Debussy - Préludes - Music | History
Claude Debussy's Préludes are 24 pieces for solo piano, divided into two books of 12 preludes each. Unlike some notable collections of preludes from prior times, such as Chopin's Op. 28, or the preludes from Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Debussy's do not follow a strict pattern of key signatures.
Each book was written in a matter of months, at an unusually fast pace for Debussy. Book I was written between December 1909 and February 1910, and Book II between the last months of 1912 and early April 1913.
The titles of the preludes are highly significant, both in terms of their descriptive quality and in the way they were placed in the written score. The titles are written at the end of each work, allowing the performer to experience each individual sound world without being influenced by Debussy's titles beforehand.
At least one of the titles is poetically vague: the exact meaning of Voiles, the title of the second prelude of the first book, is impossible to determine for certain, since plural nouns do not distinguish genders as the singular forms may do (in French, voiles can mean either "veils" or "sails").
The title of the fourth prelude «Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir» represents a citation from Charles Baudelaire’s poem Harmonie du soir from his volume of poems Les Fleurs du mal.
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Weber - Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 74 - III. Polacca alois - Music | History
Carl Maria von Weber wrote his Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E♭ major, Op. 74, J. 118 in 1811, and premiered on December 25, 1813. It is composed of three movements:
1. Allegro
2. Romanze: Andante con moto
3. Alla Polacca
A typical performance lasts 23 minutes. The 1st movement typically lasts for approximately 8:30 minutes, the 2nd movement for approximately 7 minutes and the 3rd movement for between 6:30 and 7 minutes depending on the tempo.
Like all of Weber's clarinet works except for the Grand Duo Concertant, it is dedicated to Heinrich Baermann, who was soloist at the premiere
The concerto is scored for a solo clarinet and an orchestra consisting of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
The 1st movement, in E-flat major, begins with an exposition of the main theme by the orchestra. The clarinet soloist enters with a high E flat (E-flat concert pitch) followed by a 3 octave jump before repeating the opening theme. This 3 octave jump, along with other large leaps, is stylistic of this movement. The majority of the first half of the movement sits very comfortably in E-flat major before modulating to D-flat major where much of the previous clarinet melodic material is repeated. The movement finishes with a rather virtuosic clarinet part extending to the near limits of clarinet range.
The 2nd movement, by stark contrast in G minor, is reflective of Weber's many operas. With its operatic phrasing, this movement really exhibits the rich tone of the clarinet. The clarinet melody has very expressive dynamics, often going from fortissimo to piano in the space of one bar. After the initial statement of the melody, the work moves into an orchestral section in G major which acts as a sort of extended dominant to C minor when the clarinet enters again. It is in the C minor section when we begin to see short note values which adds to a very operatic style. Once again the orchestra goes into a section in G major, which exactly imitates the previous section, also in G major. Suddenly the clarinet enters in E-flat major with a very virtuosic scale followed by numerous runs. In this E-flat major section there is some very large leaps, one being 3 octaves and a tone at bar 56. The work shifts back to G minor with a recitative, once again in the operatic style. This is taken very freely with the clarinet and orchestra taking turns in playing. After the recitative, the original melody is repeated and followed by a rather short cadenza before the work finishes with a very long concert G from the clarinet.
Considered staple clarinet repertoire, by just about any clarinet professor, teacher or professional that has lived in the last one hundred years, the 3rd movement in E-flat major is an exhibition of technique and style on the part of the soloist. The polonaise is a slow ballroom dance, yet some soloists choose to take the movement at a far faster speed than what is traditional or intended for the true polonaise dance; nonetheless, many soloists[ dedicated to the text choose to take the movement at the danceable speed of a traditional polonaise. Once again, Weber regularly uses rather large leaps to embellish the clarinet melody which is usually made up of semiquavers (16th notes). The melody is often dotted and syncopated to give a somewhat cheeky[ feel to the work. Measures 19-20 are regarded as one of the hardest fragments for clarinet repertoire because of the clarinet playing without orchestra with very fast leaps, all slurred. The work sits very comfortably in E-flat major until Weber uses a series of diminished chords to send the work into C major. However, this is short lived as the work comes back to E-flat with the original melody being stated again first in E major, and then the tonic. The work finishes with one of the most glittery, virtuosic passages in the clarinet repertoire marked "brillante", made up of largely arpeggios and scalic runs in sextuplet semiquavers.
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Weber - Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor Op. 73 - Music | History
Carl Maria von Weber wrote his Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor, Op. 73 (J. 114) for the clarinettist Heinrich Bärmann in 1811. The piece is highly regarded in the instrument's repertoire. It is written for clarinet in B♭. The work consists of three movements in the form of fast, slow, fast.
1. Allegro in F minor modulating into A-flat major and later returning to F minor with a meter of 3/4
2. Adagio ma non troppo in C major transforming into C minor and E flat major and afterward reverting to C major with a meter of 4/4
3. Rondo; Allegretto in F major with a meter of 2/4
This movement was very innovative for its time, with some stylistic aspects characteristic of later composers like Felix Mendelssohn. The normal output for this time was material such as Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 from exactly the same year as this composition, 1811. Weber starts with the cellos playing the main theme, followed with an explosion by the whole orchestra. The violins pick up the melody which eventually progresses, subsides, and clears the stage for the solo clarinet. The soloist begins with a painful song marked "con duolo". The clarinetist performs variants on that source, which later results in a determined run played by the solo instrument. After that climax, the music dies off with the clarinet mourning a line marked "morendo". Then there is a grand pause, which provides the transition for the return of the cellos stating the main theme, but this time in the key of D-flat major rather than F minor. The soloist enters shortly afterward with a sweet response. The clarinet keeps playing a delicate melody, then descends towards the lower tones with a marking of "perdendosi," which tells the player to decrease in speed and sound. Then the tutti arrives, singing a sweet, innocent melody. The clarinet reenters shortly after, still playing in a lighter mood than the beginning of the piece. Later, the soloist performs sets of playful triplets. After the triplets, the clarinet begins the Bärmann-Kadenz, which the dedicatee, Heinrich Bärmann wrote. This is a relatively short, lively, virtuosic passage that is played by most performers. Then the clarinetist encounters a brief cadenza which consists of fast thirty-second notes. After the cadenza, the orchestra bursts in and returns to the minor home key. Then the music calms down, and the cellos prepare for the entrance the clarinet will make. When the clarinet enters, it brings back the same emotions as when the soloist entered for the first time. It seems like the clarinet yearns to play the light, innocent theme heard before. It finally gets its wish, bringing back the melody played earlier. Then, the clarinet starts its triplets as it did before, but this time, it flows towards a stream of agitated, virtuosic sixteenth-note runs. After that buildup, the clarinet subsides and gives room for the French horns to play a cheerful melody. The solo instrument responds in the same connotation as the horns did but then sneaks back to the dark theme the soloist first played. It intensifies and then the soloist whirls up and down in sixteenth notes until the tutti arrives with vengeance. The orchestra ends its phrase with dotted chords which give cue for the soloist to perform its next ordeal. This features rising chromatic scale runs which flow into a river of sixteenth notes. The sixteenths are followed by a series of determined trills with the last one ending on a high g. The orchestra returns and eventually fades away. The clarinet ends the movement much like how it did before the arrival of the A-flat major key.
The beginning of the second movement is typical of an early romantic operatic aria, but still resembles the second movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in mood and melodic shape. Weber was, after all, Mozart's cousin by marriage. In the middle section, an unusual and rare but effective use of a horn trio without any other orchestral elaboration is put into effect. The clarinet responds and interacts with this horn trio much like an operatic singer would do it in a similar situation. The beginning material resumes after a brief pause.
The third movement contrasts with the preceding movements because of the light character. It is a typical rondo that usually ends a three movement concerto. Instances like this in other similar works include the third movement of Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 2, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, the third movement of Karl Stamitz's Clarinet Concerto No. 3, the final movements of Franz Krommer's Clarinet Concerto in E-flat major and Concerto for Two Clarinets, and the last movements of Louis Spohr's Clarinet Concerto's Nos. 1, 2, and 4.
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Fauré Biography - Music Collection - Music | History
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (French: [ɡabʁiɛl yʁbɛ̃ fɔʁe]; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane,[4] Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.
Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine, he was sent to the Ecole Niedermeyer music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. The Ecole Neidermeyer's pedagogy differed greatly from that of the Paris Conservatoire. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in 1865, Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he had many admirers during his lifetime.
Fauré's music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with the modernism of the second quarter of the 20th century. When he was born, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of Fauré's death, jazz and the atonal music of the Second Viennese School were being heard. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, notes that his harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the teaching of harmony for later generations. During the last twenty years of his life, he suffered from increasing deafness. In contrast with the charm of his earlier music, his works from this period are sometimes elusive and withdrawn in character, and at other times turbulent and impassioned.
Tracklist:
1 - Fauré - Sonata, A major, Op.13 - I. Allegro molto
2 - Faure - Barcarolle No.1 in A minor, Op.26 - I
3 - Fauré - Élégie, Op. 24
4 - Fauré - Fantaisie, Op. 79
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Korsakov Biography - Music Collection
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian 18 March [O.S. 6 March] 1844 – 21 June [O.S. 8 June] 1908) was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy-tale and folk subjects.
Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow-composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov. This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony, and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. He undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka and fellow members of The Five. Rimsky-Korsakov's techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner.
For much of his life, Rimsky-Korsakov combined his composition and teaching with a career in the Russian military—at first as an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, then as the civilian Inspector of Naval Bands. He wrote that he developed a passion for the ocean in childhood from reading books and hearing of his older brother's exploits in the navy. This love of the sea may have influenced him to write two of his best-known orchestral works, the musical tableau Sadko (not to be confused with his later opera of the same name) and Scheherazade. As Inspector of Naval Bands, Rimsky-Korsakov expanded his knowledge of woodwind and brass playing, which enhanced his abilities in orchestration. He passed this knowledge to his students, and also posthumously through a textbook on orchestration that was completed by his son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg.
Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions. He prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the active classical repertoire (although there is controversy over his editing of the works of Modest Mussorgsky), and shaped a generation of younger composers and musicians during his decades as an educator. Rimsky-Korsakov is therefore considered "the main architect" of what the classical-music public considers the "Russian style" of composition. His influence on younger composers was especially important, as he served as a transitional figure between the autodidactism exemplified by Glinka and The Five, and professionally trained composers which would become the norm in Russia by the closing years of the 19th century. While Rimsky-Korsakov's style was based on those of Glinka, Balakirev, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt and, for a brief period, Wagner, he "transmitted this style directly to two generations of Russian composers" and influenced non-Russian composers including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and Ottorino Respighi.
Tracklist:
1 - Rimsky-Korsakov - Tale of Tsar Saltan - Flight of the Bumblebee
2 - Rimsky-Korsakov - Polonaise
3 - Korsakov - Scheherazade, Op. 35 - I. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship
4 - Rimsky-Korsakov - At the Monastery
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Weber Biography - Music Collection - Music | History
Composer, conductor, virtuoso, novelist, and essayist, Carl Maria von Weber is one of the great figures of German Romanticism. Known for his opera Der Freischütz, a work which expresses the spirit and aspirations of German Romanticism, Weber was the quintessential Romantic artist, turning to poetry, history, folklore, and myths for inspiration and striving to create a convincing synthesis of fantastic literature and music. Resembling the Faust legend, Der Freischütz (the term suggests the idea of an marksman relying on magic) is a story of two lovers whose ultimate fate is decided by supernatural forces, a story which Weber brings to life by masterfully translating into music the otherworldly, particularly sinister, aspects of the narrative. Weber's additional claim to fame are his works for woodwind instruments, which include two concertos and a concertino for clarinet, a concerto for bassoon, and a superb quintet for clarinet and string quartet. Born in 1786, Weber studied with Michael Haydn and Abbé Vogler. Appointed Kappelmeister at Breslau in 1804, he gained fame as an opera composer with the production, in 1811, of Abu Hassan. In 1813, he became director of the Prague Opera. In Prague, where he remained until 1816, Weber developed a mostly French repertoire, taking an active, and highly creative, part in the practical aspects of opera production. Underlying his often controversial efforts to reform opera production was his ardent desire to create a German operatic tradition. Although there were, indeed, capable composers in the German-speaking lands, the idea of a German opera provoked much opposition, as the public, trained to perceive opera as an exclusively Italian art form, regarded the concept of German opera as a contradiction in terms, despite the existence of a singspiel tradition, brilliantly exemplified by the Magic Flute by Mozart. While Weber's appointment as Royal Kappelmeister at Dresden, not to mention the triumphant production of Der Freischütz (1821), certainly strengthened his position as champion of German opera, his opponents remained unconvinced. Weber's next opera, Euryanthe (1823), failed to repeat the success of Der Freischütz. In Euryanthe, his only opera without spoken dialogue, Weber introduced the device of recurrent themes throughout the entire opera, thus anticipating Wagner. Although Weber brilliantly adapted a variety of harmonic styles and textures to the dramatic narrative, the overall effect was seriously hampered by a rambling libretto, an inept adaptation of a medieval romance already used by Shakespeare in Cymbeline. In 1825, Weber was invited to London. Among the works he was expected to conduct was Oberon, another opera with a Shakespearean theme. The librettist, who took the story from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, created, in a misguided effort to please the public, an incredible hodgepodge, even more convoluted than Euryanthe, that not even Weber's genius could salvage. Nevertheless, Oberon, which the English public received with admiration, contains much gorgeous music, including examples of lush orchestration and exquisite tone painting. Often performed in concert, the overture is a true Romantic gem. Already in poor health before his London tour, Weber died in the English capital in 1826, shortly after the premiere of Oberon at Covent Garden.
Tracklist:
1 - Weber - Clarinet Concerto no. 2 in E flat major, Op. 74 - III. Polacca alois
2 - Weber - Preciosa, Op. 78
3 - Weber - Oberon (or The Elf King's Oath), J. 306 - Overture
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Haydn Biography - Music Collection - Music | History
Franz Joseph Haydn was among the creators of the fundamental genres of classical music, and his influence upon later composers is immense. Haydn’s most celebrated pupil was Ludwig van Beethoven, and his musical form casts a huge shadow over the music of subsequent composers such as Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms.
Franz Joseph Haydn was recruited at age 8 to the sing in the choir at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where he went on to learn to play violin and keyboard. After he left the choir, he supported himself by teaching and playing violin, while studying counterpoint and harmony.
Haydn soon became an assistant to composer Nicola Porpora in exchange for lessons, and in 1761 he was named Kapellmeister, or "court musician," at the palace of the influential Esterházy family, a position that would financially support him for nearly 30 years. Isolated at the palace from other composers and musical trends, he was, as he put it, "forced to become original."
While Haydn rose in the Esterházy family's esteem, his popularity outside the palace walls also increased, and he eventually wrote as much music for publication as for the family. Several important works of this period were commissions from abroad, such as the Paris symphonies (1785-1786) and the original orchestral version of "The Seven Last Words of Christ" (1786). Haydn came to feel sequestered and lonely, however, missing friends back in Vienna, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so in 1791, when a new Esterházy prince let Haydn go, he quickly accepted an invitation to go to England to conduct new symphonies with German violinist and impresario Johan Peter Salomon. He would return to London again in 1794 for another successful and lucrative season.
Already well known and appreciated in England, Haydn's concerts drew huge crowds, and during his time in England the composer created some of his most popular works, including the "Rider" quartet and the Surprise, Military, Drumroll and London symphonies.
Haydn returned to Vienna in 1795 and took up his former position with the Esterházys, although only part-time. At this point, he was a public figure in Vienna, and when he wasn't at home composing, he was making frequent public appearances. With his health failing, his creative spirit outlasted his ability to harness it, and he died at age 77.
