Deok-Vin Lee – #####d[^_^]b##### (2016)

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Deok-Vin Lee (b. 1986) is a Korean composer, currently based in Berlin. He graduated from music college of Kyunghee University, Seoul (2012) and is studying at Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden under Mark Andre and Manos Tsangaris. He had been awarded Ad Infinitum scholarship from Ad Infinitum Foundation, Lübeck (2013-2014). He was selected by the Fourth International Young Composer Academy, Tchaikovsky city and presented his piece (2014). His piece was performed in Donaueschinger Musiktage (Next Generation Off-Concert, 2014). His works had been performed by ensemble recherche (Freiburg), Auditivvokal (Dresden), Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble (Moscow), Vertigo Ensemble (Bern), Absolut Trio (Bern).

List of works:
Music for water and glasses for 11 performers (2011)
Sonnets for string quartet (2012)
Prufrock for ensemble (2013)
Immanente Zeit for quartet (2014)
Klavierstück for electronic (2014)
Immanente Zeit II for four voices (2014)
Added for quartet (2014)
#####d[^_^]b##### (2016)

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The definitive Beethoven 7 recording (and our top 10 list)

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The Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, is a symphony in four movements composed by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1811 and 1812, while improving his health in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice. The work is dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.
At its première, Beethoven was noted as remarking that it was one of his best works. The second movement, Allegretto, was the most popular movement and had to be encored. The instant popularity of the Allegretto resulted in its frequent performance separate from the complete symphony.

The work was premiered with Beethoven himself conducting in Vienna on 8 December 1813 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau. In Beethoven’s address to the participants, the motives are openly named: “We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us.”

Here is the definitive recording by Carlos Kleiber and the Wiener Philharmoniker in 1976.

Also, see our other recommended recordings in part one here and part two here.

Daniel Barenboim: promoting peace through classical music

Exploring how classical music contributes to peaceful coexistence in crisis regions around the world has helped define Daniel Barenboim’s life work.

‘Barenboim or the Power of Music’ is a documentary that examines Barenboim as not only one of the most outstanding conductors and pianists of our time but as a deeply political man as well. Barenboim has said that every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity. In November 2017 this progressive thinker and free spirit turns 75.

The film begins with the opening of the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin in the spring of 2017. The concert hall named after Barenboim’s close friend Pierre Boulez and designed by star architect Frank Gehry seats 700 people. The oval shaped space located in the heart of Berlin is more than just a spectacular new venue for classical and contemporary chamber music; young musicians from the Middle East – Jews, Christians and Muslims – are given the opportunity to study and play music together here. The idea behind the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin grew out of a project that Barenboim and his friend, the intellectual Edward Said realized in 1999 when they founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra made up of Israeli and Arab musicians. The viewer gets a vivid sense of Barenboim’s lifelong view that any solution to political conflicts, such as those in the Middle East, can only be cultural and personal, and not decreed by policy-makers.

Ravel’s ‘Pavane pour une infante défunte’

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Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Infanta) is a well-known piece written for solo piano by the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1899 when he was studying composition at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. Ravel also published an orchestrated version of the Pavane in 1910; it is scored for two flutes, oboe, two clarinets (in B-flat), two bassoons, two horns, harp, and strings. A typical performance of the piece lasts between six and seven minutes. It is widely considered a masterpiece.

Conductor: Andre Previn
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra
Recording: 1980.

Stravinsky’s ‘Suite For Small Orchestra No.1 and No.2’ recorded in Italy in 1953

The Suite For Small Orchestra No.1 was composed between 1917 and 1925. This miniature work, comprising an introduction and three national dances, is notable for its prominent rhythms and rich orchestral colouring.

Suite No.2 is extremely witty and rhythmically varied. The employment of the piano obligato, tuba, and the colourful application of the percussion instruments are described as particularly original orchestral effects.

