphony No. 5 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 1999: Rimsky-Korsakov: Sheherazade; Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite (Version 1923) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 1999: Schumann: Symphony No. 2; Brahms: Haydn Variations (EMI Music Distribution)
• 1999: Strauss: Don Juan; Tod und Verklärung; Respighi: Pini di Roma (Rehearsals) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 1999: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2; Brahms: Symphony No. 4 (Arkadia)
• 2000: Brahms: Sinfonia N. 2; Mozart: Sinfonia No. 25 (Urania)
• 2000: Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3–5 (Box Set) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2000: Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2000: Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2000: Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 (Rehearsal) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2000: Bruckner: Symphony No. 5; Mozart: Symphony No. 35 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2000: Franck: Symphony in D; Hindemith: Mathis der Mahler (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2000: Richard Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel; Don Juan; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2000: Schubert: Symphony No. 8 “Unfinished”; Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite (Aura Classics)
• 2000: Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2001: Sergiu Celibidache (Classica d’Oro)
• 2001: Sergiu Celibidache et la Philharmonie de Berlin (Tahra)
• 2001: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad” (Classica d’Oro)
• 2002: Prokofiev: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 5; Violin Concerto No. 1 (Classica d’Oro)
• 2003: Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 “Italian”; Bizet: Symphony in C (Archipel)
• 2004: Bach: Mass in B minor (EMI Classics)
• 2004: Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3–5, 7–9 [Box Set] (Deutsche Grammophon)
• 2004: Celibidache Conducts Milhaud & Rousel (EMI Music Distribution)
• 2004: Celibidache Plays Mozart’s Requiem (EMI Classics)
• 2004: Fauré: Requiem; Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms [Live] (EMI Music Distribution)
• 2004: Overtures by Berlioz; Mendelssohn; Schubert; Smetana & Strauss (EMI Music Distribution)
• 2004: Prokofiev: Symphonies 1 & 5 (EMI Music Distribution)
• 2004: Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (EMI Music Distribution)
• 2004: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 ‘Leningrad’ (Pickwick)
• 2006: Celibidache: Der Taschengarten (Universal Classics & Jazz)
• 2006: Celibidache: The Complete EMI Edition [Limited Edition] [Box Set] (EMI Classics)
• 2006: Sergiu Celibidache: Lesen & Hören [CD+Book]
• 2007: Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”; Overture Leonre III (Archipel)
• 2007: Bruckner: Symphony No. 5
• 2007: Schumann: Symphony No. 4; Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
• 2008: Sergiu Celibedache Conducts Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester (Orfeo)
• n.d.: Anton Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8; Brahms: Haydn-Variationen Op. 56 (Exclusive)
• n.d.: Anton Bruckner: Symphony No.7, In E Major (As Disc)
• n.d.: Antonín Dvořák: Symphony N. 7; Johann Strauss Jr.: Die Fledermaus, Overture (Artists)
• n.d.: Bach: Mass in B minor (Exclusive)
• n.d.: Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 (Artists)
• n.d.: Beethoven: Symphony No. 7; Bach: Brandenburg Coincerto No. 3; Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin (Archipel)
• n.d.: Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique op. 14; Roméo et Juliette (Arkadia)
• n.d.: Brahms: German Requiem (Myto Records)
• n.d.: Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1–4 [Box Set] (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2–4; Variations on a theme from Haydn (Acum)
• n.d.: Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (Acum)
• n.d.: Brahms: Symphony No. 4 (Rehearsal) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Brahms: Symphony Nos. 2 & 3 (Legend)
• n.d.: Brahms: The Complete Symphonies; Haydn Variations; Alto Rhapsody (Living Stage)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphonies 4 & 9 (Exclusive)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphonies 7 & 8 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphonies 7–9 [Box Set] (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphony 7 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphony 9 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 (Exclusive)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 (Arkadia)
• n.d.: Bruckner: Symphony No8, WAB108; Schubert: Symphony in Bf No5, D485 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Celibidache Conducts Debussy & Ravel (Box Set) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Celibidache Conducts Debussy/Respighi/Milhaud (Originals)
• n.d.: Celibidache Conducts Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev (Box Set) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Celibidache Conducts Ravel & Stravinsky (Originals)
• n.d.: Celibidache Conducts Tchaikovsky (Grammofono 2000)
• n.d.: Celibidache Festival (Originals)
• n.d.: Celibidache [Box Set] (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Celibidache conducts Debussy (FED)
• n.d.: Celibidache, Vol. 1: Symphonies (EMI Classics)
• n.d.: Celibidache, Vol. 3: French & Russian Music (EMI Classics)
• n.d.: Celibidache, Vol. 4: Sacred Music & Opera (EMI Classics)
• n.d.: Conducts Stravinsky 13 (Arlecchino)
• n.d.: Debussy: Ibéria; Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole; Alborada del gracioso (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Debussy: La Mer (Rehearsal) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Debussy: La mer; La damoiselle élue; Milhaud: Saudades do Brazil (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• n.d.: Debussy: Nocturnes; La Mer (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Dvořák: Concerto in B Minor/Eight Slavonic Dances (Arkadia)
• n.d.: Dvořák: Concerto per Violino e Orchestra; Sinfonia No. 9 “Dal Nuovo Mondo” (Concerto)
• n.d.: Franck: Symphonie en Ré mineur; Wagner: Siegfried-Idyll; Tristan und Isolde vorspiel (Arkadia)
• n.d.: Great Conductors of the 20th century, Vol. 39: Sergiu Celibidache (EMI Music Distribution)
• n.d.: Haydn: Sinfonia No. 104 “London”; Claude Debussy: Jeux; Igor Stravinsky: Jeux de Cartes (Urania)
• n.d.: Haydn: Symphony No.103/Mozart: Symphony No.38 (Originals)
• n.d.: Legendary Performers Vol.2 (As Disc)
• n.d.: Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition/Richard Strauss: Don Juan (Artist)
• n.d.: Mozart: Grande Messa K 427; Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra K 365; Serenata “Haffner” K 250 (Acum)
• n.d.: Mozart: Grande Messa/Concerto KV.365/Serenata KV.250 (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• n.d.: Mozart: Messa di Requiem (Il Sabato)
• n.d.: Mozart: Requiem in Dm (Artists)
• n.d.: Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 40 & 41; Schubert: Symphony No. 5; Schumann: Symphony No. 2 (Living Stage)
• n.d.: Mozart:Symphony No.41/Schubert:Symphony No.5 (Memories)
• n.d.: Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Cherubini: Symphony in D Major; Bäck: Intrada for Orchestra (Originals)
• n.d.: Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet (Extracts) (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Prokofiev: Romeo E Giulietta/Berlioz: Romeo E Giulietta/Tchaikovsky: Romeo E Giulietta (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• n.d.: Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5; Prokofiev, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet (Acum)
• n.d.: RTSI Orchestra Conducted by Sergiu Celibidache: Schubert, Tchaikovsky
• n.d.: Ravel: Valse; Daphnis et Chloé; Suite No. 2; Le Tombeau de Couperin (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Richard Strauss: Tod und Verklärung; Vier letzte Lieder; Igor Stravinsky: L’oiseau de feu; Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé (Acum)
• n.d.: Rimsky-Korsakov: Schéhérazade (Originals)
• n.d.: Schubert/Schumann: Sinfonie (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• n.d.: Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8; Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1 “Primavera” & 2 (Acum)
• n.d.: Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9; Franck: Symphony in D minor; Mussorgsky-Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition (Urania)
• n.d.: Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54; Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder (Artists Live Recording)
• n.d.: Schumann: Symphony Nos. 1 & 2 (Cetra)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Alla Rai, Vol.5 (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts (Artists)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts (EMI Classics)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts (Enterprise)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts (Urania)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 (FED)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requeim, Op. 45 (IDIS)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts Mendelssohn, Haydn, Beethoven (IDIS)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache Conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker (Myto Records)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache alla RAI, Vol. 1: Johannes Brahms – Sinfonie 1–4, Variazione su un tema di Haydn (Fonit-Cetra Italia)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache conducts Blacher, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Cherubini, Schwarz-Schilling (Tahra)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache conducts Franck, Tchaikovsky (IDIS)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache conducts Schubert & Schumann (IDIS)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache, Vol.1 (Arlecchino)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache: From the collection of Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv (Music & Arts)
• n.d.: Sergiu Celibidache: Magier des Klangs (Documents)
• n.d.: Shostakovich: Symphony No.7 “Leningrad” (Grammofono 2000)
• n.d.: Shostakovich: Symphony No5, Op47; Symphony No9, Op70 (Arkadia)
• n.d.: Shostokovich: Symphonies 1 & 9; Barber: Adagio for Strings (EMI Classics)
• n.d.: Strauss: Don Juan; Tod und Verklärung; Respighi: Pini di Roma (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: Stravinsky: L’Oiseau de feu; Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé; La Valse; Pavane pour une infante défunte (Cetra)
• n.d.: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4; Nutcracker Suite (Angel Records / EMI Classics)
• n.d.: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6; Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610 – Ave Maris Stella (Archipel)
• n.d.: The Art of Sergiu Celibidache, Volume 1–7 (Arlecchino)
• n.d.: The Complete RIAS Recordings (Audite)
• n.d.: The Stuttgart Recordings, Vol. 3 (Deutsche Grammophon)
• n.d.: The Unpublished Celibidache in Naples (Originals)
• n.d.: Verdi: Requiem (EMI Classics)
• n.d.: Wagner: Tristan und Isolde WWV90; Siegfried Idyll in E WWV103 (Arkadia)

Honors and awards

• 1970: Léonie Sonning Music Prize (Denmark)
• 1992: Honorary Citizen of the City of Munich (Ehrenbürgerrecht von München)^[12]
• 1992: Grand Officers Cross with star, Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern, Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
• 1992: Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy
• 1992: Doctor honoris causa, Iași Academy of Art and University of Iași
• 1993: Member of the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art (Bayerische Maximiliansorden für Wissenschaft und Kunst) (Germany)
• Bavarian Order of Merit (Bayerischer Verdienstorden)
• Honorary Citizen (Cetățean de Onoare) of Iași, Romania

References

Notes

 

 

• The 28 June 1912 date of birth was based on the old style Julian calendar then officially used in Romania. According to the modern Gregorian calendar that is currently used in the West, Celibidache’s birthdate would be 11 July 1912.

In several sources, his son’s name is rendered as Serge Ioan Celebidachi.

 

great compositions/performances: Tchaikovsky Overture 1812 for Piano| Valentina Lisitsa

Tchaikovsky Overture 1812 for Piano | Valentina Lisitsa

ValentinaLisitsa

Published on Oct 7, 2015

Piano arrangement by Yessipov. Freely available on IMSLP .
Warning: one of the most technically challenging pieces ever 🙂

Recorded September 5-9 2015 at the wonderful http://www.schaubuehne.com/

Performers – me at the piano,
Benjamin at bells, Chimemaster and cannons :-))))

My heartfelt thanks to ©MDR Klassik Symphony Orchestra http://www.mdr.de/konzerte/artikel111…
and personally to Franziska Simon for letting me use their great piano.
And to Echoschall Verleih http://www.echoschall.de/ for best-sounding microphones.
Full credit for the bells to Ohio-based http://www.chimemaster.com/

great compositions/performances: Glazunov “Symphony No 7” USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony OrchestraGennadi Rozhdestvensky

Glazunov “Symphony No 7” Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

Ulrich Dünnebach

Published on Jun 21, 2015

Symphony No 7 in F Major op 77
by Alexander Glazunov
1.  Allegro moderato
2.  Andante
3.  Scherzo-Allegro giocoso
4.  Finale: Allegro maestoso

USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, conductor

• Music

  • “Symphony No. 7 in F Major, Op. 77 – “Pastorale”: II. Andante” by USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra (Google Play • iTunes)

make music part of your llife series: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Romeo and Juliet – Fantasy Overture

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Romeo and Juliet – Fantasy Overture

Fledermaus1990

Uploaded on Sep 3, 2011

Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Unlike Tchaikovsky’s other major compositions, Romeo and Juliet does not have an opus number.

In 1880, ten years after his first reworking of the piece, Tchaikovsky rewrote the ending and gave the piece the sub-title “Overture-Fantasia”. It was completed by September 10, 1880, but did not receive its premiere until May 1, 1886, in Tbilisi, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), under Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov.