Haydn is remembered as the first great symphonist and the composer who essentially invented the string quartet. The principal engineer of the classical style, Haydn exerted influence on the likes of Mozart, his student Ludwig van Beethoven and scores of others.
Tracklist:
1 - Haydn - Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, Hob. VIIe 1 - III. Allegro
2 - Haydn - Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, Hob. VIIe 1 - I. Allegro
3 - Haydn - Hob. XVI. 6 - I. Allegro
4 - Haydn - Keyboard+Sonata+in+F+major,+Hob.+XVI_23+-+I.+Allegro+moderato
5 - Haydn - Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, Hob. VIIe 1 - II. Andante
6 - Haydn - Hob. XVI. 6 - III. Adagio
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Tchaikovsky Biography - Music Collection - Music | History
Pyotr Tchaikovsky's work was first publicly performed in 1865, with Johann Strauss the Younger conducting Tchaikovsky's Characteristic Dances at a Pavlovsk concert. In 1868, Tchaikovsky's First Symphony was well-received when it was publicly performed in Moscow. The following year, his first opera, The Voyevoda, made its way to the stage — with little fanfare.
After scrapping The Voyevoda, Tchaikovsky repurposed some of its material to compose his next opera, Oprichnik, which achieved some acclaim when it was performed at the Maryinsky in St. Petersburg in 1874. By this time, Tchaikovsky had also earned praise for his Second Symphony. Also in 1874, his opera, Vakula the Smith, received harsh critical reviews, yet Tchaikovsky still managed to establish himself as a talented composer of instrumental pieces with his Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor.
From 'Swan Lake' to 'The Nutcracker' Ballets
Acclaim came readily for Tchaikovsky in 1875, with his composition Symphony No. 3 in D Major. At the end of that year, the composer embarked on a tour of Europe. In 1876, he completed the ballet Swan Lake as well as the fantasy Francesca da Rimini. While the former has come to be one of the most frequently performed ballets of all time, Tchaikovsky again endured the ire of critics, who at its premiere panned it as too complex and too "noisy."
Tchaikovsky resigned from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878 to focus his efforts entirely on composing. As a result, he spent the remainder of his career composing more prolifically than ever. His collective body of work constitutes 169 pieces, including symphonies, operas, ballets, concertos, cantatas and songs. Among his most famed late works are the ballets The Sleeping Beauty (1890) and The Nutcracker (1892).
Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840, in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Vyatka, Russia. He was the second eldest of his parents' six surviving offspring. Tchaikovsky's father, Ilya, worked as a mine inspector and metal works manager.
When he was just five years old, Tchaikovsky began taking piano lessons. Although he displayed an early passion for music, his parents hoped that he would grow up to work in the civil service. At the age of 10, Tchaikovsky began attending the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, a boarding school in St. Petersburg. His mother, Alexandra, died of cholera in 1854, when he was 14 years old. In 1859, Tchaikovsky honored his parents' wishes by taking up a bureau clerk post with the Ministry of Justice — a post he would hold for four years, during which time he became increasingly fascinated with music.
When he was 21, Tchaikovsky decided to take music lessons at the Russian Musical Society. A few months later, he enrolled at the newly founded St. Petersburg Conservatory, becoming one of the school's first composition students. In addition to learning while at the conservatory, Tchaikovsky gave private lessons to other students. In 1863, he moved to Moscow, where he became a professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.
Struggling with societal pressures to repress his homosexuality, in 1877, Tchaikovsky married a young music student named Antonina Milyukova. The marriage was a catastrophe, with Tchaikovsky abandoning his wife within weeks of the wedding. During a nervous breakdown, he unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide, and eventually fled abroad.
Tchaikovsky could afford to resign from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878, thanks to the patronage of a wealthy widow named Nadezhda von Meck. She provided him with a monthly allowance until 1890; oddly, their arrangement stipulated that they would never meet.
Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893. While the cause of his death was officially declared as cholera, some of his biographers believe that he committed suicide after the humiliation of a sex scandal trial. However, only oral (no written) documentation exists to support this theory.
