The Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, commonly known as the Italian, is an orchestral symphony written by German composer Felix Mendelssohn.
The work has its origins (as had the composer's Scottish 3rd Symphony and The Hebrides overture) in the tour of Europe which occupied Mendelssohn from 1829 to 1831. Its inspiration is the colour and atmosphere of Italy, where Mendelssohn made sketches but left the work incomplete. Below is a snippet of a letter he wrote to his father:
This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought... to be the supreme joy in life. And I am loving it. Today was so rich that now, in the evening, I must collect myself a little, and so I am writing to you to thank you, dear parents, for having given me all this happiness.
In February he wrote from Rome to his sister Fanny,
The Italian symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement. I have not found anything for the slow movement yet, and I think that I will save that for Naples.
The Italian Symphony was finished in Berlin on 13 March 1833, in response to an invitation for a symphony from the London (now Royal) Philharmonic Society; he conducted the first performance himself in London on 13 May 1833 at a London Philharmonic Society concert. The symphony's success, and Mendelssohn's popularity, influenced the course of British music for the rest of the century. The Germania Musical Society of Boston gave the first performance in the United States, on 1 November 1851, with Carl Bergmann conducting.
Mendelssohn himself, however, remained dissatisfied with the composition, which cost him, he said, some of the bitterest moments of his career; he revised it in 1834 and even planned to write alternative versions of the second, third, and fourth movements. He never published the symphony, and it appeared in print only in 1851; thus it is numbered as his "Symphony No. 4", even though it was in fact the third he composed.
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Symphony No. 4 - Italian
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Hector Berlioz - The Damnation of Faust Op. 24 (Hungarian March)
La damnation de Faust (English: The Damnation of Faust), Op. 24 is a work for four solo voices, full seven-part chorus, large children's chorus and orchestra by the French composer Hector Berlioz. He called it a "légende dramatique" (dramatic legend). It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 6 December 1846.
The French composer was inspired by a translation of Goethe's dramatic poem Faust and produced a musical work that, like the masterpiece on which it is based, defies easy categorisation. Conceived at various times as a free-form oratorio and as an opera (Berlioz ultimately called it a "légende dramatique") its travelogue form and cosmic perspective have made it an extreme challenge to stage as an opera. Berlioz himself was eager to see the work staged, but once he did, he conceded that the production techniques of his time were not up to the task of bringing the work to dramatic life. Most of the work's fame has come through concert performances.
Berlioz read Goethe's Faust, Part One in 1828, in Gérard de Nerval's translation; "this marvellous book fascinated me from the first", he recalled in his Memoirs. "I could not put it down. I read it incessantly, at meals, in the theatre, in the street." He was so impressed that a suite entitled Eight Scenes from Faust became his Opus 1 (1829), though he later recalled all the copies of it he could find. He returned to the material in 1845, to make a larger work, with some additional text by Almire Gandonnière to Berlioz's specifications, that he first called a "concert opera", and as it expanded, finally a "dramatic legend".
He worked on the score during his concert tour of 1845, adding his own text for "Nature immense, impénétrable et fière"—Faust's climactic invocation of all nature—and incorporating the Rákóczi March, which had been a thunderous success at a concert in Pest, Hungary, on 15 February 1846.
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Hector Berlioz - Symphony Fantastique Op. 14
Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste … en cinq parties (Fantastical Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist … in Five Sections) Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is an important piece of the early Romantic period. The first performance was at the Paris Conservatoire on 5 December 1830. Franz Liszt made a piano transcription of the symphony in 1833 (S. 470).
Leonard Bernstein described the symphony as the first musical expedition into psychedelia because of its hallucinatory and dream-like nature, and because history suggests Berlioz composed at least a portion of it under the influence of opium. According to Bernstein, "Berlioz tells it like it is. You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral."
In 1831, Berlioz wrote a lesser-known sequel to the work, Lélio, for actor, soloists, chorus, piano and orchestra.
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Franz Joseph Haydn - Divertimento in C major, Hob XVI1
Franz Joseph Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio. His contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet".
Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely, and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe.
He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven, and the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.
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Frédéric Chopin - Tarantelle, Op. 43
The Tarantelle in A-flat major, Op. 43 is a short piano piece in tarantella form, written by Frédéric Chopin in June 1841 and published in October 1841. It takes about 3 minutes to play.
The Tarantelle is a moto perpetuo marked Presto, and requires an advanced technique. It was inspired by Gioachino Rossini's song La Danza, also written in the tarantella's characteristic 6/8 rhythm. Chopin went to some lengths to ensure the time signature was the same as Rossini's, and he enlisted his friend Julian Fontana to check the best editions of the Rossini work for this detail. The manuscript shows Chopin changed his time signature from 12/8 to 6/8. There is no evidence the work was commissioned, nor was it dedicated to anyone.
Robert Schumann described it as being in "Chopin's most extravagant manner; we see before us the dancer, whirling as if possessed, until our senses reel. To be sure, nobody could call this music lovely, but we willingly forgive the master his wild fantasy. For is he not once in a while permitted to display the dark side of his soul?..."
Chopin himself said "I hope I won't write anything as dreadful too soon". Despite this self-criticism, it has become a recording favourite, although it is less frequently performed in recital. Accordionist Vicent Lemoine performed the "Tarantelle" with the title "Tarantela Napolitana", the instrumental piece is included in the homonymous album published by "Evangelio Musical".
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Franz Joseph Haydn - Symphony No. 73 in D major (The Hunt)
The Symphony No. 73 in D major, Hoboken 1/73, is a symphony by Joseph Haydn composed in 1782. It is often known by the subtitle La chasse (The Hunt) due to the hunting horn calls in the final movement, a popular trope in eighteenth century music.
The symphony is scored for flute, two oboes, bassoon, two horns and strings. Some versions also include two trumpets and timpani which appear only in the Finale.
1. Adagio — Allegro
2. Andante, 2
4 in G major
3. Menuetto & Trio: Allegretto
4. La chasse Presto
The first movement displays one of Haydn's favorite musical devices, turning accompaniment into melody. Here, this is done in the simplest possible manner by constructing the main theme out of repeated notes. Once the repeated-note theme is established, then any time repeated notes are used in accompaniment, it sounds to the listener like thematic counterpoint.
The second movement is based on Haydn's song Gegenliebe, Hob. XVIIa:16.[1] The song forms the refrain for a rondo. The contrasting episodes of the rondo are derived from the song-melody and are all in the minor.
The final movement was originally composed as the overture to Haydn's opera La fedeltà premiata (“Fidelity Rewarded”), a detail which has helped secure the dating of the symphony. The hunting melody of the finale is a quotation from La Chasse du cerf, a Divertissement for solo voices, chorus, and instrumental ensemble by the eighteenth century French composer Jean-Baptiste Morin. Morin himself drew upon the popular Sourcillade (or Vue) penned by André Danican Philidor in the first decade of the 18th century. Haydn's theme was therefore widely recognisable as a hunting motif.
Along with the famous coda to the Farewell Symphony, La Chasse is one of the few Haydn symphonies to end quietly.
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Frédéric Chopin - Nocturne Oubliée in C sharp minor
The Chopin nocturnes consist of 21 pieces for solo piano written by Frédéric Chopin between 1827 and 1846. They are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.
Chopin's nocturnes numbered 1 to 18 were published during his lifetime, in twos or threes, in the order of composition. However, numbers 19 and 20 were actually written first, prior to Chopin's departure from Poland, but published posthumously. Number 21 was not originally entitled "nocturne" at all, but since its publication in 1870 as such, it is generally included with publications and recordings of the set.
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Carl Maria von Weber - Euryanthe, Op. 81
Euryanthe is a German "grand, heroic, romantic" opera by Carl Maria von Weber, first performed at the Theater am Kärntnertor, Vienna on 25 October 1823. Though acknowledged as one of Weber's most important operas, the work is rarely staged because of the weak libretto by Helmina von Chézy (who, incidentally, was also the author of the failed play Rosamunde, for which Franz Schubert wrote music). Euryanthe is based on the 13th-century French romance L'Histoire du très-noble et chevalereux prince Gérard, comte de Nevers et la très-virtueuse et très chaste princesse Euriant de Savoye, sa mye.
Only the overture, an outstanding example of the early German Romantic style (heralding Richard Wagner), is regularly played today. Like Schubert's lesser-known Alfonso und Estrella, of the same time and place (Vienna, 1822), Euryanthe parts with the German Singspiel tradition, adopting a musical approach without the interruption of spoken dialogue characteristic of earlier German language operas such as Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Beethoven's Fidelio, and Weber's own Der Freischütz.
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Giuseppe Verdi - The Force of Destiny (Overture)
La forza del destino (Italian pronunciation: [la ˈfɔrtsa del deˈstiːno]; The Power of Fate, often translated The Force of Destiny) is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino (1835), by Ángel de Saavedra, 3rd Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed in the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre of Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 10 November 1862 O.S. (N.S. 22 November).
La forza del destino is frequently performed, and there have been a number of complete recordings. In addition, the overture (to the revised version of the opera) is part of the standard repertoire for orchestras, often played as the opening piece at concerts.
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Maurice Ravel - Le tombeau de Couperin
Le Tombeau de Couperin is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917. The piece is in six movements, based on those of a traditional Baroque suite. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of a friend of the composer (or in one case, two brothers) who had died fighting in World War I. Ravel also produced an orchestral version of the work in 1919, although this omitted two of the original movements.
The word tombeau in the title is a musical term popular from the 17th century, meaning "a piece written as a memorial". The specific Couperin, among a family noted as musicians for about two centuries, that Ravel intended to evoke is thought to be François Couperin "the Great" (1668–1733). Ravel stated that his intention was to pay homage more generally to the sensibilities of the Baroque French keyboard suite, not necessarily to imitate or pay tribute to Couperin himself in particular. This is reflected in the piece's structure, which imitates a Baroque dance suite.
As a preparatory exercise, Ravel had transcribed a forlane (an Italian folk dance) from the fourth suite of Couperin's Concerts royaux, and this piece invokes Ravel's Forlane structurally. The other movements are similarly based on Baroque forms, with the Toccata taking the form of a perpetuum mobile reminiscent of Alessandro Scarlatti.[2] Ravel also revives Baroque practices through his distinctive use of ornamentation and modal harmony. Neoclassicism also shines through with Ravel's pointedly twentieth-century chromatic melody and piquant harmonies, particularly in the dissonant Forlane.
Written after the death of Ravel's mother in 1917 and of friends in the First World War, Le Tombeau de Couperin is a light-hearted, and sometimes reflective work rather than a sombre one which Ravel explained in response to criticism saying: "The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence."
The first performance of the original piano version was given on 11 April 1919 by Marguerite Long, in the Salle Gaveau in Paris. Long was the widow of Joseph de Marliave, to whom the last movement of the piece, the Toccata, is dedicated.
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