Giya Kancheli (Georgian: born 10 August 1935 in Tbilisi) is a Georgian composer resident in Belgium.
Since 1991, Kancheli has lived in Western Europe: first in Berlin, and since 1995 in Antwerp, where he is composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic. [source]
Morning Prayers,
for chamber orchestra and tape,
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Dennis Russel Davies – Conductor,
Vasiko Tevdorashvili – Voice,
Natalia Pschenitschnikova – Alto Flute.
“Ellens dritter Gesang” (Ellens Gesang III, D. 839, Op. 52, No. 6, 1825), in English: ”Ellen’s Third Song”, was composed by Franz Schubert in 1825 as part of his Opus 52, a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott´s popular epic poem The Lady of the Lake, loosely translated into German.
It has become one of Schubert’s most popular works, recorded by a wide variety and large number of singers, under the title of Ave Maria, in arrangements with various lyrics which commonly differ from the original context of the poem. It was arranges in three versions for piano by Franz Liszt. [source]
Maria Callas – Vocal / Unknown – Piano
[Dedicated my father, who died in Tanzania 07.04.1995. Rest in peace]
Glorification of the Creator, and His Creations – the Sun and the Moon
Glorification of the Creator, the Maker of
the four elements: air, water, fire and earth
Glorification of life
Glorification of death
Sofia Gubaidulina’s 80th birthday in October 2011 generated much press coverage around the world, appropriately stressing the uniqueness and the variety of her compositional approaches. Both are in evidence on these recordings from Lockenhaus. “Canticle of the Sun”, recorded in 2010, revisits the celebrated piece that Gubaiduilina wrote in tribute to Mstislav Rostropovich on the occasion of his 70th birthday in 1997. Rostropovich’s famously sunny disposition was an inspiration, by association prompting Gubaidulina to set St Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Sun” for choir. In this recording, Nicolas Altstaedt, one of the most accomplished cellists of his generation, takes on the highly expressive lead role. A further, timely, Lockenhaus connection here: as of this year, Altsteadt takes over from Kremer as the new director of the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival. [source]
Gidon Kremer: Violin
Marta Sudraba: Violoncello
Nicolas Altstaedt: Violoncello
Andrei Pushkarev: Percussion
Rihards Zalupe: Percussion
Rostislav Krimer: Celesta
Riga Chamber Choir Kamēr…
Māris Sirmais: Conductor
The Canticle of the Sun (1997, rev. 1998)
for violoncello, chamber choir, percussion and celesta
Dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich
Recorded July 2010 at Lockenhaus Festival
ECM Records New Series 2256
Genre: Classical
Style: Experimental, New Music, Post-Modern
Canticle of the Sun revisits the celebrated piece that Gubaidulina wrote in tribute to Mstislav Rostropovich on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
When Igor Stravinsky was introduced to Toru Takemitsu in 1959, he was taken aback by the young Japanese composer’s frail, slight frame. “How could such severe music come have come from such a tiny man?” he is said to have wondered aloud. Just prior to their meeting, the elder composer had happened upon a recording of Takemitsu´s haunting Requiem, a piece for string orchestra composed in 1957, when Takemitsu was just 27 years old. [source]
Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996). His 1957 Requiem for strings orchestra attracted international attention, led to several commissions from across the world and established his reputation as one of the leading 20th century Japanese composers. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honours and the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award is named after him.[source]
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Seiji Ozawa
[Inspired by Ronnie Rocket, thanks a lot]
Carl Nielsen´s Wind Quintet or, more correctly, the Quintet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, French Horn and Bassoon, Op. 43, was composed early in 1922 in Gothenburg, Sweden, where it was first performed privately at the home of Herman and Lisa Mannheimer on 30 April 1922. [source]
Scandinavian Chamber Players:
Lars Graugaard – Flute
Ole-Henrik Dahl – Oboe
Hans Christian Bræin – Clarinet
Jens Tofte-Hansen – Bassoon
Henning Hansen – French Horn
Per Egholm – Alto Saxophone
Carsten Tagmose – Cello
Michael Dabelsteen – Double-Bass
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 32 piano sonatas between 1795 and 1822. Although originally not intended to be a meaningful whole, as a set they comprise one of the most important collections of works in the history of music. Hans von Bülow even called them “The New Testament” of music (Johann Sebastian Bach´s The Well-Tempered Clavier being “The Old Testament”.
Beethoven’s piano sonatas came to be seen as the first cycle of major piano pieces suited to concert hall performance. Being suitable for both private and public performance, Beethoven’s sonatas form “a bridge between the worlds of the salon and the concert hall”.
Camille Saint-Saëns, in his debut public recital at the age of ten, offered to play as an encore any of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas from memory.
In a single concert cyclus, the whole 32 sonatas were first performed by Hans von Bülow; the first to make a complete recording was Artur Schnabel in 1927 (he was also the first since von Bülow to play the complete cycle in concert from memory). [source]
Glenn Gould – Piano
Two different worlds united in one.