Tracklist:
1 - Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36 - IV. Finale. Allegro con Fuoco
2 - Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake Op.20 - Act I Intro
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Dvorak Biography - Music Collection - Music | History
Dvořák was born, the first of nine children, in Nelahozeves, a Bohemian (now Czech) village on the Vltava River north of Prague. He came to know music early, in and about his father’s inn, and became an accomplished violinist as a youngster, contributing to the amateur music-making that accompanied the dances of the local couples. Though it was assumed that he would become a butcher and innkeeper like his father (who also played the zither), the boy had an unmistakable talent for music that was recognized and encouraged. When he was about 12 years old, he moved to Zlonice to live with an aunt and uncle and began studying harmony, piano, and organ. He wrote his earliest works, polkas, during the three years he spent in Zlonice. In 1857 a perceptive music teacher, understanding that young Antonín had gone beyond his own modest abilities to teach him, persuaded his father to enroll him at the Institute for Church Music in Prague. There Dvořák completed a two-year course and played the viola in various inns and with theatre bands, augmenting his small salary with a few private pupils.
The 1860s were trying years for Dvořák, who was hard-pressed for both time and the means, even paper and a piano, to compose. In later years he said he had little recollection of what he wrote in those days, but about 1864 two symphonies, an opera, chamber music, and numerous songs lay unheard in his desk. The varied works of this period show that his earlier leanings toward the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert were becoming increasingly tinged with the influence of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt.
Among the students Dvořák tutored throughout the 1860s were the sisters Josefina and Anna Čermáková. The musician fell in love with the elder sister, Josefina, but she did not reciprocate his feelings. The anguish of his unrequited love is said to be expressed in Cypresses (1865), a number of songs set to texts by Gustav Pfleger-Moravský. In November 1873 he married the younger sister, Anna, a pianist and singer. The first few years of the Dvořáks’ marriage were challenged by financial insecurity and marked by tragedy. Anna had given birth to three children by 1876 but by 1877 had buried all of them. In 1878, however, she gave birth to the first of the six healthy children the couple would raise together. The Dvořáks maintained a close relationship with Josefina and the man she eventually married, Count Václav Kounic. After several years of regular visits, they bought a summer house in the small village of Vysoká, where Josefina and the count had settled, and spent every summer there from that point onward. Dvořák composed some of his best-known works there.
In 1875 Dvořák was awarded a state grant by the Austrian government, and this award brought him into contact with Johannes Brahms, with whom he formed a close and fruitful friendship. Brahms not only gave him valuable technical advice but also found him an influential publisher in Fritz Simrock, and it was with his firm’s publication of the Moravian Duets (composed 1876) for soprano and contralto and the Slavonic Dances (1878) for piano duet that Dvořák first attracted worldwide attention to himself and to his country’s music. The admiration of the leading critics, instrumentalists, and conductors of the day continued to spread his fame abroad, which led naturally to even greater triumphs in his own country. In 1884 he made the first of 10 visits to England, where the success of his works, especially his choral works, was a source of constant pride to him, although only the Stabat Mater (1877) and Te Deum (1892) continue to hold a position among the finer works of their kind. In 1890 he enjoyed a personal triumph in Moscow, where two concerts were arranged for him by his friend Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The following year he was made an honorary doctor of music of the University of Cambridge.
Dvořák accepted the post of director of the newly established National Conservatory of Music in New York in 1892, and, during his years in the United States, he traveled as far west as Iowa. Though he found much to interest and stimulate him in the New World environment, he soon came to miss his own country, and he returned to Bohemia in 1895. The final years of his life saw the composition of several string quartets and symphonic poems and his last three operas.
Tracklist:
1 - Dvorak - Czech Suite, Op. 39 - I. Praeludium
2 - Dvorak - Legends, Op.59 - 2. Molto moderato (G major) (Orchestral version, B.122)
3 - Dvorak - Sonatina for Violin and Piano, Op. 100 - I. Allegro risoluto
4 - Dvorak - Symphony no. 8, Op. 88 - II. Adagio
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Mendelssohn Biography - Music Collection - Music | History
German Romantic composer, pianist and conductor Felix Mendelssohn wrote Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream and founded the Leipzig Conservatory of Music.