Conductor: Julian Kovatchev
Orchestra: Sofia Festival Orchestra

Love Theme at 14:55

Paint: Il Bacio, Francesco Heyez (1859).

make music part of your life: Aram Khachaturian – Lezginka from Gayane

Aram Khachaturian – Lezginka from Gayane

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

Khachaturian in 1971

Aram Il’yich Khachaturian (/ˈærəm ˌkɑːtʃəˈtʊəriən/;^[1] Russian: Арам Ильич Хачатурян; Armenian: Արամ Խաչատրյան, Aram Xačatryan;^[A] Armenian pronunciation: [ɑˈɾɑm χɑt͡ʃʰɑt(ə)ɾˈjɑn]; 6 June 1903 – 1 May 1978) was a Soviet Armenian composer and conductor. He is considered one of the leading Soviet composers.^[2][3]

Born and raised in Tbilisi, the multicultural capital of Georgia, Khachaturian moved to Moscow in 1921 following the Sovietization of the Caucasus. Without prior music training, he enrolled in the Gnessin Musical Institute, subsequently studying at the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Nikolai Myaskovsky, among others. His first major work, the Piano Concerto (1936), popularized his name within and outside the Soviet Union. It was followed by the Violin Concerto (1940) and the Cello Concerto (1946). His other significant compositions include the Masquerade Suite (1941), the Anthem of the Armenian SSR (1944), three symphonies (1935, 1943, 1947), and around 25 film scores. Khachaturian is best known for his ballet music—Gayane (1942) and Spartacus (1954). His most popular piece, the “Sabre Dance” from Gayane, has been used extensively in popular culture and has been covered by a number of musicians worldwide.^[4] His style is “characterized by colorful harmonies, captivating rhythms, virtuosity, improvisations, and sensuous melodies.”^[5]

During most of his career, Khachaturian was approved by the Soviet government and held several high posts in the Union of Soviet Composers from the late 1930s, although he joined the Communist Party only in 1943. Along with Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, he was officially denounced as a “formalist” and his music dubbed “anti-people” in 1948, but was restored later that year. After 1950 he taught at the Gnessin Institute and the Moscow Conservatory, and turned to conducting. He traveled to Europe, Latin America and the United States with concerts of his own works. In 1957 Khachaturian became the Secretary of Union of Soviet Composers, a position he held until his death.

Khachaturian was the most renowned Armenian composer of the 20th century^[6] and the author of the first Armenian ballet music, symphony, concerto, and film score.^[B] While following the established musical traditions of Russia, he broadly used Armenian and to lesser extent, Caucasian, Eastern & Central European, and Middle Eastern peoples’ folk music in his works. He is highly regarded in Armenia, where he is considered a “national treasure”.^[7]

Denunciation and restoration (1948)

 

Khachaturian in 1964

In mid-December 1947, the Department for Agitation and Propaganda (better known as Agitprop) submitted to Andrei Zhdanov, the secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, a document on the “shortcomings” in the development of Soviet music. On 10–13 January 1948, a conference was held at the Kremlin in the presence of seventy musicians, composers, conductors and others who were confronted by Zhdanov:^[35]

We will consider that if these comrades [Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Khachaturian, Kabalevsky and Shebalin] namely who are the principal and leading figures of the formalist direction in music. And that direction is fundamentally incorrect.

Thus, Khachaturian and other leading composers were denounced by the Communist Party as followers of the alleged formalism^[10] (i.e. “[a type of] music that was considered too advanced or difficult for the masses to enjoy”)^[3] and their music was dubbed “anti-people”.^[36] It was the Symphonic Poem (1947), later titled the Third Symphony, that officially earned Khachaturian the wrath of the Party.^[35][37] Ironically, he wrote the work as a tribute to the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution.^[38] He stated: “I wanted to write the kind of composition in which the public would feel my unwritten program without an announcement. I wanted this work to express the Soviet people’s joy and pride in their great and mighty country.”^[39]

Musicologist Blair Johnston believes that his “music contained few, if any, of the objectionable traits found in the music of some of his more adventuresome colleagues. In retrospect, it was most likely Khachaturian’s administrative role in the Union [of Soviet Composers], perceived by the government as a bastion of politically incorrect music, and not his music as such, which earned him a place on the black list of 1948.”^[40] In March 1948,^[20] Khachaturian “made a very full and humble apology for his artistic “errors” following the Zhdanov decree; his musical style, however, underwent no changes.”^[40] He was sent to Armenia as a “punishment”,^[10] and continued to be censured.^[20] By December 1948,^[20] he was “restored to favor later that year when he was praised for his film biography of Lenin”—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (ru).^[16]

Historic Musical Bits: Isaac Stern – Edouard Lalo – Symphonie Espagnole, Op.21

Édouard Lalo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Isaac Stern – Edouard Lalo – Symphonie Espagnole, Op.21

Published on Oct 24, 2012

Eugene Ormandy conducting Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Scherzando
III. Intermezzo
IV. Andante
V. Rondo

• Music

  • “Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21: III. Intermezzo. Allegretto Non Troppo” by Isaac Stern;The Philadelphia Orchestra;Eugene Ormandy (Google Play • iTunes • AmazonMP3)

*****************************************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Symphonie espagnole in D minor, Op. 21, is a work for violin and orchestra by Édouard Lalo.

History

The work was written in 1874 for violinist Pablo de Sarasate, and premiered in Paris in February 1875.

Although called a “Spanish Symphony” (see also Sinfonia concertante), it is considered a violin concerto by musicians today. The piece has Spanish motifs throughout, and launched a period when Spanish-themed music came into vogue. (Georges Bizet‘s opera Carmen premiered a month after the Symphonie espagnole.)

The Symphonie espagnole is one of Lalo’s two most often played works, the other being his Cello Concerto. His “official” Violin Concerto in F, and his Symphony in G minor, written thirteen years later, are neither performed nor recorded as often.^{[citation needed]}

Structure

1. Allegro non troppo
2. Scherzando: Allegro molto
3. Intermezzo: Allegro non troppo
4. Andante
5. Rondo: Allegro

A typical performance runs just over one-half hour. One of the shorter recordings, conductor Eugene Ormandy’s 1967 recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra, featuring violinist Isaac Stern, runs 32 minutes and 43 seconds.^[1]

Influence on Tchaikovsky

The Symphonie espagnole had some influence on the genesis of Tchaikovsky‘s Violin Concerto in D major. In March 1878, Tchaikovsky was staying at Nadezhda von Meck‘s estate at Clarens, Switzerland, while recovering from the breakdown of his disastrous marriage and his subsequent suicide attempt. His favourite pupil (and possibly his lover), the violinist Iosif Kotek, shortly arrived from Berlin with a lot of new music for violin. These included the Symphonie espagnole, which he and Tchaikovsky played through to great delight. This gave Tchaikovsky the idea of writing a violin concerto, and he immediately set aside his current work on a piano sonata and started on the concerto on 17 March.^[2] With Kotek’s technical help, the concerto was finished by 11 April.

References

 

• “Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole”. CD Universe. Retrieved 26 January 2014.
• Detroit Symphony Orchestra

 

 

P. I. Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 1 “Winter Daydreams” (Fedoseyev)

 

Joseph Aknin

Uploaded on Jan 27, 2012

P. I. Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 1 “Winter Daydreams” in G minor, Op. 13 (1866)
П. И. Чайковский – Симфония № 1 «Зимние грёзы» соль минор, соч. 13:
1. «Грёзы зимнею дорогой (Dreams of a Winter Journey)». Allegro tranquillo g-moll
2. «Угрюмый край, туманный край» (Land of Desolation, Land of Mists). Adagio cantabile ma non tanto
3. Скерцо (Scherzo). Allegro scherzando giocoso
4. Финал (Finale). Andante lugubre. Allegro maestoso

Moskow Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conductor – Vladimir Fedoseyev
Recorded live at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, 1991

“Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben” Lucia Popp , Vienna Haydn Orchestra, István Kertész (1972 Decca Music Group Limited) , A Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart: Zaide, K.344 / Act 1 – “Ruhe sanft, mein holdes

Leben”

#LuciaPopp

Published on Jan 13, 2015

“Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben”

Lucia Popp
Vienna Haydn Orchestra
István Kertész

℗ 1972 Decca Music Group Limited

Author: Schachtner, Johann Andreas
Composer: Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Cziffra plays Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies No.1-9

EvaYoungPianist

Published on Jul 1, 2012

Franz Liszt:
Hungarian Rhapsodies:
No.1 in E Major 00:00
No.2 in C-sharp Minor 12:49
No.3 in B-flat Major 23:04
No.4 in E-flat Major 27:28
No.5 in E Minor 32:52
No.6 in D-flat Major 41:56
No.7 in D Minor 48:58
No.8 in F-sharp Minor 54:09
No.9 in E-flat Major 1:00:54

Georges Cziffra: piano

 

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best classical music , Gustav Holst St.Paul’s Suite for String Orchestra Op.29, No.2, great compositions/performances

 

Published on Oct 18, 2014

Cross Chamber Orchestra(CCO)
Conductor : Jin Daniel Suh

Gustav Holst St.Paul’s Suite for String Orchestra Op.29, No.2

TheSiegfriedkim

 

Published on Oct 18, 2014

Cross Chamber Orchestra(CCO)
Conductor : Jin Daniel Suh

---

St Paul’s Suite

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

St Paul’s Suite (Op. 29, No. 2), originally titled Suite in C,^[1] is a composition for string orchestra by the English composer Gustav Holst. It was written in 1912, but due to revisions was not published until 1922. It is named after the St Paul’s Girls’ School in the United Kingdom, where Holst was Director of Music from 1905 to 1934. It was written in gratitude to the school which had built a soundproof studio for him. This suite is the most famous of the many pieces he wrote for students at St. Paul’s.^[2]

The suite has four movements:

• I. Jig: Vivace (alternating between 6/8 and 9/8 time)
• II. Ostinato: Presto
• III. Intermezzo: Andante con moto (labeled “Dance” in the manuscript)
• IV. Finale (The Dargason): Allegro (arranged from the “Fantasia on the Dargason” from his Second Suite in F for Military Band)

Notes

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b010p530/Holst_In_the_Bleak_Midwinter/

Gustav Holst article” – Humanities Web database
 

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The image of Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky Das Foto von russisch Dirigent Gennadi Nikolajewitsch Roschdestwenski (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alexandr Glazunov – Symphony No. 7 in F major, Op. 77

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart

Published on Sep 8, 2012

USSR Ministry Of Culture Symphony Orchestra – Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

Symphony No. 7 (Glazunov)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Symphony No. 7 in F major, Pastoral, Op. 77, was completed by Alexander Glazunov on July 4, 1902.^[1] It is dedicated to Mitrofan Belyayev.^[2]

It is in four movements:

• Allegro moderato
• Andante
• Scherzo: Allegro giocoso
• Finale: Allegro maestoso

 

 

 

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No.8 ‘Lützow’ in C major, (KV 246)

vivaldi369

 Álbum: Mozart: The Great Piano Concertos Complete
Interpretes del álbum: Derek Han, Pieter-Jan Belder, Paul Freeman & Philharmonia Orchestra
Compositor: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Año: 2006
Genero: Clásico Alemán
Movimientos: Allegro Aperto-Andante-Rondeau: Tempo di Minuetto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Piano Concerto No. 8 in C major, K. 246, or Lützow Concert was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in April of 1776 in the same year as the Haffner Serenade (KV 250).^[1] Countess Antonia Lützow, 25 or 26 years old, second wife of Johann Nepomuk Gottfried Graf Lützow, the Commander of the Hohensalzburg Fortress, was a fine pianist.^[2] The solo work is not highly demanding, but it requires agility. Mozart played the concerto in Mannheim and Munich on October 4, 1777, and used it for teaching. Three different cadenzas have survived varying difficulty, accommodating the abilities of performers from student level to professional: one for two pianos.^[3][4][5]

It is also suggested Mozart wrote a violin concerto for Countess Lützow’s brother Johann Rudolph Czernin (and almost the same age as Mozart).^[6] Johann Rudolf, his sister and their father were in connection with Mozart at that time, while Mozart was in service of their uncle Count Hieronymus von Colloredo.^[7]

The concerto is scored for two oboes, two horns, solo piano and string section.

The concerto, very convenient for beginning performers,^[8] is in three movements:

• I. Allegro aperto.^[9]
• II. Andante
• III. Rondeau. Tempo di Menuetto.^[10]

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Antonín Dvořák – Bagatelles, Op. 47

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart

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Alberni String Quartet.
Howard Davis, violin.
Peter Pople, violin.
Roger Best, violin/viola.
David Smith, cello.
Virginia Black, harmonium

Antonín Dvořák – Bagatelles, Op. 47

1. Allegretto scherzando 2’59
2. Tempo di menuetto, grazioso 3’16
3. Allegretto scherzando 2’56
4. Canon, andante con moto 3’27
5. Poco allegro 4’21

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Kempff plays Schubert Piano Sonata in A Major D664

EvaYoungPianist

Franz Schubert:
Piano Sonata in A Major D664:
Mvt.I: Allegro moderato 00:00
Mvt.II: Andante 10:41
Mvt.III: Allegro 15:14

Wilhelm Kempff: piano

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Schubert: 6 Moments Musical Op.94 (D780)

tnsnamesoralong

Uploaded on Aug 9, 2011

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Moments Musical / Moments Musicaux / Zenei pillanatok
Op.94 (D780) for Piano

00:00 Moment Musical No.1 in C major – Moderato
03:20 Moment Musical No.2 in A-flat major – Andantino
08:58 Moment Musical No.3 in F minor – Allegro moderato
10:36 Moment Musical No.4 in C-sharp minor – Moderato
14:43 Moment Musical No.5 in F minor – Allegro vivace
16:56 Moment Musical No.6 in A-flat major – Allegretto

***Wilhelm Backhaus(1884-1969)
Piano

(listen to more classical music at euzicasa: here  here here and many more)

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Alexander Glazunov Symphony No 5 in B flat major, Op 55, great compositions/performances

Alexander Glazunov Symphony No 5 in B flat major, Op 55

jvdesuit1

Published on Apr 29, 2014/2,628 views

(Gennadij Rozhdestvenskij, conductor – USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony

The symphony has four movements:
– 00:00 Moderato maestoso – Allegro
– 12:19 Scherzo. Moderato
– 17:46 Andante
– 28:29 Allegro maestoso
*********************************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 55 (also known as The Heroic^{[citation needed]}), was written by Alexander Glazunov from April to October 1895. Although in this symphony Glazunov returned to his conventional four-movement layout (his Fourth Symphony had only three) he frequently utilizes thematic transformation. Glazunov described it as “silenced sounds” and “an architectural poem”.^{[citation needed]}

Instrumentation

The symphony calls for a romantic orchestra of the following instruments:

3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 3 clarinets in B flat (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, bells, harp, strings

Overview

Glazunov dedicated his Fifth to Sergei Taneyev, a Russian composer, pianist, and teacher, and it was first performed at the Second Russian Concert at the Hall of the Nobility in St. Petersburg on 17 November 1896; the premiere was conducted by the composer himself. A Leipzig newspaper called the symphony “very profound” and “sparkling” and reported that the scherzo had to be reprised on opening night to the delight of the audience.

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Indian Summer in Levoca

Ludmila Peterková gives a ravishing performance of this magnificent work with the Zemlinsky Quartet at the 2011 Levocske babie leto (Indian Summer in Levoca) Festival.
The four movments are:
I. Allegro
II. Fantasia: Adagio ma non troppo

III. Menuetto: Capriccio presto

IV. Rondo : Allegro Giocoso.

Symphony No. 3 in D Major, Op. 29 “Polish” – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, #Great compositions/performancers

Symphony No. 3 in D Major, Op. 29 “Polish” – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

SymphonyOfAThousand

Published on Feb 24, 2013

Symphony No. 3 in D Major, Op. 29 “Polish” – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Composed in 1875

I. Introduzione e Allegro. Moderato assai (Tempo di marcia funebre) – Allegro brillante (0:00)
II. Alla tedesca. Allegro moderato e semplice – Trio (15:30)
III. Andante. Andante elegiaco (26:38)
IV. Scherzo. Allegro vivo – Trio (36:32)
V. Finale. Allegro con fuoco (Tempo di polacca) (42:42)

****Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
****Yuri Temirkanov, cond.
****Recorded in 1991
****http://www.amazon.com/6-Symphonies-P-…

****Image: Tchaikovsky (published 1906), courtesy Wikipedia

~

The purpose of this video is to foster a love of music. No copyright infringement of this recording is intended, but if you hold the copyright and would like this video removed, please let me know, and I will do so.

Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major (“Harp”), Op. 74, great compositions/performances

Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major (“Harp”), Op. 74

Market Square Concerts

Market Square Concerts presents Philharmonia Quartett Berlin
Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at Market Square Presbyterian Church
Harrisburg, PA

Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major (“Harp”), Op. 74 Poco adagio – Allegro Adagio ma non troppo Presto Allegretto con Variazioni

Philharmonia Quartett Berlin DANIEL STABRAWA, violin CHRISTIAN STADELMANN, violin NEITHARD RESA, viola DIETMAR SCHWALKE, cello

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00:00 – Allegro
14:13 – Larghetto
21:29 – Allegretto

Murray Perahia
English Chamber Orchestra

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  On the Top of Damavand

Published on Oct 5, 2012

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

FOUR BALLADES, OP.10
0:00 : No.1 Andante (after the Scottish Border ballad “Edward” in Johann Gottfried Herder‘s anthology “Stimmen der Völker”) (4mn03)
4:03 : (28) No.2 Andante (6mn30)
10:33 : No.3 Intermezzo: Allegro (4mn00)
14:34 : No.4 Andante con moto (8mn19)
Recording: London, West Hampstead, 23 & 26 November 1953.

VARIATIONS AND FUGUE ON A THEME BY HANDEL IN B-FLAT MAJOR, OP.24
22:53 : Aria – Variations 1-25 – Fuga (24mn27)
Recording: Hanover, Beethovensaal, 3 January 1957.

8. PIANO PIECES, OP.76
Book I:
47:20 : No.1 Capriccio in F-sharp minor: Un poco agitato (3mn03)
50:25 : No.2 Capriccio in B minor: Allegretto non troppo (3mn32)
53:57 : No.3 Intermezzo in A-flat major: Grazioso (2mn33)
56:32 : No.4 Intermezzo in B-flat major: Allegro grazioso (2mn31)
Book II:
59:04 : No.5 Capriccio in C-sharp minor: Agitato, ma non troppo presto (3mn22)
01:02:26 : No.6 Intermezzo in A major: Andante con moto (3mn40)
01:06:07 : No.7 Intermezzo in A minor: Moderato semplice (3mn02)
01:09:08 : No.8 Capriccio in C major: Grazioso ed un poco vivace (3mn43)
Recording: London, West Hampstead, 23 & 26 November 1953.

9. TWO RHAPSODIES, OP.79
01:12:52 : No.1 in B minor: Agitato (9mn32)
01:22:26 : No.2 in G minor: Molto passionato, ma non troppo allegro (7mn30)
Recording: London, West Hampstead, November 1953.

10. FANTASIAS, OP.116
01:29:55 : No.1 Capriccio in D minor: Presto energico (2mn48)
01:32:45 : No.2 Intermezzo in A minor: Andante (3mn09)
01:35:54 : No.3 Capriccio in G minor: Allegro passionato (3mn00)
01:38:55 : No.4 Intermezzo in E major: Adagio (4mn06)
01:43:02 : No.5 Intermezzo in E minor: Andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentimento (3mn09)
01:46:12 : No.6 Intermezzo in E major: Andantino teneramente (2mn40)
01:48:52 : No.7 Capriccio in D minor: Allegro agitato (2mn36)
Recording: London, West Hampstead, 23 & 26 November 1953.

11. INTERMEZZI, OP.117
01:51:28 : No.1 in E-flat major: Andante moderato (5mn04)
01:56:32 : No.2 in B-flat minor: Andante non troppo e con molto espressione (4mn17)
02:00:50 : No.3 in C-sharp minor: Andante con moto (5mn06)
Recording: London, West Hampstead, October 1950.

12. PIANO PIECES, OP.118
02:05:56 : No.1 Intermezzo in A minor: Allegro non assai (2mn06)
02:08:03 : No.2 Intermezzo in A major: Andante teneramente (4mn28)
02:12:32 : No.3 Ballade in G minor: Allegro energico (3mn57)
02:16:28 : No.4 Intermezzo in F minor: Allegretto un poco agitato (2mn49)
02:19:18 : No.5 Romanze in F major: Andante (3mn46)
02:23:04 : No.6 Intermezzo in E-flat minor: Andante, largo e mesto (4mn53)
Recording: London, West Hampstead, 23-24 March 1950.

13. PIANO PIECES, OP.119
02:27:58 : No.1 Intermezzo in B minor: Adagio (3mn37)
02:31:35 : No.2 in E minor: Andantino un poco agitato (5mn01)
02:36:36 : No.3 in C major: Grazioso e giocoso (1mn47)
02:38:24 : No.4 in E-flat major: Allegro risoluto (5mn16)
Recording: London, West Hampstead, 23 & 26 November 1953.

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MrPalika123

00:00 – No. 1 in C minor, Allegro molto moderato
11:05 – No. 2 in E-flat major, Allegro
15:50 – No. 3 in G-flat major, Andante
21:40 – No. 4 in A-flat major, Allegretto

Maria João Pires, 1996

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FirstPublicChannel

Piano Concerto No.1 in F sharp minor, Op.1

00:00 – Vivace
12:30 – Andante
18:52 – Allegro vivace

USSR RTV Large Symphony Orchestra
Kurt Sanderling
recording:
*1962 (date written on the cd);
**Feb 18, 1955 (according to New4785689)
http://www.youtube.com/user/New4785689
*************************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sergei Rachmaninov composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1, in 1891, at age 18. He dedicated the work to Alexander Siloti. He revised the work thoroughly in 1917.

First version

Rachmaninoff (right) with Alexander Siloti.

This was actually Rachmaninov’s second attempt at a piano concerto. In 1889 he had begun but abandoned a concerto in C minor (the same key, incidentally, in which he would later write his Second Piano Concerto). He wrote Natalya Skalon on 26 March 1891, “I am now composing a piano concerto. Two movements are already written; the last movement is not written, but is composed; I shall probably finish the whole concerto by the summer, and then in the summer orchestrate it”^[1] He finished composing and scoring the piece on July 6 and was satisfied with what he had written.^[2] The first movement was premiered on 17 March 1892 at the Moscow Conservatoire, with the composer as soloist and Vasily Safonov conducting. This may have been the only time the composer played the concerto in its original form, although Siloti, to whom it is dedicated, programmed it to play himself on several occasions.^[3]

Composition students were usually advised to base their efforts on a specific model for their first exercises in new forms. In Rachmaninoff’s case this was the Grieg Piano Concerto,^[4] which was a favorite work of his and one which he had been familiar from Siloti practicing it at the Rachmaninoff household during the spring and summer of 1890 for future concerts.^[5] Rachmaninoff adapted the entire musical structure of the outer movements to the Grieg concerto, literally building his music into it. With all his other concertos, Rachmaninoff would prove more enterprising.^[6]

Selected recordings

Manuscript version

• Alexandre Ghindin, pianist, with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded in 2001 (first recording)

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P. I. Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”, Op. 74 (Fedoseyev),: great compositions/performances

P. I. Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”, Op. 74 (Fedoseyev)

   Joseph Aknin

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique” in B minor, Op. 74 (1893) :
1. Adagio. Allegro non troppo
2. Allegro con grazia
3. Allegro molto vivace
4. Finale. Adagio lamentoso. Andante

*** Moskow Radio Symphony Orchestra
*** Conductor – Vladimir Fedoseyev
*** Recorded live at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, 1991

*****************************************************************
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky‘s final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 28 October [O.S. 16 October] of that year, nine days before his death. The second performance, conducted by Eduard Nápravník, took place 21 days later, at a memorial concert on 6/18 November.^[1][2] It included some minor corrections that Tchaikovsky had made after the premiere, and was thus the first performance of the work in the exact form in which it is known today. The first performance in Moscow was on 16 December [O.S. 4 December], conducted by Vasily Safonov.^[3] It was the last of Tchaikovsky’s compositions premiered in his lifetime; his last composition of all, the single-movement 3rd Piano Concerto, Op. 75, which was completed in October 1893, a short time before his death, received a posthumous premiere.

Background

After completing his 5th Symphony in 1888, Tchaikovsky did not start thinking about his next symphony until April 1891, on his way to the United States. The first drafts of a new symphony were started in the spring of 1891.^[4] However, some or all of the symphony was not pleasing to Tchaikovsky, who tore up the manuscript “in one of his frequent moods of depression and doubt over his alleged inability to create.”^[4] In 1892, Tchaikovsky wrote the following to his nephew Vladimir “Bob” Davydov:

The symphony is only a work written by dint of sheer will on the part of the composer; it contains nothing that is interesting or sympathetic. It should be cast aside and forgotten. This determination on my part is admirable and irrevocable.^[5]

This work was the Symphony in E-flat, the first movement of which Tchaikovsky later converted into the one-movement 3rd Piano Concerto (his final composition), and the latter two movements of which Sergei Taneyev reworked after Tchaikovsky’s death as the Andante and Finale.

In 1893, Tchaikovsky mentions an entirely new symphonic work in a letter to his brother:

I am now wholly occupied with the new work … and it is hard for me to tear myself away from it. I believe it comes into being as the best of my works. I must finish it as soon as possible, for I have to wind up a lot of affairs and I must soon go to London. I told you that I had completed a Symphony which suddenly displeased me, and I tore it up. Now I have composed a new symphony which I certainly shall not tear up.^[5]

The symphony was written in a small house in Klin and completed by August 1893. Tchaikovsky left Klin on 19 October for the first performance in St. Petersburg, arriving “in excellent spirits.”^[6] However, the composer began to feel apprehension over his symphony, when, at rehearsals, the orchestra players did not exhibit any great admiration for the new work.^[6] Nevertheless, the premiere was met with great appreciation. Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest wrote, “There was applause and the composer was recalled, but with more enthusiasm than on previous occasions. There was not the mighty, overpowering impression made by the work when it was conducted by Eduard Nápravník, on November 18, 1893, and later, wherever it was played.”^[7]

Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 16 in D Major, K. 451 (Vladimir Ashkenazy),: great compositions/performances

Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 16 in D Major, K. 451 (Vladimir Ashkenazy)

  MrPalika123

00:00 – Allegro assai
10:58 – Andante
17:45 – Allegro di molto

***Vladimir Ashkenazy***
***Philharmonia Orchestra***

***1979***

• Music

  • “Piano Concerto No. 16 in D, K.451 : III. Allegro di molto – Cadenza (Mozart) – Tempo I [1988 Remastered Version]” by English Chamber Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim (Google Play • AmazonMP3 • iTunes)

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Practicing for my Salle Pleyel recital…and a fashion lesson Valentina Lisitsa

ValentinaLisitsa

Published on Nov 28, 2014

http://www.sallepleyel.fr/francais/co…

Program ( just 3 hours long? :-))))
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonate n°17 en ré mineur Op.31 n°2 (1801-1802)

« La tempête »

1 – Largo – Allegro

2 – Adagio

3 – Allegretto

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Etudes symphoniques Op.13/13a (1834-1835)

1- Thème : Andante

2 – Etude I (Variation 1) : Un poco più vivo

3 – Variations posthume 1

4 – Etude II (Variation 2) Espressivo

5 – Etude III : Vivace

6 – Etude IV (Variation 3)

7 – Etude V (Variation 4) : vivacissimo

8 – Variation posthume n°4

9 – Etude VI (Variation 5) : Agitato

10 – Etude VII (Variation 6) : Allegro molto

11 – Variation posthume n°2

12 – Variation posthume n°5

13 – Etude VIII (Variation 7) : Andante

14 – Etude IX : Presto possibile

15 – Variation posthume n°3

16 – Etude X (Variation 8) : Allegro

17 – Etude XI (Variation 9) : Con espressione

18 – Etude XII : Finale : Allegro brillante

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Ballade op.10 n°1 en ré mineur (1845-1846)

sur la ballade écossaise «Edward» tiré du recueil «Simmen der Völker» de Johann Gottfried Herder «Edward» : Andante

Capriccio op.76 n°2 en si mineur – extrait des 8 Klavierstücke op.76 (1878)

Allegretto ma non troppo, sur un thème hongrois gracioso

Intermezzo op.76 n°7 en la mineur – extrait des 8 Klavierstücke op.76 (1878)

Moderato semplice, complainte populaire claire par son diatonisme affirmé.

Intermezzo op.116 n°2 en la mineur (1892) : Andante

Intermezzo op.116 n°4 en mi mineur (1892) : Adagio

Intermezzo op.117 n°1 en mi bémol majeur (1892) : Andante moderato

Intermezzo op.117 n°2 en si bémol mineur (1892)

Andante non troppo e con molto espressione

Intermezzo op.118 n°1 en la mineur (1893) : Allegro non assai, ma molto appasionato

Intermezzo op.118 n°2 en la majeur (1893) : Andante teneramente

Ballade op.118 n°3 en sol mineur (1893) : Allegro energico

Romance op.118 n°5 en fa majeur (1893) : Andante

Intermezzo op.118 n°6 en mi bémol mineur (1893) : Andante, largo e mesto

Intermezzo op.119 n°1 en si mineur (1893) : Adagio

Intermezzo op.119 n°2 en mi mineur (1893) : Andantino un poco agitato

Ballade op.10 n°1 en ré mineur (1845-1846)

Sergueï Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

Sonate pour piano n° 1 en ré mineur, opus 28 (1907)

Allegro moderato

Lento

Mozart: Piano concerto n. No. 21 in C major, K.467 Pollini-Muti: great compositions/performances

Mozart: Piano concerto n. No. 21 in C major, K.467 Pollini-Muti

Alessandro152

Mozart:Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467

***Orchestra filarmonica della Scala
***Maurizio Pollini
***Riccardo Muti
(2004)
****************************************************************

Piano Concerto No. 21 (Mozart)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467, was completed on March 9, 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, four weeks after the completion of the previous D minor concerto, K. 466.^[1][2]

Structure

The concerto has three movements:

1. Allegro maestoso; in common time. The tempo marking is in Mozart’s catalog of his own works, but not in the autograph manuscript.^[3]
2. Andante in F major. In both the autograph score and in his personal catalog, Mozart notated the meter as Alla breve. ^[4]
3. Allegro vivace assai

The opening movement begins quietly with a march figure, but quickly moves to a more lyrical melody interspersed with a fanfare in the winds. The music grows abruptly in volume, with the violins taking up the principal melody over the march theme, which is now played by the brass. This uplifting theme transitions to a brief, quieter interlude distinguished by a sighing motif in the brass. The march returns, eventually transitioning to the entrance of the soloist. The soloist plays a brief Eingang (a type of abbreviated Cadenza) before resolving to a trill on the dominant G while the strings play the march in C major. The piano then introduces new material in C major and begins transitioning to the dominant key of G major. Immediately after an orchestral cadence finally announces the arrival of the dominant, the music abruptly shifts to G minor in a passage that is reminiscent of the main theme of the Symphony No. 40 in that key.^[5] A series of rising and falling chromatic scales then transition the music to the true second theme of the piece, an ebullient G major theme which Mozart had previously used in his Third Horn Concerto. The usual development and recapitulation follow. There is a cadenza at the end of the movement, although Mozart’s original has been lost.

The famous Andante is in three parts. The opening section is for orchestra only and features muted strings. The first violins play with a dreamlike melody over an accompaniment consisting of second violins and violas playing repeated-note triplets and the cellos and bass playing pizzicato arpeggios. All of the major melodic material of the movement is contained in this orchestral introduction, in either F major or F minor. The second section introduces the solo piano and starts off in F major. It is not a literal repeat, though, as after the first few phrases, new material is interjected which ventures off into different keys. When familiar material returns, the music is now in the dominant keys of C minor and C major. More new material in distant keys is added, which transitions to the third section of the movement. The third section begins with the dreamlike melody again, but this time in A-flat major. Over the course of this final section, the music makes it way back to the tonic keys of F minor and then F major and a short coda concludes the movement.

The final rondo movement begins with the full orchestra espousing a joyous “jumping” theme. After a short cadenza, the piano joins in and further elaborates. A “call and response” style is apparent, with the piano and ensemble exchanging parts fluidly. The soloist gets scale and arpeggio figurations that enhance the themes, as well as a short cadenza that leads right back to the main theme. The main theme appears one final time, leading to an upward rush of scales that ends on a triumphant note.

Recordings

This work has been recorded numerous times by many famous pianists including Géza Anda, Piotr Anderszewski, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Malcolm Bilson, Alfred Brendel, Robert Casadesus, Ivan Drenikov, Annie Fischer, Walter Gieseking, Friedrich Gulda, Stephen Hough, Keith Jarrett, Wilhelm Kempff, Walter Klien, Alicia de Larrocha, Giorgi Latsabidze, Rosina Lhevinne, Dinu Lipatti, Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Maria João Pires, Maurizio Pollini, Arthur Rubinstein, Fazil Say, András Schiff, Artur Schnabel, Rudolf Serkin, Howard Shelley, Mitsuko Uchida, and Christian Zacharias.

Cultural references

The second movement was featured in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan.^[1][6] This has led to an anachronistic nickname of Elvira Madigan for the concerto.^[7][8][9]

Neil Diamond’s 1972 song “Song Sung Blue” was based on a theme from the andante movement of the concerto.^[10]

An electronic arrangement of the concerto’s first movement was used as the main theme of the TV series Whiz Kids.

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W. A. Mozart – KV 385 – 1782 Version – Symphony No. 35 in D major “Haffner”: make music part of your life series

W. A. Mozart – KV 385 – 1782 Version – Symphony No. 35 in D major “Haffner”

ComposersbyNumbers

Published on Aug 11, 2013

The symphony is set in 4 movements:
1. Allegro con spirito (0:00)
2. Andante (5:26)
3. Menuetto (14:00)
4. Presto (17:43)

Performers: The Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Christopher Hogwood.

Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1782 and is also called the Haffner Symphony. It was commissioned by the Haffners, a prominent Salzburg family, for the occasion of Sigmund Haffner’s ennoblement. The Haffner Symphony should not be confused with the eight-movement Haffner Serenade, another piece Mozart wrote on commission from the same family in 1776. The symphony is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in D and G, 2 trumpets in D, timpani, and strings. Mozart’s choice of key for the Haffner Symphony is an aspect that catches one’s attention. According to Cuyler, “the key of D major, which was so felicitous for the winds, served Mozart more often than any other key, even C, for his symphonies,” including the Paris (No. 31) and Prague (No. 38) symphonies. The key is also indicative of the work’s serenade origins as all of Mozart’s orchestral serenades are scored in D major. Hence, it is not surprising that the Haffner Symphony was written in the key of D major.
The symphony is in four movements:
1. Allegro con spirito, 4/4
2. Andante, 2/4
3. Menuetto, 3/4
4. Presto, 2/2.
The Haffner Symphony usually runs somewhere around 20 minutes in length. A recording by George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra (Sony SBK 46333) runs 19.11; one by Iona Brown with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (Haenssler CD 94.003) is 21.09; and one by Sir Neville Marriner also with the same ensemble (Philips 420 486-2) runs 21.34.
—————————————-­————————————-
FREE .mp3 and .wav files of all Mozart’s music at: http://www.mozart-archiv.de/
FREE sheet music scores of any Mozart piece at: http://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/start…
ALSO check out these cool sites: http://musopen.org/
and http://imslp.org/wiki/

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Mozart – Symphony No. 39 in E flat, K. 543: make music part of your life series

Mozart – Symphony No. 39 in E flat, K. 543

Am4d3usM0z4rt

Family portrait: Maria Anna (“Nannerl”) Mozart, her brother Wolfgang, their mother Anna Maria (medallion) and father, Leopold Mozart (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 543, was completed on 26 June 1788. The 39th Symphony is the first of a set of three (his last symphonies) that Mozart composed in rapid succession during the summer of 1788. No. 40 was completed 25 July and No. 41 on 10 August. Around the same time, Mozart was writing his piano trios in E and C major, his sonate facile, and a violin sonatina. Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein has suggested that Mozart took Michael Haydn‘s Symphony No. 26, in the same key, as a model. It seems to be impossible to determine the date of the premiere of the 39th Symphony on the basis of currently available evidence; in fact, it cannot be established whether the symphony was ever performed in the composer’s lifetime. According to Deutsch (1965), around the time Mozart wrote the work, he was preparing to hold a series of “Concerts in the Casino”, in a new casino in the Spiegelgasse owned by Philipp Otto. Mozart even sent a pair of tickets for this series to his friend Michael von Puchberg. But it seems impossible to determine whether the concert series was held, or was cancelled for lack of interest. In addition, in the period up to the end of his life, Mozart participated in various other concerts whose program included an unidentified symphony; these also could have been the occasion of the premiere of the 39th. In modern times, the work is part of the core symphonic repertoire and is frequently performed and recorded. The symphony is scored for flute, pairs of clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings. There are four movements:
1. Adagio, cut time — Allegro, 3/4
2. Andante con moto, 2/4
3. Menuetto: Trio, 3/4
4. Allegro, 2/4.
—————————————-­————————————-
FREE .mp3 and .wav files of all Mozart’s music at: http://www.mozart-archiv.de/
FREE sheet music scores of any Mozart piece at: http://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/start…
ALSO check out these cool sites: http://musopen.org/
and http://imslp.org/wiki/

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Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini: Cello Concerto No.3 in D major, (G.476): make music part of your life series

Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini: Cello Concerto No.3 in D major, (G.476)

vivaldi369

Published on Sep 14, 2012

Álbum: Boccherini: Cello Concertos Complete
Interprete del álbum: Enrico Bronzi & Accademia I Filarmonici Di Verona
Compositor: Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini
Año: 2005
Genero: Clásico Italiano
Movimientos: Allegro-Adagio-Allegro

Grieg Holberg Suite Op. 40 グリーグ ホルベルク組曲 : great compositions/performances

Grieg Holberg Suite Op. 40 グリーグ ホルベルク組曲

  netyama

1. 00:00 Praludium
2. 03:01 Sarabande
3. 08:27 Gavotte
4. 12:31 Air
5. 20:21 Rigaudon
******************************************************************
***Nagoya Streichersolisten Summer Concert 2012
(directed By Kato Akira)
NOTE:  We are the amateur string orchestra playing in Nagoya Japan.
Summer concerts are held once a year.
http://ngs.sakuraweb.com

Mendelssohn — Violin Concerto in e minor op 64: GREAT COMPOSITIONS/PERFORMANCES

Mendelssohn — Violin Concerto in E minor op. 64

Kanaal van viool7

***Isaac Stern: violin
***Philadelphia Orchestra – Eugene Ormandy: conductor-1958
(The second recording of this concerto by Stern and Ormandy)
1. Allegro molto appassionato
2. Andante
3. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, KV 467 “Elvira Madigan”: great compositions/performances

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, KV 467 “Elvira Madigan”

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart

Derek Han, piano.
Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Freeman.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, KV 467 “Elvira Madigan”:

I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Allegro vivace assai
*****************************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467, was completed on March 9, 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, four weeks after the completion of the previous D minor concerto, K. 466.