I. Moderato
II. Andante
III. Moderato
Igor Stravinsky wrote the Ebony Concerto in 1945 for the Woody Herman band known as the First Herd. It is one in a series of compositions commissioned by the bandleader/clarinetist featuring solo clarinet. Herman recorded the concerto in the Belock Recording Studio at Bayside New York, calling it a “very delicate and a very sad piece”. Stravinsky felt that the jazz musicians would have a hard time with the various time signatures. Saxophonist Flip Phillips said “during the rehearsal [...] there was a passage I had to play there and I was playing it soft, and Stravinsky said ‘Play it, here I am!’ and I blew it louder and he threw me a kiss!” [source]
Woody Herman Orchestra.
Igor Stravinsky, conductor.
Recorded in 1946.
Columbia 78rpm disc 7479-M (XCO 36778; XCO 35779).
Digital Transfer by F. Reeder
[Happy Valentinesday]
Webern’s Six Bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9 (1911-13) represent a critical step for the evolution of atonal musical techniques. They also mark a critical step for the composer, who in his attempt to realize the ideas of his mentor, Arnold Schoenberg, emerged as a true original. For several years, Webern had doted on Schoenberg personally and artistically. When Schoenberg wrote his Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19, in 1911, Webern noted that some of the movements lacked contrast. While Schoenberg apparently gave little thought to the implications of his new work, Webern wrangled with this problem of contrast in the still-emerging language of atonality. Later that year, Webern wrote the internal movements of Op. 9, considering the result as his second string quartet.
In the following year Webern followed Schoenberg to Berlin, where the revered master composed his epochal Pierrot Lunaire, which featuring the Sprechstimme (song-speech) technique. Webern presently composed three movements for string quartet, the second of which featured a Sprechstimme setting of his own poetry. Schoenberg, who had composed a string quartet with the addition of soprano in 1908, was no doubt painfully aware that Webern was in danger of becoming a faceless copycat. Schoenberg’s response was to not comment on Webern’s new work at all. Hurt and dismayed, Webern eliminated the Sprechstimme movement and used the two remaining movements to bookend his second string quartet.Schoenberg was very pleased with the result and even provided a glowing preface for its publication.
The Six Bagatelles require about five minutes to perform. One difference between Op. 9 and Webern’s previous quartet, Op. 5, is that the earlier work contains movements built from sections and contrasts — in that sense, much in the spirit of Haydn. However, the movements of its successor are through-composed, not sectional, and there are no contrasts that require resolution. The level of musical tension is, nonetheless, very high; the work achieves this effect because the material in the first two measures provides ample opportunity to highlight and juxtapose individual musical gestures, and the dramatic envelope is controlled by the density of such activity.Alban Berg attempted a similar approach in his Four Pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 4, but Schoenberg felt that Webern was more suited to this particular challenge and persuaded Berg not to pursue this compositional direction. Even Webern himself managed to carve out only two more works in this manner (Opp. 10 and 11) before he exhausted its possibilities. With this trio of works, however, he made a lasting impression upon the keener listeners of his day, and the Six Bagatelles remain among the strangest and most compelling aphorisms in the string quartet repertoire. [source]
Recorded June 4th 1979, and filmed on location in the monastery church in St. Florian, Austria with Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
1st Movement.
2nd Movement.
3rd Movement.
4th Movement.
Karajan later in an interview related that he was given special access to Bruckner’s underground tomb located beneath the great organ, where he was alone with Bruckner’s sarcophagus for a lengthy amount of time before the performance.
Anton Bruckner ’s Symphony No. 8 in C minor is the last Symphony the composer completed. It exists in two major versions of 1887 and 1890. It was premiered under conductor Hans Richter in 1892 in Vienna. It is dedicated to the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. This symphony is sometimes nicknamed The Apocalyptic, but – as with the nicknames The Tragic (for the Fifth Symphony), The Philosophic (for the Sixth), and The Lyric (for the Seventh) – this was not a name Bruckner gave to the work himself. [source]
Partita For Violin And Orchestra was composed by Witold Lutosławski from 1984 to 1988 and was dedicated to the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. The premiere was 10 January 1990, Munich: Anne-Sophie Mutter, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Witold Lutosławski.
Witold Lutosławski ( January 25, 1913 – February 7, 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. He was one of the major European composers of the 20th century, and one of the preeminent Polish musicians during his last three decades.
Through the mid-1980s, Lutosławski composed three pieces called Łańcuch (“Chain”), which refers to the way the music is constructed from contrasting strands which overlap like the links of a chain. Chain 2 was written for Anne- Sophie Mutter (commissioned by Paul Sacher), and for Mutter he also orchestrated his slightly earlier Partita for violin and piano, providing a new linking Interlude, so that when played together the Partita, Interlude and Chain 2 form his longest work. [source]
1. Allegro Giusto (4:14)
1. Ad Libitum (1:12)
3. Largo (6.23)
4. Ad Libitum (0:47)
5. Presto (3.52)
Witold Lutosławski - Conductor
Phillip Moll – Piano
Anne-Sophie Mutter - Violin
BBC Symphony Orchestra
[List of Witold Lutosławski´s complete works]