Synopsis
Felix Mendelssohn was born on February 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany. At age 9, he made his public debut in Berlin. In 1819, he joined the Singakademie music academy and began composing non-stop. At Singakademie, he also became a conductor, but continued to compose prolifically. Mendelssohn founded the Leipzig Conservatory of Music in 1843. He died on November 4, 1847, in Leipzig.
Pianist, composer and conductor Felix Mendelssohn was born Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Hamburg, Germany, on February 3, 1809. His parents were Jewish, but converted to Christianity before he, his brother and two sisters were born. When Mendelssohn was 2 years old, he moved to Berlin with his parents and siblings. In Berlin, the young Mendelssohn began taking piano lessons with Ludwig Berger. Mendelssohn also studied composition under composer K.F. Zelter as a child. In 1816, he broadened his lessons, studying under pianist Marie Bigot during an extended stay in Paris, France.
Mendelssohn was quick to establish himself as a musical prodigy. During his childhood, he composed a handful of operas and 11 symphonies. At just 9 years old, he made his public debut in Berlin.
In 1819, Felix Mendelssohn joined the Singakademie music academy and began composing non-stop. In 1820 alone, he wrote a violin sonata, two piano sonatas, multiple songs, a cantata, a brief opera and a male quartet. In 1826, Mendelssohn produced one of his best known works, Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream. He presented his opera The Marriage of the Camacho, the following year in Berlin. It was the only opera of his performed in public during his life.
At Singakademie, Mendelssohn also became a conductor. In 1829, he conducted a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The performance's success led to other great opportunities, including a chance to conduct the London Philharmonic Society that same year. Inspired by his visit to England and Scotland, Mendelssohn began composing his Symphony No. 3; it took more than a decade to complete. Known as his Scottish Symphony, the work commemorated his visit to Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh and the highlands.
Mendelssohn continued to compose prolifically while working as a conductor. He wrote the Reformation Symphony in 1830, and followed that accomplishment with a three-year European tour. During that time, he published his first book of songs, entitled Songs without Words (1832). Italian Symphony (1833), another of Mendelssohn's best known works, was also born of this period. In 1835, Mendelssohn was granted an illustrious role: conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig.
In 1836, a year after his father died, Mendelssohn met Cécile Jeanrenaud, a clergyman's daughter, in Frankfurt. Mendelssohn was 10 years Jeanrenaud's senior. She was just 16 when they got engaged. The couple married on March 28, 1837. Over the course of their marriage, they had five children.
The same year that he married, Mendelssohn composed his Piano Concerto No. 2 in D Minor. From 1838 to 1844, he toiled away on his Violin Concerto in E Minor. Prior to the piece's completion, Mendelssohn founded the Leipzig Conservatory of Music and became its director. In so doing, he put Leipzig on the map as the musical center of Germany. After finishing Violin Concerto in E Minor, Mendelssohn conducted a string of concerts for the Philharmonic. In 1846 he presented his newly written Elijah at the Birmingham Festival.
In May 1847, Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny, who was a lifelong inspiration to him, died suddenly. Her death left him so devastated that he soon lost his own zest for life. His health, already compromised by his strenuous career, began to deteriorate rapidly. Six months later, on November 4, 1847, Felix Mendelssohn died of a ruptured blood vessel in Leipzig, Germany. He had recently returned from a brief visit to Switzerland, where he'd completed composition of his String Quartet in F Minor.
Although he was only 38 when he died, Mendelssohn managed to distinguish himself as one of the first significant Romantic composers of the 1800s.
Tracklist:
1- Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words - No.12 in F Sharp Minor, Op.30
2- Mendelssohn - Violin Sonata, Op.4 - I. Adagio, Allegro moderato
3- Mendelssohn - Violin Sonata, Op.4 - II. Poco adagio
4- Mendelssohn - Violin Sonata, Op.4 - III. Allegro agitato
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