Conductor: Hermann Scherchen
Orchestra: Orchestra Sinfonica della Rai di Torino
Recording: November 6, 1953

Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 / Haitink, Bavarian Radio Symphony

NEW RELEASE

For a long time, Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony (alongside the Second) was regarded as something of a ‘poor relation’ in his immense symphonic oeuvre, although the composer himself had moodily referred to it as his “boldest.” Over the decades, in view of its performance figures and recordings, this changed significantly: The work has now secured itself a permanent place in the repertoire. The Sixth Symphony belongs to the creative process of the two preceding symphonies, the “Romantic” Fourth and the Fifth, and is now understood as an important preliminary stage in Bruckner’s last great upsurge that followed the composition of the “Te Deum” and culminated in the sublime grandeur of his final symphonies, the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. The “very solemn” Adagio of the Sixth Symphony, in particular, provided the model for the famous Adagio of the Seventh Symphony that followed it. The recent Munich concert performance of May 2017 has now been released by BR-Klassik. This outstanding interpretation of one of the key compositions in the late Romantic symphonic repertoire is conducted by Bernard Haitink.

Did you know that Verdi composed a string quartet?

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Giuseppe Verdi’s String Quartet in E minor was written in the spring of 1873 during a production of Aida in Naples. It is the only surviving chamber music work in Verdi’s catalogue.

Verdi’s production of Aida in early March, 1873 was delayed due to the sudden illness of soprano Teresa Stolz. Verdi focused his time in Naples on the writing of his first chamber work, the String Quartet in E minor. The work was premiered two days after the opening of Aida during an informal recital at his hotel on April 1, 1873. The names of the original performers survive only as Pinto brothers, violins, Salvadore, viola, and Giarritiello, cello.

Verdi commented on the work, saying “I’ve written a Quartet in my leisure moments in Naples. I had it performed one evening in my house, without attaching the least importance to it and without inviting anyone in particular. Only the seven or eight persons who usually come to visit me were present. I don’t know whether the Quartet is beautiful or ugly, but I do know that it’s a Quartet!”

The quartet also exists in a version for string orchestra.

The Quartet is scored for the usual string quartet complement of two violins, viola, and cello.

  1. Allegro
  2. Andantino
  3. Prestissimo
  4. Scherzo Fuga. Allegro assai mosso

 

Daniil Trifonov – Fantaisie-Impromptu In C-Sharp Minor, Op. 66

Listen to Chopin’s “Fantaisie Impromptu” played by Daniil Trifonov. Daniil Trifonov’s new album contains Chopin’s two beautiful piano concertos in fascinating new orchestrations by pianist-conductor-composer Mikhail Pletnev. Alongside the concerts Trifonov presents Chopin’s solo works and pieces by Mompou, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Barber paying homage to the genius who, in Trifonov’s words, “revolutionized the expressive horizons of the piano.”

Composer: Frédéric Chopin
Repertoire: Fantaisie-Impromptu In C-Sharp Minor, Op. 66
Artist (Piano): Daniil Trifonov
Place: New York, USA
Produced by: Sid McLauchlan
Video Director: Michael Joseph McQuilken
Video Production: Jennifer Harrison Newman

Claude Debussy – La Demoiselle élue (1959 recording)

La Damoiselle élue (The Blessed Damozel), L. 62, is a cantata for two soloists, female choir, and orchestra, composed by Claude Debussy in 1887–1889 based on a text by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It premiered in Paris in 1893.

Nadine Saterereau, Giovanna Fiorini, soloists
Orchestra sinfonica e coro della RAI di Torino, orchestra
Sergiu Celibidache, conductor
30.01.59, recording date

Descent into Oboe Hell

Principal Oboe Olivier Stankiewicz is embarking upon the oboe solo at the end of last Sunday’s performance of The Damnation of Faust when he realises he has a water bubble in his keys.

Tapping to clear it, he accidentally splits his reed. In a heartbeat he leans over and grabs 2nd Oboe Rosie Jenkins’ oboe and continues the solo – Rosie’s oboe has a completely different fingering system to Olivier’s, which does not trouble him even for a moment.

What we didn’t capture on camera: Rosie cleans Olivier’s instrument, fits a new reed and hands it back to him, all in time for their next entries.

And meanwhile, none of the players around them bats an eyelid, and no one in the hall is any the wiser that there has been a drama.

The cameras were rolling because we live-streamed the whole concert which you can watch here: